Posted on 12/13/2019 4:37:49 AM PST by karpov
This city’s minimum wage is rising to $16.39 an hour on Jan. 1. Instead of receiving a bigger paycheck, I’m left without any pay at all due to the policy change. That’s because the restaurant where I’ve worked for six years is closing as a consequence of the city’s harmful minimum-wage experiment.
I work for Tom Douglas, one of the best-known restaurateurs in Seattle. Mr. Douglas is in many ways responsible for the city’s reputation as a foodie paradise, and he recently celebrated his 30th anniversary in business. He’s a great boss, and his employees tend to stay at the company for a long time.
But being an established chef and a good employer doesn’t save you from the burden of a sharp minimum-wage increase, up 73% from $9.47 in 2015. For large-scale employers like Mr. Douglas, there’s no separate rate for workers who earn tips. In Washington and a handful of other states, tips aren’t counted as income earned on the job. That means restaurateurs are expected to pay servers like me the full minimum wage in addition to our considerable tip income.
When rent is too high, labor costs too much, and customers don’t want to pay $40 for a roast-chicken entree, the only way for many operators to ease the pain is to close.
So now, after six years working at Mr. Douglas’s restaurant Tanakasan, I need to find a new work home. My first thought was to go back to Sitka & Spruce, a restaurant where I had once worked. (I previously had to take on a second job there after the rising minimum wage forced Tanakasan to adopt a no-tipping payment model, drastically reducing my income.)
As it turns out, I can’t return to Sitka & Spruce. [It is closing too.]
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I seriously doubt that. The better wait staff may find a job, but there simply aren’t enough “good” restaurants to absorb them all. There will continue to be unemployment effects from this for a long time.
Yup. My wife’s cousin lives in eastern Washington state on the Idaho border. She has told us the horror stories.
So where do the diners go?
Same places and place their orders through kiosks. McDonald’s is already using them. The higher the prices at a restaurant, the more I would expect to see most of the wait staff retained, since they can pass a good chunk of the wage increase on to the customers who are lass price conscious. Some of the lower-paid staff may have to do more work (e.g., there used to be 4 busboys, now there are 2).
The minimum wage adjusted for inflation is at an all time low. So automation is happening in spite of record low unskilled labor costs.
But in this case, will they stop eating all together?
Not sure what you mean.
Eating out is usually an option for most. For many years I carried a sack lunch to work. Way cheaper then going out to eat.
If prices get too high, yes, people will stop (or cut back) and eating out.
First, I’d like to know where you got the inflation-adjusted minimum wage data. Second, a 30% wage increase, either in real or monetary terms, is going to cause dislocations...period. Finally, substitution of capital for labor occurs for reasons other than wage rates. Machines always show up for work, no shift understaffing issues, no vacation or maternity leave, no personnel issues. Hassle costs alone would cause a shift.
Thanks fieldmarshaldj.
That's ignorant.
Don't you have an SEIU meeting to attend?
Dittos. Typical liberal that doesn’t like the results of his voting and thinks he can continue voting the way he does and get different results.
“Seattle will become a restaurant desert.”
It already is. I was just there and you can clearly see many restaurants are across city lines.
“Why is everyone slagging Simone? For all I can tell, she has always worked hard, provided for herself and been a been a contributor to society.”
Because she is a liberal that voted for all the crap she now complains about.
Care to post the statistics on the unemployment rate in Washington or Seattle that back up your specious claims? There has been no rise in unemployment. Myth.
The work still has to get done.
True, but a good portion doesn’t need to be done by humans.
Yet, automation is happening even with wages at an all time low adjusted for inflation since the GD. There is no correlation between the push for automation and the minimum wage. None.
Tell us more.
Really? Then why do we see kiosks taking food orders in some restaurant chains instead of people? The strength of the correlation is a function of price. At some price for most kinds of manual labor there is a tipping point where substituting capital for labor makes sense. While $7.25/hr may not be a tipping point in most industries, perhaps $16/hr is.
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