Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Real Impact of the Minimum Wage Hike in San Francisco

Aubrey Freedman, writes in the July issue of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco newsletter:
Government Magic Wand?

After our monthly LPSF meeting earlier this month, those of us who went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant (Ananda Fuara) got to witness the real-life consequences of what voters decide at the ballot box.  As we were preparing to pay the bill, one of our members noticed that one of the prices on the bill didn’t look quite right and questioned the waiter about it.  Our waiter told us that in fact the restaurant had recently raised all of its prices by $1 and laid off one of its employees in order to make ends meet after the minimum wage increase approved by the voters last November went into effect on May 1.  
 -RW 

2 comments:

  1. Lots of people make the argument, "I would gladly pay an extra dollar per item so that the people serving me make a living wage." Well, They are ignoring the second part of the equation....."and laid off one of it's employees to make ends meet." They don't care if an employer makes a smaller profit so that the employees can take home more wages. They don't care if customer's buying power is reduced by the resulting price inflation. Question is, do they care about those people, who are relatively poor compared to those who benefit from the minimum wage, who are now out of a job?

    From what I've seen, it seems supporters simply aggregate the data until they see a result that confirms their intentions. If, over all, raising the minimum wage nets positively, they will say it works and is good regardless of who, when you look at the individuals effected, are harmed. Kinda like how feminists trot out the 77% wage gap like they looked at the broad overall average and got the answer they were looking for so they didn't bother looking any deeper to understand why. Either very lazy research or very consequentialist, "ends justify the means" kind of rationalization.

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