Tag: minimum wage

Buttigieg on Concerns $15 Minimum Wage Would Hurt Small Businesses: ‘I’m Not Interested in Who It Hurts’

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he was “not interested in who it hurts” when Patrick Bet-David warned that a $15 minimum wage could put small businesses at a disadvantage against major corporations.

The exchange came during Buttigieg’s appearance on the “PBD Podcast” released Friday, where the two discussed taxes, economic policy, and the Democrat Party’s future.

Bet-David challenged Buttigieg over the cost of a higher wage requirement, saying companies such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target could afford increases that a locally owned shop might struggle to cover.

“Who do you think is impacted if you raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour? Amazon, Walmart, Target, they can raise it,” Bet-David said.

He offered a hypothetical business in Hope, Arkansas, to explain his concern.

“The guy that can’t afford it is that small shop in Hope, Arkansas. Amazon’s across the street, Walmart’s across the street, and Joey’s Place that’s been there for six years is out of business,” he continued. “Raising the minimum wage hurts that guy. It doesn’t hurt the Fortune 500 companies at all.”

Buttigieg responded:

I’m not interested in who it hurts. I’m interested in who it helps. We have enough experience now, both as a country and states doing it on their own, that we know you can do it gradually enough that it doesn’t kill the small business owners.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) was more explicit when asked about small businesses unable to afford a $15 minimum wage in February 2021.

“We don’t want low-wage businesses,” he told CNN. “I don’t want small businesses that are underpaying employees.”

Democrats have since sought a higher federal rate. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced legislation in April 2025 to raise the minimum wage to $17 by 2030.

“Raising the minimum wage is good for workers, good for business, and good for the economy,” Scott said.
Republican Glenn Youngkin vetoed a bill in March 2025 that would have raised Virginia’s minimum wage to $15 by January 2027. The then-governor argued that a uniform statewide requirement overlooked differences in local economies and living costs, calling the proposal “detrimental” to small businesses.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) also warned during an April 2025 Senate debate that a proposed $17 federal minimum would threaten jobs at employers with little room to absorb higher payroll costs. He said, “Increasing the wage by more than 230 percent even over 5 years will destroy jobs, impacting rural areas and low-margin small businesses that cannot afford such an increase. A law mandating a higher minimum wage doesn’t mean much to a worker who loses his or her job because of this.”

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California’s Sky-High Minimum Wage Claims Another Victim as Major Outback Steakhouse Franchisee Is Forced to File for Bankruptcy

There are plenty of ideas that sound wonderful until somebody actually has to figure out how to pay for them. Unfortunately, California seems determined to keep learning that lesson the painfully expensive way.

Another business has run into serious financial trouble, and this time, one of America’s familiar restaurant brands is caught in the middle.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Cerca Trova Restaurant Group, a major Outback Steakhouse franchisee operating 61 locations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday.

The company cited mounting food and labor costs, declining customer traffic, and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

While the franchisee operates restaurants in several states, California’s increasingly expensive labor requirements have made matters particularly difficult.

More than half of Cerca Trova’s employees work in California, where the general minimum wage increased to $16.90 an hour at the beginning of 2026.

Fast food employers are expected to receive an even higher $20 hourly minimum, although Outback is not classified as a fast food establishment under the law, per the New York Post.

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The Push For A Robotic Workforce: Chris Murphy Introduces Bill For Massive Minimum Wage Hike

Sen. Chris Murphy has finally found a constituency that truly gets him. Robots and automated systems around the country likely whirled and beeped with approval as he introduced the Senate version of the Living Wage for All Act. At a time when workers are being replaced at record numbers due to the cheaper labor of automated systems and AI programs, Murphy moved to price out millions of more workers by increasing their costs.

The bill would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $25 per hour – a 245 percent increase – over 12 years. The far-left senator is following the lead of states like California, where Democrats dramatically cut jobs through such wage increases.

Murphy went on NBC to insist that he is “not a democratic socialist” but then attacked capitalism:

“[T]he Democratic Party has been historically way too timid in taking on corporate power. I think we have to understand that people do not believe that this version of capitalism has worked. And frankly, it hasn’t worked. … This version of capitalism isn’t working. Now, I make the argument in the book that we should embrace, you know, what I call a common good capitalism.”

He then added:

“And by the way, we can afford it. It’s not like we can’t pay a $25 minimum wage; we just choose not to because we’ve become okay with dozens and dozens of people in this country making hundreds of billions of dollars.”

