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Seattle raises Minimum Wage to $15


DieChecker

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http://www.latimes.c...ory.html#page=1

The Seattle City Council is poised to raise the municipal minimum wage Monday to $15 an hour, making it the highest in the country. That number grabbed the imagination of this progressive, affluent city and became central to the November elections, which swept the first Socialist into office here in a century.

Not surprisingly, Washington also has the highest state minimum wage in the country at $9.32, although several other states, California included, are considering giving their lowest paid workers a boost. The federal minimum of $7.25 is under heated discussion, although it won’t jump any time soon.

Soon to be followed by "Businesses leave Seattle. Unemployment soars".

It will be an interesting experiment. I feel sorry for those who will inevitably suffer, but I think good data will come out of this.

You know... I'm not certain, but I thought we were in a Recovery still. Might not be the best time to drop mandated 50% pay increases on every business in Seattle.

http://www.latimes.c...ory.html#page=1

Minimum-wage workers in Connecticut got a 45-cent raise on Jan. 1, the first step in a process that will eventually set their wages at $10.10 an hour.
But before those efforts, Connecticut provided an early illustration of what many economists have been saying for years: Raising the minimum wage is not the most effective way to reduce poverty.

"If we're trying to lift people out of poverty conditions and improve their well-being — improve their chances of being able to make a living — there are much more efficient, less costly ways of doing that than through this artificial mechanism of raising the minimum wage," said Steven Lanza, an economist at the University of Connecticut.

Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, for instance, could go further in helping low-income workers survive, he said.

One unknown is whether employers will start cutting back on hiring.

Employment growth in Connecticut has lagged behind the nation since December, data show. Nationally, employment grew 0.62% from December through April, while employment in Connecticut fell 0.19% over the same time period.

Much of that drop-off was related to the elimination of 10,900 jobs in January, the month employers had to start paying 45 cents more. In the previous three years, Connecticut had added an average of 4,000 jobs over the same time period.

More job cuts wouldn't surprise economists. If companies have to pay more for labor, they'll try to save somewhere else, said Keith Hall, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

"Because you're raising the cost of hiring, you can get this unintended consequence where some of the people on the margin have their hours reduced," he said.

When Segui began working at Dunkin' Donuts, she was scheduled for 35 hours a week. A few months ago, she and other workers starting getting fewer hours. She now works from 20 to 27 hours a week.

Employers say they're worried that minimum-wage hikes will inflate their whole pay scale; they fear they'll have to raise all wages so that skilled workers proportionally get more than unskilled workers.

"It's hard for them to absorb additional labor costs," said Jack Mozloom, a spokesman with the National Federation of Independent Business.

Edited by DieChecker
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15 $ an hour minimum wage!!!Sorry i just do not think that a first day employee at Mcdonald's,or the person bagging your groceries is worth all that.This will indeed be interesting....

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15 $ an hour minimum wage!!!Sorry i just do not think that a first day employee at Mcdonald's,or the person bagging your groceries is worth all that.This will indeed be interesting....

There simply won't be anyone bagging groceries anymore.

As, my Dad, I think, pointed out to me the other day, this will just invigorate companies to use automation, just as they did with industry (robots). It is like the self checkout counters at the market. Except everywhere will be self checkout. And at a fast food place you'll talk into a device like you do at the drive through, but inside also, and pay with your card, so there will be no need for a cashier.

Edited by DieChecker
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There simply won't be anyone bagging groceries anymore.

Agreed,people wont be doing alot of things anymore.

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These folks on the left cannot seem to understand that they cannot force business people to pay the freight on their ideas of equality. Nothing is free. That burger that was being sold for X will now be sold for X PLUS the extra cost of labor. OR the burger will be sold by a robot.

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Yeah! If that spreads, instead of three manned check-out lines in groceries and Supercenters on a busy evening.

There will be one check-out line! With hours of noon to 3:00pm.

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I think people that criticize this miss the point that minimum wage and wages in general have steadily decreased as cost of living has increased, as employers, starting in the 60's, have found more and more ways to absolve themselves of the responsibilty of paying for work delivered. The minimum wage should have been over $10/hr almost ten years ago, to have allowed workers a living wage. If this were implemented across the board, it would force a number of issues and glaring worker-abuse policies to be addressed and fixed, by all business and tax and federal law, so they don't find themselves in an untenable position of losing money.

The adage is, you have to spend money to make money, but business in general, and corporations in specific, fight that every second of every day, so now instead of losing some money to only make "a boatload" instead of "infinite boatloads" of cash, by addressing and paying fair wages to workers they drive to higher and higher performance for lower and lower wages, they will bleed incalculable sums for their defiance to treat and pay their workers humanely. You know who already makes over $15 an hour? Most anyone above individual site management level, and businesses still have trouble - which means it isn't the general employees that are not doing their wages worth of work, it is the people above them.

Edited by Paranormalcy
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Kinda funny someone telling us the minimum wage "should have been" when in fact there should have been not at all. It's an unnatural and ultimately harmful way of trying to change the laws of economics by fiat.

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What this will truely hurt the worst is the small business.. The "Mom and Pop" stores and shops that are barely making it now... The large mega chains

will survive more or less unchanged - a few less employees and slightly higher prices... They can afford to offset the costs that way (whether they will or not

is another matter)...

But the "mom and pop" stores, have a much lower margin of profit, any loss of employees hurts their service capabilities drastically and any price increases just send their customers to the mega chains....

