NYC Business Owners: The New Minimum Wage Is Forcing Us To Lay People Off, Cut Hours

[PeteS in CA]

NYC Business Owners: The New Minimum Wage Is Forcing Us To Lay People Off, Cut Hours

The city’s unemployment rate is more or less steady, the WSJ notes in this piece, so fans of across-the-board statutory wage hikes can tell themselves that these anecdotes are just that — anecdotes, not data suggesting a large-scale shift.

But wait a few months, as they’re not done yet raising the minimum wage in NYC. Although it’s already $15/hour for businesses with 10 or more employees, those with fewer than 10 can pay as little as $13.50 an hour. Come January 1, that’ll change and every worker in New York will need to receive $15/hour.

The smallest businesses, already operating on tight margins and crushed with exorbitant rents, will be squeezed tighter while the bigger boys cope more comfortably. That’s progress for you.

Susannah Koteen, owner of Lido Restaurant in Harlem, said she worries about the impact raising wages could have on her restaurant, where she employs nearly 40 people. She hasn’t had to lay off anyone, but the increase has forced her to cut back on shifts and be more stringent about overtime. She said she changes her menu offerings seasonally and raises prices more often since the wage boost.

“What it really forces you to do is make sure that nobody works more than 40 hours,” Ms. Koteen said. “You can only cut back so many people before the service starts to suffer.”…
...
Thomas Grech, president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, said he has seen an uptick in small-business closures during the past six to nine months, and he attributed it to the minimum-wage legislation.

Koteen was planning to move to a bigger location but scrapped that idea because she can’t afford to hire more people now. Sacrifices like that have been going on piecemeal in service industries since the new $15 mandatory wage took effect in January ...

Predictable consequences, with more to come, as the economic noose tightens. Big chains can afford equipment and services that reduce the size of shift staff, such as apps that enable ordering online, including what table the customer is sitting at. Or table-terminals that let customers pay their bill via the terminal instead of the server and cashier handling that task. Or ordering kiosks. Smaller restaurants with a few - or just one - locations can't afford such equipment and services and will be slowly strangled by government regs.

[Applewood]

No question that $15 hour minimum wage is a job and business killer.  In order to stay afloat, businesses will have to cut employee hours and the employees themselves, as well as find new innovative ways to stay profitable.  The local supermarket chain here announced recently it is experimenting with an app that will scan items as you put them in your shopping cart.    When you're finished, hit "Total," charge your purchases to a credit or debit card and off you go.  No checkout line and no cashier.  Already, the supermarket location near me has only maybe two or three cashiers at a time.  The rest of the checkouts are self-service. 

As the article states, businesses which cannot afford technology to replace those $15 an hour employees will fold.  There goes the economy in NYC.  Everywhere this minimum wage has been tried -- sooner or later, it means calamity for businesses, employees and ordinary citizens alike.  Yet Democrats continue to advocate for it and try to force it upon everyone.  You would think they would learn from places where it has been tried.  But no.  In liberal Democrat world, it's not that an idea was bad; I just wasn't applied enough.

[Cyber Liberty]

The good people of NYC voted...poorly.

[GtHawk]

Wait for democrats act 2 where they try and legislate that businesses can't terminate employees or reduce their hours.