[VIDEO] Donald Trump: Low Minimum Wage ‘Not a Bad Thing for This Country’

Donald Trump said during an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe that he believed a low minimum wage was a good thing for America, because it helped the country compete with foreigners.

“Your slogan is ‘Make America Great Again,'” host Mika Brzezinski noted. “I’m curious on the issue of wages ,which have been flat for years now… do you think the minimum wage should be raised across the board?”

“Mika, it’s such a nasty question because the answer has to be nasty,” Trump said. “We’re in a global economy now. It used to be companies would leave New York State or leave another state and go to Florida, go to Texas, go to wherever they go because or lower wages…”

But now, Trump noted, the United States is competing with much lower wages in other countries. “We can’t have a situation where our labor is so much more expensive than other countries that we can no longer compete. One of the things I’ll do if I win, I’ll make us competitive as a country.”

“I want to create jobs so you don’t have to worry about the minimum wage, they’re making much more than the minimum wage,” he said. “But I think having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country, Mika.”

Via: Mediaite

Continue Reading.....

Why Did Seattle Restaurants Lose 1,000 Jobs? Report Blames The Minimum Wage

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.”

Supporters of the $15 minimum wage often argue it will help the poor and stimulate economic activity. Opponents, however, argue such policies will actually hurt the poor by limiting job opportunities. How little or how much of either outcome usually depends on the study. Nevertheless, even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) agrees at least some job loss is expected.

Studies also show that industries with low profit margins, like restaurants, are more likely to be hit the hardest. A June report from the investor rating service Moody’s claims the minimum wage doesn’t even have to go up to $15 an hour for negative effects to occur.

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.”

Supporters of the $15 minimum wage often argue it will help the poor and stimulate economic activity. Opponents, however, argue such policies will actually hurt the poor by limiting job opportunities. How little or how much of either outcome usually depends on the study. Nevertheless, even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) agrees at least some job loss is expected.

Studies also show that industries with low profit margins, like restaurants, are more likely to be hit the hardest. A June report from the investor rating service Moody’s claims the minimum wage doesn’t even have to go up to $15 an hour for negative effects to occur.

Via: The Libertarian Republic

Continue Reading....

A Minimum-Wage Bungle in New York

New York's Fast Food Wage Board, a panel appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has recommended increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour from $8.75 for quick-service restaurant businesses with 30 or more locations. The target, according to Mr. Cuomo, is “large, national companies which have been making extraordinary profits” while “underpaying their workers,” who are supported by public-welfare programs such as Medicaid.

But the higher labor costs that the New York state labor commissioner is expected to approve will not hit large companies. That’s because small business owners own and operate all of New York’s Burger King restaurants, and about 95% of its McDonald’srestaurants, as franchisees. These business owners set the compensation for the workers they employ. Burger King and McDonald’s, on the other hand, are paid a percentage (generally a 3% to 5% royalty fee) of the restaurant’s gross sales, regardless of the franchisees’ profits.

There are 7,303 franchised restaurants in New York operating under agreements with 116 brands, and like other restaurant owners, many pay some of their employees the starting wage of $8.75 an hour. Yet the owner of even a single franchised restaurant would automatically have to pay a minimum $15 an hour, simply because of his affiliation with a brand that has more than 30 restaurants nationwide. That’s not fair.

Could these restaurant owners cope with such a huge increase in operating costs by reducing their profits? Quick-service restaurant franchises operate on slim profit margins—on average 2 to 4 cents on the dollar according to an Employment Policies Institute study. And to the extent they make lower profits, these business owners will be less likely to open new restaurants. Restaurateurs who own more than 30 non-franchise quick-service establishments also will be put at a disadvantage with competitors not subject to the higher minimum wage.

To manage increased costs, franchisees instead may be forced to reduce their current staff or reduce their hours. They might even seek to automate some of their processes by implementing kiosks or mobile platforms for ordering food. The result would be fewer job opportunities for unskilled young men and women, who rely on these entry-level jobs to learn important work and life skills and to move up the employment ladder.

What about increasing prices? Certainly, consumers’ willingness to pay more for fast food would help offset the franchisees’ increased labor costs. However, increasing prices may result in losing customers who will seek lower-priced options. Two levels—one for franchises and another for other restaurant owners—will force some franchises to close.

