Seattle seeks to push minimum wage to $15!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yea... and googling Steve Forbes will give you millions of hits. 

What a witty reply.  Totally irrelevant to the merits of whether Seattle raising its minimum wage to $15/hr is a good idea or a bad idea, but quite witty.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Yea... and googling Steve Forbes will give you millions of hits. 

What a witty reply.  Totally irrelevant to the merits of whether Seattle raising its minimum wage to $15/hr is a good idea or a bad idea, but quite witty.

Thank you!  I was having a sh***y day until you posted that : )

[King]

I don't even see a correlation to disprove here.  What's this graph trying to say?

[The Free North]

Cant believe so many people support the legislated forced unemployment of so many poor workers


High minimum wage=less jobs

Derp

[Kevin]

Cant believe so many people support the legislated forced unemployment of so many poor workers


High minimum wage=less jobs

Derp

Agreed, corporations aren't going to be attracted to places that mandate a high wage for low skilled workers.

Ex. Washington D.C. it's self if you want a perfect example of this.

[bgwah]

If minimum wage were this high, I think it's only reasonable to tip less if at all.

[opebo]

Cant believe so many people support the legislated forced unemployment of so many poor workers


High minimum wage=less jobs

Derp

Why would anyone mind about that?  Such employment is a net loss to society, not to mention a severe brutalization of a servile class by the owners.

[opebo]

If minimum wage were this high, I think it's only reasonable to tip less if at all.

Very few low wage jobs receive any tips as it is.

[badgate]

Retail & fast food companies can definitely afford to make full-time employees and still have a few part-time positions.

[DC Al Fine]

My condolences to the soon to be unemployed young and minorities if this goes through.

Yea.  I guess ownership is just going to flip all those burgers and work all those registers themselves.  Why not?  I mean, they're so great and so wonderful and so amazing because they make all that money and we all want to be just like them!

Nah, what they'd do is make do with less. Fire as many employees as they could while still keeping the place open, raise prices where they could, and maybe shut down a day or cut back on the hours when they're open. Expecting them to just take it and pay higher wages without cutting back would be naive.

I've put in plenty of time in food service. Management already schedules as few people as possible. They don't have people on the clock just for the heck of it or out of benevolence. They always have as few as possible to meet demand. The point of this exercise is to increase demand, so that management will, in turn, have to hire more people. Labor usually runs <20% of sales, but that includes at least one salaried manager. Hourly folks are at most 15% of sales. It's not like a Big Mac would need to cost $10 to cover the difference. There are several countries with a high minimum wage, and most have notably lower unemployment than we do. To say nothing of all the tax money we have to spend to help these folks and all the shady crap they have to do to make ends meet.

That assumes that there's a fixed amount of labour to meet demand. Busineses don't need to use the minimum amount of labour to meet demand, they'll use the least expensive combination of labour and capital to meet demand. i.e. You'll see more of those auto checkout things at the grocery store.

On another note, at $15/hr, this minimum wage will affect a lot more than the typical minimum wage jobs. Call centre jobs, clerks, and the like will be affected as well.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Jesus.

[Lief 🗽]

Cant believe so many people support the legislated forced unemployment of so many poor workers


High minimum wage=less jobs

Derp

Agreed, corporations aren't going to be attracted to places that mandate a high wage for low skilled workers.

Ex. Washington D.C. it's self if you want a perfect example of this.

Yes, I'm sure McDondalds is going to close all its restaurants in Seattle and leave the city forever if this bill passes.

You people and your devotion to right-wing dogma even when it clearly makes no sense is ridiculous.

[publicunofficial]

Best city in the nation.


Keep in mind, Seattle is an expensive city to live in. Any businessman who cannot pay his employees enough for them to pay the rent and put food on the table should not be running a business.

[Kitteh]

Pretty sure Seattle is the best city in the nation at this point.

Anyway, even if an increase in the minimum wage does lead to fewer low-wage jobs (which I'm not sure is true), the fact that "having a job" is considered a positive in itself is reflective of the most disgusting aspects of America. Yes, it's true that in the US today most people will have a better life with some kind of job than without one since there are very few other ways to survive. But that's part of the problem, not something that should be blankly accepted as a value. Props to Seattle for (at least proposing) a tiny step towards the emancipation of the American people from wage slavery. Hopefully they don't let themselves be stopped by the arrogance of corporations who believe that every government will kiss their a** because the people desperately need to be granted the privilege of working for $9 an hour.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Jesus.

I agree - this is a very Christian thing to do. Good for Seattle.

[TDAS04]

A high minimum wage makes sense in an expensive city in a state with such regressive taxes. 

[barfbag]

Cant believe so many people support the legislated forced unemployment of so many poor workers


High minimum wage=less jobs

Derp

Agreed, corporations aren't going to be attracted to places that mandate a high wage for low skilled workers.