It is not clear who the “we” is. While securing a law degree, Murphy has never run a business and has spent his life as a politician, spending other people’s money.

I previously wrote about wage hikes and the predictable loss of jobs that followed.

Democratic politicians from New York to California are pushing for a $30 minimum hourly wage for workers. Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and Democratic legislators in California herald their mandatory increases as providing a “living wage” for workers. In Los Angeles, a law requires hourly wages in the hotel and airport industries to rise by $2.50 each year until they reach $30 in 2028.

There is no question that workers are struggling with the high cost of living in California. But blindly raising taxes and minimum wages will exacerbate these problems, not eliminate them.

A recent report by researchers at the University of California-Santa Cruz found evidence of precisely what many economists had warned about in the state’s mandatory wage floors. Stephen Owen, an economics lecturer, explained that they found “a plethora of negative outcomes, such as higher menu prices for consumers, reductions in employee working hours, widespread elimination of overtime, and loss of benefits for employees.”

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Living Wage for All: A Prescription for Economic Ruin

Four Democratic House members, Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), Lateefah Simon (CA-12), and Analilia Mejia (NJ-11), introduced the Living Wage for All Act on April 28, proposing to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour.

The bill is backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a coalition of more than 100 organizations. Large employers would have until 2031 to comply, while smaller employers would have until 2038. After that, the minimum wage would adjust periodically to two-thirds of the national median wage, currently around $31 an hour.

The legislation is unlikely to pass with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress. However, the economic damage caused by a forced multiplication of the minimum wage would be staggering.

The federal minimum wage has stood at $7.25 since 2009. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 82,000 workers currently earn at that floor, approximately 0.05% of the 170 million-person U.S. labor force, or about one worker in every two thousand. To raise wages for that population, every employer and consumer in the country would absorb the cost.

Proponents claim the bill would benefit millions more, pointing to BLS data showing 760,000 workers earn below the standard minimum wage. That figure is misleading. Those workers are tipped employees, legally paid $2.13 an hour under a separate federal provision on the assumption that tips make up the difference. This is a legal carve-out, not exploitation.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook reports the median hourly wage for waiters and waitresses, including tips, was $16.23 in May 2024, more than double the standard minimum wage. Tipped workers who found the arrangement unprofitable could leave for minimum-wage jobs, which are plentiful. The market already corrects for this. The actual universe of workers this bill targets is 82,000.

The cost impact on prices can be modeled mathematically under explicit assumptions: all affected workers currently earn $7.25 an hour, wages rise to $25 an hour, employers pass 100% of the increase to consumers, and no automation or headcount reductions occur. This produces a ceiling estimate, not a prediction.

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Minimum Wage is Maximum Folly

rogressive lawmakers in Washington, D.C., recently introduced legislation that would increase the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour. But rather than discuss the merits of an increase, our representatives would be wise to debate the scheme itself.

Advocates of minimum wage present the policy as a means to uplift low-income workers. But for more than a century, it has steadily produced outcomes starkly at odds with this goal. It is far more than an economic policy. It is a statement on our society’s underlying assumptions about human freedom, responsibility, and the proper limits of government power. When examined honestly, minimum wage reveals an unsettling truth: symbolic compassion often produces actual misery, and the people paying the highest price are those least able to bear it.

Let’s look at how this policy originated. The popular narrative claims the minimum wage was created to protect low-skill workers from exploitation. But the historical record tells a very different story — one so politically inconvenient that it has been almost entirely erased from public discussion.

In the early 20th century, Progressive-era reformers in the United States, Canada, and Australia supported minimum-wage laws explicitly as a tool to exclude undesired workers from the labor market. These undesired workers were usually minorities, immigrants, women, or the poor. The logic was simple: raise the cost of competitive labor. After all, the appeal of hiring unionized white men is greatly reduced when a black laborer, an immigrant, or a woman is available to do the job at a far lower wage. 

The intention was not hidden. Economists and policymakers wrote openly about the need to prevent “inferior” workers from “undercutting” others through their offer to work for lower pay. Early advocates were quite clear that raising the cost of hiring low-skill workers would reduce their value, making them less employable. They supported the legislation for precisely this reason.

Milton Friedman noted bluntly, “The minimum wage law is most properly described as a law saying employers must discriminate against people with low skills.” Walter E. Williams went even further, calling it one of the few government policies whose historical intent and modern consequences aligned perfectly: it reduced employment among low-skill workers, disproportionately harming minorities.

Minimum wage is a policy born not of generosity, but of exclusion. Its intent was never to uplift. It was always to restrict.

