Seattle hates jobs

[GreenGoo]

A slave wage would be < living wage. If a small business has pay slave wages to stay in business, they have a shitty business plan and should find something else to do in life.

That might be the dumbest thing I've ever read from you.

All jobs must pay enough to live off of, otherwise they are morally wrong (slave wages) and the owner has a shitty business plan.

You can't be serious.

[Moliere]

The term slave wage is an insult to actual slavery in this country and the rest of this world. People who choose to work for McDonald's or Wal-Mart are not slaves, regardless of how low the wage might be.

[Alefroth]

If they are paying slave wages. Does that seem unreasonable to you?

What's a "slave wage"?

I don't know, but I'm sure we can agree it's not good.

[Alefroth]

The term slave wage is an insult to actual slavery in this country and the rest of this world. People who choose to work for McDonald's or Wal-Mart are not slaves, regardless of how low the wage might be.

I suppose it is if you just look at it on the surface and don't bother to examine the similarities and differences of owning a person as opposed to renting them.

[Moliere]

The term slave wage is an insult to actual slavery in this country and the rest of this world. People who choose to work for McDonald's or Wal-Mart are not slaves, regardless of how low the wage might be.

I suppose it is if you just look at it on the surface and don't bother to examine the similarities and differences of owning a person as opposed to renting them.

Yes, one involves coercion and the other doesn't. Every job involves trading your time for money.

[LawBeefaroni]

The term slave wage is an insult to actual slavery in this country and the rest of this world. People who choose to work for McDonald's or Wal-Mart are not slaves, regardless of how low the wage might be.

I suppose it is if you just look at it on the surface and don't bother to examine the similarities and differences of owning a person as opposed to renting them.

The term "slave wage" is an oxymoron.

The term "wage slave" has meaning however. It's someone who works for a low wage but is dependent on the job to survive and is exploited as such. If you're talking about the owning and/vs renting of individuals, it's a better term.

[Alefroth]

The term slave wage is an insult to actual slavery in this country and the rest of this world. People who choose to work for McDonald's or Wal-Mart are not slaves, regardless of how low the wage might be.

I suppose it is if you just look at it on the surface and don't bother to examine the similarities and differences of owning a person as opposed to renting them.

The term "slave wage" is an oxymoron.

The term "wage slave" has meaning however. It's someone who works for a low wage but is dependent on the job to survive and is exploited as such. If you're talking about the owning and/vs renting of individuals, it's a better term.

Fair enough. I figured we could use the term slave wage to refer to what a wage slave earns.

[Jeff V]

Fair enough. I figured we could use the term slave wage to refer to what a wage slave earns.

And this was my intended use of the term.

[Enough]

Not exactly Seattle's situation but still topical,

In the 13 states that boosted their minimums at the beginning of the year, the number of jobs grew an average of 0.85 percent from January through June. The average for the other 37 states was 0.61 percent.

[Moliere]

Socialist Party in Seattle thinks we should raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour.

Placed a want ad for a web developer offering $13.

[Enough]

[Pyperkub]

Well, it isn't just Seattle who hates jobs - apparently 21 states hate them too:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
The New Year will start well for over 3 million workers -- they're getting a raise.

Employers in 21 states and Washington D.C. will hike their minimum wages on January 1.

[msteelers]

Yeah, but here in Florida the jump is 12 cents an hour. That was translated into an extra $250 over the year for your average worker. So we will likely just see increased prices on products as businesses raise their rates to offset the costs, without the economic benefit of the workers spending more money.

[Pyperkub]

Yeah, but here in Florida the jump is 12 cents an hour. That was translated into an extra $250 over the year for your average worker. So we will likely just see increased prices on products as businesses raise their rates to offset the costs, without the economic benefit of the workers spending more money.

You don't get it, do you? It's not just minimum wages which go up when the minimum wage is raised.

[Kraken]

It's going from $8 to $9 here, on its way to $11. There is very little hand-wringing over this, especially with the economy poised for a boom year in 2015. Household income has already started to rise in MA due to competition for labor -- the nation is lagging a few months behind, and the usual red states will lag forever, as they always do.

Low interest rates + trivial inflation + cheap energy + accelerating employment growth + rising confidence + growing household income = party time! Hope the virtuous circle can endure for a few years without overheating and that the new Congress doesn't do anything stupid (like austerity) to sink it prematurely.

[LawBeefaroni]

As noted here, Chicago voted for an increase to $13.

[Rip]

[LawBeefaroni]

Not going to refute that inflation is real, but that graphic is bullshit. I've bought groceries in 1998, 2005, and 2013.

