Free Republic

One of the first concepts taught in basic economics is the demand curve. As the price of something goes up, the demand for it goes down. And vice versa. One doesn’t even need an economics class to understand that a $50-million house will not have a bunch of buyers in a bidding war, compared to a much less expensive house. Or that a sale, lowering the price of something, is a good way to sell more and clear the inventory. So why is there such confusion about the minimum wage? A wage is simply the price of labor. Raise the...

IRVINE – The City Council late Tuesday voted 4-1 to repeal the city’s living wage ordinance, which requires some contractors that do business with Irvine to pay its employees a slightly higher rate than the state’s $9 per hour minimum. The ordinance has been in place since 2007 when a 3-2 vote signed into law the requirement that companies that have contracts with the city worth at least $100,000 in a 12-month period pay more per hour.

SEATTLE -- Reaction continues to pour in over Seattle's new minimum wage law. Some business owners in Seattle say the increase to $11 an hour will force them to make drastic changes. Many in the local restaurant industry say the next few weeks and months will give them a better idea of the real impact under the new law. Some bosses have already been forced to make tough decisions to protect the bottom line. At Icon Grill in downtown Seattle, all employees will now only get one week of paid time off. Some employees who've worked at the restaurant for...

Just a year after increasing Minnesota's statewide minimum wage from one of the nation's lowest to one of the highest, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton is pushing for another hike. Dayton told a group visiting St. Paul for a Muslim American Society in Minnesota event that he believes the minimum wage for Twin Cities airport workers should become $10 an hour immediately. "I'm going to urge the Metropolitan Airports Commission myself to raise the minimum wage at the airport to $10 an hour, starting immediately, because they earned it, they deserve it, the airline industry can afford it," Dayton said. The...

“We’re building a new way of governing the state. Olympia’s not doing anything, so the power is shifting from Olympia to people like me.” – Seattle billionaire, Democrat financier and far-left activist Nick Hanauer.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Independent bookstores have faced tough times for quite a while. In San Francisco, neighborhood businesses have been passionately protected, so it's hard to believe that an initiative passed by voters to raise the minimum wage is driving a Mission District bookstore out of business. San Francisco's minimum wage is currently $11.05 an hour. By July of 2018, the minimum wage in San Francisco will be $15 an hour. That increase is forcing Borderlands Bookstore to write its last chapter now. When actor Scott Cox took a job at Borderlands Books he didn't do it for the...

The Chicago City Council voted 44-5 Tuesday to increase the minimum wage. Chicago’s minimum wage workers will see their first increase next July, when the rate increase to $10 an hour from the current statewide hourly rate of $8.25. It then will increase by 50 cents in July 2016 and another 50 cents in July 2017. The minimum wage would go up $1 in July 2018 and $1 in July 2019 to reach $13 an hour.

Police detained Rep. Gwen Moore, who was participating in a protest by fast food workers pressing for an increase in the minimum wage, according to news reports. Moore was picketing along with protesters outside of a restaurant in West Milwaukee. WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) reported that arrests were made at the event. The nonprofit group Wisconsin Jobs Now tweeted a photo of Moore apparently being handcuffed. WISN-TV (Channel 12) reported Moore was detained.

MIRA LOMA, Calif. — Week after week, Guadalupe Rangel worked seven days straight, sometimes 11 hours a day, unloading dining room sets, trampolines, television stands and other imports from Asia that would soon be shipped to Walmart stores. Even though he often clocked 70 hours a week at the Schneider warehouse here, he was never paid time-and-a-half overtime, he said. And now, having joined a lawsuit involving hundreds of warehouse workers, Mr. Rangel stands to receive more than $20,000 in back pay as part of a recent $21 million legal settlement with Schneider, a national trucking company.

(Chicago) Mayor Emanuel is vowing to phase-in a higher minimum wage in Chicago than Springfield politicians are planning for the entire state. Rahm says he’ll push for a $13 minimum wage in Chicago even if the state enacts its pending ten dollar minimum wage.