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They already had a fairly high minimum wage in Washington. There was an article a few months back about the impact on jobs and while there was not a decrease in employment for most, where it has had a tremendous impact is in the youth job market. High school and college students simply cannot find work and neither can post-high school/non-college bound teens find work. Oh, and there has been an overall increase in prices across the board.

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Um .... you guys still have someone who bags your groceries in the U.S. ? Wow, *sighs nostalgically*

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A dollar a day is plenty enough for anyone! And don't forget to padlock those fire exits.

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Everything will rise to cover the extra`s in wages, local businesses which make products will go under because the retailers will do what they have done here in England, get their stuff from China or India.

So in the end everyone will be paying more for tat, quality goes out of the window in the end. Unemployment will rise because there are not enough jobs and there is always the business man who will import illegals to work for $5 an hour, we have it all in England right now.

Problem here is, they put up the minimum wage, everything went up in price to cover the costs, and kept going up while the minimum wage stayed the same.

What will happen in years to come is this:

Where a company would have paid $20 an hour, they will still paying $15 because it "legal". Thats what has happened here, companies which would have paid £9.50 an hour are now only paying the minimum wage at £6.50 and if you are lucky, they will pay you above the MW at £6.70.

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A dollar a day is plenty enough for anyone! And don't forget to padlock those fire exits.

lol... yeah it's not a good situation El, but attempting to force corporations into anything just raises prices and reduces overall employment. It's kind of a pipe dream to expect a company to absorb the loss that will come from such a mandate. SOMEONE always has to pay.
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well before you had a 10 an hour job, now you have none. afaik waiters, and barmen min wage law does not apply.

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well before you had a 10 an hour job, now you have none. afaik waiters, and barmen min wage law does not apply.

They still have a minimum wage, but it is WAY lower. I think in PA it is $2.20/hour.

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They still have a minimum wage, but it is WAY lower. I think in PA it is $2.20/hour.

2 of my sister's children work in the tourism business - beverage and food services and earn as much as I did with a 4 year degree in medical imaging. Tips can be very lucrative for good workers.
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There simply won't be anyone bagging groceries anymore.

As, my Dad, I think, pointed out to me the other day, this will just invigorate companies to use automation, just as they did with industry (robots). It is like the self checkout counters at the market. Except everywhere will be self checkout. And at a fast food place you'll talk into a device like you do at the drive through, but inside also, and pay with your card, so there will be no need for a cashier.

Expect much more expensive food prices.

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So the min wage will be going from 9.32 to 15? Wow, that's a lot all in one chunk. Interesting, because it will immediately put all those workers into a whole different tax bracket. So more is going to be taken out of their checks. Also interesting, because it jacks up unemployment insurance and workers comp insurance for the employer since that's based off the employees wage.

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The mayor was just on CNN and said they would gradually increase minimum wage over a 7-year-period.

----------------------------------------------

Enough time for it to be curbed if necessary?

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Why go to school when you can make $30,000 a year flipping burgers?

We can expect an even greater influx of illegal aliens. If our current minimum wage is enough to entice millions to come here then doubling it will only help to convince even more to leave home in pursuit of improving their lives. Right now the price of a Value Meal is about 90% of the minimum wage. So we can probably expect to be paying $12 or more for a burger and fries. Other restaurants will also have to raise prices. This will especially hurt the elderly, many of whom eat out because it is difficult for them to cook for themselves. Their income will not be doubling as everything around them does. What about the folks who have spent years working their way up from the former minimum wage to earning $15 an hour? Has anyone considered the effect on the morale of these formerly motivated employees? They've all been effectively demoted. That has to have an effect on their performance. I would expect to see many services eliminated or priced out of the reach of many people. Pizza and floral delivery come to mind. It may also cause a labor shortage in the surrounding areas as people flock to Seattle to double their wages.

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It will be fun to keep an eye on Seattle. Can you imagine the mess businesses are going to have to deal with, with every person making 11-12 bucks an hour now demanding 17-18 since the entry level position now pays more than they make.

Good luck.

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In the Seattle suburb of SEATAC, the people are just getting used to $15 minimum wage.

A
from the
Seattle Times
revealed:

At the Clarion Hotel off International Boulevard, a sit-down restaurant has been shuttered, though it might soon be replaced by a less-labor-intensive cafe…

Other businesses have adjusted in ways that run the gamut from putting more work in the hands of managers, to instituting a small “living-wage surcharge” for a daily parking space near the airport.

That’s not all. According to Assunta Ng, publisher of the
Northwest Asian Weekly
, some employees are
as employers cut benefits. She recalls a conversation she had with two hotel employees who have been affected by the wage hike:

“Are you happy with the $15 wage?” I asked the full-time cleaning lady.

“It sounds good, but it’s not good,” the woman said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I lost my 401k, health insurance, paid holiday, and vacation,” she responded. “No more free food,” she added.

The hotel used to feed her. Now, she has to bring her own food. Also, no overtime, she said. She used to work extra hours and received overtime pay.

What else? I asked.

“I have to pay for parking,” she said.

I then asked the part-time waitress, who was part of the catering staff.

“Yes, I’ve got $15 an hour, but all my tips are now much less,” she said. Before the new wage law was implemented, her hourly wage was $7. But her tips added to more than $15 an hour. Yes, she used to receive free food and parking. Now, she has to bring her own food and pay for parking.
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I bet that most people who complain of raising minimum wage would argue that they themselves are being underpaid in their 50k a year job...

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[Throws hands in the air]

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