If only these greedy capitalist pigs of business owners would make less profit...
I did a very quick back of the envelope calculation, and based on the $700,000 revenues of a restaurant, with the percentages of labor costs noted, that they would have to increase sales by about 18% to make ends meet, after increasing minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Can a restaurant realistically increase menu prices by 18% overnight and still have the same sales revenue? Would the mix of products sold change; would customers opt for some cheaper menu items? Would they tend to skip coffee and dessert? Would they order fewer alcoholic drinks? Would regulars of a certain restaurant still go there, but eat out less often due to the increased cost?
People can do a more involved calculation than I just did, and the business owners affected in Seattle are doing just that. With such narrow profit margins, and a limited ability to just increase your prices to pass along their own increased costs, the squeeze will be on.
Businesses can’t have losses indefinitely and still stay in business. Liberals just don’t understand certain things. And they don’t understand that you can’t just burden business with increased costs with no fallout.