State or local governments that raise the minimum wage across the board will help the lowest-wage workers who manage to keep their jobs. But the solution to the lack of quality jobs is not a massive minimum-wage increase for a subset of one industry, in an attempt to turn low-skilled entry-level jobs into middle-income jobs. The real culprit is six years of ineffective progressive economic policies. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 8.3 million Americans still unemployed and another seven million “marginally” employed, often working two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet. There are more than 550,000 fewer full-time jobs today than there were in December 2007, before the recession began.

The answer to the current drought in jobs with a good salary isn’t another well-intended but misguided government fix. Instead, it is economic growth that will create the kind of jobs that will permanently lift people out of poverty. A vibrant free-enterprise system is the only way to generate that kind of economic growth, not blatantly discriminatory social experiments conceived by union bosses.

Mr. Caldeira is the president and CEO of the International Franchise Association in Washington, D.C.

Via: Wall Street Journal

Continue Reading....

When a raise angers workers

When Wal-Mart Stores chief Doug McMillon announced plans to boost store workers’ minimum wage earlier this year, he said the move was intended to improve morale and retain employees.

Yet for some of the hundreds of thousands of workers getting no raise, the policy is having the opposite effect.

In interviews and in hundreds of comments on Facebook, Wal-Mart employees are calling the move unfair to senior workers who got no increase and now make the same or close to what newer, less experienced colleagues earn. New workers started making a minimum of $9 an hour in April and will get at least $10 an hour in February.

“It is pitting people against each other,” said Charmaine Givens-Thomas, a 10-year veteran who makes $12 an hour at a store near Chicago and belongs to OUR Walmart, a union-backed group that has lobbied for better working conditions. “It hurts morale when people feel like they aren’t being appreciated. I hear people every day talking about looking for other jobs and wanting to remove themselves from Wal-Mart and a job that will make them feel like that.”

Some workers also said they suspect their hours are being cut and annual raises reduced to cover the cost of the wage increase for newer workers. Wal-Mart denies that and says it’s taking steps to ensure all employees have an opportunity to move into higher-paying jobs. Along with bumping up the minimum wage, it increased the amount workers receive when promoted, boosted pay for some managers and raised the maximum pay for all hourly positions.

A broader issue

Several U.S. retailers have raised the minimum wage for their workers in recent months, among them Gap, TJX and Target. The moves were widely hailed amid calls to combat wage inequality — an issue that even reached the Securities and Exchange Commission, which on Wednesday voted to force companies to reveal the pay gap between the chief executive officer and their typical worker.

However, if Wal-Mart and other retailers don’t also adjust pay for veteran hourly workers, they could face rising dissent, said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. Typically, when employers boost their base pay, they also give raises to those making within $1 to $2 of the new minimum to preserve a type of wage hierarchy and keep their longer-time workers happy, studies show.

“Companies want to preserve some type of internal wage ladder, so to do that they have to adjust wages of folks above the new minimum,” Cooper said. If Wal-Mart doesn’t raise wages for these workers, “folks are going to leave or start complaining more vocally,” he said.

Executives knew the minimum wage hike would make those left out feel disenfranchised, said Kristin Oliver, Wal-Mart’s U.S. human resources chief. Since then, the company has been hearing from upset employees and understands that the new wage policy could lead to increased turnover, she said.

In an attempt to retain workers who didn’t get a raise, Wal-Mart has changed its scheduling system to help workers get the hours they want and started a new training program for employees looking to advance within the company. Wal-Mart announced the scheduling changes as well as a new training program at the same time as the wage increase to address the different needs of its workers, Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg said.

“We are constantly looking and evolving what the right pay should be and we were aware of the issue,” Oliver said. “We weren’t prepared to go forward with any additional increases but have continued to look at it to see if there is something else we should do for those in the middle.”

The cost of more raises

Giving additional raises to employees already making close to the new minimum wage would cost Wal-Mart about $400 million, said Jeannette Wicks-Lim, an assistant research professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She based her calculation on raises the retail industry has handed out after past increases to state and federal minimum wages. Wal-Mart declined to comment on her calculation.

