Posted on 02/14/2010 4:50:04 PM PST by Desperado67
Earlier this month, Six Flags Inc. announced that it would be closing the Kentucky Kingdom theme park in Louisville, Kentucky. The park had originally opened in 1987. During its tenure, Kentucky Kingdom had become the state’s leading tourist attraction as well as the state’s largest employer of teens, with over 1,000 seasonal employees hired each year.
(Excerpt) Read more at ww.examiner.com ...
We are experiencing the same problem with a local ski hill.
Most of the employees are seasonal, dim-witted teens who now, by law, must earn upwards of ten dollars an hour to say, “I dunno” when asked any question.
Cripes! I can do that for ten bucks an hour, LOL!
>>Most of the employees are seasonal, dim-witted teens who now, by law, must earn upwards of ten dollars an hour to say, “I dunno” when asked any question.<<
They are CLEARLY underpaid. They should go into State or Federal Government or, better still, Politics with that ability!
Yes, there are fewer and fewer entry level jobs now. Employers have to pay so much for such basic skills any more.
These 1,000 employees will be much better off on unemployment or welfare. The owners are evil capitalist pigs. /s
It was a great place when the kids were young, and we would buy season passes. I think the fair board will find a way to keep it open. They get a return just from the parking.
Man-made Global Warming is a theory. That minimum wages increase unemployment is a fact.
I agree that the minimum wage probably greatly contributed to the demise of this amusement park. However, in this one case, don’t blame the feds. The federal FLSA would completely exempt from minimum wage and overtime any employee employed by a seasonal amusement and recreation establishment. Washington did not cause this problem -— Frankfort did. The Kentucky minimum wage and overtime law does not contain a comparable exemption to that provided in section 213(a)(3) of FLSA.
That’s a shame. I remember many years ago when I was an undergrad in the late 1980’s, we would go to Surf Cincinnati on the Northside off of I-275. At the time being 20 or 21, the teen girls were very good looking :) But that place closed a few years back as well. I found some pics online of the place a few years after it closed. It bummed me out. That place I know had many teens working there as well.
“One of the most basic theories of economics is that minimum wages increase unemployment because the artificial floor on wages prices some potential employees out of the market.”
No, actually economists are beginning to question this “basic theory.” I love the ‘ol “We can’t stay in business unless we pay slave wages” guys. I tend to believe there should be a lower minwage for teens, but all things considered, the hunt for cheap wages is about to make us a third world country.
parsy, who won’t do the embarrassing math for the author over how much extra would have to be added to the 900,000 tickets to cover these wages but will say that it would be a fun exercise for any freeper who tends to believe this stuff
Well this is amazing. Apparently there is another park real close that isn’t shutting down, Holiday World. They operate under the same Federal minimum wage laws as this one. Read the comments. Its looks like this Binsrick guy is way off base.
http://www.louisvillemojo.com/blogs/blog.cfm?entryid=84650&blogID=33358
parsy, who didn’t think the minwage angle made a lot of sense
Indiana minimum wage laws, not Kentucky.
OK, then let's have a minimum wage of 6.2 billion dollars an hour.
Then we can all get rich.
Only some moron so stupid he had to go to law school would have an IQ low enough to not understand price floors.
I have an idea, how about a maximum salary for lawyers?
I hear economists are beginning to question whether that would have any effect.
Fed minwage laws apply to both. That why the increases from $5.15 upwards. Holiday World has to pay the same rate as Kentucky Kingdom. From my little bit of research, the reporter here is just putting in his unresearched two cents worth. Google “Kentucky Kingdom financial” and you get all kinds of reasons for the problems which are NOT minwage related.
KK apparently made it hard to get around the park so patrons would have to walk past vendors, had lousy summer hours, lousy way into park, didn’t keep up the equipment, cut some girl’s feet off with shoddy eqpt., and had a bad financial structure to start with, not counting well run competitors.
This reporter seems to just be shilling for the GOP and making stuff up.
parsy, who says this is how GOP urban legends get started
Does that other park have exactly the same operating costs?
If not then a minimum wage increase could sink one and not the other.
No. This is silly. You can’t do a billion an hour or $100 per hour. That is outside the pricing structure. Going up a few percent is within a pricing structure.
But to ask a question I always end up asking, if the employer doesn’t pay the employee enough to cover basic living costs, who ends up picking up the tab?
parsy, who says “look in the mirror”
if both have the same minwage laws, then minwage laws aren’t the problem. If one park is over-leveraged, then they would have less elasticity. Or, if management were overpaid, then they could have problems.
From my research, there were other problems besides minwages, which were not mentioned anywhere I saw as the problem, or even a problem.
But don’t believe me, or the reporter. Google “Kentucky Kingdom financial” and read some of the articles and the blog replies. Apparently, KK even brought in some cheap Mexican illegal labor. Plus Six Flags had a bankruptcy.
Do a little googling and don’t just take the reporter’s word for this.
parsy, who thinks the guy is intellectually dishonest
parsy, who thinks the guy is intellectually dishonest
wow parsy, you spring up everywhere and you know NOTHING about which you post....the minimum wage law is one of the most destructive to employment laws ever passed. Do your self a favor, determine what it started at and figure out, year by year, what an increase in pay it guaranteed to the most unemployable, uneducated, lazy, inept, or just plain young and inexperienced among the job seekers.....you will be amazed at the percentage increase they have received over the years...amazed!!!
I have been carping about the minwage stuff for a decade or so on FR. Here is a good link on minwage with both pros and cons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage
The studies are what are interesting. The basic idea was that minwages cost jobs. I don’t think so. I think the impact on demand is worse. I think that affects jobs more.
Ask yourself a simple question. If an employee, at $7.25 per hour can not afford food or a place to live or medical care, who picks up the difference? (Hint:taxpayers)
That link will give you a few studies which back up my theory.
parsy, who does kinda spring up everywhere, sometimes
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