[Isgrimnur]

Annual CPI

1998 - 163
2005 - 201.6
2013 - 232.957

That means the 2013 number is 42% higher than 1998. 2013 is only 15.6% higher than 2005.

[malchior]

And it'd normally be fine since real incomes have increased generally over the last 50 years outpacing inflation. The last few years of high unemployment have deteriorated that but inflation isn't necessarily a problem at all.

Also I love any reference to the creation of the Fed - it is like the financial derp signal; it is also awesome that it ties in the (ill-informed) idea that inflation somehow started with the creation of the Fed.

[LawBeefaroni]

Annual CPI

1998 - 163
2005 - 201.6
2013 - 232.957

That means the 2013 number is 42% higher than 1998. 2013 is only 15.6% higher than 2005.

So that means that the 2013 grocery cart should have roughly what, 70% the amount of stuff as the 1998 cart? Instead it has like 8%? Like I said, bullshit.

[Rip]

Depends a lot on what CPI you use and whether you accept CPI as a solid indicator of inflation.



PCE is another accepted measurement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_c ... rice_index

Either way inflation can be hidden for some time with financial manipulation. In time it will become impossible to hide it any longer.

[Moliere]

More Seattle restaurants close doors as $15 minimum wage approaches

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law goes into effect on April 1, 2015. As that date approaches, restaurant across the city are making the financial decision to close shop. The Washington Policy Center writes that “closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront.”

Of course, restaurants close for a variety of reasons. But, according to Seattle Magazine, the “impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour” is playing a “major factor.” That’s not surprising, considering “about 36% of restaurant earnings go to paying labor costs.” Seattle Magazine,

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

[Isgrimnur]

McDonald's will save us.

Ronald McDonald and friends are suing the city. On March 10, they'll be in a federal courtroom, complaining that the new minimum wage violates a constitutional provision that was written to protect newly-freed slaves after the Civil War.
...
The International Franchise Association, with assistance from the National Restaurant Association and other industry trade groups, is claiming that the law is not just bad for their bottom line, but actually violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

That amendment was passed in 1866 to ensure equal rights for the freed slaves, and it says that no state may "deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws." According to the Hamburglar, treating a franchised business differently from a local business violates this Equal Protection Clause.
...
In 1938, a frustrated Supreme Court justice complained that "of the cases in [the] Court in which the Fourteenth Amendment was applied during the first fifty years after its adoption, less than one-half of 1 percent invoked it in protection of the negro race, and more than 50 percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations." Just this past year, we've seen the Equal Protection Clause invoked on behalf of coal companies and multinational agribusiness conglomerates. And now, the Fry Kids.

Wouldn't this gut every small tax credit/exemption in the IRS code as well?

[Alefroth]

More Seattle restaurants close doors as $15 minimum wage approaches

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law goes into effect on April 1, 2015. As that date approaches, restaurant across the city are making the financial decision to close shop. The Washington Policy Center writes that “closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront.”

Of course, restaurants close for a variety of reasons. But, according to Seattle Magazine, the “impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour” is playing a “major factor.” That’s not surprising, considering “about 36% of restaurant earnings go to paying labor costs.” Seattle Magazine,

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

Gee, imagine ShiftWA misrepresenting the facts.

From the article's own source-

As for Little Uncle (which has reopened its Madison Avenue takeout window since the Pioneer Square restaurant closed), Frank and Kounpungchart originally expanded to their basement space on Yesler to extend their menu and host gatherings, but ultimately learned that “bigger is not better. We have come to the conclusion that the Pioneer Square location ultimately does not fit into the goals of our professional life and personal life. Passing the Pioneer Square location on will give us the opportunity to refocus and find a better way to build Little Uncle,” they told Eater.

[malchior]

I was going to complain about the data misrepresentation as well - funny how a cursory examination shows the argument is pure nonsense. I am not going to argue whether it's good policy or not but the "data" they have isn't indicative of what they claim.

And for Seattle restaurateurs recently, there is also another key consideration. Though none of our local departing/transitioning restaurateurs who announced their plans last month have elaborated on the issue, another major factor affecting restaurant futures in our city is the impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour. Starting April 1, all businesses must begin to phase in the wage increase: Small employers have seven years to pay all employees at least $15 hourly; large employers (with 500 or more employees) have three.

