Olivia Rondeau – 4 Jan 2025 – Breitbart news

My cmnt: When most people think of minimum wage earners they think of teenagers at McDonalds. And that is as it should be. Employers can’t pay experienced wages to inexperienced workers. I have family (including myself when I was a 15 yr-old making $1.10/hr at Kings carhopping and washing dishes in the late sixties) who have worked for Mcd’s and B-King and the longer you stay and learn and prove valuable and dependable the more your hourly wage goes up. I know firsthand that both Goodyear and UPS have entry-level jobs that don’t get the same pay and benefits when they start as they do after a probation period. When Leftists play on the good hearts of a Christian-ethic people and demand higher and higher minimum wages they end up closing those jobs to teenagers and the inexperienced. And as California, the land of all bad ideas, has shown you close down businesses and eliminate jobs just to make yourself feel better.

My cmnt: Raising the minimum raise, as economist Dr. Thomas Sowell has repeatedly pointed out in his several books on this topic, never accomplishes anything it is stated it will accomplish. It forces unskilled and inexperienced laborers, such as teenagers and low-skill blacks, from the labor market by making it too expensive to hire and train these individuals. It is tied to Big Labor and unions as they use it to raise their own wages so as to keep up and (way) ahead of the minimum wage. It is inflationary and operates under the Left-Lib-dem idea that government can implement price and wage controls that will magically increase productivity which never in the history of the world has ever happened. Wage hikes without corresponding increases in the wage earners’ output only causes inflation and/or loss of jobs. Businesses are way better off by investing capital in equipment that makes their employees more productive which leads to natural wage increases.

My cmnt: And as the chart below shows, the rich pay more than their fair share of income taxes even as the very top billionaires pay their taxes thru the businesses they create and the people they employ.

A Seattle, Washington, small business owner says she has “cried every day” about the closure of her restaurant due to the state’s new minimum wage hike to over $20 per hour.

The Democrat-controlled city’s law increasing the minimum wage from $19.97 to $20.76 went into effect on the first day of 2025, Breitbart News reported.

Because of this, Bebop Waffle Shop had to close its doors for good on Monday after 10 years, owner Corina Luckenbach told FOX13: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/NFINM5E8sPA?feature=oembed

“This was my dream. To own my own cafe, to run it how I want to, and to really, like, be in service to people,” she said in an interview, later adding that she has “cried every day” about it.

According to Luckenbach, her breakfast eatery was already struggling due to inflation and lower foot traffic, and the new minimum wage requirements would have cost her an additional $32,000 each year.

“This is financially just not going to make sense anymore,” she told the local station.

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Seattle’s minimum wage — which is $4 higher than the rest of the state’s — applies to both small and big businesses.

Bebop Waffle, named after its owner’s pet dog, was a “safe space” for people in the community, Luckenbach said, adding that the “hardest thing” about shutting down was taking that place away from people.

“The stories of like what it meant to people to come in and feel safe and to feel welcomed — I just, I didn’t know,” she said emotionally.

Seattle restaurant closures will rise by five to eight percent this year due to the increased labor costs, the Washington Hospitality Association predicted.

“It’s just not sustainable,” association president and CEO Anthony Anton told the Seattle Times. 

Nebraska now has 18th-highest minimum wage; advocates want to ensure it keeps rising

Joe Dejka Omaha World-Herald – Jan 3, 2025 – posted in Lincoln Journal Star

The new year brings a new minimum wage to Nebraska, and supporters of the higher wage don’t want lawmakers tampering with the law that boosted it.

The state now has the 18th-highest minimum wage after the increase effective Jan. 1.

That’s according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks minimum wages in the 50 states.

The new minimum wage of $13.50 an hour is the result of a successful 2022 ballot initiative that authorized a series of annual increases.

Initiative 433 was an effort of Raise the Wage Nebraska, supported financially by labor unions and various progressive organizations.

The measure passed with more than 58% of voters in favor.

The minimum wage will remain at $13.50 an hour through Dec. 31, 2025.

In 2026, it will rise to $15.

In successive years, the wage will increase based on the cost of living.

Sue Martin, president and secretary-treasurer of the Nebraska State AFL-CIO, said a strong minimum wage that keeps up with the rising cost of living benefits Nebraska’s workers, communities and economy.

“These consistent, predictable increases toward $15 since 2023, along with the annual cost-of-living increases that will begin in 2027, will ensure that hardworking Nebraska workers don’t fall behind,” she said.

According to the national conference, the top five states with the highest minimum wages are Washington, $16.66; California, $16.50; New York, $16.50/$15.50 depending on location; Connecticut, $16.35; and New Jersey, $15.49 with certain exceptions.

Five states have not adopted a state minimum wage: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. Two states, Georgia and Wyoming, have a minimum wage below $7.25 per hour. In all seven of these states, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies, the conference says.

As for Nebraska’s neighboring states, Iowa and Kansas have a minimum wage of $7.25. Colorado’s is $14.81, Missouri’s is $13.75, and South Dakota’s $11.50.

The highest minimum wage in the country is in the District of Columbia: $17.50.

Ken Smith, director of Nebraska Appleseed Economic Justice Program, said members of the coalition that campaigned for the wage hikes intend to guard against any attempts to undermine the law when the Nebraska Legislature returns next week.

The coalition and its supporters will “monitor the Legislature to ensure that Nebraskans’ overwhelming support for Initiative 433 is not undermined by exceptions, and that our state’s minimum wage remains the same across the board for workers,” Smith said.

The first day of the legislative session is Jan. 8.