{"id":32623,"date":"2015-09-05T04:00:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T08:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=32623"},"modified":"2015-09-04T21:27:07","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T01:27:07","slug":"raising-the-minimum-wage-also-means-raising-prices-for-many-retailers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/09\/05\/raising-the-minimum-wage-also-means-raising-prices-for-many-retailers\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising the minimum wage also means raising prices for many retailers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louis DeBroux<\/a> on the plight of some marginal businesses in California who are seeing lower support from their customers as they raise prices to ensure they can keep paying their current employees at the new mandated minimum wage:<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, labor unions in Los Angeles whipped up low-wage workers into a frenzy with demands for a minimum \u201cliving\u201d wage of $15 per hour. They achieved their goal and the $15\/hour wage bill was signed into law. This was supposed to be a huge victory for the workers (though, it should be noted, within days of the law going into effect, the same labor unions that lobbied for the $15\/hour minimum wage were lobbying government for an exemption for union companies, so that union companies could pay well below the new minimum wage).<\/p>\n

Even so, some California business owners decided to show solidarity with the cause of low-wage workers, significantly increasing their starting wage of their own volition.<\/p>\n

Vic Gumper, owner of Lanesplitter Pizza (with stores in Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, and Emeryville, California), voluntarily raised wages for his employees to between $15 to $25 per hour. In order to cover the cost of the higher \u201cliving\u201d wage, Gumper began advertising $30 \u201cliving wage pizzas\u201d to his customers, which include patrons from the Pixar Animation Studios and biotech companies located near his shops. In doing so he declared these pizzas \u201csustainably served, really \u2026 no tips necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n

The result? Sales have dropped by 25% as liberals in these communities have balked at having to pony up more money for the pizzas. The hit has been so significant that Gumper has had to close during lunch hour at several locations (think about that\u2026a restaurant that has to close during LUNCH because it can\u2019t afford to stay open!).<\/p>\n

Gumper says that \u201cThe necessity of paying a living wage in the Bay Area [which has one of the highest costs of living in the nation] is clear, so it\u2019s hard to argue against it, and it\u2019s something I\u2019m really proud to be able to try doing\u2026At the same time, I\u2019m terrified of going out of business after 18 years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There really isn’t a free lunch … if you use the power of government to raise the costs of doing business, either the local businesses pass on that increased cost by way of the prices they charge to their customers or they economize by reducing their labour costs (and the number of employees they support). A more drastic solution is going out of business or moving out of the jurisdiction: neither of which is typically considered during the legislative process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louis DeBroux on the plight of some marginal businesses in California who are seeing lower support from their customers as they raise prices to ensure they can keep paying their current employees at the new mandated minimum wage: Earlier this year, labor unions in Los Angeles whipped up low-wage workers into a frenzy with demands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,25,84],"tags":[35,95,96],"class_list":["post-32623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-economics","category-government","tag-california","tag-jobs","tag-minimumwage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8ub","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32624,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32623\/revisions\/32624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}