Additional pay bumps could put further strain on profits, which Wal-Mart said last quarter were dragged down by the $1 billion it’s already spending on raises. Last year, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain generated $486 billion in annual sales and a profit of about $16 billion.

Wal-Mart has said about 500,000 of its 1.3 million U.S. employees are getting raises as part of the new pay policy and all employees will be able to benefit from the new scheduling and training programs.

“We are trying to create a situation where they have a path to higher paying positions over time,” Oliver said.

Still, that hasn’t been the takeaway for many workers.

Sal Fuentes, who makes $13 an hour operating a forklift overnights at a Wal-Mart in Duarte, California, said he expects the company to give out lower raises to him and other senior employees to compensate for the cost of raising pay for the newer employees.

“There is always some way they get the money back,” said Fuentes, who has worked at the company since 2006 and is a member of OUR Walmart. “They give you some but they are taking away something else. It has always been like that.”

While employers may think raising wages will help them compete for talent, research shows workers care more about how much a colleague is making than someone at another company.

“Workers appear to pay attention to peer wages,” said Laura Giuliano, an associate professor of economics at the University of Miami who has studied the issue. “Even a small difference can matter, and whether or not it is going to matter may well depend on whether it appears arbitrary or unfair.”

Givens-Thomas said she was happy to see her colleagues getting a raise and thinks it’s a sign Wal-Mart is moving in the right direction. Still, she said the new wage policy is bittersweet; Givens-Thomas recently moved in with her mother because she couldn’t afford her rent.

“I am impressed that they are even trying to raise the wages — I know it has been hard for them,” she said. “I would like to continue to see pay go up because it has been stagnant for so many years and people are really suffering.”

Via: The Bulletin-Oregon

Continue Reading...

[VIDEO] Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Law Just Came Back To Bite Them In A Totally Unexpected Way

Early indicators suggest that the $15 minimum wage is a "lose, lose" proposition for employers and employees.

As the push continues in various locations around the country to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, the real world consequences of such a move have begun to surface.

Seattle became the first city in the nation to implement the $15 per hour minimum wage this past spring. Fox News reports that one unintended effect is that workers who are earning the higher wage are asking for fewer hours, so they can remain eligible for low income government benefits like childcare and tax credits.

Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less.

Local radio talk show host Jason Rantz on KIRO-FM noted the irony: “If [employees] cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn’t actually help get them out of poverty, all you’ve done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people.”

“Despite a booming economy throughout western Washington, the state’s welfare caseload has dropped very little since the higher wage phase began in Seattle in April. In March 130,851 people were enrolled in the Basic Food program. In April, the caseload dropped to 130,376,” according to Fox News.

Via: Western Journalism

Continue Reading....

Liberal Seattle CEO who instituted minimum salary of $70,000 finds that doesn’t work so well

In a way, I have to admit, I have some sympathy for Dan Price and his quixotic quest to battle “income inequality” by instituting a minimum salary of $70,000 for all employees of his company. Not for the cause itself, which is merely the latest trend in left-wing economic illiteracy, but I too once ran a business in which I thought I could do amazing things by paying people way more than their experience levels or qualifications would earn them anywhere else.

It didn’t work for two reasons. First, a business can’t survive when employees can’t generate enough value to give you a big enough return on what you pay them. And if they can’t do that because you paid them too much, that’s not on them. It’s on you. Second, people don’t appreciate what they haven’t really earned. You think they’re going to be grateful and loyal to you because you were so good to them. It doesn’t work that way.

So as soon as I heard some months back that Price was going to wage his own one-man war against “income inequality” by paying everyone at Gravity Payments a minimum of $70,000 - and would even cut his own pay to help the company swing it - it wasn’t hard to see this coming:

What few outsiders realized, however, was how much turmoil all the hoopla was causing at the company itself. To begin with, Gravity was simply unprepared for the onslaught of emails, Facebook posts and phone calls. The attention was thrilling, but it was also exhausting and distracting. And with so many eyes focused on the firm, some hoping to witness failure, the pressure has been intense.

