Thanks to the new $15 minimum wage, Seattle restaurants have already lost 1,000 jobs
They were warned but it’s kind of hard to reason with unreasonable people.
From the DC:
According to a report released Sunday by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the $15 minimum wage has caused Seattle restaurants to lose 1,000 jobs — the worst decline since the 2009 Great Recession.
“The loss of 1,000 restaurant jobs in May following the minimum wage increase in April was the largest one month job decline since a 1,300 drop in January 2009, again during the Great Recession,” AEI Scholar Mark J. Perry noted in the report.
The citywide minimum wage increase was passed in June of last year. The measure is designed to increase the city minimum wage gradually to $15 an hour by 2017. The first increase under the plan was to $11 an hour in April. According to the report, Seattle restaurants have already faced severe consequences as a result. In contrast, in the six years since the 2009 financial crisis, the industry has been recovering in areas without the $15 minimum wage.
“Restaurant employment nationally increased by 130,700 jobs (and by 1.2%) during that same period,” the report also noted. “Restaurant employment in Washington increased 3.2% and by 2,800 jobs.”
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Nothing occurs in vacuum. Repeat that to yourself. When you raise the price of labor, something must give. And usually, that something is the firing of low-skilled workers. In other words, minimum wage laws usually end up hurting the very people they were ostensibly designed to help.
If you care about the poor and if you want to see unskilled workers work and gain necessary skills that will help them later in life, oppose minimum wage laws.
