The Seattle PI--and Mayor Ed Murray--declares the
$15/hr minimum wage a success...before it's even implemented;
Menu
prices are up 21 percent and you don't have to tip at Ivar's Salmon
House on Seattle's Lake Union after the restaurant decided to institute
the city's $15-an-hour minimum wage two years ahead of schedule.
It
is staff, not diners, who feel the real difference, with wages as much
as 60 percent higher than before. One waitress is saving for accounting
classes and finding it easier to take weekend vacations, while another
server is using the added pay to cover increased rent.
Intriguing, that
you don't have to tip. And why would you when the wait staff earns more than you do, with;
wages for a few of the best compensated approaching $80,000 a year. Possibly because Ivar's isn't your typical restaurant that competes on taste and price;
Looking out the broad windows of the dining room across Lake Union,
diners can take in pleasure boats and kayaks cruising by, seaplanes
landing, the Space Needle — and across the water, the ever-growing
Amazon campus that has brought tens of thousands of workers to the city
in the past few years.
But even with the superlative views, the restaurant has had to compensate for the higher labor costs;
In the restaurant industry, where many low-wage workers are employed,
adapting could mean pooling tips among all workers, cutting shifts or
relying on technology — such as cellphone applications that let
customers pay electronically, rather than having someone dedicated to
running the cash register.
That last, which we've bolded, is right out of an economics textbook; at higher prices,
caeteris paribus, less is demanded. So for the Mayor's rose colored glasses;
"To the extent that we can look at macro patterns, we're not seeing a problem," Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said.
He might try looking at
the micro. And thinking...a little.
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