On 8/4/2015 12:06 PM, wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 10:04:16 AM UTC-7, Japhy Ryder wrote:
>> Gee, go figure, when costs go up, businesses close...
>>
>> http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...-minimum-wage/
>>
>> Some time back I wrote a piece entitled "We can predict the effects of
>> Seattle's $15 an hour minimum wage." It's here. And without going into
>> boring detail it essentially said that we'd see what we would expect to
>> see from a rise in the price of something, that is a fall in the demand
>> for it. Ever since I've had comments from people insisting that human
>> labor just doesn't work that way. That if wages rise then actually more
>> people are going to get employed. An example came in only this morning:
>
> This article was written in March. Where are the articles written after
> the higher minimum wage law went into effect.
>
> I could find evidence only of one restaurant closing as a result of
> the higher minimum wage: the franchised zpizza on Capitol Hill.

Costs are real and must be passed on to consumers if restaurants want to
stay open:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...r-minimum-wage

Hardy says he is making adjustments: trimming staff hours, opening one
hour later and closing one hour earlier. He's also considering whether
to close some hours during the day.

"I'm going through the hourly sales, and if it is not making money, if
it is not profitable, we are not going to do it, because we can't afford
to," he says.

Hardy is a small employer, so he has a few years to figure out what to
do. The $15 wage will be phased in at different rates for different size
employers over the course of several years.

The biggest pressures will be on large employers, who reach $15 an hour
sooner. They are the ones now making the most dramatic changes.

Bob Donegan, the president of Ivar's, which runs a chain of fish and
chip shops, says the company has increased its prices. At Ivar's Salmon
House, for instance, one of the company's sit-down restaurants, the
price for all menu items increased 21 percent in April.

"Alaska coho that's today $34, last week would have been $28," Donegan
says. "So that meal that last year cost you $100, today costs you $121."

The catch is that when diners pay the bill, they are no longer expected
to leave a tip: it's included. The big price increase will allow the
Salmon House to start paying a $15-an-hour minimum wage immediately,
three years ahead of schedule.

"If you have to pay $15 an hour in 20 months, and that is the largest
part of your expenses, it's a little difficult to do a business plan
that makes that work," Burnham says. "I tried. Before I made my decision
I tried, and I didn't see it happening."

Burnham says she didn't want to go back to working 60 or 80 hours weeks,
as she did when she first opened the restaurant, just to make ends meet.
So she is shutting down her business at the end of the summer.

It is conceivable that more restaurant owners will follow in Burnham's
footsteps. Even Seattle's best-known chef, Tom Douglas, says he may have
to close some of his 15 restaurants.

Douglas is raising menu prices 4 percent this year.

"I really don't know what your saturation point is for what you're
willing to pay for chicken," he says. "That's why I say I don't know. We
are going to have to wait and see. I don't know if it is worth it for
you to come to our restaurants when chicken is $30 a portion compared
with when it was $20 a portion."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...s-follow-suit/

Some long-time Seattle restaurants have closed altogether, though none
of the owners publicly blamed the minimum wage law.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/07/25...ng-out-for-ya/

Some long-time Seattle restaurants have closed altogether, though none
of the owners publicly blamed the minimum wage law.

“It’s what happens when the government imposes a restriction on the
labor market that normally wouldn’t be there, and marginal businesses
get hit the hardest, and usually those are small, neighborhood
businesses,” said Paul Guppy, of the Washington Policy Center.

The law of unintended consequences is a bitch, ain’t it?