DS: San Diego residents on Tuesday voted to raise the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 an hour beginning Jan. 1, producing an outcome that left few surprised but small business owners feeling resigned and disappointed as they now work to address increased labor costs.
More than 60 percent of San Diego voters supportedProposition I, a ballot measure raising the city’s minimum wage to $10.50 an hour, effective immediately, and $11.50 an hour at the start of 2017. The measure also guarantees five paid sick days to workers.
California’s statewide minimum wage is currently $10 an hour.
“Business owners are nervous and unhappy,” Ann Kinner, owner of San Diego’s Seabreeze Nautical Books and Charts, told The Daily Signal. “It’s done. We can’t argue about it anymore because it’s been settled for now, but it’s not going to have a good impact, and we’re waiting for the whatever to hit the fan.”
I’ll dive in and just go contrarian right away.
I think this is a great idea as the local business have for decades relied on cheap illegal alien labor to keep wages artificially depressed.
Now they are singing the blues because the law has been rewritten to negate their chicanery.
Yeah, I’m sobbing.
simple math example
you have a budget that you stay within to remain profitable
you can afford 100 employees across your franchise, making $10 per hour, meaning just over $2m per year, just for wages
you are forced to raise their pay to $12 per hour, meaning $500k per year increase in costs, just for wages
you now have to lay off 20% of your labor force, to remain at the same profit level
summary, 20% wage increase = 20% layoff
also, as you pay more, the low level employees, that is the ones whining about fairness, will ironically be replaced by those more qualified to earn the higher wage
Same pay as an Army E4.
We have one CA exempt employee and last year CA implemented 3 mandatory sick days so I just revised our HR policy to reduce PTO by 24 hours and add 24 hours of sick. Of course the employee is in SD so now I’ll have to swap another 16 hours. We already have very generous benefits but CA doesn’t consider PTO as mandatory sick days. Of course this adds to unnecessary administration etc.
They never expect the business to change their behavior but this won’t help anyone and will hurt honest employers and make it impossible for some to operate without making substantial changes to their business model.
I’M NO GENIUS, BUT HOW DOES THIS WORK IN A “BUYER’S MARKET”, WHERE 95 MILLION PEOPLE ARE OUT OF WORK??? WHEN THERE IS A GLUT OF PEOPLE NEEDING JOBS IN AN ECONOMY NOT PRODUCING JOBS, WHAT PRESSURE IS THERE TO PUSH WAGES HIGHER??
OH, THAT’S RIGHG!! ALL PART OF THE OBAMA ECONOMIC PERFECT STORM!!
So now the electorate is learning that not only can they vote themselves benefits from the public trough (more generous welfare benefits funded through higher taxes on the productive), but they can vote themselves higher wages by putting a gun to the heads of the private sector through minimum wage increases.
To quote the Iron Lady, “At some point you run out of other people’s money.”
So, Bud, you think it is good to toss free market economics in order to get social justice? Gotcha.
Higher wages = Higher taxes = Higher paid life-long politicians.
Make sense now?
At this rate, it’ll be the business owners who qualify for gov’t benefits, while the workers get kick off to dole for earning too much.
… kicked off the dole …
sheesh.
What a great idea!
But why were they pikers about it?
Why not go straight to $15 an hour?
Or $25?
Or $50?
Hell, why not just make it $100,000 per year?
Could there be business considerations?
I SMELL BULLSHIT!
izlamo delenda est …
Gee Uncle Al, what made you think we were living in a free market environment?
Do you think the average American worker was ever asked if they wanted their country flooded with cheap, illegal, foreign labor?
The U.S. chamber of commerce is one of the biggest cheerleaders for illegal immigration that there is in America outside of La Raza.
Gee Bud, I guess I should have been clearer:
So, Bud, you think it is good to toss out the last vestige of free market economics determine the market clearing price of labor in order to get social justice? Gotcha.
I don’t mean to be totally negative, though. The current labor market is grotesquely distorted by non-market forces to the detriment of American workers. We’re on the same page about that. What I object to is piling on more govt intervention in an attempt to right the wrongs instead of doing away with the prior govt crap that created the wrongs in the first place. The history of govt attempts at central planning is a tragic repeat of this series:
a. Pols declare there’s a problem in a way to bolster their election odds.
b. Legislators and/or regulators ignorantly charge in and make stupid laws and/or regulations.
c. The result of the laws/regs are always not only worsening the original situation but also creating more problems.
d. The new/worsened problems in (c) are used to iterate back to (a).
There’s no cure available by continuing this literally vicious cycle. Your heart is in the right place, but upping the min wage will not cure what ails us.
Your elected officials now get to determine just about everyone’s salary and, most importantly, their own!
Once the economy is turned around wages will have a better chance of going up for entry level employees. For the last 89 months the outlook for labor has been under relentless attack by poor decisions and policies. Growth as near to zero ever, new taxes on business and salaries, inflation, regulations, fees, licenses, mandatory purchases, and unemployment at ‘great depression’ levels.
Sure, lets pile more on the small business tycoons!
Thank goodness that Obola saved the economy and we can now afford to pay useless, worthless, stand-around-with-their-thumbs-up-their-asses, dumb-ass moronic college social “studies” graduates $12 per hour to ask what kind of latte you want!
All praise Obola!
Mmm mmm mmm … Barack Hussein Obola … mmm mmm mmm …
izlamo delenda est …