I started working by bussing tables at the Star Family Restaurant for $1/hour & slowly moved up to cook – the big leagues for a kid like me– to earn $6/hour. Businesses in small towns survive on narrow margins. Mandating a $15 minimum wage would put many of them out of business. pic.twitter.com/izQDOGRAH1
@Holms I don’t understand how someone can listen to “Born in the USA” and think WOOT! Patriotic song baby! I mean, the clue is in the title/chorus amiright?
Ophelia, do you remember the huge stink about the raise of the minimum wage in Seatac and Seattle, back in 2014?
One of the biggest complaints/fears that was brought up was “doing this will kill the restaurant industry in Seattle”. The local GOP even got restaurant owners to stand in front of microphones and say exactly what Thune said, just minus the “small towns” part. They said that was more or less a universal truth, that raising the minimum wage would ruin restaurants, and they said that about any raise, not just a raise to $15.
Well, it’s been a few years now. Has the restaurant industry been ruined? Far from it. A few restaurants closed, but a few more opened, as per normal. Before the pandemic closures, the consensus that I had been hearing was that the raise didn’t hurt business because the restaurants just raised their prices (as was expected), and consumers didn’t mind spending a little more. At any rate, they didn’t stay at home eating nothing but plain white bread, gruel, and water–they kept going out to eat and everything was basically fine.
More specifically, studies have found:
– As wages have gone up, per-worker hours have gone down as workers opted to work less since they earned more money (I think this is a good thing), a 2017 University of Washington study found
– There have not been job losses due to the wage hikes, a 2018 University of California at Berkeley study found
– Some businesses have thrived and grown
– Some businesses have closed, albeit anecdotally not because of the wage increase
– Researchers recommend caution when drawing conclusions about causality, i.e. there are as yet no clear data indicating what the wage increase may or may not have directly affected. This, however, is in contrast to the FUD (fear, uncertainy, and doubt) that the GOP was spreading before the 2014 passage of the law: they were saying that in no uncertain terms there would be a detrimental (and according to some, catastrophic) effect on the economy from raising the minimum wage to $15/hr.
When I started as a Lecturer at the University of Birmingham in 1970 my annual salary was £1838, let us say $4411 at the rate that applied then, around $2 per hour, less than half of what I’d been getting as a post-doc at Berkeley. Not a lot, but one could live on it. Set against that, the house we bought in 1971 cost around £6300, and the same house is estimated at £255000 today.
As a busboy at 1$/hour in 1979, he would make about 4$/hour in 2021 – still a starvation wage…
Yes, I think that must have been supplemented by tips. In the US it’s legal to pay service workers below the minimum wage if they get tips.
I just don’t understand how someone can be in federal government and not know about inflation and the changing cost of living.
@Holms I don’t understand how someone can listen to “Born in the USA” and think WOOT! Patriotic song baby! I mean, the clue is in the title/chorus amiright?
Ophelia, do you remember the huge stink about the raise of the minimum wage in Seatac and Seattle, back in 2014?
One of the biggest complaints/fears that was brought up was “doing this will kill the restaurant industry in Seattle”. The local GOP even got restaurant owners to stand in front of microphones and say exactly what Thune said, just minus the “small towns” part. They said that was more or less a universal truth, that raising the minimum wage would ruin restaurants, and they said that about any raise, not just a raise to $15.
Well, it’s been a few years now. Has the restaurant industry been ruined? Far from it. A few restaurants closed, but a few more opened, as per normal. Before the pandemic closures, the consensus that I had been hearing was that the raise didn’t hurt business because the restaurants just raised their prices (as was expected), and consumers didn’t mind spending a little more. At any rate, they didn’t stay at home eating nothing but plain white bread, gruel, and water–they kept going out to eat and everything was basically fine.
More specifically, studies have found:
– As wages have gone up, per-worker hours have gone down as workers opted to work less since they earned more money (I think this is a good thing), a 2017 University of Washington study found
– There have not been job losses due to the wage hikes, a 2018 University of California at Berkeley study found
– Some businesses have thrived and grown
– Some businesses have closed, albeit anecdotally not because of the wage increase
– Researchers recommend caution when drawing conclusions about causality, i.e. there are as yet no clear data indicating what the wage increase may or may not have directly affected. This, however, is in contrast to the FUD (fear, uncertainy, and doubt) that the GOP was spreading before the 2014 passage of the law: they were saying that in no uncertain terms there would be a detrimental (and according to some, catastrophic) effect on the economy from raising the minimum wage to $15/hr.
* Above points mostly taken from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/seattle-passed-a-15-minimum-wage-law-in-2014-heres-how-its-turned-out-so-far.html
When I started as a Lecturer at the University of Birmingham in 1970 my annual salary was £1838, let us say $4411 at the rate that applied then, around $2 per hour, less than half of what I’d been getting as a post-doc at Berkeley. Not a lot, but one could live on it. Set against that, the house we bought in 1971 cost around £6300, and the same house is estimated at £255000 today.
Prices were radically lower in the UK than the US in the 70s. I think it was in the 80s that the gap started to close.