More troubling, a few customers, dismayed by what they viewed as a political statement, withdrew their business. Others, anticipating a fee increase — despite repeated assurances to the contrary — also left. While dozens of new clients, inspired by Mr. Price’s announcement, were signing up, those accounts will not start paying off for at least another year. To handle the flood, he has already had to hire a dozen additional employees — now at a significantly higher cost — and is struggling to figure out whether more are needed without knowing for certain how long the bonanza will last. 

Two of Mr. Price’s most valued employees quit, spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises. Some friends and associates in Seattle’s close-knit entrepreneurial network were also piqued that Mr. Price’s action made them look stingy in front of their own employees.

Then potentially the worst blow of all: Less than two weeks after the announcement, Mr. Price’s older brother and Gravity co-founder, Lucas Price, citing longstanding differences, filed a lawsuit that potentially threatened the company’s very existence. With legal bills quickly mounting and most of his own paycheck and last year’s $2.2 million in profits plowed into the salary increases, Dan Price said, “We don’t have a margin of error to pay those legal fees.”

It wasn’t just good, experienced employees who had a problem with the plan. So did at least one employee who was a recipient of a huge raise:

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading.... 

The Left’s Fight-for-$15 Scam

The current feel-good push for a $15 an hour minimum wage has nothing to do with helping workers and everything to do with advancing the goals of the left wing, especially the labor movement.

This is true despite the occasionally soaring rhetoric of President Obama amid the Left’s incessant whining about “income inequality,” itself a particularly un-American concept, an imaginary evil that dwells only in the nightmares of left-wingers. The fact gets lost that the minimum wage itself and continuing increases in the minimum wage hurt working people. Period. And as economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, minimum wage laws themselves have an inglorious history, having been used to price minorities out of labor markets. If a racist business owner has a choice between a person whose race he likes and someone whose race he doesn’t like and their services cost the same, take a guess whom he’ll pick.

Raising the hourly minimum wage, whether to a job-killing $15 or a higher dollar figure, isn’t intended to aid those who are financially struggling. It’s not compassionate; in fact it’s the opposite. It doesn’t help the poor. It’s a left-wing vote-buying scam that moves money around on an Alinskyite chess board. Democrats desperately want to recapture the House and Senate so they can impose even more destructive progressive policies on the populace. They use the minimum wage, which has become a “motherhood” issue for the Left in recent years. It gets bleeding-heart voters to the polls the way that opposition to same-sex marriage used to get conservative voters to the polls.

Hiking required hourly pay is about redistributing wealth to fat-cat labor unions and recruiting Democratic voters. It allows the gluttonous Left to gorge itself on other people’s money.

No serious economist doubts that raising the minimum wage eliminates jobs from the workforce. How it does this is not rocket science.

Workers whose skills aren’t worth $15 an hour to employers, teenagers for example, won’t get hired. Summer jobs and part-time jobs for students evaporate which makes young scholars more dependent on student loan programs. Businesses like fast food purveyors don’t want to be forced out of business. Justifiably insistent on preserving their profitability, they fire employees and install specialized robots and touch-screen ordering systems. Major restaurant chains and gas station-convenience stores are already doing this.

Some of the newly unemployed people end up on welfare which helps to expand the size and scope of government. People who are dependent on the government tend to support Democrats. It’s a big win-win for the Left no matter how you look at it.

New York’s loud left-wing demagogue of a governor, the relentlessly strident Andrew Cuomo (D), wants to impose the $15 an hour wage mandate on a specific industry without bothering to consult the state legislature in Albany because he knows such a move is a crowd pleaser. A panel of lapdogs appointed by Cuomo gave him political cover by recommending last week that the minimum wage be raised to $15 for all fast-food restaurant chains of a certain size in New York State.

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading....

Higher wages a surprising success for Seattle restaurant

THIS IS ONE RESTAURANT OUT OF HUNDREDS, AND DOES NOT SPELL SUCCESS IN BY BOOK!!

Menu prices are up 21 percent and you don't have to tip at Ivar's Salmon House on Seattle's Lake Union after the restaurant decided to institute the city's $15-an-hour minimum wage two years ahead of schedule.

