> Anneisha Williams said she knows the impacts firsthand. She’s been supporting her seven children on this minimum wage.
I’m truly sorry if I offend someone for whatever reason, but it is just wrong to have so many kids if one cannot financially support them well.
I’d like if the study would track the monthly rental prices for the lowest end of the rental market - studio apartments in subprime neighborhoods. I expect those landlords were the major beneficiaries of the minimum wage hike, and the actual workers were left with the same amount of monthly spare cash after rent.
Only big companies can handle these changes because of economies of scale. (Small companies can’t compete on cost).
If you can figure out how to bring automation to small restaurants, they can compete. Until then, these changes just slowly close small restaurants over many years that are less efficient.
the end of tipping for me.
> "It's very rare to really see a policy like the minimum wage lead to restaurants exiting the market unless they were already marginally on the edge of making it or not making it"
This seems like a gift to big corporations.
The big guy can take the hit from the raise.
It's the small guy who is affected the most.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
> It found that wages increased by 18%, employment numbers remained stable and menu prices increased by only 3 to 7%
> The study’s authors said that profit margins at fast food restaurants are relatively high compared to full service restaurants, companies have room to absorb higher wage costs.
This doesn't really look like companies absorbing higher wage costs. Labor is merely one expense in the cost of a good like fast food. You have managerial overhead, capital equipment, marketing, taxes, etc. Based on a quick googling, restaurants target a labor cost percentage of about 25-35% with fast food being skewed to the lower end. Then an 18% increase in the cost of labor passed directly to consumers would be a 4.5-6.3% increase in the total. This seems very much in line with the 3-7% observed.
[Edit] Looking at the actual paper, it's not a 3 to 7% price increase, it's 3.7% which they claim is 62% of the total cost increase. So they are using a cost of labor of 33%, while the price rise is equivalent to a cost of labor of 20% fully passed on. That's a much more defensible claim.