Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage

[my2¢]

Generally, restaurants go out of business because their food and/or service sucks.

That's how I feel but I wouldn't discount the fact that expectations for a $12 meal are greater than one which costs $10.

 

[Iceweasel]

Restaurants rarely go out of business because of price. If the food is good, people will go there to eat. Restaurants fail all the time. Price of food is at the very bottom of the list of reasons of failure.

Asking business owners to pay people a livable wage isn't unreasonable. If a business owner cannot afford to pay people a livable wage, then perhaps they shouldn't be running a business.

Again with the livable qualifier. I had low paying jobs but lived within my means. I'm still here so I obviously lived. Nobody owes you a living. Want more pay? Work your way up or get a better job.

 

[danielpalos]

Maybe they should not pass the wage increase on to the consumer. Sooner or later these business owners need to take the hit.

They're trying. More and more fast food places are implementing self-service kiosks here in California. I don't blame them either.

I so doubt that this is due to the wage increase, shame on them for paying min wage in the state to begin with. The cost of living is high in San Diego, and that is all they make. There comes a time when the worker just needs to say hell with it when the business owners want to get rich off their backs. I bet they do not even cost share health insurance. Self serve, well we all know waitresses do not make min wage.

You've obviously never been associated with a restaurant. It's a brutal business with very low margins and extreme swings in business climate. Plus there are very few businesses that I know of that could handle a 43% increase in labor costs over 2 years. I know it would put my business down, of course if I saw it coming I wouldn't wait, I'd get out immediately.

Henry Ford doubled autoworker wages not minimum wages.

 

[Iceweasel]

I knew a European restaurant owner, he said if it wasn't for alcohol sales he couldn't make it. A table without a wine bottle was a loser.

 

[Iceweasel]

Henry Ford doubled autoworker wages not minimum wages.

...because he was selling cars as fast as he could build them.

 

[danielpalos]

Generally, restaurants go out of business because their food and/or service sucks.

That's how I feel but I wouldn't discount the fact that expectations for a $12 meal are greater than one which costs $10.

Even the dollar menu won't double.

 

[danielpalos]

Restaurants rarely go out of business because of price. If the food is good, people will go there to eat. Restaurants fail all the time. Price of food is at the very bottom of the list of reasons of failure.

Asking business owners to pay people a livable wage isn't unreasonable. If a business owner cannot afford to pay people a livable wage, then perhaps they shouldn't be running a business.

Again with the livable qualifier. I had low paying jobs but lived within my means. I'm still here so I obviously lived. Nobody owes you a living. Want more pay? Work your way up or get a better job.

Capitalists get a tax preference for capital gains and a tax break for labor costs.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

I so doubt that this is due to the wage increase

That's because you're ignorant and stupid and couldn't derive a profit from a lemonade stand.

 

[Iceweasel]

Restaurants rarely go out of business because of price. If the food is good, people will go there to eat. Restaurants fail all the time. Price of food is at the very bottom of the list of reasons of failure.

Asking business owners to pay people a livable wage isn't unreasonable. If a business owner cannot afford to pay people a livable wage, then perhaps they shouldn't be running a business.

Again with the livable qualifier. I had low paying jobs but lived within my means. I'm still here so I obviously lived. Nobody owes you a living. Want more pay? Work your way up or get a better job.

Capitalists get a tax preference for capital gains and a tax break for labor costs.

Where? Capital gains doesn't happen until you sell property. Property you've already paid taxes on. Small business gets no tax break, you need to be Google for that.

 

[baileyn45]

Henry Ford doubled autoworker wages not minimum wages.

...because he was selling cars as fast as he could build them.

Not to mention he didn't have much in the way of established competition.

 

[pwjohn]

Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”

The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.

Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.

As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.

A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.

Another telltale is San Diego, where voters approved increasing the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 per hour from $10.50, this after the minimum wage was increased from $8 an hour in 2015 – meaning hourly costs have risen 43 percent in two years.

The cost increases have pushed San Diego restaurants to the brink, Stephen Zolezzi, president of the Food and Beverage Association of San Diego County, told the San Diego Business Journal. Watch for the next mass die-off there...

Luckily, I live in the central coast area between L.A. and San Francisco, so this area hasn't gone as extreme left as those parts of California.

