Did our Mayor have anything substantative to add to the conversation, or did he just sit there like a paler Clarence Thomas, Staring idly into space while the grown ups talked?

50% touching their faces

@3 Oh, man, it would be funny if that stuck. "Ed Murray: the pale Clarence Thomas of mayors."

Michael Reich was a badass. Also, Elliott Bay Books should get a cafe that's as great as their bookstore.

Granted this is a tough issue, and we are going to have to find a way to keep our small, community-minded businesses alive during the transition. But we're not going to discount rigorous analyses just because your chain email says so. This isn't Spokane.

@3 It pains me to say it, but: He came. He burbled. He left.

Most Seattle small business service industry workers already make over $15 when you include tips and bonuses. The IRS counts these, employer and employee are taxed on these as well. When I leave my gratuity I do it with the knowledge that this is part of that person's take-home pay.

Lots of small businesses are for raising the minimum wage they just want to in a way that doesn't force them out of business. Independent retail faces an even more complex situation. This dialogue would be a lot more constructive if reasonable concerns of solvency were not mischaracterized as profiteering. Its a fair baseline for the conversation.

@8 There was much evidence presented at the event that discounts your assertions. And 'profiteering' got nary a mention. If you want to have a conversation, perhaps you should actually show up to one next time.

Oh please - small business boomed in the 50s and 60s which had a minimum wage for teens that calculates to $20 an hour today with inflation

Stop whining business peeps - all your competitors will have the same unit costs as you do

The weird thing is how the condescending, patriarchal "adults" do nothing but trot out cherry-picked anecdotes and purely hypothetical fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) to make their case. You call that mansplaining? Where's your spreadsheets, dad?

And the "children" who "don't know how to run a business" are the ones with aggregate data. We're the ones showing there the overall trends are, what the averages are, and what the bottom line comes out to be. We're the ones who show our work.

And you dare call us unreasonable? You dare ask us to be constructive? You dare talk down to us when you won't come clean with real data?

And when we call you on that bullshit, then the real contempt comes out. Then you tell us what you really think of low wage workers, that they're all "losers". And Dave Meinert has the nerve to say labor is "freaking out"? Seriously?

I can't wait for Seattle's oligarchs to have their Romney-47-percent-video. You know sooner or later somebody is going to trace the IPs of some of these "anonymous" trolls back to the "grown ups" who keep telling us to be "reasonable". Or some bartender is going to make a recording of what the bosses really think. Or their internal polls will get leaked by somebody making minimum wage.

You can't hide from reality forever, guys.

'Tips are not wages,"

Yes. Yes, they are. The Feds consider them to be wages, but; now that Goldy is gone from The Stranger's 'reporters' staff, this incredibly ignorant Anna Minard, another Stranger 'reporter' who as far as I know has yet to DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH, who tweeted a few days ago, "...if you still support a tip credit, you know you suck".

Really, Anna? I "suck"? Really, Bethany? Christopher? I "suck"? Tim? You come to Liberty fairly often, in your opinion, do I "suck" because I KNOW that tips ARE; in fact, wages. They're wages NOT JUST BECAUSE they are earned, but because THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS THEM TO BE WAGES!!!

I'm so bummed out by The Stranger. So bummed out. Allowing another 'Goldy' to spew a biased, ill-considered & unresearched plot of words to represent actual reporting?

This is not The Stranger of the past, when there was REAL reportage. REAL thinkers. REAL care for facts. This is just people that want to spew their personal opinion with no care for reality. It bums me out, for sure. Seattle deserves better, and while I felt badly about pulling my ad from The Stranger while awaiting some kind of real reporting, this just confirmed that I made the right move. When The Stranger has to bring in outside reporting to have another view, you KNOW something is wrong. Is there not ONE reporter at The Stranger that has done their homework and who has integrity in their opinions that compels them to simply do some research!?

It's a shame.

@10 - "Stop whining business peeps - all your competitors will have the same unit costs as you do"

See? This is the kind of learned information that is available to contribute to a conversation that needs real facts, not just opinion-laden ballox.

No, it's NOT true that "all your competitors will have the same unit costs as you do" Simply, it's not true. In no way, shape or form. I am amazed at the lack of reality that is shown here. A wholly ignorant statement that other factually ignorant people will read and then parrot.

@2 - I am so tired of this now-old trope. "Why not $100/hr?!??" Why not $40/hr? Because the popular support isn't there, it's dumb, and NO ONE EVEN REMOTELY SERIOUS is proposing $40/hr. The energy, movement, etc. is $15/hr. You're inventing a comical red herring. You're chasing windmills. It's absurd.

What is your argument exactly? No to $15/hr because $40/hr is way too much? Does that make sense when you read it to yourself, because pretty sure the rest of us have no idea how that hangs together. Here's what you sound like:

Them: We think 60mph is a good freeway speed limit.
You: Why not a 10mph freeway speed limit, it'd be SAFER?!?