It is staff, not diners, who feel the real difference, with wages as much as 60 percent higher than before. One waitress is saving for accounting classes and finding it easier to take weekend vacations, while another server is using the added pay to cover increased rent.

Seattle's law, adopted last year after a strong push from labor and grassroots activists, bumped the city's minimum wage to $11 beginning April 1, above Washington state's highest-in-the-nation $9.47. Scheduled increases that depend on business size and benefits will bring the minimum to $15 within four years for large businesses and seven years for smaller ones.

Read MoreLA union wants to be exempt from $15 minimum wage

There's little data yet on how the law's working.

"To the extent that we can look at macro patterns, we're not seeing a problem," said Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.

As Washington, D.C., and other cities consider following Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles in phasing in a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Ivar's approach, adopted in April, offers lessons in how some businesses might adapt. Ivar's Seafood Restaurants President Bob Donegan decided to raise prices, tell customers that they don't need to tip, and parcel the added revenue among the hourly staff.

For some of the restaurant's lesser paid workers - including bussers and dishwashers - that's meant as much as 60 percent more. Revenue has soared, supportive customers are leaving additional tips even though they don't need to, and servers and bartenders are on pace to increase their annual pay by thousands, with wages for a few of the best compensated approaching $80,000 a year.

"It's been a surprise," Donegan said. "The customers seem to like it, the employees seem to like it, and it seems to be working, at least in this location."

Read MoreAlan Greenspan: This is 'extremely dangerous'

Rochelle Hann, 25, is a second-generation worker at Ivar's. Like her mom, she has performed a variety of roles, including serving, bookkeeping and even dressing up as a giant clam. If she keeps working 30 hours a week, her annual pay will jump about $12,000 - money she's socking away for accounting classes at a community college.

"Before, I felt like it was maybe not quite paycheck-to-paycheck, but now I don't even have to worry about it," she said. "I just went away for the weekend, and it was an easy expense."

Brett Richards, a 50-year-old singer and guitarist, has worked 25 years in food service, including the past eight at Ivar's. Before, he made minimum wage, plus tips. Now, he gets $15 an hour, plus a share of the 21 percent menu price increase, plus any additional tips customers leave. He expects to make almost $7,000 more this year, money that's helping him with his increased rent and with taking his kids out to eat a little more often.

Via: CNBC

Continue Reading....

DEMOCRATS DIVIDED BY MINIMUM WAGE HIKE

The latest economic slogan of the hard left is to push the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. This would almost double the current federal minimum, which was raised to $7.25 an hour just six years ago.

Democrats universally still support a higher government-mandated minimum wage, mind you. The debate is over how high to government should push.

During his Presidency, Barack Obama has supported increases to $9 an hour and, in the midst of his reelection fight, a hike to $10.10 an hour.

The push for an increase to $10.10 an hour was so widespread across the left, in fact, that the Congressional Budget Office last year issued an analysis of the economic impact of such an increase. Unsurprisingly, the CBO found that the hike would cause half a million Americans to lose their jobs.

The CBO analysis found that about 16 million Americans, who currently earn somewhere between the current minimum and the new $10.10 hourly wage, would see an increase in their earnings.

So, using the most conservative estimate of possible job loss, a little over 10 percent of those with jobs would see some kind of benefit.

Those who would receive a benefit are not the caricature portrayed by the media. The average family income of a minimum wage worker is $53,000 a year, far above the national poverty level. This is simply because most minimum wage jobs represent a second or third job within a family. Only 4 percent of minimum wage workers are a single parent working full-time. About half of minimum wage workers are under 25.

A far better way to assist low-income workers struggling to raise a family on a minimum wage job is a boost in the Earned Income Tax Credit, which rewards those working. A job, even a minimum wage job, is still the best anti-poverty program. More than two-thirds of minimum wage workers receive a raise within the first year of employment.

A minimum wage is really a starter wage. As employees gain more skills and experience, they move up the job ladder. A government mandated increase in the minimum wage makes these first jobs more expensive for a business to offer, so there are fewer.

The negative consequences are far greater than simply the loss of 500k jobs. For many, those eliminated jobs were their first entry-point into the labor market. Low-skilled workers may have just enough knowledge to fill a $7.25 an hour position, but not enough to fill one at a higher minimum wage.

