Minimum wages (and unions) are market distorters, just like Trump's tariffs.
Someone needed to say it.
Bernie's 'every American deserves to make a living wage' is just as useful as Trump's 'build a wall to keep illegals out' -- both statements make their respective bases feel heard but are absolutely baseless policies that only play out in voters' fantasies.
If minimum wages are forced to be high enough to afford people "a life," then there simply won't be enough jobs to pay any wages (see: Denver restaurants) to an increasingly larger number of people.
Minimum wages exacerbate the haves and the have nots: the people who score the shrinking share of minimum wage jobs do better, while a larger cohort end up unemployed.
The Left continues to be seduced by economic band-aids that prove out to be unsustainable when they touch grass.
Living in the Portland, Maine area I am well acquainted with what is going on here!
"An annual salary of approximately $105,955 is estimated to be needed for a single adult to live comfortably in Colorado" is what popped up on Google AI. Further cursory search returned a 1br apartment at $16-1800 month average. And a 9% above national average cost of living .
I think this is the "meat&potatoes" of this problem (pun intended), which explains why a girl in the article was saying after the law passed and she was making like $30-$50/hr. she was relieved that she could finally pay bills and buy groceries too, however she said she still is struggling to make ends meet even on that large an increase. This isn't a "the wages are too damn high" problem! This is a "If you want to have a business to complain about running, you need to have staff to work in it, and those staff need a place to live&the expenses that come along with that first and foremost,and also they need to be able to still pay some basic bills and buy groceries,etc. problem" .
Dogpiling on them or looking to claw back wages because these workers (whom we've long since justified we "need" to stay at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder so the meritocracy can comfortably afford to "have nice things" like restaurant meals, which hinges on an abundant permanent underclass dependent on sub-poverty wages. Which, sickeningly, seems to quickly come out as the root issue in every garment-rending ,teeth gnashing pleas I hear from Lefties decrying the "social injustices" of immigration crackdowns, it's as if they don't even HEAR themselves!) should esteem to have things as fucking fundamentally basic to show for all their work as the security & peace of mind of paying the rent on time AND buying food AND not have their lights or phone shut off (you know, so you can inevitably call them last minute on their day off "asking-but-not-really-asking" to cover for people who disproportionately don't show up for shifts at restaurants and the reason why is in the question) is NOT the answer here.
I feel like the last couple people have the right idea: move to a service charge and get rid of tipping. France made service charge at restaurants mandatory in the 80s and basically eliminated obligatory tipping that way and I'd personally love to do the same.
LA is struggling a ton and I think the lack of business traffic post-covid is underappreciated factor here. Fewer fat business dinners and lunches with expensive wines filling out the margins because so many people are working remotely. If there’s high office vacancy, then there’s going to be substantially tighter margins.
I am a restaurant owner and this is spot on. The one fair wage group comes to Maryland every year and every year it gets shot down after the majority of employees testify against it, to say nothing of restaurant owners.
They just put up a ballot initiative in their home state of Massachusetts and it failed by a 2-1 margin.
DC passed a bill ending tipped minimum wage via ballot initiative and they’ve since paused it given the unintended but entirely predictable consequences.
Genuine question: why does the post focus so much on independently-owned restaurants? Is it simply because the writer / audience likely see them as more worthy and sympathetic than chains? Or are chains not being hit nearly as hard by the business environment in Colorado?