Mar 15, 2016 ... Around 60 percent of new restaurants fail within the first year. And nearly 80 percent shutter before their fifth anniversary. Often, the No. 1 reason is simply location — and the general lack of self-awareness that you have no business actually being in that location.

 

[Divine Wind]

Maybe they should not pass the wage increase on to the consumer. Sooner or later these business owners need to take the hit.

The only way to do that is to nationalize all restaurants. Just think about it; government-run cafeteria's staffed by $30K/year public union workers who have both a pension and nearly a lifetime job.

 

[danielpalos]

Restaurants rarely go out of business because of price. If the food is good, people will go there to eat. Restaurants fail all the time. Price of food is at the very bottom of the list of reasons of failure.

Asking business owners to pay people a livable wage isn't unreasonable. If a business owner cannot afford to pay people a livable wage, then perhaps they shouldn't be running a business.

Again with the livable qualifier. I had low paying jobs but lived within my means. I'm still here so I obviously lived. Nobody owes you a living. Want more pay? Work your way up or get a better job.

Capitalists get a tax preference for capital gains and a tax break for labor costs.

Where? Capital gains doesn't happen until you sell property. Property you've already paid taxes on. Small business gets no tax break, you need to be Google for that.

Capitalists invest capital and get a capital gains preference, if they keep that investment for over a year.

 

[danielpalos]

Henry Ford doubled autoworker wages not minimum wages.

...because he was selling cars as fast as he could build them.

Not to mention he didn't have much in the way of established competition.

He innovated and reaped that capital reward.

 

[Divine Wind]

Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”

The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.

Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.

As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.

A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.

Another telltale is San Diego, where voters approved increasing the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 per hour from $10.50, this after the minimum wage was increased from $8 an hour in 2015 – meaning hourly costs have risen 43 percent in two years.

The cost increases have pushed San Diego restaurants to the brink, Stephen Zolezzi, president of the Food and Beverage Association of San Diego County, told the San Diego Business Journal. Watch for the next mass die-off there...

Luckily, I live in the central coast area between L.A. and San Francisco, so this area hasn't gone as extreme left as those parts of California.

Mar 15, 2016 ... Around 60 percent of new restaurants fail within the first year. And nearly 80 percent shutter before their fifth anniversary. Often, the No. 1 reason is simply location — and the general lack of self-awareness that you have no business actually being in that location.

Correct about new restaurants failing, but everyone who actually read the article knows that isn't the case here.

Are you trying to say the Fresno (or Modesto) Bee is a RW blog?

Joining San Francisco’s restaurant die-off was rising star AQ, which in 2012 was named a James Beard Award finalist for the best new restaurant in America. The restaurant’s profit margins went from a reported 8.5 percent in 2012 to 1.5 percent by 2015. Most restaurants are thought to require margins of 3 and 5 percent.

If what’s happening with one early adopter of the $15 wage progression is any indication, locally famous inland hash houses and burger joints from Calexico to the Cow Counties will disappear as mandated wages climb to $15 statewide. And that will only be the start of things.

 

[baileyn45]

Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”

The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.

Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.

As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.

A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.

Another telltale is San Diego, where voters approved increasing the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 per hour from $10.50, this after the minimum wage was increased from $8 an hour in 2015 – meaning hourly costs have risen 43 percent in two years.

The cost increases have pushed San Diego restaurants to the brink, Stephen Zolezzi, president of the Food and Beverage Association of San Diego County, told the San Diego Business Journal. Watch for the next mass die-off there...

Luckily, I live in the central coast area between L.A. and San Francisco, so this area hasn't gone as extreme left as those parts of California.

Mar 15, 2016 ... Around 60 percent of new restaurants fail within the first year. And nearly 80 percent shutter before their fifth anniversary. Often, the No. 1 reason is simply location — and the general lack of self-awareness that you have no business actually being in that location.

The right wing prefers to "blame the poor". Those Firms would have probably failed anyway.

No one is blaming the poor, we just can't seem to get it across to those not in business that artificially increasing the costs on a business has consequences. Not every job can support a family of 4. And raising labor costs by 43% in 2 years is not a small burden.

 

[Divine Wind]

Maybe they should not pass the wage increase on to the consumer. Sooner or later these business owners need to take the hit.

They're trying. More and more fast food places are implementing self-service kiosks here in California. I don't blame them either.