So NONE of the restaurants that closed cited the impending wage increases for closing. This makes sense, the small restaurants have *7* years to phase in the change and bigger chains have *3*; in other words, the market has not had to price in the regulatory change yet so it stands to reason that it does not have much of an effect yet. There might be some people overreacting but in general it appears to be a classic FUD argument. Until we have large scale implementation and see how the marketplace reacts it is pretty much impossible to know what will happen. These guys believe they have a model - that jobs will vanish and sales will decrease - cool. Let's see if that happens. At the very least it is an interesting experiment and the local population at least seems to at least as of last year support it by a significant majority.

[Alefroth]

Truth Needle says false.

[theohall]

Truth Needle says false.

So the blatantly liberal Seattle Times says false while ignoring the obvious facts.

Is the Seattle Times going to hire all of the unemployed restaurant employees?
They seem to know so much more than facts support.

I noticed the article linked didn't mention the impact on the hotel employee or the waitress who are still employed in the article originally posted. Why the convenient omission? Higher wage for hotel worker - cancelled health care, cancelled 401K, pay for your own parking, pay for your own lunch/dinner. Higher wage for waitress - less overall earnings because of reduced tips, pay for own meals, pay for own parking. Both employees annual earnings wind up being less with the higher wage. This is what government and democratic idealists ignore. Someone has to pay for things.

If someone wants to refute an article, refute all of it, not just parts of it. This is typical liberal spiel ignoring all facts and only using those they chose.

Truth Needle for Seattle Times read false and mis-leading.

And surprise, surprise, the hotel worker mentioned gets fired.

But all of this has absolutely nothing to do with the increased minimum wage, right????

Quit being obtuse. Facts are facts. Economics are economics.

Increased costs for business = increased costs for consumers/employees
Increased costs for govt = higher taxes.

What pays for a higher minimum wage? One of the above two - which means less options as a consumer for you and giving the govt more of your money.

Someone please show me where, when the minimum wage was created, it was ever intended to be a living wage. This is the major flaw in today's argument which is not discussed enough.

[Pyperkub]

Truth Needle says false.

So the blatantly liberal Seattle Times says false while ignoring the obvious facts.

Is the Seattle Times going to hire all of the unemployed restaurant employees?
They seem to know so much more than facts support.

I noticed the article linked didn't mention the impact on the hotel employee or the waitress who are still employed in the article originally posted. Why the convenient omission? Higher wage for hotel worker - cancelled health care, cancelled 401K, pay for your own parking, pay for your own lunch/dinner. Higher wage for waitress - less overall earnings because of reduced tips, pay for own meals, pay for own parking. Both employees annual earnings wind up being less with the higher wage. This is what government and democratic idealists ignore. Someone has to pay for things.

If someone wants to refute an article, refute all of it, not just parts of it. This is typical liberal spiel ignoring all facts and only using those they chose.

Truth Needle for Seattle Times read false and mis-leading.

OK, how about just quoting the article:

Despite these serious challenges, however, brave restaurateurs continue to open eateries in Seattle, which, remembering basic supply and demand, also naturally accounts for closures we’ve already seen and more that will come

Given that the wage rate hikes haven't even begun yet, I'm "totally sure" you'll agree that they haven't had much of an effect at all at this point in time. After all, why would you close a profitable establishment now, because of a fear of what is supposed to happen down the road, all other things being equal?

[theohall]

Truth Needle says false.

So the blatantly liberal Seattle Times says false while ignoring the obvious facts.

Is the Seattle Times going to hire all of the unemployed restaurant employees?
They seem to know so much more than facts support.

I noticed the article linked didn't mention the impact on the hotel employee or the waitress who are still employed in the article originally posted. Why the convenient omission? Higher wage for hotel worker - cancelled health care, cancelled 401K, pay for your own parking, pay for your own lunch/dinner. Higher wage for waitress - less overall earnings because of reduced tips, pay for own meals, pay for own parking. Both employees annual earnings wind up being less with the higher wage. This is what government and democratic idealists ignore. Someone has to pay for things.

If someone wants to refute an article, refute all of it, not just parts of it. This is typical liberal spiel ignoring all facts and only using those they chose.

Truth Needle for Seattle Times read false and mis-leading.

OK, how about just quoting the article:

Despite these serious challenges, however, brave restaurateurs continue to open eateries in Seattle, which, remembering basic supply and demand, also naturally accounts for closures we’ve already seen and more that will come

Which article.... there were no "openings" in the original. What are the names of all these restaurants supposedly opening and why aren't they listed?

Omission is a lie.

Searching Seattle websites - I've found one new place opening since Feb and it's a Bakery. 10 closed listed in one article - all night time type restaurants replaced by 1 day time bakery. FACT CHECK!!!!

[Pyperkub]

Truth Needle says false.

