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A comment on Seattle: Highest Minimum Wage, Lowest Unemployment Rate. Parent comment

Re:Seattle: Highest Minimum Wage, Lowest Unemployment Rate by bko on Sunday October 30, 2016 @11:48AM (#12830411)
Sure, they'll try and pass off the costs to their customers. But with a higher price, there will likely be less coffee sold and less employment regardless.

Yes, staffing is more complicated, but min-wage labor cost for a restaurant are a significant portion of the costs and profit margins are very thin [0]. Many won't be able to absorb a ~50% increase in labor cost.

[0] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Economics-of-running-a...

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Re:Seattle: Highest Minimum Wage, Lowest Unemployment Rate by JoeAltmaier on Sunday October 30, 2016 @12:30PM (#12830653)
All will have the same labor costs. Minimum wage has gone up before; there are still coffee shops.

Its easy to play 'dot-to-dot' with these things - higher cost means lower sales means people fired. OR more money in the working class pocket means more coffee purchases means more hiring. You can connect-the-dots lots of ways.

The truth is, some of everything happens, and then it settles down into something workable. Yes we'll pay more for our coffee, but we'll also have more money in our pockets. And so on.

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