In October, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said he would work on ways to ensure the new higher minimum wage that would take effect Jan. 1, 2025 would not impact small businesses.
“Our office convened discussions to help address the concerns of all stakeholders. As the tip credit expires, we are committed to aggressively addressing many of the pressures facing small restaurants moving forward – from public safety to inflation, insurance, and a wide array of other cost pressures, including best practices in addressing the absence of a tip credit.
“I will be continuing our conversations with small businesses to identify tangible and actionable ways we can help make Seattle more affordable. We want successful, prosperous, and vibrant small businesses and entrepreneurs in our city, and we are committed to addressing these challenges, keeping existing small businesses here in Seattle, and ensuring this is a place where anyone has the opportunity to start a small business and succeed.”
But at the New Year, small businesses have started closing their doors to the public, or closing altogether, now that the minimum wage is $20.76.
Bebop Waffle Shop is one of those businesses. The owner told reporters that the new wage would cost the business more than $32,000 a year in added costs, and putting the owner in an impossible position. After 10 years, she closed her business.
The flower shop next door stopped taking walk-in customers, in order to balance out the additional costs, the owner told KIRO news. Now, it’s phone or online orders only.
“Seattle has one of the highest minimum wages in the country – this is a good thing for workers, a good thing for our overall economy, and something we should take pride in,” Harrell said in October. “As one of the leading members of the original team who developed Seattle’s groundbreaking minimum wage legislation, my mission is the same now as it was then – ensuring Seattle is both a great place for workers and a great place for small businesses.”
“It’s just not sustainable,” said Anthony Anton, president and CEO of the Washington Hospitality Association.
Also this week, one of the major Starbucks stores in the Pike Street Market area of downtown Seattle closed. In the past, the company has warned it was worried about safety of its workers in the increasingly dangerous downtown area.
Hmmm(?), is this story about Seattle or … Anchorage?
Sounds very similar to what’s occurring in Anchorage?
A great example of the consequences of liberal leadership!
And the consequences of voting feelings over reality.
Oh no, small business can’t just raise prices the way our smart government folks raise taxes to get more money?
Who could guess.
That’s the way of communism, it kills everything around it.
Worth mentioning: The Bebop Waffle shop owner was on video crying about closing her business while claiming she still supports the minimum wage increase. 🤔
The fallacy of a minimum wage (at any level) is that the government can dictate the worth of the worker to the business. As the minimum wage rises, it becomes increasingly likely that the workers’ value to the business is not equivalent to the required wage (and taxes and benefits, etc). The business then either lays off or, as noted, closes down.
A close corollary is the simple falsehood that a minimum wage should be a lifetime “livable” wage: low pay goes with entry level, minimum responsibility positions. Want more money? Grow in the ability to serve the business and, if the business does not reward you properly, vote with your feet. Minimum wage requirements, particularly those as draconian as in Seattle, are significant encumbrances on a vibrant economy and impact the ability of both employers and employees to offer valid bargained-for exchange of service for wages.
Liberal Democrats all come from academia where everything is learned from books. No real world experience. Here’s how I see it, accomplish two goals with one swipe. Force small business to die and increase the need for AI and automation. That way we all become dependent on the government.
We will be seeing closures in Alaska, since we continue to mandate unsustainable minimum wage levels and now we’ve added paid time off for these minimum qualification positions. A “meal” for one at McDognalds will now be $25 instead of the outrageous $20 that it was at the end of last year. Inflation isn’t done since the electorate decided to continue the astronomical inflation seen during the Biden Administration.
I’m all for a living wage, for those who show a little gumption and ability to make a living wage…whatever that is. I’m not for government mandated participation trophies that cause the economy to tank and bring down the value of everyone’s dollar which then makes everything cost even more. If leftists think just adding a zero to every dollar bill somehow makes a living wage they’ve obviously not studied history or math.
They get what they voted for just like Anchorage and the state.
This is the government involved in private businesses.
The government is here to help close private business because an entry level job only pays so much. If people want more mommy then they can get a better job and if business owners need help then they can pay more.
Bottom line the consumer gets stuck either way the increase.
Government get out of private business.
The tax payers will subsidize low wage workers via welfare, for example most Walmart employees also receive food stamps and other forms of public assistance. The jobs our teenagers once worked ( agriculture and service sector) are now taken by immigrant and low education adults who stay in those positions permanently if possible. Worshiping the economy at the expense of the founding stock has ruined America, predatory capitalism is no better than and fuels communism.
Another Democrat stronghold goes to s—. Seattle used to be a fun place to go. Not anymore. In fact I try to bypass Seattle any chance I get. In 2020 I walked from quest to the space needle to have a look around. It was like something out of a horror move. Creatures in every alley and laying on the sidewalks in all sorts of condition. This is America. Liberal legal system and a bunch of libs on the city council and this is what we get. Filth disease and misery. It doesn’t have to be this way.
First, Seattle; next Anchorage. This local decision should never have been put to a vote. The low information voters would, and did, pass the “more money for us” initiative. Did they not know that small businesses would go out of business, thereby eliminating their jobs? “Free” money is easier than working hard, gaining experience, becoming more valuable to your employer, moving up and thereby gaining more take-home pay, right? When did minimum wage jobs become jobs that required a ‘living wage’? What kind of employee would be happy with a career at minimum wage and minimum responsibilities?
Three full time jobs in Quinhagak were eliminated so far. All of these jobs were paying $16+ before the election.
The costs of the paid sick leave is going to take a toll on a lot of businesses.
Unions suck.
Proves that minimum wage is always $0.
I feel for her. Odds are she voted, repeatedly, for the same clowns who killed her business.
Now she’s faced with the consequences of her own actions in the voting booth.
Socialism always runs out of other peoples money. Then it comes after yours.
There’s a lesson here Anchorage, but you probably won’t listen.
Could it be that these businesses are also closing due to the high crime in Seattle????
Where are all the leftists who pushed for BM 1 and higher minimum wage? You know, the ones that told us we were all crazy for claiming this will harm businesses.
Remember … we endure politicians (which means all 3 branches) who want US to obey laws, while they do not. Examples: 1) the statutory minimum PFD payment, 2) the ONE SUBJECT limit to initiatives, which gave us not only RCV but this latest Prop 1 disaster, 3) the failure of Dunleavy to use the constitutional authority granted to the governor to prevent such violations, 4) the failure of even the most “conservative” Republicans to speak out, and coming soon, 4) a full-court press by the medical bureaucracy to rehabilitate fake vaccines.
A free citizen should have the right to negotiate whatever wage they choose.
Correct.
As an employee you are selling your knowledge, skills, and experience to a business. As the President and CEO of your life, you need to negotiate your best wage. No different than selling crafts on Etsy, or starting up your own landscaping business.
Someone in desperate need of work is hardly free, and is thereby vulnerable to exploitation.
Well that may indeed be happening in Seattle, but there are so many open Jobe there that anyone dismissed will find it easy to become re-employed. Many businesses there are forced to cut their opening times or turn away work simply because they can’t find employees.
And expect that to get worse when Trump starts deporting 20 million working immigrants.