Politics

Seattle Raises Minimum Wage, Businesses Close Down – Liberals Completely BAFFLED

Conservatives know from common sense and some of us from running businesses that it’s obvious if you raise wages artificially you’re gonna lose some businesses that have a very thin profit. But liberals are idiots. That’s why they’re shocked that raising Seattle’s minimum wage has caused many businesses to go under, even in anticipation of the law going into effect.

Here’s Seattle Mag just completely flummoxed:

seattle minimum wage

It goes on to list all sorts of different excuses for businesses closing down, and only after eleven paragraphs eventually meanders around to talking about the pending minimum wage hike:

Though none of our local departing/transitioning restaurateurs who announced their plans last month have elaborated on the issue, another major factor affecting restaurant futures in our city is the impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour. Starting April 1, all businesses must begin to phase in the wage increase: Small employers have seven years to pay all employees at least $15 hourly; large employers (with 500 or more employees) have three.

Since the legislation was announced last summer, The Seattle Times and Eater have reported extensively on restaurant owners’ many concerns about how to compensate for the extra funds that will now be required for labor: They may need to raise menu prices, source poorer ingredients, reduce operating hours, reduce their labor and/or more.

I’m actually surprised they explained it so well. There’s actually some MATH later on in the article:

He estimates that a common budget breakdown among sustaining Seattle restaurants so far has been the following: 36 percent of funds are devoted to labor, 30 percent to food costs and 30 percent go to everything else (all other operational costs). The remaining 4 percent has been the profit margin, and as a result, in a $700,000 restaurant, he estimates that the average restauranteur in Seattle has been making $28,000 a year.

With the minimum wage spike, however, he says that if restaurant owners made no changes, the labor cost in quick service restaurants would rise to 42 percent and in full service restaurants to 47 percent.

To complete the math, a rise from 36% to 42% completely swallows up the meager $28,000 a year the business owner would make! Not only would the owner stop making money, but he’d actually have to pay in 2%, or $1,400 for the benefit of toiling to run a restaurant in Seattle, and if it’s a full service restaurant, the owner would have to pay in 7%, or nearly $5 grand! What a stupid joke liberal economics are.

Maybe someone should explain these numbers very very slowly to Mika Brzezinski and the Morning Joe crew that had absolutely no idea why such a business would have to close down. 

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