Along North Dakota border, Minnesota businesses worry about minimum-wage increase

Pioneer Press ^ | 4-9-14 | Archie Ingersoll

[TurboZamboni]

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 hike. "I really don't see a winner at all."

Randy Thorson, co-owner of JL Beers, said the burger-and-beer chain will have to crunch numbers to see how its Moorhead location will fare under the higher minimum wage.

"You just have to adjust your prices accordingly," he said. "You would hope that you wouldn't have to cut anybody."

In its current form, the bill would lift the minimum wage in Minnesota from $6.15 to $9.50. For businesses with gross sales of less than $500,000 a year, the minimum wage would be $7.75. The higher wages would be phased in incrementally over the next three years.

For larger businesses, the bill would set a $7.75 minimum wage for all 16- and 17-year-olds, for 18- and 19-year-olds during a 90-day training period and for some employees from other countries working at resorts or other places.

[scooby321]

If your state even made a race out of Al Franken for Senate then you deserve what fate comes your way.

[Jack Hammer]

Increasing the minimum wage results in nothing but layoffs and business closures.

In addition, it contributes mightily to inflation.

It’s simply bad economics, but don’t try to tell the state of Minnesota.

[tomkat]

Unexpected^™

Recovery !

LØL

[Buckeye McFrog]

Look for North Dakota to be demagogued by Democrats as a “slave state”.

[TurboZamboni]

The Best- and Worst-Run States in America

How well run are America’s 50 states? The answer depends a lot on where you live.

Every year, 24/7 Wall St. conducts an extensive survey of all fifty states in America. Based on a review of data on financial health, standard of living and government services by state we determine how well each state is managed. For the first time, North Dakota is the best run. California is the worst run for the second year in a row.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-best-and-worst-run-states-in-america-150415625.html

Best:
1. North Dakota
2. Wyoming
3. Nebraska
4. Utah
5. Iowa

Democrats hate success-especially when it’s due to oil.

[grania]

That's nice rhetoric. It isn't valid. Working has to pay an employee enough to support a family. Plenty of businesses do just fine with competitive prices and a more competent better-paid workforce.

Case in point....the McDonald's situation. They're constantly training new low-wage employees that have to have a manager staring at them every minute. That can't be profit-enhancing.

[MrB]

http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Common-Sense-Economy/dp/0465002609

Get back to us after getting some Sowell food.

[Jack Hammer]

Not sure where you’re going with this.

Working most certainly does not have to pay an employee enough to support a family; entry level and supplemental work are cases in point.

I don’t quite get what you’re saying.

[TurboZamboni]

San Francisco has a minimum wage of $10/hr(highest of any city in the nation). Business owners there also must pay another $1.23 to $1.85 an hour per employee for health-care coverage if they don’t offer health insurance.

San Francisco is also the only city in the state that charges a payroll tax of 1.5 percent; it also mandates nine paid sick days annually per employee. And yet they have more panhandlers and homeless than ANYWHERE I’ve recently visited in the US and has the HIGHEST rental rates in the country if you exclude Manhatten.

[MrB]

Well, it means that if I have something to sell you,
you must, according to the law, pay me enough for it for me to live on,
regardless of how much it’s worth.

Simple enough?

Wait. What? You refuse to buy it? You heartless b@st@rd!

[Jack Hammer]

I see.

[grania]

I'm saying that when adults with families are making less than $10 an hour, they end up not working and surviving off federal and other freebies. They become a drain on local economies and the safety of communities. What's painfully obvious if you drive through cities is those testaments to former economic viability....those abandoned factories used to be places where people went to work in order to support themselves and their families.

I'm not buying the cheap labor arguments anymore. Globalist/corporatists still aren't on board with closing our southern border and sending home invaders (and unnecessary now legal foreign labor). That's unfair competition for jobs, keeping wages and opportunities challenged.

[MrB]

OK, now remove the “freebies” from the equation - what happens?

Choose not to “have a family”?
Choose to become worth more in the labor force?
Turn to crime? (This is what the left always threatens us with)

I say the majority would choose 1 and then 2, and those who choose 3 should be subject to just punishment.

That would solve your problem real quicklike.

[READINABLUESTATE]

“If your state even made a race out of Al Franken for Senate then you deserve what fate comes your way”

F. U!... I’m stuck here with all the A-holes that voted for the rat bastard.
Statements like yours really pisses off the ones who were kidnapped by the socialists!
Who do you think reads this forum? The kids who voted for Franken?
Comments like yours is like kicking a man when he is down. BTW it WAS a race with a 225 vote margin. I worked really hard to keep Franken the fool from winning but vote fraud made all the difference.

Sorry, I blew up.

I need some coffee!

[citizen]

RE San Francisco: And the thuggers there are going about setting Smart cars on their ends, roofs or sides.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

To the small business owners of Minnesota:

(1) If you voted for any leftists, f___ you. I don't care.

(2) If you didn't vote for any leftists, (a) publish a new menu with the old prices and a "Legislative Surcharge" posted for each; (b) make it crystal clear to your employees why their hours are being cut; (c) start looking into anything you can possibly automate.

[txhurl]

FWIW, Franken’s in a panic since Palin endorsed his opponent and claims she’s only 3 pts behind him.

[willyd]

There is another choice: work 2 jobs. This one does occur to people on welfare...most of them are getting check and working underground somewhere...

[ridesthemiles]

Working has to pay an employee enough to support a family. “””

IF 16 & 17 y/o’s were NOT already the ‘baby daddy of 6 or 9 kids’, they would NOT be ‘supporting a family’.

It certainly isn’t the businesses which should bear the cost of their behavior.

There are already millions of persons getting paid over $7 an hour and they are NOT worth spit!!!

I called a local real estate place Monday to ask the price of a house in my neighborhood that is up for sale. The owner died about a year ago. I asked the person who answered the phone-—ONLY for the price of the property. She has to ‘look in the computer’. After over 4 minutes, I tell her “that when things were on paper- you could find it quicker”. She stumbles some more & then tells me the agent would have to call me back, she cannot find any information for me.

I am talking about a house that is in a community of less than 5000 people They cannot have so many listings that 5 minutes isn’t enough time to find me a simple answer.

I said ‘Forget it” and I hung up.

That girl shouldn’t even have a job!!!

Another example::

I moved here 9 years ago. I had to obtain new vehicle insurance and I called a State Farm agent in the nearest place where there was such an agency.

I needed insurance for a truck, a station wagon, a 2 horse trail and a 4 horse trailer. I had had such coverage for 19 years with State Farm in the adjoining state.

The ‘lady’ at the agency couldn’t understand why I wanted insurance on the 2 trailers. I tried over & over to tell her that IF they got stolen, I couldn’t afford to replace them.

She kept asking me the ENGINE size in the 4 horse trailer. I kept saying a TRAILER doesn’t have an engine!!! I kept asking to talk to the head agent. I wasn’t allowed to bother him!!! She finally said she would send me a form to fill out. I was NOT happy with this agency, and it had come highly recommended.

Within 2 months, I switched to a State Farm agency a bit further away in another local town. When the agent at the first place got that info, he couldn’t call me fast enough to ‘find out why I had switched’. I am talking literally a 2 hour window of time!!! I was sorely tempted to call him back & tell him of the total incompetence of his clerk, but I let it go. She wouldn’t have been hired at my ranch at ANY price to keep water tanks full for the animals!!!

Minimum wage is a burden on an employer to keep paying a person far more than they are worth.