Voters will soon learn that the costs imposed by minimum wage hikes do not go away just because they are invisible.
FEE:
Portland House of Pizza has been around for 30 years. Restaurant manager Craig Allare hopes it will be around another 30 years.
But now he’s left trying to figure out how to keep that dream alive after the passage of a minimum wage hike that has many businesses in Portland, Maine worried.
“It’s going to hurt everyone. It’s not like we have money trees out in the back parking lot. You have to make money to pay money,” Allare told a local news outlet. “Some places will go out of business.”
While Florida, which on Tuesday passed a $15 an hour minimum wage referendum, was the only state to have the minimum wage on the ballot in 2020, some localities also voted on the issue.
One of those cities was Portland, the largest city in Maine. The referendum sought to increase the minimum wage from $12 an hour to $15 by 2024. The measure also mandated that workers receive time and a half during a civil emergency (like, say, a pandemic). read more
And when the cost of living in Portland goes up because of the minimum wage boost, those earning minimum wage will complain that they aren’t earning a living wage and ask for more. And the politicians and ill-educated electorate will start the damned cycle all over again.
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Glad I’m retired. This world is insane.
These morons don’t understand that the real minimum wage is always zero. Lay somebody off to save on the payroll budget, and that’s their new wage.
The old school way to make more money by increasing your level of skill, to be more valuable to an employer, has gone out of fashion.
Why work to increase your knowledge and skill level, to enable yourself to make more money. Or risk your life trying to rob someone for more money? When you can hire a professional thief to do the robbing for you by voting them into office, and let them steal the money for you.
They are smart thieves. They make their robbery on behalf of constituents legal. When they can’t make a type of thievery legal, they become democrats, and get a pass for the illegal theft. However, they do that type of illegal theft to enrich themselves, their families, or friends. Not for their constituents.
As Limbaugh asked one day, “Why not $50”, I have been reading Amity Shleas’ “Forgotten Man” which points out that this fiscal lunacy has been going on since comrade roosevelt.
As Cynic points out above, the minimum wage is zero and always has been. And frankly, I believe it unconstitutional for the central government to insert itself into the contracts between citizens…..
Meh……It’s Portland.
Let them stew in their own juices.
It takes less that 10 minutes to drive through on the turnpike.
Someone failed basic economics 101.
Wife: “What’s this $80 charge at Portland House Of Pizza?”
Husband: “That’s for the 3 topping medium pizza last week.”
“But now he’s left trying to figure out how to keep that dream alive after the passage of a minimum wage hike … ”
The answer to that should be obvious: Robotics and other automation that require fewer or no people to accomplish the task at hand.
People work for wages, robots work for electrons.
Get on the new road or get off it and stay out of the way of others, the future can’t be put on hold.
Portland, ME has become a dirty sh**hole.
They also passed rent control. No landlord will be allowed to change rents for 5 yrs. So guess what happens? Rents will be doubled so they won’t be in trouble and unable to pay mortgages. There will be a lot of empty buildings.
Small businesses are already issuing announcements they will be leaving.
When you go up to The Hill, Munjoy Hill on the East End, which overlooks the ocean, the number of license plates from NY and CA and MA almost outnumber the Maine plates. The area is also being taken over by the homosexual crowd.
They ran from the failed policies of where they were living and came here to ruin it too.
Hopefully their stupidity doesn’t leak over the bridge to South Portland. We just finished remodeling the house.
As if I didn’t have a good enough reason to visit Maine ever. And they can keep demonically possessed Steven (potty mouth) King After he’s telling President Trump to effing resign.
When the minimum wage can no longer pay the cost of living a minimally acceptable lifestyle, why do people always try to raise the minimum wage and never look for ways to reduce the cost of living so the current wage will will cover it?
That seems to be a taboo subject for some reason.
FWIW, back when minimum wages first got their start they were intended to insure a man working full time (40 hours a week or more)was able to earn enough to keep himself and his family, considered a wife and two children then, living at or above the poverty level.
Times have changed, haven’t they?
I love how libs vote for things that they think they won’t have to pay for. This reminds me of CAFE standards the liberals want for cars. Let Congress vote for all cars to get 100 MPG by 2021.
Good and hard, baby. You’re gonna get what you voted for good and hard.
And what happens with the workers that we’re making $18 an hour?
After working their way up the ladder which is considerable time and skill? Now they’re making minimum wage, go figure.
It seems like the East and West portlands are racing to the bottom.
A “living wage” today, guaranteed income next because why should we have to work?
And the patrons to Portland restaurants will stop leaving a tip, and the workers will suffer a net loss of income. For other business, people will shop out of town where the prices are better.
@geoff, Northern and Western Maine are all Trump country.
Pretty much Cumberland County and the coast are liberals.
Go visit up north or the lakes region.
It’s more relaxing anyway.
$25 for a plain cheese pizza and a 2 liter soda.
Goodbye business. Goodbye jobs.
@Bubba – liberals frequently want impossible things.
VDH in the youtube video, “Victor Davis Hanson | US Election 2020”. Stated to John Anderson that liberals want hardwood floors, but also want to stop the cutting down of trees.
[the liberal also want us to believe an incompetent can be POTUS and was elected, but that is a different story]
It would almost be worth moving to Maine for the pay raise. Tell me, are there any actual minimum wage, no experience jobs available there?
Fired fracking industry workers will move from PA to Maine to work in those “good paying” jobs that will be sprouting up in all the pizza shops very soon.
In a related story, Maine braces for a hike in unemployment claims…
An employer says, “I’ll pay you $X for doing this amount of work.”
The applicant can say “Okay” or bargain: “I want $X + $2.”
The employer can say “Okay” or bargain: “I’ll compromise and pay $X + $1.”
The applicant can say “Okay” or look for a job elsewhere.
They just made a contract with no coercion. If the employer doesn’t pay, the employee can quit any time. If the employee doesn’t do the work, the employer can fire him.
Minimum wage is indeed $0 – ever hear of internships, where someone agrees to work for free in order to gain experience they wouldn’t be able to otherwise?
Guess what, snowflake. Your McD job ain’t worth $15/hr – that’s why they’re putting in kiosks all over the country. You’ll never get enough hours to qualify for benefits like insurance, and you can be easily replaced if you make waves.