Them: We think 6 stories is a good height limit for buildings in this area.
You: Why not 1 story?!? It'd be even less imposing! Why not make private land owners turn their buildings into parks?!? That's BASICALLY what you're saying!!

Why did Goldy leave The Stranger? What happened? Can we get him back?

I now realize that it was to read Goldy's posts that I valued and read the SLOG. I still skim the SLOG but, frankly, it's just not the same any more.

Data defeats anecdotes! Glorious moment.

@15 Probably because these intense business people like @12 are pulling their ads because they don't like reporting they don't agree with.

Why not a compromise that ties tipped employees tip credit to the new proposed min wage and any future increase?

So, min wage for hours worked if you're a tipped employee would be tied to 80% of non-tipped employees (min wage). In this instance, $12 p/h. Then, during payroll, reported tips (not assumed ones based on ticket sales) are factored into overall pay. If hours/overall pay do not meet or exceed $15 p/h, then the employer is on the hook to pay the difference.

@12

the IRS says:

Taxable earned income includes:

Wages, salaries, tips, and other taxable employee pay;

Or again:

Earned income includes salaries, wages, tips, professional fees, and taxable scholarship and fellowship grants.

Lots of things are taxable income. Scholarships are taxable income. Gifts are income. Capital gains. What isn't income, amiright?

Wages and tips are but two types of taxable income. Saying that wages are tips because wages and tips are taxable is like saying lottery winnings are also wages because they're taxable.*

The name for this is the fallacy of the undistributed middle. The form is:

All A are B
All C are B
Therefore A are C. Doh!

It's like freshman logic all over again. Sorry, you were talking down to us about how we don't know how to run a business. Do go on.

* Confidential to Meinert: no, you may not subtract your employees' lottery winnings from their wages. Give it a rest, already, dude.

See? Here's the problem with this debate. When people want to 'win' just to win, they rely on semantics. "taxable income" or 'wage' - what's the difference? At the end of the year, no matter what you call it, that money is considered as part of one's total income.

Don't become stupefied by semantics. Don't let people manipulate you like this.

At the end of the day, income is income. That income is taxed - it behaves the same as what the word "wage" suggests. Don't get hooked on semantics, get hooked on reason, logic and facts.

He Who Shall Not Be Named sums up the lie that is "Total Compensation" at his old/new digs, horsesass.org:

Sometimes a question can be as revealing as the answer.

In between sessions at yesterday’s Income Inequality Symposium, I was drawn into a discussion with fellow attendees about the “total compensation” minimum wage that some in the business community are still pushing. Under total compensation, an employer’s obligation to pay a minimum of $15 an hour could be met by a combination of cash wages, tips, and the cost of providing certain benefits. For example, I explained, $10.50 an hour in cash wages, plus $2.50 an hour in tips, plus $2 an hour in benefits would amount to a legal $15 an hour wage.

So if an employer were to offer a matching 401K contribution up to a maximum of one percent of an employee’s salary, I was asked, what would be the maximum benefit a minimum wage worker could receive? Would it be $0.15 an hour—one percent of the putative $15 an hour minimum wage? Would it be, using the example above, $0.105 an hour—one percent of the employee’s cash wages? Or would it be some more difficult to calculate number?

It took me a moment to wrap my mind around the question, but the answer I arrived at surprised even me. It doesn’t matter on which figure the employer chooses to calculate the maximum 401K match: under total compensation a matching 401K contribution is worth absolutely nothing to a minimum wage employee. Zero. Bupkes. Zilch.

And the same is true of the value of every other benefit.

Think about it. If you are earning a $15 total compensation minimum wage, and your employer generously matches your 401K contribution up to one percent of that higher number, you would receive $0.15 an hour in additional benefits. But that higher benefit could then be used to reduce the wage portion of your compensation by an equal amount. The benefit ends up costing the employer nothing, and the net result is that the “matching” contribution comes directly out of the employee’s paycheck. The employer gives with one hand and takes away with the other.

Likewise for other benefits like health insurance premiums and “paid” vacation days, the cost of which may also be used to decrease the wage component of your total compensation by an equal and offsetting amount. It’s as if minimum wage employees were purchasing these benefits through paycheck deductions; the employer bears none of the costs.

Some business owners argue that without total compensation they will be forced to eliminate benefits in order to shave costs. That may or may not be true. But from the minimum wage employee’s perspective, total compensation virtually guarantees the equivalent outcome. For when a benefit is transformed into a line item to be deducted from your take-home pay, it becomes nothing more than just another monthly expense. “Benefits” are no longer additive to one’s total compensation—eliminate them and your cash wages go up by a corresponding amount.

Of course, the caveat holds that all this analysis is only true of full-time employees. Lacking the cost of benefits to subtract from total compensation, low-wage part-timers and temporary workers could see their effective wage floor rise substantially.

