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Seattle restaurants going dark as $15 an hour minimum wage goes into effect
The American Thinker ^ | 3-14-15 | Rich Moran

Posted on 03/14/2015 6:54:42 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic

Seattle is about to embark on a civic experiment that most experts predict will be an economic disaster; a $15 an hour minimum wage is set to go into effect on April 1st. And some restuarants in the city have already shuttered their doors and are either going out of business or moving to friendlier climes.

This was entirely predictable - and was predicted when the measure passed the Seattle city council. Restuarants are particularly sensitive to this sort of increase in wages since most of their employees are paid at the minimum, and such a large percentage of their operating costs go to labor.

“Washington Restaurant Association’s Anthony Anton puts it this way: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem.”

“He estimates that a common budget breakdown among sustaining Seattle restaurants so far has been the following: 36 percent of funds are devoted to labor, 30 percent to food costs and 30 percent go to everything else (all other operational costs). The remaining 4 percent has been the profit margin, and as a result, in a $700,000 restaurant, he estimates that the average restauranteur in Seattle has been making $28,000 a year.

“With the minimum wage spike, however, he says that if restaurant owners made no changes, the labor cost in quick service restaurants would rise to 42 percent and in full service restaurants to 47 percent.”

Restaurant owners, expecting to operate on thinner margins, have tried to adapt in several ways including “higher menu prices, cheaper, lower-quality ingredients, reduced opening times, and cutting work hours and firing workers,” according to The Seattle Times and Seattle Eater magazine. As the Washington Policy Center points out, when these strategies are not enough, businesses close, “workers lose their jobs and the neighborhood loses a prized amenity.”

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; US: California; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: maximumwagezero; minimumwage; oakland; restaurant; restaurants; roi; seattle; washington
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2nd half of article outline problems faced in Oakland, CA restaurants after their increase from $9 to $12.25.
1 posted on 03/14/2015 6:54:42 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Once those workers who happen to work in an establishment where tips are paid AREN’T getting tips anymore, they are in for a rude awakening with respect to their now-W2 income taxed and that which they ALWAYS underreported on TIPS.

They got what they wanted. Live with it.


2 posted on 03/14/2015 6:57:10 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Where is this communist edict written in any constitution that the government shall set prices for labor instead of having a free market?


3 posted on 03/14/2015 6:57:31 AM PDT by CodeToad (Islam should be outlawed and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
The real minimum wage is $0.00.

Libs don't want to figure that out.

/johnny

4 posted on 03/14/2015 6:57:33 AM PDT by JRandomFreeper (gone Galt)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

See Venezuela. Collectivists don’t care about the consequences, and changing course is not an option.


5 posted on 03/14/2015 6:57:38 AM PDT by lurk
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Next up...”We have a RIGHT to dine out and pay less, now OPEN YOUR DOORS!!” Leftists are whacky.


6 posted on 03/14/2015 6:58:50 AM PDT by TADSLOS (The Event Horizon has come and gone. Buckle up and hang on.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
The remaining 4 percent has been the profit margin

Pass this on to your local skulls full of mush.

7 posted on 03/14/2015 6:59:24 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

When these full service restaurants raise their menu prices to offset the additional costs of labor, I wonder if anyone has taken a poll amongst those who no longer frequent these establishments as to why they don’t go there any longer? IMO, libs have a high tolerance for spending other peoples money but when it comes to their own, they have deep pockets.


8 posted on 03/14/2015 7:00:10 AM PDT by Mouton (The insurrection laws perpetuate what we have for a government now.)
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To: Gaffer

Maybe they should unionize. That’ll teach those pesky small businesses.


9 posted on 03/14/2015 7:00:35 AM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

And for the waiters who manage to keep their jobs, the tips (which can be extraordinary!) will plummet. Jackasses.


10 posted on 03/14/2015 7:01:12 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: "I should like to drive away not only the Turks (moslims) but all my foes.")
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To: Gaffer

I believe most waiters did not want this. Certainly NY waiters are dead set against it. Liberals they may be but suicidal they are not.


11 posted on 03/14/2015 7:02:07 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: "I should like to drive away not only the Turks (moslims) but all my foes.")
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To: Mouton

Margaret Thatcher: Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.


12 posted on 03/14/2015 7:02:33 AM PDT by Qiviut ( One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. ~W.E. Johns)
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To: CodeToad

I remember once Nixon instituted a wage and price freeze. It was later determined to be unconstitutional and reversed.

It seems Democrats are perfectly willing to abridge your Constitutional rights when it involves people whose greatest aspiration is to someday hope to get a GED so they can go on Jerry or Maury and proudly proclaim that whilst telling the baby mama they found a new b!tch because you a “stank, broke-ass, controllin’, triflin’ ass b!tch”.


13 posted on 03/14/2015 7:02:47 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Gaffer

Indeed.

That $15.00 an hour will reduce the incentive to tip.

We always knew that waitresses in fast food joints made very little money, and a tip for good service was a way to help them along.

Higher wages will mean higher prices, and the incentive to tip will be gone. Also the incentive to provide good service will be gone.

With poor service, high prices, and bad attitudes, the pleasure of eating out will be gone.

If it’s no longer a pleasure to eat out, why bother?

Brown-Bagging becomes the norm, for those who can find jobs, anyway.

For the rest, there will always be soup kitchens.


14 posted on 03/14/2015 7:03:39 AM PDT by left that other site (You shall know the Truth, and The Truth Shall Set You Free.)
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To: miss marmelstein

Tips in Seattle would be poor before all this.Liberals are really tight when it comes to their own money.


15 posted on 03/14/2015 7:04:28 AM PDT by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
2nd half of article outline problems faced in Oakland, CA restaurants after their increase from $9 to $12.25.

Minimum wage dissent: San Jose's law resulted in lost jobs [many restaurants cut jobs and hours]

[Seattle's $15] Minimum wage limbo keeps [liberal] small business owners up at night

A Tale Of Two Cities: Oakland Workers Celebrate Minimum Wage Hike As Business Owners Worry

Oakland mayor urges support for small businesses struggling with new minimum wage

16 posted on 03/14/2015 7:06:01 AM PDT by Lonely Bull
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To: miss marmelstein

I would first ask those NY waiters for whom did they vote in 2008 and 2012. They don’t like it because they never reported a majority of the tips they received as income. Now they have to. They can thank Obama for that.


17 posted on 03/14/2015 7:06:09 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: JRandomFreeper

Good to see you’re still kicking.


18 posted on 03/14/2015 7:07:26 AM PDT by kanawa
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To: Gaffer

I understand that many of them voted for Obama not realizing what he and his liberal cohorts were up to. They voted for him because he was so gay-friendly!

I hope it’s a lesson well learned.


19 posted on 03/14/2015 7:07:43 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: "I should like to drive away not only the Turks (moslims) but all my foes.")
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To: Farmer Dean

IIRC, urban Amish are the worst nontippers of all.

There is now a smile on the face of Seattle’s Lenin statue.


20 posted on 03/14/2015 7:08:17 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("I am a radicalized infidel. My bullets are dipped in pig grease.")
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