Portland is suffering from the same phenomenon. Minimum wage is $16.30 with no tip credit. It’s a city whose strongest asset is its food scene and that asset is struggling. Very few restaurants have full service anymore. It’s extremely common for relatively high end restaurants to serve food from a counter and ask you to bus your own tray. It stings extra when they flip the screen over and ask if you want to leave a 20, 25, or 30 percent tip. Blue states really do need to start taking this issue seriously
Well - leaving aside the whole tipping excitement and debate (as it seems rather passionate and not very rational), there is perhaps a more structural observation:
1. It seems much of Progressive agenda is conceptualized heavily around a very Large Corporate understanding of business, lens agenda and policy throught that in an overweight manner
2. There is not real attention to Small Business in terms of possible unintended side effects or differential burden on the classic Mom & Pop small biz versus larger biz (of which I would include franchises that can draw on Master Franchise support in bureaucracy terms).
not to fetishize Small Business (whatever small biz, farmer, etc) role or utility in economic sphere (too often done) but taking as a hook point into the overall climate where MAGA frustrations seem to align with parts of not only the Lefty D autistic focus on the cultural mores and agenda of specifically really 4 year plus college gradautes socio-political preferences, but also a frustration with a system that is Big Boys weighted - so yes some parts of that may be Big Corps - but heavy and complex regulation in general weights playing fields to larger actors as larger actors more easily address and deal with the thousand cuts of red tape.
Where I live, Washington State, years before Covid, Seattle raised the minimum wage. Academics at the University of Washington saw the opportunity and ran a one-year study. They found that fewer people had a job. Of course, this had no effect on the left-wing ideologues on the city council.
Then Jay Insley, governor during Covid, placed untenable constraints on small, sit-down restaurants. An excellent, immigrant run Thai restaurant, and a nice, about $30 a plate restaurant in my small suburb failed. But he was a leader against global warming.
It’s strange, given their rhetoric, how Progressive policies harm the small guy. It’s also very strange in your account that fewer assaults, car jackings, shots and murders in DC since Trump took over policing is harming the restaurant scene. In my mind, Trump earns much condemnation, but restaurants?
Thank you for this Halina. I forwarded it to several friends with restaurants in Denver to find out where they are at in the mix.
Minimum wages (and unions) are market distorters, just like Trump's tariffs.
Someone needed to say it.
Bernie's 'every American deserves to make a living wage' is just as useful as Trump's 'build a wall to keep illegals out' -- both statements make their respective bases feel heard but are absolutely baseless policies that only play out in voters' fantasies.
If minimum wages are forced to be high enough to afford people "a life," then there simply won't be enough jobs to pay any wages (see: Denver restaurants) to an increasingly larger number of people.
Minimum wages exacerbate the haves and the have nots: the people who score the shrinking share of minimum wage jobs do better, while a larger cohort end up unemployed.
The Left continues to be seduced by economic band-aids that prove out to be unsustainable when they touch grass.
Living in the Portland, Maine area I am well acquainted with what is going on here!
"An annual salary of approximately $105,955 is estimated to be needed for a single adult to live comfortably in Colorado" is what popped up on Google AI. Further cursory search returned a 1br apartment at $16-1800 month average. And a 9% above national average cost of living .
I think this is the "meat&potatoes" of this problem (pun intended), which explains why a girl in the article was saying after the law passed and she was making like $30-$50/hr. she was relieved that she could finally pay bills and buy groceries too, however she said she still is struggling to make ends meet even on that large an increase. This isn't a "the wages are too damn high" problem! This is a "If you want to have a business to complain about running, you need to have staff to work in it, and those staff need a place to live&the expenses that come along with that first and foremost,and also they need to be able to still pay some basic bills and buy groceries,etc. problem" .
Dogpiling on them or looking to claw back wages because these workers (whom we've long since justified we "need" to stay at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder so the meritocracy can comfortably afford to "have nice things" like restaurant meals, which hinges on an abundant permanent underclass dependent on sub-poverty wages. Which, sickeningly, seems to quickly come out as the root issue in every garment-rending ,teeth gnashing pleas I hear from Lefties decrying the "social injustices" of immigration crackdowns, it's as if they don't even HEAR themselves!) should esteem to have things as fucking fundamentally basic to show for all their work as the security & peace of mind of paying the rent on time AND buying food AND not have their lights or phone shut off (you know, so you can inevitably call them last minute on their day off "asking-but-not-really-asking" to cover for people who disproportionately don't show up for shifts at restaurants and the reason why is in the question) is NOT the answer here.
