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Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaurant

Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

I know how businesses work and if they do not like that their margins can be erased by a simple cost of living adjustment they should not be in the restaurant business. Raising the minimum wag is nothing new, you cannot pay your servers $8/hour forever eventually you are going to have to pay them more, eventually you are going to have to pay more for food. Prices need to go up eventually.

margins are set by the prices of goods and what a person is willing to pay for said item.
the pay of the job is set by the skill of the person and what the market is willing to bear for that person to make.

So if the price of servers > than the value they bring then they are replaced by self ordering stations. then I just need people to take food. which cuts my staff in half.
and people go out of work.

you see they already did this and restaurant started putting 20-30% mark ups on their bills to cover it.

food prices are controllable. government over pricing labor is not controllable.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

I know how businesses work and if they do not like that their margins can be erased by a simple cost of living adjustment they should not be in the restaurant business. Raising the minimum wag is nothing new, you cannot pay your servers $8/hour forever eventually you are going to have to pay them more, eventually you are going to have to pay more for food. Prices need to go up eventually.

Many small business owners, especially restaurants, barely eek out a living during slow periods and you expect them to up wages 5-7 bucks an hour per employee?

If the servers don't like 8 bucks an hour, then it's up to the servers to get off their asses and train for something better.

You don't know jack about business on the deck plate level.

I pay competent finishers, roofers, painters, and trim guys 15 bucks an hour when I am trying them out and go from there. I'm supposed to pay some flunkie 15 bucks an hour to sweep my job site in Carjosse's world? You live in a fantasy land where everything is provided to you regardless of the effort you put out in life.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

If the only thing between you and closing down your restaurant is $1/hour in staff wages you have much bigger problems.

It's a tough business to be in. I think most of them fall into the you have much bigger problems category.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

It's a tough business to be in. I think most of them fall into the you have much bigger problems category.

Every business is tough to be in, not just restaurants.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

'A 'shocking' discovery was made when a pair of researchers at Harvard Business School decided to analyze the impact of higher minimum wages in San Francisco on restaurant failures...hint: they went up.

Entitled "Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit", this latest study on the devastating consequences of minimum wage was conducted by Dara Lee Luca and Michael Luca and concluded that each $1 increase in the minimum wage results in a roughly 4-10% increase in the likelihood of a restaurant going out of business.'


Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaurant Failures | Zero Hedge


Thoughts?


Let me guess?

Liberals? - 'this is bull****'

Conservatives? - 'we told ya so'

What's killing restaurants in SF is not wages, but lease rates.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

Every business is tough to be in, not just restaurants.

Oh no, restaurants are especially bad.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

How many restaurants does any town need? One maybe? Perhaps one restaurant and a hotdog stand. Sorry, but with a pizza joint, and a burger spot, Italian, Polish, German, Oriental, etc., etc., etc. on every corner --- they cut each other's throats and Americans just get FAT!
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

You are going be out of business due to food price increases in a year anyways.

Think about that and tell us why you are wrong.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

And here is a quick-lesson for you: Were the Minimum Wage put up from 7.25/hour to the Poverty Threshold level of ($11.53/hour)

Please stop with that line of reasoning.

Minimum wage jobs are not made to support a family. They are starter jobs.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

Please stop with that line of reasoning.

Minimum wage jobs are not made to support a family. They are starter jobs.

Exactly.

Where in the UN. Charter on Human Rights does it state a minimum wage must be a living wage? Or the Constitution?
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

Personally I've always been a proponent of the Scandinavian model: no minimum wage, universal union:

5 Developed Countries without Minimum Wages | Investopedia

The union assures bargaining power and fair negotiation for labour per its clout so government doesn't have to compensate via distortive (and often arbitrary) minimum wage laws.

On the flipside, the balance of power, politically, is so grossly and vehemently in favour of corporations and anti-union interests that I sincerely doubt whether it could work in the America of today, nevermind the fundamental political impossibility of implementing it.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

It is not likely BS, but it would help if the study were done nationwide.

And, this does not in the least negate the necessity for a higher Minimum Wage, given that the present MW of $7.25/hour ($15K/year) is clearly below the Poverty Threshold of $24K/year for a family of four ...

Two parents working at McDonald's full time at minimum wage (2,000 hours per year X $7.25/hr = $29,500) would make substantially more than the U.S. lower 48 state poverty line for 4 people ($24,600).

https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines

If that was not enough there are food stamps and other government welfare programs to make up for that shortfall.
 
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Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

b) besides which, two parents working at McDonald's full time at minimum wage (2,000 hours per year X $7.25/hr = $29,500) would make substantially more than the U.S. lower 48 state poverty line for 4 people ($24,600).
If that's the best these two parents can do, then in my book, they are guilty of child abuse by having children they cant afford to raise.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

It is not likely BS, but it would help if the study were done nationwide.

And, this does not in the least negate the necessity for a higher Minimum Wage, given that the present MW of $7.25/hour ($15K/year) is clearly below the Poverty Threshold of $24K/year for a family of four ...

The federal MW has never been that high but don't let that spoil your dreams of rainbows and unicorns. Why, exactly, should the federal MW be raised to about half of the current median wage?
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

If that's the best these two parents can do, then in my book, they are guilty of child abuse by having children they cant afford to raise.

I am not sure I would call it 'child abuse'. But I think I generally agree with you.

If parents cannot provide the basic necessities for their children...than the state should remove them (and care for them) until such time as they can.

