Comments

1
Affordable housing.
2
In germany they impute your commute time into your wages which sounds good to me. As does free transit (pay for by employers) and affordable housing. Honestly, 15/hr is so modest anyhow.
3
Fuck, we raised the minimum wage too high and now there are no jobs. Seattle is just millennials making 6-7 figures unable to spend their money.
4
Somebody that speaks gibberish want to interpret #3's comment for non gibberish speakers?
6
@5: What are you babbling about?
8
@6 pot meet kettle
9
Whatever the living fuck is happening in this comment section, I'm into it.
10
The article meanders from one subject to another without really making a point. Your saying the the $15 minimum wage is doing good for workers? Is that the premise of the article? I think the fact that people are commuting 2 hours for these jobs proves the UW study was correct. The amount of minimum wage jobs has decreased therefore workers are having to commute farther and farther to find these jobs.
11
@9:

Yeah, I'll have whatever they're having...

@10:

No, people are commuting 2 hours for these jobs, which according to the article are in very great supply, because they can't afford to LIVE closer to them, NOT because they pay too much or there aren't enough of them.
12
Hi Seattle,

The article offers no actual scientific insight on why the two studies draw different conclusions.

I don't understand why he drops into explaining a social constructionist view of economics to demonstrate that leftist economics are superior, so I'm forced to believe it is due to a lack of understanding of the studies or a predetermined political agenda. It's most likely both.

By the way, leaked emails reveal that the Seattle mayor collided with Berkeley to release its study. So we can simple dismiss that study as leftist propaganda.

Think freely,

Anon
13
@2, Unlike the Seattle area, many cities in Germany have excellent public transportation for the surfs to commute from outside the business districts/central cities in a timely fashion. Then again, it's easier in many of their cities to find affordable accommodation close to or in those cities.

Many of the locals and the reactionary members of the political class have the Darwinian belief that if you can't afford the city, you should suffer long commutes on substandard transportation because you failed the competition of capitalism.
14
@2 that sounds like a terrible idea and would only worsen the urban-wealth-island effect that's pushing rents upward. It's essentially a subsidy to suburban rents and mortgages. Poor people already trade their time for money (lower rents) at unfavorable rates, this is just a new way to trade away EVEN MORE time while asking nothing of those who are fortunate enough to live near work.
16
God forbid any of these assholes raise the price of avocado toast with fennel pollen from $14 to $16 and pass more than 30% of the difference through to the labor line-item in their fucking profit-margin spreadsheets.
17
The preliminary version of the uw study did not find an hour reduction in restaurant work. It did find one in other lower wage work.

I have some doubts about the results. But, ya have to at least know what the results were.
18
The article offers no actual scientific insight on why the two studies draw different conclusions.

That's because there are not "two studies." The study is the un-reviewed and laughably silly UW one which Sawant and Murray ordered as a sop to the business community. The PBSJ's article -- not "study" -- describes "a group of restaurateurs and executives who gathered for a panel last week hosted by Yelp and restaurant marketplace" who are real business owners, who are having trouble staffing their real-world businesses.

As others have pointed out here already, if Seattle's $15/hour minimum wage was hurting traditionally low-wage businesses like restaurants in Seattle, the problem described in the PSBJ article would not exist.

"By the way, leaked emails reveal that the Seattle mayor collided [sic] with Berkeley to release its study."

Links or it didn't happen.

Think factually.
19
To #18

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/emails…

http://www.dailywire.com/news/19231/bust…

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/emails…

http://dailysignal.com/2017/08/02/emails…
20
Difficulty finding workers in a good economy with low unemployment? Pay more and/or provide a better work environment than your competition. Increase prices and see if customers continue to pay. If they don't pay, come up with a solution or close business. Maybe expenses are increasing out of proportion to strength of local economy, why might that be? What changes have been made which impact local business, who has the authority to make those changes?
21
The staffing shortage in Seattle's restaurants is specific to KITCHEN STAFF, not servers and bartenders who typically have always made well over $15/hour and usually a hell of a lot more than that. Guaranteeing a high base pay to servers and bartenders has amplified the pay disparity between front-of-house and back-of-house restaurant staff and has made it more difficult than ever to keep people interested in cooking, even those with culinary degrees - they see the servers making almost the same base pay and walking with $200+ a night in tips and they all want to get out on the floor too. Having the country's highest minimum wage and being only one of seven states to not recognize tip income, as the IRS does (servers and bartenders must declare their tips), has put Seattle restaurants in a precarious place. Currently, the result is really high prices; but the second there's even the slightest hiccough in the local economy a lot of restaurants will go down. This article is completely un-informed.
22
Which part of upzone all arterial blocks to 6 story (6+2) MFH and build 40-100 near stations didn’t you get?

And I said $22/hour, btw.
23
... being only one of seven states to not recognize tip income, as the IRS does (servers and bartenders must declare their tips), has put Seattle restaurants in a precarious place.

Interestingly, this does not describe Seattle's minimum wage law, which does recognize tip income. This refers to Washington State's minimum wage, which has been in modern form since voters enacted I-688 in 1998. Since that time, the number of restaurants per capita in Seattle has risen from third to second in the country, now trailing San Francisco alone.

...the second there's even the slightest hiccough in the local economy a lot of restaurants will go down.

Which is simply testimony to how many high-end restaurants Seattle now has.

...they see the servers making almost the same base pay and walking with $200+ a night in tips and they all want to get out on the floor too.

One of the welcome responses to high minimum wages has been elimination of traditional tipping in favor of a 20% service charge, shared with the back-house staff. (The patron is still welcome to give a cash tip for exceptional service, of course.) Not only does this eliminate a math problem after one has been drinking, it saves me money (I normally tip 20-25%). As with most other business models, the patrons should pay the house, and the house should pay the employees.
24
^Yes, as I stated Washington state is one of only seven states to not recognize tip income. The city's tip income credit is so nominal that it is basically meaningless. High-end and more basic restaurants are subject to the same economic pressures; when the economy contracts, restaurants will close across the spectrum.

The service charge model is effectively just a price increase, which the state loves because it can apply sales tax to it. Most people I know dislike the service tax model because it's structured differently restaurant to restaurant and they would prefer to simply enjoy their dining experience without having to read a paragraph-long explanation of an establishment's service charge policy. Many restaurants that adopted a service charge are now removing it. For better or worse, tipping is a long-standing, ingrained aspect of American culture (yes, Seattle is still technically part of the United States). I, for one, enjoy tipping and would have to be pretty loaded to not be able to work out that math.

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