There is a great deal of debate over how extensive job losses are from a government increase in the minimum wage. Both sides of the debate tend to exaggerate the economic impact. The reality is that few Americans earn anything close to the minimum wage, so the macro effects aren’t enormous.

The human effects on those who can’t find a job at the higher wage level are enormous, though. That cost doesn’t fit into a slogan though.

This new push for $15 an hour seems to have come out of a union-backed effort to raise wages for fast-food restaurants across the country. This is part of a long-standing union effort to organize these businesses. Federal minimum wage levels don’t apply to union collective bargaining agreements, after all.

Democrat Presidential candidate 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

16%

 has embraced the $15 an hour level. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has endorsed this wage level for fast-food restaurants in New York City, but has been silent on what the federal minimum wage should be outside of the Big Apple.

Congressional Democrat leadership is backing an increase to $12 an hour, as is President Obama currently.

Republican Leadership is opposing an increase but, if history is a guide, will eventually go along with a more modest increase. Conservatives will, as always, oppose an increase as the bad economics that it is, among other valid reasons. Of course, given their treatment by most business organizations in Washington, conservatives may want to rethink how strongly they want to oppose an increase.

Like most political slogans, an increase in the minimum wage polls very well with the public. There is little evidence, though, that many voters actually base their decisions on the issue.

Still, there is a certain morbid pleasure in watching the Democrats trying to outbid each other in their political appeals on the issue. Given that Democrats are preternaturally wired to spend other people’s money and dictate how they should run their lives, one wonders why Obama and Congressional Democrats are being so coy.

It certainly raises the question: if $10.10 an hour is so obviously a good economic policy, why not $15 an hour? Please show your work.

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading....

Minimum Wage Hikes Result in McDonalds Closing Doors. We Told You…

The left has been pushing a minimum wage increase, mainly because telling voters “we’re going to give you more money” is easier than teaching them about economics and/or reality. If a leftist wants to be particularly panderific, they specify a wage hike on fast food workers, with McDonalds as their most popular whipping post.

The same McDonalds which just announced their WORST financial outlook in 12 years.

Some 29 franchisees, who collectively own and operate 208 McDonald’s restaurants in the United States, were asked to give their six-month forecast from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). The average response was 1.69, the lowest in the survey’s 12-year history.

Previously, the lowest rating was 1.81, which was recorded three months ago.

One of the reasons?

Another respondent said, “At least half of the operators in my region are on [the] verge of collapse. With minimum wage for fast food workers potentially increasing to incredibly high levels, we are facing a crisis situation.”

So it would appear that if you take struggling businesses and increase the cost of doing business, it makes it hard for them to do business.

This is no revelation to anybody who’s completed a high-school economics course. But we’re talking about burger-flippers who think that their burger-flipping is a $15 an hour skill set here. A nutless monkey could do their job. Literally. I’ve seen a Chimpanzee ride a segway.

Also, this is an important time to note that this precisely is why we are a Constitutional Republic and not a democracy. Democracy is mob-rule. Our founding fathers were very concerned about the mob majority simply voting in their own self interests. Parasites that will inevitably devour their host, if you will.

Unfortunately, modern politics and particularly the Democratic party has placed us in the same quandary. In order to ensure votes, they need to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the non-contributors, the parasites… and promise them the world.

Let’s just start with a $15 minimum wage. Non-performance based of course.

Via: Louder with Crowder

Continue Reading....

Bernie Sanders inadvertently makes the case against a $15 minimum wage

This is why socialists are economic ignoramuses. Even while they promote their income redistribution schemes, they inevitably run afoul of basic economic laws that any freshman in college learns in Econ 101.

Forbes Tim Worstall shows how Senator Bernie Sanders actually proves the case against a $15 an hour minimum wage on his own webpage:

This isn’t, perhaps, quite what Bernie Sanders thinks he is saying over on his Senate page but it is indeed what he is saying. He’s providing us with the proof perfect that a rise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour will costs jobs. For he’s telling us that the rise in the minimum wage will be paid for by a combination of three things. Firstly, a rise in prices of goods made by minimum wage labour. This will reduce the volume of such goods purchased (no, really, demand curves do slope downwards) and thus lead to less minimum wage labour being employed. Part of it will be paid for by lower profits. And yes, demand curves really do slope downwards meaning that fewer people will be interested in the profits that can be earned by employing minimum wage labour: thus less minimum wage labour will be employed. Finally, he tells us that there will be a forced rise in the productivity with which labour is used: and a rise in productivity is the same thing as stating that less labour will be used.

