The City of Long Beach, California, has elected to be a laboratory for political intrusion by Left-Wing ‘experts.’ The city passed a four-dollar an hour wage hike labeled “Hero Pay.” The added cost is forcing Kroeger to close two locations in the city.
Related: Milton Friedman Has a Message for NH Democrats on Poverty and the Minimum Wage
Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs and Food 4 Less, will soon shut down two stores in Long Beach, California in response to the city imposing a “hero pay” increase of $4 per hour for some grocery store workers. A Ralphs and a Food 4 Less are slated to close on April 17, the company said Monday. …
“As a result of the City of Long Beach’s decision to pass an ordinance mandating Extra Pay for grocery workers, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close long-struggling store locations in Long Beach.” … “This misguided action by the Long Beach City Council oversteps the traditional bargaining process and applies to some, but not all, grocery workers in the city.”
A few points to ponder.
Kroeger was already padding employees’ pay voluntarily by an additional two-dollars per hour as a sort of Coronavirus frontline “hero pay. ”
The mandatory minimum wage in Long Beach was 13.00/hour but rose to 14.00/hour on Jan 1st before any “hero pay.” (Mandatory 13.00/hour for staffs of 25 employees or less after 1/1/21).
Those receivers, shelf stockers, bag boys, and register personnel were earning a minimum of 16.00/hour (14+2 from Kroger) before Long Beach stepped in to do them a solid.
Now they will earn nothing.
And no, Democrats will not Learn from Long Beach, where unemployment was around 11.6% in November and over 20% during peak stupid.
If you artificially push labor costs (or any costs) using government force (or any artificial means), bad things happen. Prices rise, jobs disappear, businesses go under, and lots of people lose – after months of crapping on job creators and devastating the small businesses state-wide.
The Long Beach response? They blame Kroger for the store closings.