Hell's Highway ain't just paved, it's multi-lane!
There is nothing in the article that comes from anyone in the city government, which shows that what is happening is a surprise. And I am not going to give them an excuse that they have the best of intentions.
The reason I won't let the "progressives" off the hook is that this is exactly the way they behave all the time. They want to drive people out of Seattle. Literally. They have decided it will be a lilly white refuge and they will drive out anyone else. Lilly whites talk a good game about helping the poor, but they certainly don't want to live around them. That's what trips to Africa are for, so they can take pictures of poor people and their quaint local customs. Or send a few bucks down Sally Struther's way. But they don't want to actually live around poor people.
Lilly white enclaves such as Boulder, Vail, Aspen, Carmel, San Francisco have all become monocultures by driving anyone else out with high real estate prices and costs of living. San Francisco used to be a lot more ethnically diverse, but blacks were driven over the bridge to Oakland by high real estate.
In 40 years of lilly white apartied policies, have they ever said, "oops, that's not what we wanted?" Raising Seattle's minimum wage does not raise the wages of people there, it forces anyone not worth $15 an hour to leave the city, leaving it to the lilly white gentry class, which gets their money directly or indirectly from taxpayer serfs, so who cares if the cost of living is high?
Wait until their chauffeurs, valets, maids, Nannys and yard boys tell them how much more they expect to be paid.
And then there are the barbers, hair dressers, nail techs, etc., etc.
As Hillary! once said, and I paraphrase: “It’s not the fault of the government that these businesses are undercapitalized”.
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This whole minimum wage ruse was for the benefit of the unions. First, numerous union negotiated collective bargaining agreements (CBA) tie union member wages to increases in the minimum and living wage. This increases the wealth of the union from increased union dues.
Second, several recent minimum and living wage laws allow for the new wage standard to be waived in a union contract. This exemption came to light during the SeaTac (a suburb of Seattle, Washington) $15 dollar per hour living wage ballot measure, which allowed for unionized employers to be exempt from the new wage increases and sick leave mandate.
Union exemptions from living wage laws give unions an unfair bargaining chip that is unavailable to individual workers attempting to negotiate their own pay and benefits. What this does is draw new workers into union franchises. This serves to increase union monetary returns from dues and will not help low income workers.
stupidity can be pretty sad.
The restaurants that do stay in business by charging more should be okay since theres less competition. People will always dine out just not in the same numbers. It always gets back to supply and demand.
For the city however and for property prices its a different story. Now new businesses will have to set up which may or may not happen. Theres also the issue of the type of business. Not every operation needs or desires what a restaurant space has to offer which is a window facing the street.
why anyone listens to anyone on the left in regards to business or the economy is beyond me.
i could have listed off the effects immediately. they’re not mysterious in the least.
Let see how long this will take to isolate Seattle then watch it dry up. As city fathers complain about nearby communities profiting from their collective stupidity. Or complain about an underground economy that springs up like mushrooms run mostly by illegals and goes out of control.
Won’t be just restaurants it’s the tourist industry as a whole. Kiss the convention business goodbye. Nobody will want to go there because its too expensive and not worth it. If your a Senior living there you’re so screwed.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Federal contractors (due to the Davis-Bacon Act) have to pay union employees (e.g., road construction crews) a multiple of the local minimum wage. That’s why unions support raising minimum wages.
The “ordinary” folks either lose their jobs or get a raise of $5 an hour. The union workers get at least double that amount, and their jobs are pretty much guaranteed.
As I understand it, parking in Seattle is a pretty big deal. I visited Seattle recently and was very impressed with their transit system. A lot of well-paid Amazon and MS people commute via bus, ferry or water taxi due to the exorbitant cost of limited parking in downtown.
You mean socialist top-down central-planning wage-price-controls don’t work????
C’mon!
This country will become like Western Europe where going to McDonalds is considered dining out at I have read $20+ per person. Residents in the UK do not dine out because it is too expensive so when you want to meet friends and family to break bread you do it at someone’s house.
Time to bring back the automat restaurants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat
I actually to one of the last ones in NYC during the 70s.
so, it’s true...... in Seattle there is no free lunch
It is fitting that liberal-infested Seattle moved out to perform this folly in front of the rest of the Nation to present an example of what NOT to do.
Only time will tell if other cities are paying attention.
Get the gov. out of business.
Yes, they can, although the rest of the paragraph details what happens when they do. But there's more to it than that. Business can do all of these things given time to ease into them. Given an unalterable mandate that these changes come into being immediately, businesses simply can't adjust. It's all about cash flow, and the only thing ignorant government administrators can do is screw it up. Which they have.
I saw it on FR yesterday but I didn't note the author - welcome to the REAL minimum wage: $0.00.
Have the city politicians who passed this asinine measure voted themselves free meals yet?
(free to them but paid by taxpayers of course)
After all - with restaurant prices going up they can’t be expected to pay the higher dining prices themselves.
/s