The problem with socialist/Marxist economics has always been that they attempt to create an alternate universe where up is down, black is white, and because they mean so well, the normal laws of economics simply do not apply. Seattle, which began to phase in a $15 minimum wage in May, is already reaping the whirlwind.

Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise – in a bid to keep overall income down so they don’t lose public subsidies for things like food, child care and rent.

Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less.

“If they cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn’t actually help get them out of poverty, all you’ve done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people,” said Jason Rantz, host of the Jason Rantz show on 97.3 KIRO-FM.

The twist is just one apparent side effect of the controversial -- yet trendsetting -- minimum wage law in Seattle, which is being copied in several other cities despite concerns over prices rising and businesses struggling to keep up.

The notion that employees are intentionally working less to preserve their welfare has been a hot topic on talk radio. While the claims are difficult to track, state stats indeed suggest few are moving off welfare programs under the new wage.

Despite a booming economy throughout western Washington, the state’s welfare caseload has dropped very little since the higher wage phase began in Seattle in April. In March 130,851 people were enrolled in the Basic Food program. In April, the caseload dropped to 130,376.

Prices are going up and those businesses most sensitive to labor costs are closing. 

Looks like Bernie was right.

Via: American Thinker

Continue Reading....

Raise Minimum Wage and Workers Cut Hours to Keep Welfare

Reportedly, Seattle’s law to raise minimum wage is running into a conflict with the welfare state.

As Mark reported back in 2013, one attempt to propagandize for a higher minimum wage was to accuse large companies using unskilled labor of being “welfare queens.” 

McDonald’s and Walmart were smeared with this term because anyone who was trying to live on a single income as one of their employees would need government assistance to live. The idea was pushed that McDonald’s and Walmart are getting subsidized labor.

Mark replied to one economist pushing this message.

It is not only legal, it is exactly what the welfare state wanted and expected. It is sickening hypocrisy to favor the welfare state (which [Barry] Ritholz does) and pretend that such support does not empower employers to pay their employees less. It isn’t just McDonald’s and Walmart. It is every independent convenience store franchise owner. McDonald’s didn’t create this situation. Walmart didn’t dream up welfare entitlements and then lobby to get them passed as a long-term strategy to pay employees less. If you don’t want people to benefit from free stuff, then stop offering it to them.

Well, now we have more experimental data on the issue, since Seattle has raised the minimum wage. According to Fox News, “Seattle sees fallout from $15 minimum wage, as other cities follow suit.”

Fallout” is another term for unintended consequences or unintended results.

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law is supposed to lift workers out of poverty and move them off public assistance. But there may be a hitch in the plan.

Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise – in a bid to keep overall income down so they don’t lose public subsidies for things like food, child care and rent.

Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less.

“If they cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn’t actually help get them out of poverty, all you’ve done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people,” said Jason Rantz, host of the Jason Rantz show on 97.3 KIRO-FM.

How common is this? I don’t know. But it doesn’t seem like many people have been enabled to get less assistance after the raising of the minimum wage.

The notion that employees are intentionally working less to preserve their welfare has been a hot topic on talk radio. While the claims are difficult to track, state stats indeed suggest few are moving off welfare programs under the new wage.

Despite a booming economy throughout western Washington, the state’s welfare caseload has dropped very little since the higher wage phase began in Seattle in April. In March 130,851 people were enrolled in the Basic Food program. In April, the caseload dropped to 130,376.

The bottom line is that the government is distorting the economy by interfering in the employer-employee relationship with both minimum wage laws and welfare payments. The government needs to let people negotiate their lives with free people so that wages and prices are set at the right balance point. Every time the government “helps” someone it creates more problems, which it then attempts to solve with more “help” that creates yet more problems.

Via: Political Outcast

Continue Reading....