Long Beach just mandated a 4 dollar raise for grocery store owners. Two major grocery stores promptly closed leaving all employees out of a job and out of job benefits.
If they need a $7.25 minimum wage to stay in business, they deserve to close
Good. The two biggest grocery stores closed. Yaaay. The people are out of a job. The neighborhood now has to go elsewhere to shop. Meanwhile the Kroger company will not feel a thing. It's a win lose in all the right places.
If Kroger cannot operate without $7.25 wages
They deserve to fail
That's fine.... but just understand that if every business that deserves to fail, fails, then you will have mass unemployment and a great depression.
The people in Greece, said the same thing, which is why they had a minimum wage that was tied to inflation, and the result was the entire country imploded.
Guess what they did? They cut the minimum wage. Guess what happened? Unemployment in the 30% range, started to fall.
Again, you can say that, but them failing just means people are unemployed.
See you seem to be operating under the strange idea that if all the companies that can't pay $15/hour fail... then all those unemployed people will just magically find jobs that pay $15/hour. No. That's not how it works. If your labor isn't worth $15/hours, then you just stay unemployed.
You can mandate a minimum wage, sure. But you can't mandate that customers pay $15/hour for labor that isn't worth $15/hours. Thus those people just.... don't have a job.
Save me the drama
Minimum wage has been increased for 80 years. Business survived, the market adjusted.
We have not increased the wage in eleven years. Low wage workers have suffered. They have used debt to replace wages that haven kept up with inflation
biden made a promise, he best keep it...WAGES NEED TO GO UP AND IF BUSINESS WANT TO LEAVE...BYE!!
We have sold out the working class for too long
We just gave business a 40 percent tax cut but they cry poverty if they have to give their lowest paid workers a pay increase after 12 years
Who's crying poverty? A business will adjust to an increase in costs. How it adjusts is effected by how big the increase is and how fast it hit. A business, can, for example:
1. Lay off workers. Fewer people working and fewer goods and services on the market, but hey, we really stuck it to those business owners (pssst, don't tell anybody the owner still gets paid what he did before).
2. Outsource jobs and, yes, lay off workers. Customer service now comes from Calcutta by a guy you can't understand, but hey, we really stuck it to those business owners.
3. Automate jobs and, yes, lay off workers. Sure you have to place your order and pay for it without a person to explain that number 3 is atomic blast hot, but hey, we really stuck it to those business owners.
4. Be sold and absorbed by a competitor, and yes, lay off workers. More good paying jobs lost, but hey, we really stuck it to those business owners.
5. Fold up and go out of business. Sure, the owner walks away with everything and everybody is out of a job, and well, you know the rest.
6. Raise prices. This may not be possible based on the market. With all those laid off workers trying to hold onto every dollar until they can start working again, not too many are going to be happy paying more for stuff, but hey, we really stuck it to those business owners.