The AEI... man, Steve, you are a real Koch-sucker....

http://seattle.eater.com/2015/8/13/9143329/is-the-seattle-minimum-wage-law-as-bad-for-restaurants-as-the

For starters, while reporting the loss of 1,300 jobs from January to June, AEI fails to note that employment actually increased by 800 people from May to June, leaving the overall industry employment just 200 people short of levels when the first wage hike went into effect on April 1. It's too soon to tell whether that trend will continue, but it certainly warrants mentioning.

It's also important to note that the -1,300 jobs figure represents just a 0.96 percent drop in overall jobs during the six months in question. It does not seem unexpected to have a little short term disruption with a new regulation of this type.

Additionally, even though overall industry employment is down from January, the overall employment in the industry in June was still 300 people higher than it was in December 2014, just before the Washington State minimum wage hiked to $9.47 at the beginning of the year.

From a longer term perspective, industry employment is still up by 24,100 from the Great Recession low of December 2009, which means that the jobs that were lost since might not have even existed a little over five years ago. That's little consolation to the people who lost those jobs, but it's statistical proof that the industry is still overall stronger than it was in the late 2000s.

Let's provide additional context from San Francisco, another city where the minimum wage is also on track to reach $15. Using the same St. Louis Fed data, note that when San Francisco hiked its minimum wage to $11.05 in January (from $10.74), it experienced a larger than normal drop in restaurant employment from December to January. Those numbers then rebounded by June, even after a second wage hike to $12.25 in May. Will Seattle rebound as well? It's impossible to say, yet, but again, our city's one month rise from May to June shouldn't be ignored.

Finally, it's important to acknowledge is that the St. Louis Fed data on which the AEI is relying covers the larger Seattle area, spanning Bellevue and Tacoma (the San Francisco data, likewise, includes Redwood City and South San Francisco), and the minimum wage is lower outside of Seattle proper. That may not significantly impact the data, but again it's worth noting.

The bottom line, again, is it's too soon suggest that the minimum wage increase in Seattle is "getting off to a pretty bad start," and the AEI report doesn't include a macro view of what's happening. It will certainly be interesting to watch how all the numbers continue to unfold over time.

Either way, it doesn't really matter- what you fail to grasp is that you are effectively arguing that the american taxpayer should subsidize business by picking up the tab when companies pay too little for a person to survive... THAT seems to be the form of welfare you are comfortable with...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-low-wage-employers-cost-taxpayers-153-billion-a-year/

$153 billion.

That's the annual bill that state and federal governments are footing for working families making poverty-level wages at big corporations such as Walmart (WMT) and McDonald's (MCD), according to a new study from the University of California Berkeley Labor Center. Because these workers are paid so little, they are increasingly turning to government aid programs such as food stamps to keep them from dire poverty, the study found.

While McDonald's has vowed to raise wages and Walmart is just this month boosting pay for many workers, that's come after intense political pressure from advocacy groups such as the Fight for $15, which is urging legislation and private-sector change to push the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. While the cost of living has continued to rise, the baseline hourly rate has remained at $7.25 since 2009. At the same time, the post-recession years have created more low-wage jobs than higher-paid ones, adding 1.85 million more Americans to the ranks of poorly paid workers.

"When companies pay too little for workers to provide for their families, workers rely on public assistance programs to meet their basic needs," Ken Jacobs, chair of the labor center and co-author of the new report, said in a statement. "This creates significant cost to the states."

Or would you be happier if the people that feed you just starve to death...?