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Desperate NYC Restaurants Suffering Painful Consequences of New $15 Minimum Wage

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It looks like New York City has been hit with the two worst enemies of liberalism: Reality and math.

The city lead by a Democrat with openly socialist ambitions recently enacted a $15 per hour minimum wage for many employers, a spike of 36 percent since just three years ago.

That increase applies to businesses with at least 11 workers and went into effect at the beginning of the year. But that liberal policy is now hitting restaurants hard.

“New York City restaurant owners say the latest minimum wage hike is forcing them to cut workers’ hours just to stay afloat,” CBS News reported on Wednesday.

It turns out that money has to come from somewhere, and in many cases, the trade-off from the wage jump means that the same workers who got raises on paper are actually working fewer hours as employers struggle to balance the books.

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“It’s the third rise in the city’s base wage since Dec. 31, 2016, when it went to $11 an hour,” CBS explained. “The latest increase is part of a plan that phases in minimum wage hikes across New York state, with amounts and effective dates varying by region and industry.”

Conservatives and anybody who can use a calculator have long warned that minimum wages can’t be endlessly raised without consequences. That appears to be exactly what is now happening.

“Jon Bloostein operates six New York City restaurants that employ between 50 and 110 people each,” CBS reported as one example. “The owner of Heartland Brewery and Houston Hall, Bloostein said the effect of the higher minimum wage on payroll across locations represents ‘an immense cost’ to his business.”

“We lost control of our largest controllable expense,” the entrepreneur told CBS. “So in order to live with that and stay in business, we’re cutting hours.”

Is it time to stop pushing endless minimum wage hikes?

As a direct result of the leftist-backed minimum wage increase, Bloostein has eliminated the hours for hosts and hostesses during many daytime periods, and replaced them with a sign that reads, “Kindly select a table.”

Here’s a thought: If a job done by people can instead be done by words held up on a stick, maybe it isn’t the wisest choice for them to constantly demand hour-killing pay raises.

But it isn’t just workers who are being hit with the consequences of the liberal wage policies. Customers will now have to pay more for the same products and services.

“So as a result (of the minimum wage hike), it will cost more to dine out,” Bloostein explained. “It’s not great for labor, it’s not great for the people who invest in or own restaurants, and it’s not great for the public.”

It isn’t just Bloostein’s six restaurants that are feeling the heat. A New York City Hospitality Alliance survey found that over 75 percent of full-service restaurants, or over 400 NYC restaurants, are being forced to cut employee hours to compensate for the higher minimum wage.

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“Eighty-seven percent of respondents also said they would increase menu prices this year,” reported CBS.

“(W)e found that unfortunately, as a result, businesses are making some really tough decisions which don’t only impact them, but have a negative impact on their workers as well as their diners, too,” Andrew Rigie, the executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, told CBS.

Who then is actually benefiting from constantly-rising minimum wages? If employees and businesses and customers are all getting a raw deal, who keeps pushing it?

It seems the only answer is vote-grabbing politicians.

Actions have consequences. Money isn’t magic. New York may be getting what they asked for after electing socialistic liberals like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mayor Bill de Blasio, but the rest of America better start paying attention before the exact same problem spreads.

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Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico.




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