Employees and employers have this thing they do where they agree to the value of any given individual contribution to an operation. Left to its own devices the job market and the free market will find parity not just in costs but prices.
It’s a beautiful thing and it works. But Democrats can’t leave anything alone.
They are obsessed with using the government to meddle. Intrusions that result in outcomes opposite to those advertised.
Just ask New York City Restaurant Owners. The Big Apple instituted the arbitrary living wage, and it is not just killing local businesses it is wiping out operations that were successful until the “experts” came along and knee-capped them.
For many businesses, this egregious law is not just an inconvenience, it is simply unaffordable. The most recent victim is long-time staple, The Coffee Shop, a tremendously popular Union Square bar and café favored by many celebrities.
In explaining his decision to close following 28 years of high-volume business, owner Charles Milite told the New York Post, “The times have changed in our industry. The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees.”
In this case, not just fewer jobs but no jobs. No pay. No benefits. Oh yeah, and they HAD the option for health benefits.
The Coffee Shop closed by arbitrary wage rules, Ellie Bufkin notes over at The Federalist, is part of a restaurant group subject to all the rules under ObamaCare. Another Democrat – Big Government act of compassion.
And why does that matter?
The Coffee Shop is part of The Gotham City Restaurant Group, which also owns Flats Fix, the former employer of socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The 28-year-old Democratic congressional candidate recently told The New York Times that many of her fellow restaurant workers were uninsured, inspiring her to run for office.
So Socialist-Dem phenom Ocasio-Cortez didn’t just lie about her upbringing, she lied about the availability of benefits. With 150 employees they had to offer them.
While we’re talking about liars, the New Hampshire Democrat Party is full of them, all running for office, claiming we need that same living wage. Some will point to the fight for 15 while others will hedge their populist bets with a lower number like $13.00, or even $11.00 per hour to start, always rising over time to ruin New Hampshire’s already thriving job market and employment opportunities.
The goal will always be to reach the magic number that has been unemploying hourly employees and denying low-skill or no-skill workers opportunities in all the finest liberal cities across America.
Cities whose only real growth market has become homeless people and their murder rate.
No coincidence though.
Portsmouth New Hampshire’s “thriving” cultural scene need not fear the wrath of Darth economics after Democrats arbitrarily implement a price for labor that the market cannot justify.
Sure, trendy little shops and restaurants have systematically become empty storefronts in other cities thanks to these top-down mandates. And instead of happy well-paid masses, they result in streets lined with un-leasable space, like a big toothless grin “housing” the homeless. But not here. It’ll be different this time; we’ll do it differently here.
Service won’t suffer. We won’t find more people unemployed or on welfare or expanded Medicaid. Rainbows will sprout from paychecks, unicorns will carry patrons to the golden doors of enlightened establishments, and an interdenominational choir of genderless secular humanists will sing the praises of Marx and Engles.
Promises, promises, meet reality.
The reality is that after they’ve lost your job and benefits, they will be happy to campaign on providing you with a subsistence stipend and basic medical care at laughable reimbursement rates (translation: no access, no doctors). If that’s not good enough maybe you can find a “short-term” job on craigslist holding a sign to protest the low hourly rates of pay and their impact on “families.”
It worked out so well the first time, why not try it again?