Last Friday, for the first time in nearly a decade, Minnesota's minimum wage went up. The first in a series of incremental hikes brought the wage floor from $6.15 to $8 per hour for relatively large companies, and from $5.25 to $6.50 for small ones. As you'd expect, some businesses aren't thrilled about that -- especially bars and restaurants, as the new law doesn't include a tip exception. But the Oasis Cafe in Stillwater is generating a stir for transparently including a "Min Wage Fee" on all customer checks:

Study: Minimum wage hikes don’t kill jobsBy Kevin McArdle July 21, 2014 5:14 AMA new study by the Center for Economic and Research Policy shows that job growth in states that increased their minimum wages this year is far more robust when compared to states that did not hike the minimum wage. Thirteen states increased their minimum wages in 2014, including New Jersey. According to the report, the average change in payrolls in states that implemented minimum wage hikes was 0.99 percent.  For states that didn’t see a minimum wage hike, it was 0.68 percent.However, the report said there is...

The White House may have to scrap its plans to aggressively promote a 40 percent national minimum wage hike now that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the move would likely cost the U.S. 500,000 jobs by the second half of 2016. [Snip] The White House didn´t answer questions about whether that trade-off is acceptable to President Obama, but Senate Democrats have pushed hard for legislation that would implement his goal of driving the minimum wage far above its current $7.25 level. But it quickly scheduled an afternoon conference call for reporters with Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason...

Hippie infestation. Seattle’s city council on Monday unanimously approved an increase in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, making it the nation’s highest by far. The increase was formally proposed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, and his spokesman said he intends to sign the ordinance on Tuesday. Apparently unaware that it doesn’t have the weather advantages that other places pricing themselves out of existence do (Los Angeles, anyone?), Seattle seems to be ready to set a record for how many businesses it can ruin. The earnest idiots who whip up this minimum wage frenzy always use big corporations...

**SNIP** "If stimulating the economy were just as easy as taking from Jim and giving to Joe, don't you think communism would've worked out? Thanks progressive lefties, I'm sure this is making businesses feel secure about moving into Seattle. "Silliness," Shapiro concluded. Boze wondered why Seattle didn't just force the $15 wage immediately, if 70 percent of voters like it. In fact, Thursday's committee compromise is a disaster for the $15 Now group, which is pushing a ballot initiative for November that would enact the $15 wage on Jan. 1, 2015. "They're not interested in income equality," Boze said. "They're...

**SNIP** Sawant said the 15 Now campaign continues to unite low-wage workers and raise awareness for the UW’s unequal wages. In a recent New York Times article, “Student Debt Grows Faster at Universities with Highest Paid Leaders,” the UW was cited as one of the “most unequal” of public universities. The report defines “unequal” as universities that not only have high executive pay, but also high levels of student debt, as well as low-wage and contingent faculty labor. “It’s important for workers to be in solidarity. UW gets state funding, but it’s run like a corporation,” Sawant said. “It’s shameful...

Tis the season of minimum wage hike demands and fast food protests again. Frankly I don’t have a problem with wage hikes … if they’re voluntary. I do have a problem with coerced wage hikes, however. And that’s precisely what any rise in the federal minimum wage amounts too. It is feel good legislation that uses the force of government to coerce businesses into paying employees more for jobs the businesses don’t deem worth the cost imposed. It is feel good legislation that religiously and studiously avoids the laws of economics.

Mayor Ed Murray’s minimum wage advisory committee is “deadlocked,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant said Friday, with the socialist officeholder pledging she will now work to “build a strong coalition in the streets.” Sawant and two other left-leaning City Council members sit on the panel, which is co-chaired by business leader Howard S. Wright III, CEO of Seattle Hospitality Group, and Service Employees Union leader David Rolf, the city’s most able labor leader. The statement by Sawant comes amids increasing indications that Seattle voters will have the final say on on the minimum wage issue. And, like Washington voters...

MOORHEAD, Minn. -- The minimum-wage boost that Minnesota legislators are expected to pass this week has restaurant and bar owners here wondering how the bill would affect their bottom lines in a border city already faced with tough competition from business-friendly North Dakota. At J.C. Chumley's in Moorhead, co-owner Josh Henstorf worries he would have to reduce employees' hours and raise prices, which may send customers to Fargo in search of a cheaper alternative. "I think it's going to do a lot more harm than good to the business, to the employees, to the end-users," Henstorf said of the wage...

“Onto the ballot – into the streets.” That’s the headline for the next big moment for 15 Now – a conference on April 26 to kick-off a mass campaign in Seattle to collect 50,000 signatures for a robust $15 minimum wage ballot initiative. Whether or not 15 Now will file those signatures in June, triggering a popular vote on November 4, depends on whether the City Council passes a real $15 minimum wage ordinance and will be decided by a democratic 15 Now conference in June. The credible threat of a winnable ballot initiative is the best tool – under...