Society seems to feel that the parents should NEVER be called anything but decent parents so long as the children are not starving and/or being molested/beaten.

To me, if you cannot provide your children with adequate health care, shelter, clothing, food and education...you are a failure as a parent and your children should be removed by the state and taken care of for the children's own good.

And I do not care about the 'well, it's the state's fault for not giving me access to cheap health care for my children' argument. If you cannot afford proper healthcare for your children - whatever the reason - then you should not be having children in the first place.

Parents have a right to raise their children...BUT they do not - imo - have a right to raise their children badly.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

Yep.

Societal stigmas which liberals do their best to do away with used to curb such things. Not today.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

I think the evil corporation Walmart now pays a minimum of $10 an hour, so couple working there would gross a little over $40K.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

I am not sure I would call it 'child abuse'. But I think I generally agree with you.

If parents cannot provide the basic necessities for their children...than the state should remove them (and care for them) until such time as they can.

Society seems to feel that the parents should NEVER be called anything but decent parents so long as the children are not starving and/or being molested/beaten.

To me, if you cannot provide your children with adequate health care, shelter, clothing, food and education...you are a failure as a parent and your children should be removed by the state and taken care of for the children's own good.

And I do not care about the 'well, it's the state's fault for not giving me access to cheap health care for my children' argument. If you cannot afford proper healthcare for your children - whatever the reason - then you should not be having children in the first place.

Parents have a right to raise their children...BUT they do not - imo - have a right to raise their children badly.

An obvious problem with "the state should just take children" is cost. It is far less expensive to supplement a low income family with children (for a given period of time) via the "safety net" than to institutionalize the children. That is not even considering the emotional damage done by separating children from those that they love and who love them.
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

The federal MW has never been that high but don't let that spoil your dreams of rainbows and unicorns. Why, exactly, should the federal MW be raised to about half of the current median wage?

Because the current Median Wage is too low due to the millions working at the Minimum Wage?

Duhhhhhhhh ....
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

The net-net is a loss. The 'additional money' may increase expenditures in other industries for a time, but if the restaurant closes due to the unsustainable expense of producing the product, exactly who wins?

Only in times of high unemployment. The US is presently at around 4.9%.

The condition you explain is thus non-existent ...
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

I will thin the ranks to where my profit is back up if I can't then I shut the business down and everyone losses.

You are only doing what all businesses do in critical times. When Demand falters they cut unnecessary employment.

Which proves nothing, in fact.

As soon as business improves, so does the unemployment rate fall.

The above is all simple textbook economics ...

PS: If you don't like running a business, run a charity? No business-plan, no stock-options, no long-nights awake worrying about customers!
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

government over pricing labor is not controllable.

It doesn't have to be, the market corrects itself depending upon Demand.

Government intervention is necessary when the market hits a speed-bump as it did with the SubPrime Mess that drastically reduced demand in the period of just one year.

That is when Obama's ARRA-bill spiked an exploding unemployment rate at 10% in 2010, from which it has taken seven long years to come down to less than 5%.

And why? Because there was no further Stimulus Spending when the Replicants took control of the HofR in 2011 and refused it systematically even though all economists were suggesting it. (For craven reasons I made abundantly clear in a previous post.)

You are making a mountain out of a mole-hill ...
 
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Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

Because the current Median Wage is too low due to the millions working at the Minimum Wage?

Duhhhhhhhh ....

In other words, simply because you think that nobody should be legally paid the current median wage. I doubt that such a "median wage" law will ever be passed. Have you ever considered what happens to those living on fixed retirement (pension?) incomes when the government declares that wages (thus prices of goods/services) must be increased?
 
Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

An obvious problem with "the state should just take children" is cost. It is far less expensive to supplement a low income family with children (for a given period of time) via the "safety net" than to institutionalize the children. That is not even considering the emotional damage done by separating children from those that they love and who love them.

Your points are fair...though I still have to disagree with them (mostly).

Cost? I guarantee you it would cost less to remove just those children from parents incapable of providing even just the basics of survival than to start handing out money to everyone who claims they need it.
I have known LOTS of people on welfare and welfare fraud is absolutely rampant.
Governments should NEVER hand out cash to people, only provide essential services where required. Cash invites fraud.

As for emotional damage? I have known a lot of families with money problems. Most of them were dysfunctional to say the least. Spending time away from the parents would probably have done the children good.
The notion that most parents love their children unconditionally is a DEFINITE false one, imo. I would be surprised if even 30% do.

Besides, if these parents LOVE their children SO much, than they will get their acts together and find jobs that provides the basics. We are not talking a house with a pool. Just a safe apartment with access to adequate food, clothing, medical/dental and education - the basics for survival.
According to the government, two parents working at McDonald's combined make way above the poverty line for a family of four. How hard is it to get a job at McDonald's? Where I live right now...the local McDonald's are practically begging for full time workers.
 
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Re: Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaur

I am right now, I am 3/4 of a way through a degree in business and technology management. You do not seem to understand elasticity or inflation.
Again, for how long does that logic work? "if you can't pay another dollar/hour, you shouldn't be in business". If you have 200,000 workers, and you raise all their wages by 1$ an hour, that's $200,000 extra an hour, and $1,800,000 per day assuming everyone works 8 hours per day. I'm sorry but, what was stated about business lacked any mathematics behind it. Money doesn't grow on trees.

So how much are you going to pay your staff?
 
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