But as a policy for raising the incomes of all low-wage workers, total compensation fails to deliver on its promise, while (for reasons I’ve explained previously) eroding the effective wage floor over time. A $15 total compensation minimum wage simply does not guarantee a $15 minimum wage. And to insist otherwise would be a lie

@20

Productivity data says they're worth $22/hr.

You've been told many times where 15 comes from. Split the difference between the 11 that workers used to get, in real dollars, in 1968, and the 22 that they produce today, and you get $16.50. Then generously round down to 15.

What number is not arbitrary in your opinion? Do you reject the idea of a minimum wage entirely?

Oh, look! Somebody thinks workers who used to be only worth $9/hr are now worth $15. How can it be? Looks to me like there's business owners who can do math better than you, and they see profit in hiring at $15.

@21 No. It's different because wages are things you can count on with some high level of certainty. Tips you cannot. They vary. And Saru made some very compelling arguments about how treating tips as wages is horrible for our culture and our economy. You are another one who would benefit from actually showing up to the conversation about the issue you claim to know everything about.

@21

There's a difference between income from your employer and income from somewhere else. When I add up how much I make from my employer, I don't count lottery winnings, or gifts, or any income from other sources. Only what my employer pays.

If "income is income" were true, then fucking Meinert could subtract scholarships or lottery winnings or the profits from his bartender selling his classic comic books. Oh, you got a little extra from your side project this month? Well, I'll just take that out of your paycheck!

Meinert didn't buy those classic comic books. Meinert didn't endow that scholarship. Meinert didn't didn't tip that waiter! What if we made tipping illegal. Would those dollars then flow into Meinert's pocket? No. They're not his money. They never were. If tipping stopped today the money would stay in the customer's pocket and employers would pay only wages.

The customer tips the waiter. Not the employer. And that's why employers don't get to pretend customers' tips are coming from the employer.

And you certainly don't get to cite the IRS as your authority. The IRS says wages and tips are two different kinds of income.

@24

Even income you can count on, like a monthly social security check, or alimony, is not something an employer can claim came from them. It could be reliable as the sunrise but that doesn't entitle the employer to subtract it from your wages.

The reason the employer may not subtract it is that the money didn't come from the employer.

First of all, "Pol Pot" @22 - your chosen name is so offensive as to stagger me. I am sure that know who Pol Pot was - he directly led to the vicious murder of hundreds of thousands of people and in the end, the death of perhaps up to 3 million Cambodians. And, you use HIS NAME!? Even if it's in any other context, it's shameful and ill-considered.

Past that, your whole premise is inane. Most of the contributions considered in Total Compensation is tip/commission income, NOT the inane & hollow 401K argument that is the basis for most of your premise.

"It’s as if minimum wage employees were purchasing these benefits through paycheck deductions; the employer bears none of the costs."

Are you KIDDING? If I was able to give my employees paid vacation time or insurance contributions (which unfortunately I am in now way able to do), that $ would leave my bank and enter theirs, right? That's money out of the employer's pocket and into the employee's pocket. How can you suggest that "the employer bears none of the costs"!? That's just wrong. The employer DIRECTLY bears those costs in that case. More importantly, where Total Comp is more relevant, it's in tips. My staff makes over $30/hr. on average... If the argument of the $15Now parrots is that people need that much for a 'Living Wage', is $30+ then not enough?

We need to work together to find a solution. Total Comp is a great middle ground to help those that need the assistance if the goal REALLY is to find a solution to wage inequality.

"And to insist otherwise would be a lie"

That's simply not true, but...like your Communist nom de plume, another war criminal stated, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Well done, keep at it and eventually people will believe you.

@ 24, "Saru made some very compelling arguments about how treating tips as wages is horrible for our culture and our economy."

Sure, anyone using emotionally-charged rhetoric and believable-sounding 'facts' can be said to make "some very compelling arguments".

Funny how honest & pro-worker employers tend to believe in Total Comp, because it allows us to stay in business while finding a balance in what we have to do in order to be able to compete, and thus be able to continue to create employment. Are we all dishonest? Are we all idiots? NO, we look at all sides where you just hear "some very compelling arguments" and, voilà!, it all makes so much sense!

Total Compensation is a middle ground to allow all forms of compensation to be considered so that the employer can operate their business without the cost of employment to be impossible in balance with the prices which they must charge their customers. At even $12.50, I'll raise my prices by easily 15%, at $15, it's probably closer or even above 25%. That's a reality. I know that very few of you want to accept this reality, but it IS a reality.

"You are another one who would benefit from actually showing up to the conversation about the issue you claim to know everything about."

Here's a life lesson - ask questions first. I have been to EVERY ONE of the public meetings on this subject. I have spoken to the City Council and at innumerable small-business forums.