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The Quiet Carnage of California’s Minimum Wage Hikes Obsession Continues

Once upon a time (aka a couple of years ago), many others and I predicted California’s rush to jack various minimum wages would invoke the law of unintended (dire) consequences, which would also be completely ignored as lessons go. 

The ‘Clueless, Pandering Democrats Bone Working Stiffs and Business Owners Yet Again’ Maxim

This particular 2023 post dealt with two specific laws taking effect in April 2024 that boosted the pay of company/franchise-owned fast-food workers to $20 hr ($4 above the state minimum wage of $16 for everyone else), and healthcare workers were boosted into the $18-23 hr range depending on the job description thanks to some heavy union lobbying and creative job category reclassifications. 

For businesses like Pizza Hut, that meant their delivery drivers now fell into the $20/hr employee bracket, too. For many of those drivers, this law meant they were the first to receive pink slips, and almost immediately, as businesses scrambled to find savings ahead of the law coming into effect.

…Right now it’s about 1200 jobs gone at these franchises.

…“Well, I knew that was coming. All these big corporations they have to make money,” said Scot Ward, owner of Stone Pizza in Roseville.

…”What these businesses are going to do is cut out employees to make up for the money they are losing,” said Ward.

One year later, as the California Globe reported, the National Bureau of Economic Research issued its findings on the first full year of the minimum wage law AB 1228’s impact on CA workers’ new and improved quality of life. It seems the law had had very much the opposite effect, from outright job losses to decreased hours for those lucky enough to retain their employment.

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California’s $20 fast food wage yields higher prices, fewer jobs, more automation

Two years ago, a hotly contested law imposing a $20-per-hour minimum wage on franchised fast food outlets took effect.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 1228, emerged from months of intense political conflict, pitting fast food behemoths such as McDonalds against service worker unions, arguing not only over the wage itself but what the industry saw as an effort to undercut its business model.

Eventually the industry agreed to a higher wage in exchange for unions leaving the franchise system unmolested and the creation of a commission to oversee wages and working conditions.

Ever since, fast food corporations and labor interests have jousted over the law’s impact, with both waving economic reports to bolster their positions.

The industry warned that the FAST Act, as it was dubbed, would push fast food prices upward and employment opportunities downward. Unions and their allies contended it would benefit fast food workers with few, if any, negative impacts.

The situation cried out for independent evaluation, not only to settle the arguments but to provide guidance on the consequences of political intervention on wages in any industry.

Thankfully, we may have that study.

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Seattle’s Minimum Wage Laws Backfired on Uber and Lyft. Now the Union Wants To Limit Drivers.

In recent years, progressive locales like Seattle have experimented with minimum wage laws for rideshare and food delivery drivers. These laws have led to surging prices for rides and delivery, reduced demand for trips and orders, and no evidence of higher take-home pay for drivers.

As demand for trips has plummeted in the wake of the wage hikes, more rideshare drivers are finding themselves working longer hours to achieve the same number of rides as before. Instead of fixing the root of the problem, a union representing Seattle rideshare workers has a new solution: Limit the number of people who can work as Uber drivers.

According to the Drivers Union, which represents Lyft and Uber drivers in Washington State, there is a severe glut of rideshare drivers on the road in the Emerald City. The union bases this on a new report it released (with funding from the state Department of Ecology), which concludes that “a majority of miles driven by Uber drivers are now without a passenger.”

The report’s topline findings include an increase in “deadheading” and “empty miles” in which rideshare drivers are driving without a passenger on board, as well as an increase in the number of drivers that is purportedly “7 times faster than trip growth.” In addition to lower driver pay, the report concludes that “deadhead” miles are also causing more air pollution and congestion in the city.

The union’s recommendations are to call for “a pause in onboarding new drivers until a reduction in unnecessary deadheading miles is achieved,” as well as suggesting “rules to maintain a balanced market where increases to driver supply don’t continue outpacing trip growth.”

While the report is dressed up in the language of “deadheading” and climate change, it’s little more than a thinly-veiled attempt to do what unions so often do: Limit the labor supply to lock out non-union members. The Drivers Union also conveniently ignores the reason behind the increase in “empty miles,” which is the result of Seattle’s aggressive pursuit of minimum wage laws for gig work.

In 2020, Seattle became the second city in America to pass a minimum wage law for rideshare drivers. It expanded the law to cover gig-based food delivery platforms like UberEats and DoorDash in 2024. While driver pay was supposed to rise, the primary effect of these laws was a dramatic drop in the number of rideshare and delivery order requests.

