If You Want To Know What Raising The Minimum Wage Does To The Economy, Look At Seattle

A crapton of liberals have been clamoring for minimum wage increases. Seattle is one of the main hubs of the “economic experiment,” and if it’s any indication of how it would work on a national scale, we don't want ANYTHING to do with it.

First, let’s state the obvious. Managers are taking on more work. Businesses are laying off workers. Companies are cutting employee benefits.  

But now, things are really starting to get real in liberal utopia.

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage is set to hit April 1^st, and they’re already suffering the consequences. Businesses are already shutting down or leaving town, and IT HASN’T EVEN OFFICIALLY STARTED YET.

Too bad no one warned them of the impending economic disaster.

“Washington Restaurant Association’s Anthony Anton puts it this way: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem.”

“He estimates that a common budget breakdown among sustaining Seattle restaurants so far has been the following: 36 percent of funds are devoted to labor, 30 percent to food costs and 30 percent go to everything else (all other operational costs).  The remaining 4 percent has been the profit margin, and as a result, in a $700,000 restaurant, he estimates that the average restauranteur in Seattle has been making $28,000 a year.

“With the minimum wage spike, however, he says that if restaurant owners made no changes, the labor cost in quick service restaurants would rise to 42 percent and in full service restaurants to 47 percent.”

So what does that mean? Yep. You guessed it. They’ll let people go, cut employee hours and raise prices. It’s not because they’re selfish mean business owners who want to hoard all their money. It’s a business. The idea is to make a profit, and they need that to function.

That’s the nature of business.

h/t American Thinker