Seriously. Learn to ask questions first. Having all of the information available means that your credulity won't be questioned, because if you make such an error in judgement here because you don't know enough to know enough, it calls seriously into question your appreciation of these "very compelling arguments". In fact, it's hardly a surprise.

Seriously. Learn before you opine. It will help all of us - but more specifically, it'll help you the most.

@27, you are not cool, and thus you have no standing to criticize others' post names.

@28

I have a question.

How come none of these business will open their books? Oh, another question. Do you know that 68% of voters support $15/hr? Do you have your own poll that says different?

Also. Has a minimum wage increase ever caused employment to drop? Ever? Anywhere? How come?

Since you like questions, can I ask if you can tell us why restaurants didn't suffer at all after 1988's Initiative 518 removed the tip penalty? Wages for tipped employees increased 85%. That should have killed restaurants. Why didn't it?

How come the state with the highest minimum wage in America doesn't have an unemployment problem? How come our economy is healthier than "business friendly" states that pay $7.25/hr?

How come high-wage cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, New York, etc are hothouses of innovation and creative enterprises? Why do entrepreneurs flock to those places? And not to "business friendly" places where workers can be had for only $7.25/hr?

Also, weird question, maybe, but you like questions more than answers and I really want to know, who is Jason? Do you know what I'm talking about? Who is this Jason guy? Chauncey won't tell me.

@29 -"you are not cool, and thus you have no standing to criticize others' post names."

First of all, that's a name that I picked a decade ago...and those names as far as I know can't be changed. Past that, I have two points for you:

1) This is not high school, so your comment is so inane as to boggle my mind.

2) My silly name is NOTHING in compared to his/hers using Pol Pot. Pol Pot was one of modern history's greatest murderers. To in any way compare oneself with such a person? Disgusting. Perhaps 'Ted Bundy' (~100 victims) would be better? No. How about 'Stalin' (In the millions and millions of victims)? No, perhaps 'Mao'?

You get my point. Stick to the topic at hand, y'r not good at side discussions.

@30 - "How come none of these business will open their books?"

Many have offered. I personally have offered The Stranger to give them my books, as have many other small businesses, but they have never taken us up on our offer.

So, here's a life lesson - here's an example of your lack of knowledge in a subject creating statements of befuddled ignorance. I wonder what else you are ignorant about that is coloring your opinion...

More ignorance is your adherence to past rises in MW, as if that's some apple to apple comparison. Today's economic climate is SO DIFFERENT to 88 that there's no way honest or educated people could directly draw a comparison.

"How come high-wage cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, New York, etc are hothouses of innovation and creative enterprises? Why do entrepreneurs flock to those places? And not to "business friendly" places where workers can be had for only $7.25/hr?"

Oh. My. Lord. Are you serious? "Why do entrepreneurs flock to those places?" Are you serious? Please tell me that this is not a real question. Do you know NOTHING about why these businesses exist where they are? There are so many reasons, the LEAST amongst them is that these are great cities that attract the business leaders and the workers that want to not live in Alabama, or Arkansas, or any of the other backwoods that have low minimum wage. WOW. You think that it's because of MW in ANY context!? You know why Seattle is a tech hub? One word - Microsoft. Same with 'Silicon Valley', it's because through no reasoning due to MW, companes started there in the 80's, and it stuck. Wow. Seriously. You are living in a dream world of nonsense.

"Also, weird question, maybe, but you like questions more than answers and I really want to know, who is Jason? Do you know what I'm talking about? Who is this Jason guy? Chauncey won't tell me."

Y'r cracking. What in the world are you talking about?

@31

So you were cool 10 years ago? What happened to you?

You know, Stalin and Mao were taken ages ago. You know that. It's mean to rub it in.

All the cool names were snatched up, way back, well, back when you were cool. Yes, even Hitler. And Godwin. Even Godwin. It got so bad I had to take Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Anyway, I'm going to tell the Dead Kennedys you changed from the old days. You changed, man.

@27- your pearl clutching over my annoying, offensive nom de internet aside, it's not my premise; it's Goldy's premise, which I happen to agree with.

"For when a benefit is transformed into a line item to be deducted from your take-home pay, it becomes nothing more than just another monthly expense. “Benefits” are no longer additive to one’s total compensation—eliminate them and your cash wages go up by a corresponding amount."

In other words, Claiming health insurance or tips as "total compensation" becomes a convenient excuse to not raise hourly wages. It does nothing to increase the purchasing power of low wage earners, ergo nothing to increase demand - basic Keynesian economics.

There are a wide variety of plans to ease the burden of an increased minimum wage on small businesses, and that must be a robust debate. But the debate is how to help small businesses while increasing purchasing power, not how small businesses can hide behind "total compensation" in order to prevent a better standard of living.

The best thing about my Internet name on SLOG is that every now and again someone types out "I agree with Pol Pot" which always makes me giggle.

@31

Was Ayn Rant taken?

