Free Republic

There are times when Dan Price feels as if he stumbled into the middle of the street with a flag and found himself at the head of a parade. Three months ago, Mr. Price, 31, announced he was setting a new minimum salary of $70,000 at his Seattle credit card processing firm, Gravity Payments, and slashing his own million-dollar pay package to do it. He wasn’t thinking about the current political clamor over low wages or the growing gap between rich and poor, he said. He was just thinking of the 120 people who worked for him and, let’s be...

Researchers at Purdue University’s School of Hospitality & Tourism Management recently asserted that if McDonald’s were to pay their employees $15 an hour, the cost of a ‘Big Mac’ would go up by 17 cents. According to the study’s findings, the proposed minimum wage hike would, in general, spike the average meal cost at a limited-service establishment to upwards of 30 more cents a visit: Another option proposed by Ghiselli to accommodate the minimum wage increase would be to downsize menu items. For example, burgers would see a 12% decrease in size at most establishments.

Link only: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/higher-wages-a-surprising-success-for-seattle-restaurant/

When Dan Price, CEO of the Seattle-based credit card payment processing firm Gravity Payments, announced he was raising the company's minimum salary to $70,000 a year, he was met with overwhelming enthusiasm. But in the weeks since then, it's become clear that not everyone is equally pleased. Among the critics? Some of Price's own employees. Two of the company's "most valued" members have left the company, "spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises." Maisey McMaster — once a big...

"Please remember, these people are our neighbors and friends. You have a skill that will be very much in need when this goes down. You are experts in the job market and you know what it takes to get hired. This is a time for us to step up and do what we can to help."The quote above is from an internal memo sent to employees of Northwest Arkansas recruiting firm Cameron Smith & Associates and references an expected wave of layoffs at WalMart’s home office in Bentonville. The memo was obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who spoke with Cameron...

The current feel-good push for a $15 an hour minimum wage has nothing to do with helping workers and everything to do with advancing the goals of the left wing, especially the labor movement. This is true despite the occasionally soaring rhetoric of President Obama amid the Left's incessant whining about "income inequality," itself a particularly un-American concept, an imaginary evil that dwells only in the nightmares of left-wingers. The fact gets lost that the minimum wage itself and continuing increases in the minimum wage hurt working people.

New York's new $15 minimum wage for fast food workers applies to more than 100 brands doing business in the state. The only criteria: They must operate in at least 30 locations nationwide. Laura Jankowski owns three Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchises on Long Island. The brand has 16 locations in New York and more than 400 nationwide. Research suggests that most fast food workers in New York are 22 or older. But Jankowski says the vast majority of her employees are high school and college students. Most earn $8.75 an hour but her shift leaders earn $9.75. The new higher...

In urban centers around the country, rental prices are soaring. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City routinely report double-digit increases that make it nearly impossible for residents to make ends meet. But it’s not just dwellers of those metropolitan areas who are having a hard time paying the rent. According to a report out this week from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, more than half of renters in America are considered to be financially burdened by their rent, meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their income just on where they live. High...

ne of the most divisive issues that Los Angeles City Council members expect to confront when they return this week from a summer recess will be a proposal by labor leaders to exempt unionized workers from the city's new minimum wage. The push for the loophole, which began in the final days before the law's passage, caused a backlash rarely seen in this pro-union city and upended perceptions of labor's role in the fight to raise pay for the working poor. Union activists were among the most stalwart backers of L.A.'s ordinance raising the wage to $15 by 2020, and...

And in today’s edition of “look at this hypocritical liberal,” we have Bernie Sanders, the grump socialist, who demands that everyone in America pay their employees at least $15 no matter what their wages are actually worth in the free market. Now let’s see what he pays his interns! From MRC-TV: Included in the 62 million workers making under $15 hour are members of Bernie Sanders’ own staff. According to the senators’ website, Interns are paid only $12 an hour. In [Bernie’s] bill’s summary, the first bullet point reads, “No one working full time should be in poverty. It is time to pay workers a...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to have it his way with New York's fast-food industry — and restaurant owners aren't loving it. Franchise owners say they're considering a lawsuit against Cuomo's plan to raise the minimum wage in their eateries to $15 an hour, arguing that it is not fair or legal to be saddled with such a significant increase in labor costs that won't apply to retail, landscaping, child care or other traditionally low-wage industries. "Singling out fast food restaurants while ignoring other industries that hire workers who are paid under $15 is unfair and discriminatory, harms New York workers,...