Agreed. While the Democrat answer is usually "Just raise taxes", what that meme doesn't say is that 50% of Zero income equals Zero taxes. Can't tax what isn't there. Driving businesses out of business isn't conducive to providing jobs for workers. The article mentions a common sense middle ground; phased in wage increases and not all across the board:

Oregon’s minimum-wage law is phased, with increases over six years. By 2022, the minimum will be $14.75 an hour in Portland, $13.50 in midsize counties and $12.50 in rural areas.

“That makes sense,” Thornberg told the Sun. “That’s logical.”

California is even more varied economically than Oregon. Thornberg believes hiking wages in blanket fashion will spark layoffs and edge low-skilled workers out of the job market.

In the Central Valley, wages for all workers, on average, are lower than those of the coastal counties.

U.S. Census Bureau data show about 21 percent of workers in Bakersfield earned from $8 to $12 per hour in 2015, the most recent year for which data was available. In Fresno, 32 percent of workers were in that wage group, and in Modesto about 25 percent. Contrast that with Santa Clara County, home of Silicon Valley, which registered only 12.5 percent at that level.

The state’s diverse unemployment rates tell a similar tale. Unemployment in Bakersfield was 9.5 percent; 8.8 percent in Fresno, and Stanislaus County notched 7.9 percent. Compare that to Silicon Valley’s unemployment rate – 3.2 percent

 

[danielpalos]

Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”

The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.

Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.

As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.

A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.

Another telltale is San Diego, where voters approved increasing the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 per hour from $10.50, this after the minimum wage was increased from $8 an hour in 2015 – meaning hourly costs have risen 43 percent in two years.

The cost increases have pushed San Diego restaurants to the brink, Stephen Zolezzi, president of the Food and Beverage Association of San Diego County, told the San Diego Business Journal. Watch for the next mass die-off there...

Luckily, I live in the central coast area between L.A. and San Francisco, so this area hasn't gone as extreme left as those parts of California.

Mar 15, 2016 ... Around 60 percent of new restaurants fail within the first year. And nearly 80 percent shutter before their fifth anniversary. Often, the No. 1 reason is simply location — and the general lack of self-awareness that you have no business actually being in that location.

Correct about new restaurants failing, but everyone who actually read the article knows that isn't the case here.

Are you trying to say the Fresno (or Modesto) Bee is a RW blog?

Joining San Francisco’s restaurant die-off was rising star AQ, which in 2012 was named a James Beard Award finalist for the best new restaurant in America. The restaurant’s profit margins went from a reported 8.5 percent in 2012 to 1.5 percent by 2015. Most restaurants are thought to require margins of 3 and 5 percent.

If what’s happening with one early adopter of the $15 wage progression is any indication, locally famous inland hash houses and burger joints from Calexico to the Cow Counties will disappear as mandated wages climb to $15 statewide. And that will only be the start of things.

The Art of Cookery is not fungible with the Art of making Profit.

 

[danielpalos]

Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”

The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.

Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.

As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.

A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.

Another telltale is San Diego, where voters approved increasing the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 per hour from $10.50, this after the minimum wage was increased from $8 an hour in 2015 – meaning hourly costs have risen 43 percent in two years.

The cost increases have pushed San Diego restaurants to the brink, Stephen Zolezzi, president of the Food and Beverage Association of San Diego County, told the San Diego Business Journal. Watch for the next mass die-off there...

Luckily, I live in the central coast area between L.A. and San Francisco, so this area hasn't gone as extreme left as those parts of California.

Mar 15, 2016 ... Around 60 percent of new restaurants fail within the first year. And nearly 80 percent shutter before their fifth anniversary. Often, the No. 1 reason is simply location — and the general lack of self-awareness that you have no business actually being in that location.

The right wing prefers to "blame the poor". Those Firms would have probably failed anyway.

No one is blaming the poor, we just can't seem to get it across to those not in business that artificially increasing the costs on a business has consequences. Not every job can support a family of 4. And raising labor costs by 43% in 2 years is not a small burden.

Why should we care; social services cost around fourteen dollars an hour anyway.

 

[baileyn45]

I don't know about you but I care because I would prefer to see businesses thrive and people gainfully employed as opposed to being reliant on government handouts. The more government handouts the more burden placed on businesses and those currently employed.