@28 No data, not even data that shows negative effects on employment or prices, has shown such a dramatic increase in prices that you propose.

@28 "I have been to EVERY ONE of the public meetings on this subject. I have spoken to the City Council and at innumerable small-business forums."

Speaking and listening are two different things. Too bad you do one without the other.

@27 is where Libby finally admits to losing the debate.

@32

So they offered to open their books... and? What? Why didn't they? Who is stopping them? Stop whining. Stop blaming. Stop acting like a child. They're your books, open them.

Entrepreneurs come to cities like Seattle in spite of wages! Ding! Ding! Ding! You can hardly claim on the one hand that high wages will destroy the economy, yet on the other hand you say wages are beside the point. Which is it? Are wages the be all and end all, or are wages only one small piece of the equation?

And you're ignoring the fact that "business friendly" states have large cities: Detroit, Houston, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake. It's been like this for decades, long before Microsoft came along. Seattle is not a special case. Look at the larger pattern.

This leads us to ask about the consumer economy. Businesses need customers. Customers with money to spend. Hence demand side economics. Hence the boon to businesses when employees get paid more. We tried supply side and look where we got. Now the fix is to give money to people.

'The best thing about my Internet name on SLOG is that every now and again someone types out "I agree with Pol Pot" which always makes me giggle.'

http://magictravelblog.com/2012/08/the-k…

Yeah, giggle away.

Would you still be obligated to tip your waiter / bar tender even though they would be making $15/hr? Seems like eliminating tipping altogether would solve the tipping issue really easily.

@42 - I'm going to the store later. Would you like me to pick up a sense of humour for you while I'm there? It's a BOGO, so you can can keep a spare one in a drawer somewhere.

@41 - "So they offered to open their books... and? What? Why didn't they? Who is stopping them? Stop whining. Stop blaming. Stop acting like a child. They're your books, open them."

Wait...I know this! I recognize this! When one in a debate writes something to the order of, "Stop whining. Stop blaming. Stop acting like a child.", that's called 'deflection', meant to put the other person in a state of defense, which then causes you to be able to move around inconvenient information.

The reality? Sure. I'd be more than happy to open my books - shall I post them on the window of my business? Post them to my Facepage? Get an ad in the Stranger? What would be your suggestion? You wrote, "How come none of these business will open their books?". To which, I replied, "Many have offered. I personally have offered The Stranger to give them my books, as have many other small businesses, but they have never taken us up on our offer."

So, what we see here folks is that this person, upon finding out that their charge and challenge had been answered a long time ago, instead of being honest to the discussion, they deflected the point created a diversion. Well, some people are not fools, and some recognize a dishonest person when they see it, and you are dishonest. You asked for someone to open their books, we have offered but no press has taken us up on doing so, because let me tell you - if we found someone to look at our numbers, and if though an honest use of those numbers we showed you that such a rise in our payroll & other COGS expenses, our prices would have to rise to what we keep claiming (20%+), that this would put some of us - depending on carveouts for Total Comp - in danger or simply out of business...if we were to show this clearly, then your argument, that terrible 'reporter' Anna's ignorant posts, along with all of those people with more agenda than honesty would have to agree that we are not lying, we are not liars and we are on the side of our employees. We want to keep them employed, we want to employ more - but we need help. We are not Big Business. We can't compete with Big Business.

We are not the enemy, and your dishonest debate tactics are telling.

@44 - "I'm going to the store later. Would you like me to pick up a sense of humour for you while I'm there?"

Sorry, 'Pol Pot', I don't find genocide humorous. I've been to Cambodia, have you? If you had, you'd see some of the things that I did, like a woman walking down the street with no hands or feet...I wonder how that happened...?

No, I don't find that humorous, I find it shameful.

@45 "Wait...I know this! I recognize this! When one in a debate writes something to the order of, "Stop whining. Stop blaming. Stop acting like a child.", that's called 'deflection', meant to put the other person in a state of defense, which then causes you to be able to move around inconvenient information."

Which is what you're doing when you cry about the name "Pol Pot". Christ, you're a disingenuous little shit.

"The reality? Sure. I'd be more than happy to open my books - shall I post them on the window of my business? Post them to my Facepage? Get an ad in the Stranger? What would be your suggestion?"

Dude, there are a shit ton of sites you can post that info onto and link to. Try Google Word or some other public publication.

"So, what we see here folks is that this person, upon finding out that their charge and challenge had been answered a long time ago, instead of being honest to the discussion, they deflected the point created a diversion."

Like bitching about a name?

"Well, some people are not fools, and some recognize a dishonest person when they see it, and you are dishonest."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6WoXiSU…

"if we were to show this clearly, then your argument, that terrible 'reporter' Anna's ignorant posts, along with all of those people with more agenda than honesty would have to agree that we are not lying"

Okay. Do it.

