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Minimum wage increase impacts local restaurants
summit daily news ^ | February 4, 2007 | KIMBERLY NICOLETTI

Posted on 02/05/2007 8:18:10 AM PST by george76

Before Amendment 42 passed in November, some restaurateurs weren't concerned about a minimum wage increase, but as it turns out, the law is impacting restaurant budgets significantly.

"It's a huge change," said Barb Richard, marketing manager for the Dillon Dam Brewery. "We've had to tighten our belt everywhere, from ads to raises, and cut costs dramatically. (But) there's no way to absorb it completely."

Eric Mamula, owner of Downstairs at Eric's in Breckenridge, said he's paying his waitstaff $75,000 to $80,000 more annually because of the amendment, which calls for waitstaff to earn a minimum of $3.83 an hour, up $1.70 from the previous minimum. When the Dam Brewery's management team analyzed the additional cost, it came up with tens of thousands of dollars a year, ...

"It's already expensive to go out, and it's going to be even more expensive," Mamula said. "I don't know if people realized that when they voted."

Meanwhile, the waitstaff isn't benefiting much.

"They're paying much higher FICA, and we're paying much higher FICA. And the capital for raises isn't there anymore," ...

Perhaps most concerning is the fact that the increase is tied to the Constitution, which means it's no longer in the hands of policy makers.

"To us, it was not well conceived," ... "We could not understand why it belonged in the Constitution..."

(Excerpt) Read more at summitdaily.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: duh; highertaxes; minimumwage; taxes
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To: A. Pole

>>Better let the employers go home to spend time with family, instead of getting $1.70 per hour.<<

Spending time with your family is not a free right. It is an earned right. You must produce something of value to others or yourself if you wish to eat.


61 posted on 02/05/2007 5:14:17 PM PST by RobRoy (Islam is a greater threat to the world today than Nazism was in 1938.)
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To: A. Pole
What you have not grasped is that under the free system we have, the "dignity of labor" was assured for the first time in history. By this I mean, the worker became wealthy enough to buy the fruits of his own labor and more beside. Who brought this miracle into being? Not Freud, Not Marx. Not Jesus, not Lenin, not even Adam Smith. It was Henry Ford and the assembly line of the Ford Motor Company.

Never before, in the guilds, the feudal enclaves, the slave plantations of the American South or the Russain steppes, the tax farms of the middle east and the medieval Europeans, had this ever happened.

But in the free capitalist economy of the 1920's, American auto workers were able to buy the very autos they made, on the wages they had earned by making them!

You want "workers dignity?" Beat that.

62 posted on 02/05/2007 5:19:53 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: RobRoy
Who is John Galt?

Here he is:


63 posted on 02/05/2007 5:24:56 PM PST by A. Pole (XIV century English rhyme: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was the gentleman?")
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To: A. Pole


I understand that socialism is all about giving orders and forcing others to do your bidding under the compulsion of the state. What you suggest is essentially legalizing the crime of violent interference in things not one's own business, this is what humans do with the power you advocate.

The politics of the minimum wage debate is that the left has been able to convince the right to agree that it is about forcing EMPLOYERS to pay a certain wage. This theory neglects the fact that it takes two to tango. Moreover, the LEAD in that dance is not the employer, it's the employee. The REAL target of the left is not employers who want to PAY less, but employees who are willing to CHARGE less. Behind every wage control law there is a bunch of people who are threatened by their neighbours' willingness to do the same job for LESS. It's the same mentality that leads closed-shop unionists to call replacement labour "scabs".


64 posted on 02/05/2007 5:29:45 PM PST by freeforall
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To: Starwolf

My favorite restaurants didn't post any reason, but they all raised prices.

I was taken by surprise when margaritas that used to cost $10.50 were suddenly $12.50 !

And remember that tips are a percentage of menu prices, so if a restaurant raises prices to cover the higher minimum wage, then the employee's tips go up as well. At least after customers get accustomed to the higher prices.


65 posted on 02/05/2007 5:31:21 PM PST by Kellis91789
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To: RobRoy

I oversimplified the speed limit discussion, true.

The min price analogy is not mine. If you've ever endured Econ 101, it's the same graphs for a minimum price as it is for a minimum wage. Supply curve, demand curve, price floor.

Price floor=surplus, price ceiling=shortage.

So, with a price floor for wages, there are way too many people who want a job compared to job suppliers who want to supply a job at that price.

My favorite analogy, though, is the Spongebob analogy. Why would you make Mr. Krabs fire that great little sponge?


66 posted on 02/05/2007 5:33:38 PM PST by AmishDude (It doesn't matter whom you vote for. It matters who takes office.)
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To: hinckley buzzard

Great post!


67 posted on 02/05/2007 5:36:02 PM PST by AmishDude (It doesn't matter whom you vote for. It matters who takes office.)
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To: kabar

I remember at least one place where they would charge their "employees" for "floor time". The employees would pay $25.00 or $50.00 per night and still make $200.00 or $300.00. They had a waiting list of people wanting to work.


