Posted on 05/22/2015 8:37:03 PM PDT by grundle
A pizza shop owner in Seattle says the city's new minimum wage law is forcing her to close her doors.
The new law says businesses have six years to phase into giving employees $15 an hour.
Devin Jeran was happy to get a raise when Seattle's minimum wage went up to $11 an hour at the beginning of the month.
I definitely recognize that having more money is important, especially in a city as expensive as this one, he said.
He'll only enjoy that bigger paycheck for a few more months. In August, his boss is shutting down Z Pizza, putting him and his 11 coworkers out of work.
Fortunately she keeps us in the loop, and didn't just tell us last minute, Jeran said.
Ritu Shah Burnham doesn't want to go out of business, but says she can't afford the city's mandated wage hikes.
I've let one person go since April 1, I've cut hours since April 1, I've taken them myself because I don't pay myself. I've also raised my prices a little bit. Yeah, there's no other way to do it, she said.
Small businesses in the city have up to six more years to phase in the new $15 an hour minimum wage.
But Shah Burnham says even though she only has one store with 12 employees, she's considered part of the Z Pizza franchise so she has to give raises in just two years.
I know that I would have stayed here if I had seven years, just like everyone else, if I had an even playing field. The discrimination I'm feeling towards my small business right now makes me not want to stay and do anything in Seattle, she said.
The director of Now Seattle, which rallied for the minimum wage, had no comment, only saying "Restaurants open and close all the time, for various reasons."
Shah Burnham is concerned about where her employees will end up when she does close.
I absolutely am terrified for them, she said. I have no idea where they're going to find jobs, because if I'm cutting hours, I imagine everyone is across the board.
Seattle is the first major city to pass a law that gives workers $15 an hour. It comes out to about $30,000 a year if an employee works full-time.
Get as many illegals as possible into the country while raising minimum wage of the citizen all but guaranteeing the small business person will hire illegals leaving more and more of the citizenry on welfare and food stamps, then simply threaten them every election cycle If you dont vote Democrap youll lose your welfare and food stamps which will all but guarantee Democraps win every election. And Repubs sit back and allow this to happen because they all have the balls of Kansas city faggots. Face it - When it comes to playing hardball Republicans make Richard Simmons look like Chuck Norris. They are the biggest effin wuss bags going today.
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I pretty much agree along with some other ulterior motives people are mentioning. However, the Republicans aren’t wusses,. They are accomplices. Most of their opposition to the Democrats is theater only. They both have common goals of bigger government and increased opportunities for corruption.
Check out the ‘Seattle Now’ website and you can add: “insufferable lefty tools and stinking hippie throwbacks”.
Seattle's statue of Lenin is looking a little shabby. Perhaps the capitalist pig who is closing her pizza shop should be forced to spiff it up.
and to think! all these illegal aliens thought they were going to be delivering pizza to hungry citizens of the USA
In a way it’s good the doors of this shop are closed the owner will move on & establish something else but it still s*cks doesn’t it?
It's interesting that the name of the Director is not given in this article.
Granted, this employer may not be a liberal.
But for all the liberals that will close their businesses, how can they do that to their low wage working people? Don’t they care about them? Don’t they know they should be forced to stay open to support these people? Just like they vote for stuff that forces other people to pay more bennies for people?
When liberals are going to lose their precious money, then they close up shop. When they are the ones that are on the hook, if it isn’t other peoples’ money but their own, they’re going to run away and preserve what they have, and make excuses - excuses they never listen to when others make the exact same arguments.
The Now Seattle Director’s comments show they absolutely give zero sh1ts about working people. This director a$$hole is still pulling in a large Soros-funded type paycheck from liberal donors. They don’t even care if their own actions cause more people to lose their jobs.
The goal was to get a $15 minimum wage. Not keep all of them working. If the working folks inferred they would all be working too, well, that’s not the Director a$$hole’s fault they made that assumption.
“Pretty soon they will pass another law forbidding businesses from closing due to wage increases. Im only half joking.”
Ah, in France there is a company called Simplex that made bicycle parts for many years. Due to French labor law they never went out of business because they could not pay severance so the company issued notices of temporary layoffs. They still exist but has not made a product since 1991.
Or at least that is the story that is told
Folks pee on it, pigeons poop on it, and come various holidays, he gets a lei around his neck, or a Santa cap.
Don't get me wrong, the leftists around there probably believe in Marxism. They just don't show the statue much respect.
They want the game without the name?
That statue is a public obscenity.
I hereby proclaim and legislate that henceforth every family shall have a golden unicorn in their backyard that gives them free and ever flowing milk
Another consequence - union wages are a multiplier of the minimum wage. Not unintended.
I just posted on a different article what a disaster i expect from this. Many smaller businesses will close and will have a cumulative effect on taxes. Even worse however will be the areas that depend on medium sized businesses which might compose 10 or 20% of a workforce in a small city. Those closings have rippling effects. Big cities with diverse industries will take longer to feel the effect. As this movement spreads the smaller cities will be the real casualties.
I find the above comment by the 'director' of Seattle Now, a female, can make such a mean-spirited snark statement about the closing of a WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESS directly affected by political legislation her association worked to enact! HA, you hypocritical political turdbags, I hope you roll in it, because you OWN this one!
It’s what we get for allowing government to be led by inexperienced, emotionally-driven idiots with no idea of the true role of a government nor how that government is supposed to be directed. To them, at best it’s a money machine for them to play with, and at the worst, a power trip for them to abuse.
Sorry, but I don’t entirely buy these stories.
Here’s why.
Let’s assume all restaurants in Seattle are forced to pay the $15 minimum wage. They will by definition have to raise their prices to compensate. Most of these stories seem to assume that prices cannot be raised to compensate.
If restaurant A is forced to pay $15, but restaurant B pays only $10, then restaurant B will have a significant competitive advantage, undercut restaurant A’s prices and perhaps drive it out of business. OTOH, if both are forced to pay the higher wages, both will raise prices and the competitive situation remains the same.
Which means the main effect will be that the cost of restaurant meals across the whole city will increase. Especially at the low end, since wages consume a lower proportion of total sales at high-end restaurants. Higher prices may result in fewer meals eaten out, therefore a reduction in the total spent on such meals and some restaurants going under. Interestingly, this means that in the final analysis the main effect will be that lower-income people who eat out will have their costs increase more proportionately than higher-income people.
It may also give restaurants just across the city line a competitive advantage.
But restaurants are not a terribly price-sensitive business, as can be seen by the enormously wide price range found already.
Increasing costs across an industry simply does not in and of itself drive businesses under. Its primary effect is to raise prices for that industry. Witness the effects over the years of fuel price increases on the airline industry. Main effect is that ticket prices go up across the board.
Another effect, BTW, is to incentivize paying workers, especially illegal immigrants, under the table.
I’m not particularly in favor of these minimum wage increases, but they simply don’t have the effects these type of articles toss around.
Should have noted that beef prices went up in the last couple years an amount proportionate to the proposed increase in labor costs in Seattle.
McDonalds, BK and Wendy’s didn’t go out of business. Their prices (all) went up. People grumbled for a while, then got used to the higher prices.
As an aside, Vladimir Lenin’s 100th birthday celebration was used to create “Earth Day”.
What?? the white priveledged seattelians are forced to close thier conservative guilt ridden money making businesses because they cut off thier nose inspite of thier face? Raising the minimum wage causes businesses to close or lay off. Both senarios play well for the lazy. UNEMPLOYMENT is the goal
Long before the other costs of business came up the average minimum wage worker would be amazed at how much in SS contribution, liability, unemployment and workers comp the employer pays in the employees name.
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