@43

How exactly do you "eliminate" tipping? I can imagine some people will choose to tip less if they know waiters are making $15/hr, but that's up to them. It's up to you. Is Seattle supposed to make tipping against the law? Really?

It's out of employers hands as well. This is the difference between tips and other benefits. They can say, "Well, I'll take away employee meals if I have to pay $15". That's their choice, and some will do it. Others will be more competitive in the labor market.

But tips are not the employer's to take away. This is why they are fighting so hard for a tip penalty: it's money they can't control otherwise, because it wasn't theirs to begin with. This is one reason why it's so offensive to see guys like Douglas and Meinert using other people's money as if it were theirs to bargain with.

Not your money guys. You don't have a say over it.

#48... so...what's the compelling reason to tip if we pass 15Now? I hear frequently that tipping is mandatory at 15-20%+ because servers are paid so poorly. So once they make $15/hr, we can go back to true merit based tipping right? The guy at Home Depot doesn't get a tip and he makes minimum wage. The pizza delivery guy does because he worked extra hard? Do you want to slap the Home Depot employee yourself for insinuating he isn't working hard enough, or are you going to try and get someone else to do it for you?

Why not $40, why not $100. People like to criticize this as being extreme, but what we are trying to point out is the fact that most intelligent people believe there is a point where there would be damage.

It has been suggested that it will help the economy and make everybody richer (Mr. hanauer) so if it would at $15, why wouldn't it at $25. Wouldn't $25 be better?

Some of us, who know because we live and breath it, are telling you that there will be damage at $15, people will lose their jobs, some people will become simply unemployable, prices will increase and businesses will close. You don't believe at it $15 but you would believe at $25 wouldn't you? Think about it.

@50

Do whatever you like. Go ask the person who told you tipping was "mandatory"; it wasn't me. Tipping is optional. The cops aren't going to arrest you for not tipping. I expect that some will tip less after $15 becomes the new minimum hourly wage. If that's what floats your boat, I bid you godspeed.

I just want to understand what exactly is involved when someone says "we" should "eliminate" tipping. Are the cops going to arrest people for tipping? How's that going to work?

@51

Stop acting like nobody has explained to you where $15/hr comes from. You've had the explanation many times, but like a palooka you come back again and again saying, "gollly, why not some other number???" Which part don't you understand?

I would like to hear how you can "live and breathe" something yet you can't find one actual shred of evidence to support your dire prediction. Is it like religion? Like you can't prove it but Jesus told you no $15/hr? Has business ever declined in the past due to the minimum wage? Has unemployment ever increased?

Tips aren't wages eh? Great! That's means I no longer have to tip when the 15 buck min wage passes.

@48 you're wrong, lots of places have tip policies that x% has to go to the bus boys and y to the cooks and z to the hostess, etc. The reason is if the customer doesn't tip and tip well then the server may actually loss money. If the restaurant workers are going to depend on their hourly wage then lets outlaw this practice. Most countries that have high min wage and social problems tend to tip less then is expected in the states. But if service staff still expects 15-20% tips then fuck yeah that's part of your wage and to say otherwise is disingenuous.

Tipping creates inequality between people working in the same place, to not include it in the min wage is a fuck you to all the non tipped employees working for min wage.
http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu…

@54

A business can have tip distribution guidelines for their employees, but the courts have stated unequivocally that an employer is not allowed to seize an employee's tips and then distribute them back out.

Similarly, the employer can add a 15% gratuity to a bill for a party of 6 or more, but they can't force you to pay it; you can pay only the base cost and walk out without any fear of being arrested.

And as far as I know, nobody has found any correlation, one way or another, between tipping customs in a given region or culture and the overall economic health of that society.

@31,

Slog started about a decade ago (maybe a little more), but comment registration happened six/seven years ago. Maybe come up with a different excuse?

Who's telling me that tipping is mandatory? Everyone who's a tipped employee. I gave you the link in another article. But just go ahead and google "why should I tip" and you'll get lots of articles by folks insisting that tipping is mandatory for everyone who eats out because it makes up the inequity of their wage structure. I can actually get behind that. But if that's their argument, the I would like to see that "mandate" they like to hold up disappear when $15/hr hits.

Is "I'm Cool" really the owner of Liberty, as claimed? Because with all the posturing about hurt feelings and all that, Liberty's Yelp page must be a trainwreck.

@58 Tipping's good manners, which could, in a sense, be considered mandatory, but it's certainly not compulsory. If you don't want to tip, don't tip. Just stop pretending you care about the employees. In fact, why don't you start a movement of no tipping, and create some buttons and t-shirts that say, "I don't tip"?

Because I do care about the employees? And that's the only reason as far as I'm concerned to actually tip. If you can afford it, do it. I can, so I do. You can pretend that me making a logical observation about other folks' argument is me being cold, heartless, elitist, etc...but that's your dog, not mine.