Ex. Washington D.C. it's self if you want a perfect example of this.

Yes, I'm sure McDondalds is going to close all its restaurants in Seattle and leave the city forever if this bill passes.

You people and your devotion to right-wing dogma even when it clearly makes no sense is ridiculous.

Actually no they would simply raise prices to where they needed to be in order to make the same profits.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/campaign-seeks-push-seattle-minimum-wage-15-19997290

 Washington already has the nation's highest state minimum wage at $9.19 an hour. Now, there's a push in Seattle, at least, to make it $15.

That would mean fast food workers, retail clerks, baristas and other minimum wage workers would get what protesters demanded when they shut down a handful of city restaurants in May and others called for when they demonstrated nationwide in July.

If their demand is to shut down restaurants they'll get their wish if this passes.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes, I'm sure McDondalds is going to close all its restaurants in Seattle and leave the city forever if this bill passes.

You people and your devotion to right-wing dogma even when it clearly makes no sense is ridiculous.

No, but I expect that any McDonald's franchisee who has a choice between putting a new McDonalds just inside the city limits or just outside the city limits will choose the latter.  Or if faced with the choice of renovating an existing restaurant just inside the city limits or building a replacement just outside will do the latter as well.  Also, those inside the limits might well decide to engage in labor saving devices such as self-service ordering kiosks and of course self-service soda fountains.  Of course those devices tend to work better at larger places, so instead of two smaller McDonalds, replace it with one.  (Or more likely replace three with two, since location is of some importance.)  Not only does that give the economies of scale to make those labor saving devices pay, it also means fewer managers at above line crew wages.

Now will the increased wages of the McDonald's workers remain increase demand for other goods that will increase commerce and thus jobs in the non-fast food section of the Seattle economy? Of course it will.  The question is, will the extra demand created by the fast food workers who remain be enough to offset the loss of demand from those who no longer will be employed there.  That's the question and you can likely find the answer most likely to confirm your existing biases (either pro-MW hike or anti-MW hike) if you simply pick an economist whose biases match yours.

[Lief 🗽]

The idea that cities are suddenly going to be completely devoid of fast food places because they have to spend slightly more on wages is ridiculous. These are not factories or office buildings or something; they're built where there is immediate, local demand for them. Where I live, there is at least one fast food place, whether national chain or smaller business, on every block. On 125th street (a major street in Harlem), a few blocks north of me, there are three McDondalds all within a 5 minutes walk of each other. These places aren't going to disappear because the profit margin on a Big Mac is decreasing by a few cents.

[Kevin]

Cant believe so many people support the legislated forced unemployment of so many poor workers


High minimum wage=less jobs

Derp

Agreed, corporations aren't going to be attracted to places that mandate a high wage for low skilled workers.

Ex. Washington D.C. it's self if you want a perfect example of this.

Yes, I'm sure McDondalds is going to close all its restaurants in Seattle and leave the city forever if this bill passes.

You people and your devotion to right-wing dogma even when it clearly makes no sense is ridiculous.

Well I guess you haven't taken a good look at yourself in the mirror recently have you?

[Lief 🗽]

Cant believe so many people support the legislated forced unemployment of so many poor workers


High minimum wage=less jobs

Derp

Agreed, corporations aren't going to be attracted to places that mandate a high wage for low skilled workers.

Ex. Washington D.C. it's self if you want a perfect example of this.

Yes, I'm sure McDondalds is going to close all its restaurants in Seattle and leave the city forever if this bill passes.

You people and your devotion to right-wing dogma even when it clearly makes no sense is ridiculous.

Well I guess you haven't taken a good look at yourself in the mirror recently have you?

nah bro, I shaved this morning, I was staring at my face in the mirror for like 5 mins

[barfbag]

This does nothing but push businesses away from the city leading to urban sprawling. If there's one thing Democrats know how to do it's destroy cities as we've seen with Detroit. It's ok though because the suburbs will grow and add to their population creating a more livable atmosphere than cities anyways. Keep it going.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

This does nothing but push businesses away from the city leading to urban sprawling. If there's one thing Democrats know how to do it's destroy cities as we've seen with Detroit. It's ok though because the suburbs will grow and add to their population creating a more livable atmosphere than cities anyways. Keep it going.

LOL at the idea that minimum wage laws are what destroyed Detroit.

[barfbag]

This does nothing but push businesses away from the city leading to urban sprawling. If there's one thing Democrats know how to do it's destroy cities as we've seen with Detroit. It's ok though because the suburbs will grow and add to their population creating a more livable atmosphere than cities anyways. Keep it going.

LOL at the idea that minimum wage laws are what destroyed Detroit.

No that's not at all what I said. There were a lot of things that destroyed Detroit and the common denominator for all suffering cities is Democrats.