Dunkin’ Donuts’ top executive says a $15 minimum wage for fast food workers is “absolutely outrageous.” On Thursday, New York state’s wage board recommended fast food workers make at least $15 per hour. The board said it should happen by the end of 2018 in New York City. Dunkin’ Brand CEO Nigel Travis says the plan will do more harm than good. Travis said he supports governments making “reasonable increases” to the minimum wage, but a hike to $15 per hour represents a 71% increase over the current state minimum. “It’s going to affect small businesses and franchises,” Travis said...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to have it his way with New York’s fast-food industry—and restaurant owners aren’t loving it. Franchise owners say they’re considering a lawsuit against Cuomo’s plan to raise the minimum wage in their eateries to $15 an hour, arguing that it is not fair or legal to be saddled with such a significant increase in labor costs that won’t apply to retail, landscaping, child care or other traditionally low-wage industries. “Singling out fast food restaurants while ignoring other industries that hire workers who are paid under $15 is unfair and discriminatory, harms New York workers, and puts...

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo made it clear Wednesday why he has recently bypassed the Legislature on different issues like raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers. "I run the government," Cuomo said. "I am the executive and therefore I use executive power. And that’s why the executive is given the power," Cuomo said during an appearance on upstate public radio’s “The Capitol Pressroom.” Cuomo dismissed criticism that his actions represent a major power grab by going around the Legislature. In addition to creating a board that has recommended raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food workers,...

Byline (Cuomo Quote): "This is just the beginning. We will not stop until we reach true economic justice." Getta load of Andrew Cuomo, the governor of the once-great state of New York. For the first time ever, reports Business Insider, a U.S. state "may single out one industry for a big wage hike." Under a plan approved by New York's Fast Food Wage Board, a $15-per-hour minimum wage would be phased in over three years in New York City and six years across upstate New York, whose economy has long been the American equivalent of East Germany. The mandate would...

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law is supposed to lift workers out of poverty and move them off public assistance. But there may be a hitch in the plan. Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise – in a bid to keep overall income down so they don’t lose public subsidies for things like food, child care and rent.

NEW YORK (AP) — Fast-food workers in New York state would see a super-sized raise under a plan to phase in a $15 minimum wage — the first time a state has singled out a particular industry for such an increase. The hike, approved Wednesday by the state Wage Board, would increase gradually over three years in New York City and six years for the rest of the state. It would apply to employees at any fast-food restaurant with 30 or more locations, impacting an estimated 200,000 workers. "You cannot live and support a family on $18,000 a year in...

There is no way to know what is going on in someone else's mind. But sometimes their behavior tells you more than their words. The political left's great claim to authenticity and honor is that what they advocate is for the benefit of the less fortunate. But how could we test that? T.S. Eliot once said, "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they...

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s getting more expensive to be an employer and small business owners say that’s making it harder for them to make money.The health care law, minimum wage increases and paid sick leave laws in some states and cities are increasing costs. Small companies also face the prospect of higher overtime expenses under a proposed federal regulation.“We’re going beyond the point where we can comfortably operate a functioning business and meet the requirements of these laws,” says Diana Lamon, who owns a Los Angeles restaurant, Poppy & Rose and a food truck, Peaches’ Smokehouse and Southern Kitchen,...

Business groups and the restaurants sector have strongly opposed any increase in the minimum wage of €8.65 ahead of reports that the Low Pay Commission is expected to recommend a rise of 50 cent per hour. The commission will present its report to Minister for Business and Employment Ged Nash over the next few days and is expected to recommend an increase of about 50 cent per hour. IBEC, which represents Irish businesses, said the proposal was “at odds with all the economic evidence” and would “heap pressure on companies still struggling to stay in business and erode crucial competitiveness...