But all the articles getting written of late that tell people how they are awful people if they don't tip are all focused on making up for a wage gap. There's nothing about "good manners" that plays into it. If it's such good manners, please explain to me why some folks fall into the magical tipping category and others don't when wages are equal.

As someone who works for tips (comprising 75% of my total income) I get nervous about a 15/hr wage with no tip credit. Tips in no way bring my wage well above above the poverty line, thanks to underemployment. But I get by because with tips my wage is about 20-25/hr So if the MW went up to a sadly inadequate 15/hr and people stopped tipping making my rent would become difficult... I'm just saying, I believe in raising the minimum wage, it's necessary for the greater good and should overall improve the Seattle economy. But it might not benefit all tipped workers, I could be very wrong, but the idea of people deciding not to tip due to a higher MW makes me nervous.

If an economic equation was the answer to all our problems, I suspect that it would have already been applied. The fed this, the minimum wage that. Most citizens or visitors (welcome) of Seattle are not economic professionals, whether well versed or experts in any of the following: business, social services, government, finance, academics, etc. You are well intentioned; now let's move the conversation forward.

We are late in the game to argue ideology. And, it sounds like there are basics of economic principle that cannot be agreed upon. The rest is a matter of law, implementation and enforcement. We're moving fast, and that's not a bad thing, but let's not waste time getting distracted. The direction of economic development is driven by the political climate. At some point it's time to put down the pitchfork and get down to the work part. It would seem the only known we have at this point is: The minimum wage will increase. Next we mediate and that takes on a different tone and its how we rational folks get to agreement, even when addressing the most emotionally charged issues.

@61 I know many restaurant owners do in fact work for tips. They work side by side with their employees behind the bar. (I know several owners who spend all their time in the office nowadays but USED to work for tips, so they certainly know what living on tips is like.) Sometimes those tips are the majority of their personal income, since unexpected restaurant cost spikes are so frequent (broken equipment, theft, new laws that increase payroll 60%, things like that).

@63 Would someone who works in retail for an untipped $15 then tip you for "service" knowing you are getting $15 also? They might be underemployed too. They might not think it's their responsibility to help you get by on fewer hours than they would have to work. People probably won't stop tipping altogether because it is still a cultural norm, but I can't imagine people feeling the same need to "take care of" their servers who are making the same amount they are in retail or as a teacher or as a nurse. It's going to be interesting for the highly tipped workers when this goes through...

Dang. You get by on $20-25/hr? That's more per hour than a good number of advanced degree holding full time professionals in my social and professional circles make. If that's the norm for a tipped worker in this city, no wonder restaurant owners baulk at having to cover $15 with no tip credit. Heck, I know small business owners and sole props who make way less than $20-25/hr (if they were so lucky to even have a 40 hour work week!)

p.s. I did note that you wrote that you have an underemployment issue...so I know you're not pulling in the FTE equivalent of 40-50k a year. But that's still a really good hourly wage!

@47 - " Which is what you're doing when you cry about the name "Pol Pot". Christ, you're a disingenuous little shit."

No. Not at all. I'm pointing out the disgusting nature that is such a person who will make a joke out of a genocide. There's a difference.

"disingenuous little shit". HA! Talk about someone that can't stand to discuss reality. Gotsta just be so incredibly insulting, 'eh? Is this how you go through life?

" Dude, there are a shit ton of sites you can post that info onto and link to. Try Google Word or some other public publication."

You didn't understand my point. I meant, even if I just posted it somewhere, how would people see it? How would people know about it? Want me to post it here? Sure - here:

Total Cost of Goods Sold (TCoGS) = 94.2% of Income

- Labor: 27.2% (Includes Liberty's portion of payroll taxes, which is $53K)
- CoGS - Labor = 67%

So, this means that if my labor goes up by 60%, without being able to affect my costs much, if at all, that will cause my Labor to then be 43.5% of my TCoGS... This then puts me UNDER by 16%, BEFORE my specific CoGS rise.

The assumption, after talking to my purveyors is that our costs will go up by no less than 10%...So, if we add ANOTHER 10% on my CoGS, that'll add another 7% to my TCoGS, which will then put me UNDER my income now by 24%. So, before make ONE DOLLAR, at $15/hr. MW, without any carveouts for the income that servers make in tips, I am under by 24%, which means that I'll have to raise my prices by 24%.

You wanted numbers? There they are. I am looking at my General P/L of 2013.

“Okay. Do it.”

“Okay”, I did.

There you go. My prices go up by 24% before I add ONE PENNY in profit…So, if by following this model I add the ~6% in net profits…that means that I’ll have to raise my prices by 30%...just to stay even. Thusly, that Gin & Tonic? It’s now $6.50. That Moscow Mule? $10.50.

So. There’r the numbers. 30%.

Now, some restaurants with more controlled costs compared to Liberty will be able to make this number be lower – perhaps even by 10%. Then, if they are able to have a greater net profit, they may be able to eat a little of their profits and lower the total cost and thus rise in prices…they may be closer to 15% in a price increase…

You wanted prices? There you are.