68 posted on 02/05/2007 5:39:42 PM PST by MARTIAL MONK
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To: george76

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money)
Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Toll Bridge Tax
Toll Tunnel Tax
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer registration tax
Utilities Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

http://www.nmia.com/~bobpace/taxit.htm


69 posted on 02/05/2007 5:41:48 PM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: AmishDude

I prefer to see at as not a minimum wage law, but a minimum value law. If you can't produce the minimum plus your employer's costs (like payroll taxes) and some residual value, you aren't allowed to work. You aren't allowed to make your life better. You now must vote "correctly" to keep the scary Republicans from pushing you off the dole, because the minimum allowed value of an employee is never allowed to reduce. If you happen to get another job, they will raise it again to outlaw your work.

Go ask the government for a handout, because you REALLY need them now. And remember to vote where your stale bread and rancid butter come from.


70 posted on 02/05/2007 5:46:00 PM PST by motor_racer (Whatta you gonna do kid, shoot us all? No Ace, just you.)
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To: motor_racer
This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, everything will cost more and crime will increase because of bored teenagers and people with no skills. (Who wants to pay $7.25 on somebody you won't even know will show up? You'll have to monitor them all the time!)

On the other hand, there will be more self-checkouts at the grocery and at Wal-mart and maybe even at McDonald's. I'd love to be able to go out without ever having to talk to anyone.

71 posted on 02/05/2007 5:50:19 PM PST by AmishDude (It doesn't matter whom you vote for. It matters who takes office.)
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To: traviskicks
Amendment 42

Amendment 42 increased the minimum wage by 33 percent for non-tipped employees, taking them from $5.15 to $6.85, with an annual increase adjusted for inflation.

Tipped employees saw a raise from $2.13 to $3.83. Annual adjustments will be made at the same rate as for non-tipped workers.

72 posted on 02/05/2007 6:04:59 PM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: A. Pole

The person who created that cartoon either did not read the book, or is depending on the reader of the cartoon not having read the book. This has nothing in common with the characters in the book.

I am no supporter of the rabid, GODLESS capitalism the book promotes (although it successfully NAILS the looters), but at least this cartoon could be just a little honest.


73 posted on 02/05/2007 6:11:53 PM PST by RobRoy (Islam is a greater threat to the world today than Nazism was in 1938.)
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To: Starwolf
Well, I would be willing to pay a lot more to go out if I knew that the waitstaff were making a decent wage. Why not just pay 'em a good wage and stop the stupid and demeaning practice of 'tipping'. Any place not paying their employees enough to buy a house and send their kids to college is not somewhere I wish to patronize, anyway.

Personally, I *HATE* being served by another human being; never met anyone so great that they should be served, nor anyone so despicable that they should be subservient to another human.
74 posted on 02/05/2007 6:11:59 PM PST by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, Deport all illegals, abolish the IRS, ATF and DEA)
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To: RobRoy

I only go out to eat to avoid washing dishes; otherwise I figure why pay good money for something I can do better myself.


75 posted on 02/05/2007 6:16:28 PM PST by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, Deport all illegals, abolish the IRS, ATF and DEA)
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To: A. Pole
I find it deeply insulting. Do you have a soul?

Yes, but I don't expect a communist to understand either about capitalism or religion. Individuals have the right to sell their labor to the highest bidder. You can try to sell this Marxist rhetoric about workers of the world uniting and casting off their chains, but I am not buying it.

76 posted on 02/05/2007 6:57:40 PM PST by kabar
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To: kabar
Yes, but I don't expect a communist to understand either about capitalism or religion. Individuals have the right to sell their labor to the highest bidder. You can try to sell this Marxist rhetoric about workers of the world uniting and casting off their chains, but I am not buying it.

Was Pope Leo XIII a Communist?

See his encyclical RERUM NOVARUM - ON CAPITAL AND LABOR

77 posted on 02/05/2007 7:42:34 PM PST by A. Pole (XIV century English rhyme: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was the gentleman?")
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To: A. Pole
ARe you against speed limits on highways? They are set at some arbitrary number.

A speed limit is not a price. A wage is. That is a crucial difference. Basic economic theory, confirmed by extensive empirical analysis, states that arbitrarily set prices create shortages and/or surpluses.

Specifically in this case, arbitarily high wages create unemployment. If businessmen are forced to pay more for certain workers, they will make do with fewer of them. Other businessmen who would have expanded and hired more will now choose not to do so. An arbitrary wage floor will benefit some workers with higher pay, but they also hurt others by denying them employment. This has been confrimed by countless empirical studies.

How can a policy that denies wokers the ability to secure a job be considered just?

78 posted on 02/05/2007 10:39:09 PM PST by curiosity
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To: A. Pole
Was Pope Leo XIII a Communist?

No, but neither was he an economist. Unofortunately, sitting in the Chair of Peter does not confer upon the Holy Father any expertise on economic matters, and in this encylical, the Holy Father was way out of his area of competence.

Thankfully, the words of the pope are only binding on matters of faith or morals, and not on matters of economic policy.

79 posted on 02/05/2007 10:42:10 PM PST by curiosity
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To: george76

Does anyone know the effects of this raise on union wages, which I have read are multiples of the minimum wage?


80 posted on 02/05/2007 10:53:46 PM PST by TheLion (How about "Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement," for a change)
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