I crossed the 40 year mark not long ago, and I work at a local successful eatery in the Lakes Region as a cook. I make 10.75/hr. Its woeful for sure. All businesses with regular employees have a fairly fixed labor cost that they need to work within. If it comes to pass that a minimum wage was raised to lets say 10/hr, I would likely never see another raise again at this job. When the dishwashers, hosts, prep guys, new cooks, and janitorial staff suddenly cost 25% more an hour, every hour, the available labor for the whole staff would tighten up to the point of effective pay freezes and or culling the herd of experienced employees. Both of which would have a serious effect on morale and the restaurants ability to even function. In its own way, I am the middle class in the kitchen. The effective ceiling is about 40% more than I make now. That’s the total earning potential in this situation as is. The artificial increase of hard working but inexperienced/limited ability employees would necessitate my earning potential to be fixed where it is. My 15+ years of experience would effectively be equal in pay to the kid that just started.
To some, that’s “Fair.”
