Looking Past The Obvious

On Monday, the New York Post posted an article about the push to move the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Contrary to what is true in most case, it isn’t about the money.

The article reports:

A Times editorial last week cheered Los Angeles’ enactment of a $15-an-hour minimum wage — but noted that restaurants, particularly fast-food joints, don’t like it. Said The Times: “The restaurant industry . . . will not go down without a fight.”

We didn’t think that bringing down an entire industry was what the campaign for a $15 minimum was supposed to be about. Oops.

Back in March, we noted that a similar hike in Seattle’s minimum wage was leading to a spate of local restaurant closings, given that labor costs account for 36 percent of the average restaurant’s earnings.

The left has been on a war against McDonald’s for years. I will admit that I do not routinely eat at McDonald’s (although I love their mango smoothies), but that is my choice–just because I don’t eat there doesn’t mean that I have the right to prevent anyone else from eating there.

The article cites one example of the impact of the minimum wage hike:

Case in point: Z Pizza, which has to shut down — putting all 11 employees out of work — because its owner can’t afford the higher labor costs. Ritu Shah Burnham says she tried layoffs, cutting hours, price hikes and not paying herself — to no avail.

And while small businesses have six years to phase in the wage hikes, she has only two, since she’s a franchise of a large chain.

The Times dismissed such concerns, saying minimum-wage hikes can be offset by higher prices and by “paying executives and shareholders less.”

That didn’t work for Burnham, who has no shareholders and is no executive — just a victimized small-business owner whose workers’ hourly wage is about to be cut to zero, thanks to their “advocates.”

It is time to send all of the big government types home. The only way to turn this around is to elect people at all levels of government who believe in freedom from excessive government regulation. The big government types are killing small business, and thus, killing the economy.