Posted on 08/13/2019 9:00:31 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
As predicted, the $15 minimum wage is forcing city employers to cut staff, shorten or scrap shifts, hike prices, cancel expansion plans and even close locations.
The mandate took effect Jan. 1 for city businesses with 11 or more employees — and will hit even the smallest businesses come Dec. 31.
Employers say they’re struggling to adjust to the whopping wage boost and making major shifts in plans.
Yes, lefty and union-backed economists released a report last week claiming a local restaurant-jobs boom. But the city’s Independent Budget Office put the 2018 drop at 6,000 jobs, or about 3.4 percent.
Recall that the $15 mandate hit even as lawmakers also slapped employers with other burdens, such as paid sick and medical leave. The load just keeps getting heavier.
If pols keep socking businesses with new costs and regulations, what do they think is going to happen?
Susannah Koteen, who owns the Lido Restaurant in Harlem, says she has cut back on shifts and overtime and raises her prices more frequently now. She also gave up on plans to move to a larger site.
Queens Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Grech specifically blames the $15 mandate for a spike in newly closed small businesses. Employers are “cutting their staff. They’re cutting their hours. They’re shutting down,” he says.
City and state lawmakers keep adding new burdens, always claiming owners can absorb the extra hit. Some, for instance, now want to ditch the state’s special, lower minimum wage for tipped workers (already recently pushed up to $10 an hour for food-service employers with more than 10 workers).
Hitting employers also hits their workers and customers — often worse than any “help” from a mandate: $15 an hour isn’t worth much if it also cuts your hours to zero.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Don’t forget that this increase also means a greater burden on the business owner’s share of taxes. I forget the exact numbers but it’s something like 7.5% for payroll tax, plus SS taxes, disability etc.
Workers compensation insurance is also generally tied to payroll compensation. So if payroll goes up 30%, workers comp insurance goes up. In some industries and states the cost of workers comp insurance is 35% of the payroll costs.
It’s a much bigger burden than just saying “it only costs employers a few dollars more per hour”. It’s a lot more than just the $4 increase from $11 to $15 for example. A $4 per hour increase could cost employers more like $6+ per hour.
This whole idea is cr**p! (Sent by one victimized)
for whom a good meal is a cheeseburger
Wouldn’t it be cheaper and healthier to buy and cook at home from basic ingredients rather than eat at McDonald’s?
And Rats NEVER learn.
Eating at McDonalds every now and then won’t change your life and make you less healthy. If you did it every day, yes, but not once in a while. Roll my eyes.
Yeah, I was thinking hoof meal was some kind of soil amendment.
Yeah but when it's the middle of August and you've already gone through an Igloo full of lemonade Kool-Aid and you can buy 30 ounces of delicious ice tea for a buck . . .
($1.49 in NYC)
Min wage hikes are for sissy Libs.
Vote in a real socialist and you can just take money from those who don’t need or deserve it.
To heck with working to earn money.
I live alone and I do this all the time, have for years. We’re talking here about folks that want to go top a restaurant once in a while. But the price of grocery items is just as much affected by this deliberately inflated cost of low-skill labor as in Mickey Dee’s. Social Security lags further and further behind because of this continually increasing foolish floor wage policy.
Not all are suffering because of this.
I have not eaten fast food now for WEEKS and maybe once in the past MONTH!!
The 15 dollar minimum wage has accomplished what multiple nutritionists and appetite suppressants and other gimmicks could not .
I CANNOT take waiting on line in the restaurant or in my car for a HALF HOUR or more.
NO ONE has that kind of time to waste.
the 15 dollar minimum may have saved my and many others’ lives!!
Thank you left!
As I mentioned before, my way of dealing with the $15 minimum wage is to simply not tip - since the tip is now built into the pricing. Same way it works in Japan, by the way.
I don’t think the price of grocery items will be affected
1. The costs for labour in retail is more distributed than in fast food
2. Fast food restaurants have been preparing for this for years. Here in Poland McDonald’s, KFC etc. have had kiosks for years and are experimenting with automated cooking systems. I believe this will give more of an emphasis for that in the US. Cutting the staff by 25% to 50%
As to “doing this all the time” - I agree, when I was in my 20s it was so much easier, but now I cook my meals for the week ahead and the cost of my food has dropped significantly and yet at the same time I’m eating much, much healthier.
At most places a $15 per hour wage does not even begin to replace tip income. A good waiter can do much better, even with an hourly wage of zero per hour. The $15 per hour minimum kills tip income so it really hurts the people it’s supposedly intended to help ( not really though- it helps unions whose wage scale is indexed to min wage)
So waiters lose income income with $15 min wage in short term and often lose their jobs in the long term.
They still vote Democrat even after losing their jobs.
I just wish i understood these fascists who believe they know how much someone else should be paid. Why cant they just find a way to get rich without butting into everyone’s business
People who’s labor simply isn’t worth 15 dollars an hour now can’t (rationally) be given a job in NY.
Which means they can’t get a job.
Which means they can never learn the skills to make their labor worth more than 15 dollars an hour.
The minimum wage has destroyed their lives. It’s a slow-motion train-wreck.
Interesting info.
$15 an hour isn’t worth much if it also cuts your hours to zero.
The real issue in all of this is the skyrocketing cost of housing/rent as speculators acquire prime real estate and cities refuse to build enough supply. If the supply of real estate was allowed to meet demand there wouldn’t be pressure for unsustainably high wages. it’s leading to an inflationary wage cycle.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.