So the blatantly liberal Seattle Times says false while ignoring the obvious facts.

Is the Seattle Times going to hire all of the unemployed restaurant employees?
They seem to know so much more than facts support.

I noticed the article linked didn't mention the impact on the hotel employee or the waitress who are still employed in the article originally posted. Why the convenient omission? Higher wage for hotel worker - cancelled health care, cancelled 401K, pay for your own parking, pay for your own lunch/dinner. Higher wage for waitress - less overall earnings because of reduced tips, pay for own meals, pay for own parking. Both employees annual earnings wind up being less with the higher wage. This is what government and democratic idealists ignore. Someone has to pay for things.

If someone wants to refute an article, refute all of it, not just parts of it. This is typical liberal spiel ignoring all facts and only using those they chose.

Truth Needle for Seattle Times read false and mis-leading.

OK, how about just quoting the article:

Despite these serious challenges, however, brave restaurateurs continue to open eateries in Seattle, which, remembering basic supply and demand, also naturally accounts for closures we’ve already seen and more that will come

Which article.... there were no "openings" in the original. What are the names of all these restaurants supposedly opening and why aren't they listed?

Omission is a lie.

Riiiiight. The seattle magazine articlelinked in the seattle times truth needle?

Maybe you need to actually read what you are complaining about... rather than just shoot your mouth off about liberal newspapers. Even if they are liberal, that doesn't make them wrong.

[theohall]

Truth Needle says false.

So the blatantly liberal Seattle Times says false while ignoring the obvious facts.

Is the Seattle Times going to hire all of the unemployed restaurant employees?
They seem to know so much more than facts support.

I noticed the article linked didn't mention the impact on the hotel employee or the waitress who are still employed in the article originally posted. Why the convenient omission? Higher wage for hotel worker - cancelled health care, cancelled 401K, pay for your own parking, pay for your own lunch/dinner. Higher wage for waitress - less overall earnings because of reduced tips, pay for own meals, pay for own parking. Both employees annual earnings wind up being less with the higher wage. This is what government and democratic idealists ignore. Someone has to pay for things.

If someone wants to refute an article, refute all of it, not just parts of it. This is typical liberal spiel ignoring all facts and only using those they chose.

Truth Needle for Seattle Times read false and mis-leading.

OK, how about just quoting the article:

Despite these serious challenges, however, brave restaurateurs continue to open eateries in Seattle, which, remembering basic supply and demand, also naturally accounts for closures we’ve already seen and more that will come

Which article.... there were no "openings" in the original. What are the names of all these restaurants supposedly opening and why aren't they listed?

Omission is a lie.

Riiiiight. The seattle magazine articlelinked in the seattle times truth needle?

Maybe you need to actually read what you are complaining about...

And in spite of their meager attempt at positive spin, what is supposedly opening? They listed several closures, but not one opening. Shouldn't you question that?

[em2nought]

Even if they are liberal, that doesn't make them wrong.

hehe

[AWS260]

Which article.... there were no "openings" in the original. What are the names of all these restaurants supposedly opening and why aren't they listed?

Omission is a lie.

Riiiiight. The seattle magazine article linked in the seattle times truth needle?

Maybe you need to actually read what you are complaining about...

And in spite of their meager attempt at positive spin, what is supposedly opening? They listed several closures, but not one opening. Shouldn't you question that?

The Seattle Magazine article names five recently opened restaurants. The Seattle Times article says that 27 new bars and restaurants opened on Capital Hill in 2014, although it doesn't take the time to name them.

I'm surprised that you didn't acknowledge these, given that omission is a lie.

[hepcat]

Ouch...

[Enough]

Truth Needle says false.

So the blatantly liberal Seattle Times says false while ignoring the obvious facts.

Not sure what has happened lately, but many folks I previously knew to be reasonable have become unhinged and loosey goosey with the facts. Here we have a respected longtime poster tearing down the Seattle Times, never mind he just posted a link to the transparently biased WesternJournalism (aka HuffPost for conservatives) to make his point. Oh and of course the Times endorses Republicans like Susan Hutchison over Democrats, but yeah those damned liberals can't be trusted...

I think any reasonable person can admit anyone claiming the new min wage in Seattle is a success or failure is massively jumping the gun just to grind some political gears. Malchoir already perfectly covered this upstream though,

I was going to complain about the data misrepresentation as well - funny how a cursory examination shows the argument is pure nonsense. I am not going to argue whether it's good policy or not but the "data" they have isn't indicative of what they claim.