THE RENT IS (STILL) TOO DAMN HIGH!
I feel like the last couple people have the right idea: move to a service charge and get rid of tipping. France made service charge at restaurants mandatory in the 80s and basically eliminated obligatory tipping that way and I'd personally love to do the same.
Did the Denver restaurant association pay you to write this?
I would need a source for that, but if so, probably due to the reversal of immigrant flows.
Bottom line: Denver has went Democrat, when it was mostly Republican and heavily Democrat cities are doing what heavily Democrat cities do!
Great piece! I’d love to read something about how Denver’s high minimum wages are affecting the child care market/landscape
LA is struggling a ton and I think the lack of business traffic post-covid is underappreciated factor here. Fewer fat business dinners and lunches with expensive wines filling out the margins because so many people are working remotely. If there’s high office vacancy, then there’s going to be substantially tighter margins.
I am a restaurant owner and this is spot on. The one fair wage group comes to Maryland every year and every year it gets shot down after the majority of employees testify against it, to say nothing of restaurant owners.
They just put up a ballot initiative in their home state of Massachusetts and it failed by a 2-1 margin.
DC passed a bill ending tipped minimum wage via ballot initiative and they’ve since paused it given the unintended but entirely predictable consequences.
Genuine question: why does the post focus so much on independently-owned restaurants? Is it simply because the writer / audience likely see them as more worthy and sympathetic than chains? Or are chains not being hit nearly as hard by the business environment in Colorado?
People like a labor intensive service but don't want to pay the cost. Go to a park and have a picnic.
Do they have free wifi?
Boy do they! And free needles too!
Portland is suffering from the same phenomenon. Minimum wage is $16.30 with no tip credit. It’s a city whose strongest asset is its food scene and that asset is struggling. Very few restaurants have full service anymore. It’s extremely common for relatively high end restaurants to serve food from a counter and ask you to bus your own tray. It stings extra when they flip the screen over and ask if you want to leave a 20, 25, or 30 percent tip. Blue states really do need to start taking this issue seriously
A great read Halina!! Thanks ❤️❤️❤️Mimi
Well - leaving aside the whole tipping excitement and debate (as it seems rather passionate and not very rational), there is perhaps a more structural observation:
1. It seems much of Progressive agenda is conceptualized heavily around a very Large Corporate understanding of business, lens agenda and policy throught that in an overweight manner
2. There is not real attention to Small Business in terms of possible unintended side effects or differential burden on the classic Mom & Pop small biz versus larger biz (of which I would include franchises that can draw on Master Franchise support in bureaucracy terms).
not to fetishize Small Business (whatever small biz, farmer, etc) role or utility in economic sphere (too often done) but taking as a hook point into the overall climate where MAGA frustrations seem to align with parts of not only the Lefty D autistic focus on the cultural mores and agenda of specifically really 4 year plus college gradautes socio-political preferences, but also a frustration with a system that is Big Boys weighted - so yes some parts of that may be Big Corps - but heavy and complex regulation in general weights playing fields to larger actors as larger actors more easily address and deal with the thousand cuts of red tape.
Where I live, Washington State, years before Covid, Seattle raised the minimum wage. Academics at the University of Washington saw the opportunity and ran a one-year study. They found that fewer people had a job. Of course, this had no effect on the left-wing ideologues on the city council.
Then Jay Insley, governor during Covid, placed untenable constraints on small, sit-down restaurants. An excellent, immigrant run Thai restaurant, and a nice, about $30 a plate restaurant in my small suburb failed. But he was a leader against global warming.
It’s strange, given their rhetoric, how Progressive policies harm the small guy. It’s also very strange in your account that fewer assaults, car jackings, shots and murders in DC since Trump took over policing is harming the restaurant scene. In my mind, Trump earns much condemnation, but restaurants?