They have a social safety net for all the people who aren't employable at that high wage. That's the difference. You can't massively increase minimum wage without a social safety net to go with it. And if your goal is both you need to start with the safety net, not the minimum wage increase.
Before the hike, both the employee and owners could do that... yet they didn't. Is the existence of a lower paid job make it harder to create something better? That seems really backward, because there will always be lower paying job.
> Somehow Europe manages to have viable restaurants despite decent minimum wage and not tips-oriented compensation...
Where does Europe has an higher minimum wage than $15 USD? That's excluding tipping which can bring that wage MUCH higher.
You can't really compare viability when the wage is actually lower....
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_... [1] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RMW
My experience in both the UK and Germany was the service is utterly terrible. Some people believe this is a worthy trade-off. I disagree ,and I reject the notion that the only acceptable answer is higher guaranteed wages.
Back home I went to an equivalent size burger joint that had 6 people on staff that I could see.
With good design and prep a curry restaurant was able to serve the same amount of food with 1/3 the staff. They could double the wage of the staff and still have money left over with better prep and design.
In which case you should take a long hard look at what's wrong with it instead of using semi-employment under horrible wages as a band aid...
Also, not all countries in Europe have a minimum wage - there's no official minimum wage in Norway (although the de facto minimum wage is a lot higher than in the US).
Really? Really? You think the unemployment in Spain and France is because of the minimum wage? They had the minimum wage decades before they had high unemployment (and inversely for the US).
Not to mention unemployment rate doesn't say much, since in the US it includes all kinds of subsistence semi-jobs that would qualify more like colonial deals in other countries -- among other manipulations:
"The answer lies in the measurement of unemployment. If you have not looked for a job in the last four weeks, you are not counted as being unemployed, because you are not counted as being part of the work force. When there are no jobs to be found, job seekers become discouraged and cease looking for jobs. In other words, the 4.1 percent unemployment rate does not count discouraged workers who cannot find jobs. (...) The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has a second measure of unemployment that includes workers who have been discouraged and out of the labor force for less than one year. This rate of unemployment is 8.2 percent, double the 4.1 percent reported rate. (...) The US government no longer tracks unemployment among discouraged workers who have been out of the work force for more than one year. However, John Williams of shadowstats.com continues to estimate this rate and places it at 22 or 23 percent, a far cry from 4.1 percent. In other words, the 4.1 percent unemployment rate does not count the unemployed who do show up in the declining labor force participation rate." [1]
In any case, even with the given "unemployment rate" as the metric, the US is well below Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Guatemala, and other places, the same way it is, itself, ahead of France. Does that tell you much?
[1] https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2018/03/08/make-believe...
The relatively high unemployment rate in Spain is not related to the minimum wage, but has been linked to their economy being driven mainly by tourism and construction. In fact, the minimum wage in Spain is neither very high nor very low compared to other European countries.
Are you blaming the higher unemployment ratios in those countries on the minimum wage?
The minimum wages per hour in the UK are:
* Apprentices: £3.90
* Under 18: £4.35
* 18 to 20: £6.15
* 21 to 24: £7.70
* 25 and over: £8.21
This isn't exactly the same type of minimum wage most other countries use. This would probably be considered age discrimination in some countries.
Well, if they were hurt with such a raise, perhaps they were not viable businesses and are better closed.
The employees might lose a crappy near-subsistence job, but both the employees and owners can then concentrate their efforts into something better...
Somehow Europe manages to have viable restaurants despite decent minimum wage and not tips-oriented compensation...