After the rideshare minimum wage law, rider fares increased by an average of 40 percent, with some trips climbing by up to 50-60 percent. According to a recent analysis by NetCredit, Seattle is now the most expensive city in America to hail an Uber ride, with a 30-minute ride costing an average of $60. (By way of comparison, Washington, D.C., which lacks a minimum wage law for rideshare drivers, averages just over $33 for a 30-minute trip).

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As NYC Considers a $30 Minimum Wage, Business Owners Are Warning About the Consequences

New York City stands to make a decision about its minimum wage that can only hinder growth, create layoffs, and result in price hikes.

City Council recently introduced a bill to set the minimum wage at $30 per hour. Democratic City Councilwoman Sandy Nurse put the “$30 for Our City” legislation forward, WPIX reported on Tuesday.

The outlet laid out the wage hike scheme from the bill.

Businesses and franchises that employ more than 500 people must pay $20 an hour in 2027, $23 in 2028, $26 in 2029, and $30 by 2030.

Small employers have a different road map, with a $19 minimum in 2027, $21.50 in 2028, $24 in 2029, $27 in 2030, and $29 in 2031.

The increase would include a cost-of-living adjustment and yearly hikes that account for inflation.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York State Restaurant Association, anticipating one of the consequences of this potential change, said that “we feel like we’re at a tipping point with consumers” with respect to price increases that would offset higher wages.

“There’s only so much you can charge for a slice of pizza or a cheeseburger,” she added.

The Wall Street Journal also reported comments by Moe Chan, who has a coffee and tea company in Queens: “As much as I would like to pay $30, we don’t have money.”

According to the New York state government website, the minimum wage for the city is set at $17, seeing a $0.50 increase at the beginning of 2026.

Although The Wall Street Journal said food delivery drivers who make $21.44 under other regulations are not impacted, 1.68 million workers stand to see an increase. The outlet said Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani — unsurprisingly — supported the $30 wage during his campaign.

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California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Is Killing Jobs

In 2023, California adopted a law that raised the minimum wage to $20 per hour. It also created a Fast Food Council with the power to further increase wages by dictate every year. Twenty bucks an hour is a nice, round number which is probably why state lawmakers picked it—though it’s not clear why they stopped there. After all, if you’re going to create prosperity by command, why not shoot for the moon and make all the Golden State’s fry cooks millionaires? But it’s just as well that they didn’t go further—that hike to $20 per hour is killing jobs as it is.

One Law Kills 18,000 Jobs

“On April 1, 2024, California raised its minimum wage from $16 to $20 per hour for fast-food workers employed at chains with more than 60 locations nationwide,” Jeffrey Clemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer write in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that was first addressed by Reason‘s Peter Suderman in the November print issue. “Our median estimate suggests that California lost about 18,000 jobs that could have been retained if AB 1228 had not been passed.”

The authors initially calculate that “employment in California’s fast-food sector declined by 2.7 percent between September 2023 and September 2024 relative to fast-food employment elsewhere in the United States.” But they make the point that, prior to the passage of A.B. 1228, the bill hiking the minimum wage, fast-food employment was rising faster in the state than elsewhere in the country. Allowing for that, and for changes in the overall labor market, they estimated the real decline in California’s fast-food employment at 3.6 percent to arrive at 18,000 lost jobs.

That’s a lot of missing opportunities for Californians to get a foothold in the work world, make money, and pay their bills. It also squares with other estimates of the attempt to legislate prosperity.

In September, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) drew on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data to estimate “15,988 fast food jobs lost since the law went into effect in April 2024.” The group added, “California’s fast food job loss rate (-3.3% of jobs lost) more than doubled the losses in fast food restaurants nationally (-1.6% of jobs lost) since September 2023.”

That EPI memo built on a November 2024 study that found “more than 4,400 California fast food jobs have been lost since January,” based on federal data. That study also found “10.1 percent menu price increases by April 2024 since the law’s passage in 2023.”

A February 2025 paper from the Berkeley Research Group (BRG) found the fast-food sector “lost 10,700 jobs (-1.9%) between June 2023 and June 2024.” The researchers added, “this decline sharply contrasts with the sector’s historically compounded annual growth rate of 2.5% and marks the only December year-over-year decline in fast food employment this century–excluding the Great Recession (2009) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020).” That report also found that “menu prices at California’s fast food restaurants increased by 14.5% between September 2023 (the month AB 1228 was signed into law) and October 2024, nearly double the national average (8.2%).”

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