And for Seattle restaurateurs recently, there is also another key consideration. Though none of our local departing/transitioning restaurateurs who announced their plans last month have elaborated on the issue, another major factor affecting restaurant futures in our city is the impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour. Starting April 1, all businesses must begin to phase in the wage increase: Small employers have seven years to pay all employees at least $15 hourly; large employers (with 500 or more employees) have three.

So NONE of the restaurants that closed cited the impending wage increases for closing. This makes sense, the small restaurants have *7* years to phase in the change and bigger chains have *3*; in other words, the market has not had to price in the regulatory change yet so it stands to reason that it does not have much of an effect yet. There might be some people overreacting but in general it appears to be a classic FUD argument. Until we have large scale implementation and see how the marketplace reacts it is pretty much impossible to know what will happen. These guys believe they have a model - that jobs will vanish and sales will decrease - cool. Let's see if that happens. At the very least it is an interesting experiment and the local population at least seems to at least as of last year support it by a significant majority.

Let's see how things start to shake out in a year, then three and then seven and judge then when we actually have some meaningful data. It's an experiment, it could fail. Politicizing the crap out everything is of no service to anyone. It just fosters hate and decisiveness that prevents us from working on the large share of things most folks agree on.

[GreenGoo]

Theo, I don't blame you for "falling for" the spin, as it really took off. The Truth Needle article actually maps out the assumptions and growth into "established fact" as more and more conservative new organizations picked it up and ran with it. When enough sources all say the same thing, it's hard not to believe them.

Unfortunately in this case, it was no more accurate than only looking at half the stats (only closings, not openings) and then making assumptions about why the closings happened without bothering to find out the actual reasons. The first story I can forgive as just lazy and agenda supporting reporting. The rest of the organizations, especially those that value their credibility should have done their homework instead of reporting what everyone else was reporting.

And I can certainly understand how the man on the street could see a story making the rounds and believe it to be true. But once the story is refuted, especially so thoroughly and well documented, including witness testimony from the very people involved in these closings, it's probably best to let it drop.

I know you want it to be true. It just isn't. At least not yet. As was also said in the refutation, the new minimum wages haven't even begun to be implemented yet. The idea that people would close their (presumably currently profitable) restaurants because sometime in the future they are going to be hit with an untenable financial burden seems unlikely. Common sense alone would indicate that these closures were unlikely related to the wage hike. Add to that actual investigation and the original position of "these restaurants closed because wage hike" becomes very difficult to honestly hold.

edit: Crap, I see a lot of what I wrote was already covered, so nothing new. I didn't mean to pile on.

[Alefroth]

Truth Needle says false.

So the blatantly liberal Seattle Times says false while ignoring the obvious facts.

Is the Seattle Times going to hire all of the unemployed restaurant employees?
They seem to know so much more than facts support.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. You posted an article blaming the closing of restaurants on the $15 min. wage. When asked, the restaurants said the minimum wage increase wasn't the reason. Pretty cut and dried. If you want to post more links that describe the impact of the $15 min. wage that aren't obviously political, blatantly false, and easily refuted, feel free to do so. You might want to check on Sea-Tac, which has had a $15 minimum wage for a year now. Here, I'll help. The liberal Puget Sound Business Journal

Voters in November 2013 narrowly approved the measure that has been partly in effect for nearly a year, and none of these dire warnings have come to pass, city officials said last week. After the law was implemented, "everyone has kind of gone back to normal," said Gregerson, who's now the mayor of the city of 27,875 people.

If someone wants to refute an article, refute all of it, not just parts of it.

Why? It doesn't make the refuted parts more true if other parts of the article might be true.

[hitbyambulance]

as an actual Seattle resident, two things:

- the Seattle Times was considered the 'right of center' paper (whereas the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was considered the 'left of center' paper), so hearing it referred to as 'liberal' is news to me. the Times bought out the P.I. and ceased print operations, so now the P.I. has become a sort of tabloidy online-only 'paper'. i'm not really sure what its purpose is anymore, now that most of the good journalists there have left due to not being paid.

- i can affirm that many, many restaurants are constantly closing AND opening all the time here! i can't even keep track of them.

[Kraken]

- i can affirm that many, many restaurants are constantly closing AND opening all the time here! i can't even keep track of them.

True in any healthy city. The Globe lists half a dozen openings and closings here every Sunday. If there's ever a rash of closings and a dearth of openings while the economy isn't tanking, that will be newsworthy. Otherwise it's business as usual. Restaurants have a high failure rate in general.

I was under the impression that the wage angle in Seattle had been firmly debunked, and I haven't seen evidence in this thread to change that impression.