@63 - your math doesn't add up? If your wage (at least $9.32) is 25% of your income than you would be making more like $37/hr in total compensation, wouldn't you?

Or are you talking just about what the government makes you declare? I really don't understand the why $15NOW doesn't support some type of tip credit. Honestly, it is ridiculous to suggest that someone making that much needs a raise that just might put the entire restaurant out of business.

We can discuss whether tipping should happen or shouldn't, but it is part of the equation. And yes, I realize that not every server makes that type of money. Are there servers really not making at least $15/hr somewhere? I doubt it.

Now, probably the problem with the tip credit argument is now everybody is tipped, not just servers.

@57 - "Slog started about a decade ago (maybe a little more), but comment registration happened six/seven years ago. Maybe come up with a different excuse?"

Wow. What nitpicky nonsense. I guessed. It's been years. Seven? Ten? Who knows? WHO CARES!?

Seriously. This is why most business owners don't want to contribute to this shit. Because people like you just pick on stupid shit and purposefully ignore reality & facts. Yet, people like you will just keep whining & whinging that more businesses don't contribute to this discussion.

But, again...as I have said many times, one has to know enough to know enough...and most of you have not crossed that first hurdle, and most of you don't care to do so, anyway.

@70

Who cares? You care. You're the one who hijacked the thread. Admit you should have stayed on topic and say you're sorry.

First, this article talks about how great it was that they heard personal anecdotes from a handful of carefully selected low wage workers...then it dismisses the personal anecdotes of a restaurant owner. Honestly Anna, make up your fucking mind (assuming you have a mind)

First, I work for MW plus tips, and I make about 40,000 a year. Any server who does not make enough to live in this city is doing SOMETHING WRONG! I'm an unattractive man, and I still have, in my decade of waiting tables, never had any trouble living a comfortable lifestyle based on tips.

Second, a question about that bogus statement that "the restaurant industry has grown in San Fransisco": was there any tracking of what kind of restaurants experienced growth? Where they by first time owners, owners of already established restaurants or, more than likely, corporate chains? If a city has, just for the sake of argument, three small restaurants that close and ten McDonald's that open, that is a net increase in the number of restaurants. That is probably what happened in San Fransisco: big businesses were able to adapt easily to a high MW, while small businesses weren't, and hence big businesses saw a boom while small businesses suffered.

Also, when the MW goes up, minorities, blacks in particular, suffer. Blacks are more likely to have fewer skills then whites thanks to the broken public school system. As a result they can't be hired for the same pay rate as whites, and the only way they can get any training and get "their feet in the door" is if they are given the chance that a low-starting salary offers. A high MW means most blacks can't even get hired.

In his classic "The State Against Blacks," African American economist Walter Williams makes it plain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUBK9_4O…

And this whole damn thing is a smoke screen. The Stranger and the City Council are TOO DAMN COWARDLY to ask this question: why are we talking about giving people more to work at McDonald's instead of asking why grown, educated people have to work at McDonald's in the first place?

The most answers to that question can't be solved at a municipal level: things like NAFTA and the WTO fast tracking American jobs overseas, our failing education system, regulations suffocating businesses and making it harder to higher people, a tax system that steals from the poor to give to the government etc.

In short, the 15Now thing is a naive push by a bunch of ignorant leftists and their Troskyite leader and will have racist and anti-immigrant consequences that is also a weapon of mass distraction taking our eyes off the real issues. Fortunately I'll probably be in Houston if and when Seattle commits economic suicide...and I would LOVE to see a socialist run for office in Texas. 15Now Houston has like a dozen members who are laughed at by passers by and have stuff thrown at them, and rightfully so.

I thank Andrew of Liberty for two things: a great neighborhood bar and this conversation. Now I know that, while I've lost a great place to grab a drink, I'm at least not going to be spending my money supporting a business owner who will come out swinging against his employees in public. That's not very neighborly.

Consider my boycott only just begun-- #justicenotliberty.

Well corrie, you wanted numbers, he gave you numbers. You can be mad and liberty for those numbers. But they are what they are.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-woo…

Hey 15now folks, what the plan to deal with Tech? Not trolling, I promise. At 15 bucks and hour all sort of automation that was previously cost prohibitive starts to make sense for businesses. These 15 dollar an hour jobs are terminal. We need to spend money on retraining/education etc.

You all should read the cover article from the economist. That is the real problem for the workers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-woo…

Hey 15now supports, what the long term plan to deal with Tech? Not trolling, I promise. At 15 bucks an hour all sort of automation that was previously cost prohibitive (ex: automated checkout at fast food outlets and remote workers taking drive through orders)starts to make sense for businesses.

You all should read the cover article from the economist. That is appears to be the real problem looming for workers.