Minimum Wage (Split from New Convention Hotel)

[bhedges1987]

http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cou ... n-jeopardy

Guess I am a bit behind on what happened here?

[DaveKCMO]

http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cou ... n-jeopardy

Guess I am a bit behind on what happened here?

so we're believing what ed ford says now? when did that happen?

[earthling]

Either way, the minimum wage proposal is much too drastic and can be damaging to KC in general.

[chingon]

http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cou ... n-jeopardy

Guess I am a bit behind on what happened here?

so we're believing what ed ford says now? when did that happen?

Hahaha.

[aknowledgeableperson]

""The economics of the convention hotel did not anticipate this type of increase that they would be required to pay their workers and therefore may not work. The development team is concerned," Ford said.

Nick Salvio, owner of the Northland's Em Chamas Brazilian Restaurant, said he is concerned too.

"If $15 an hour passes, it would be devastating," he said.

He said he would have to move his restaurant and his fifty employees out of town to survive.

Salvio said he worries the wage increase that's meant to help his workers might end up hurting them the most.

"They may be making zero because we won't be here,” he said."

[shinatoo]

I'm all for a wage increase, but for it to work in a fractured bi-state metropolis like KC, it needs to be at least a regional increase. To many options for relocation.

[earthling]

And prices for restaurants and small specialty services would go way up, likely won't being feasible for smaller counter places or low volume restaurants to survive. Pretty good chance it will be harder to startup restaurants and attract more from outside. KC already skimpy with small ethnic counter eats compared to larger markets - they wouldn't have a chance to survive or even got offf the ground - especially at higher prices. Seattle is a high wage city on the top end that can get away with it, KCMO is not. Granted I don't know all the terms of the KCMO proposal. JoCo will be pro-biz so will be hard to get metro wide cooperation.

Is an unfortunate situation the way the job market has shifted over last few decades. It used to be a good chunk of service industry jobs were mostly for high school/college kids or second household income. With solid labor jobs now lacking, the service industry has far more workers that are primary household income with families - jobs that used to not be conducive to that demographic (for the most part). OTOH, there is the valid viewpoint that many corporate retailer/restaurants are making huge profits and not sharing piece of profit with workers. Anyway, KCMO is in no position to jump minimum wages that much even if just limited to high revenue biz, it would indeed likely be disastrous.

Need to create good jobs in appropriate industries, not force service industry into higher wages.

Maybe break this off as a separate thread as it could become hot button issue for KC.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

Tipped service staff don't fall under the same umbrella as everyone else. In KS tipped service staff get $2.13 an hour. In MO tipped service staff get 50% of the prevailing minimum wage which is more generous but still low at $3.825 per hour. The higher minimum wage would mostly impact the restaurants cook staff which probably earns $10 - $12 per hour already meaning that $15 an hour wouldn't kick in for another 4.5 years. Tipped service staff, in 2020, would still be making below current minimum wage. Remember how tax cuts to businesses in KS would cause hiring to explode?? This is really just owners complaining that their personal compensation might be lower. Business owners are always going to complain about higher wages so I take this more with a grain of salt than anything.

Also, prices are sticky and empirical evidence indicates that prices rarely rise even when wages do. This is especially true in markets than can be categorized as perfect competition which restaurants fall under. If a similar restaurant increases prices the other won't to capture the revenue stream. This is why fast food prices won't rise if they have to pay their workers more, there are plenty of similar substitutes. In fact, empirical evidence suggests that prices rise only when executive compensation is in jeopardy. So as long as pay and bonuses remain at record levels for executive level employees I wouldn't be too concerned, also no one likes a price war.

[earthling]

Seattle minimum wage increase takes effect and eating out gets more expensive. A seafood restaurant raised prices 21%. Of course FOX will report from pro biz perspective...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04 ... s-workers/

To track the impact in Seattle, follow the pho....
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/to- ... w-the-pho/

This one reports some restaurant biz still expanding despite wage increase, but exception, not the norm. Makes a good point that if a dishwasher is making $15, someone in a high stress or skilled $15 job may want that potentially easier job so may push out less skilled people in the end.
http://mynorthwest.com/11/2769779/Seatt ... ains-aloft

KC needs to wait or consider smaller increments that allow small biz to adapt. Seattle has many more high income people than KCMO to keep up with rise in costs from service industry. Even if it works there, it will be more difficult to work in KC especially w/out most of metro cooperating.

[Highlander]

I'm all for a wage increase, but for it to work in a fractured bi-state metropolis like KC, it needs to be at least a regional increase. To many options for relocation.

I hate the kind of fractionation process going on in US laws with states and even cities having their own quirky laws, minimum wages and even foreign policies. One drivers license for the US, one set of liquor laws, one foreign policy, one minimum wage. That's what works in the rest of the world. There's probably much more difference between Texas and Ohio (or between Austin and Houston for that matter) when it comes to this kind of stuff than there is between France and Poland or Spain.

[shinatoo]

I'm with you except for the minimum wage. Cost of living in New York and Kansas City are not remotely the same.

[Highlander]

I'm with you except for the minimum wage. Cost of living in New York and Kansas City are not remotely the same.

Fair enough - there's a logical reason for that.

[normalthings]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... ce-of.html
Minimum Wage increase was approved. $13/hour by 2020
:/ :/

[FangKC]

I'm all for a living minimum wage. Our current minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation for decades, not to mention huge worker productivity gains over time--where workers haven't been rewarded. In most respects, workers are much poorer now than in the previous decades of the minimum wage. Had the minimum wage been tied to productivity gains, the national wage would be $21.72 an hour.

It's a hard problem to solve, because many corporations are simply not sharing their increased earnings and wealth with many of their workers, based on productivity gains. Much of the benefit has only gone to too few people in top management. Often these top managers make out like bandits even if they fail to perform. More and more of the country's wealth is controlled by a small percentage of the population.

In a Metro like Kansas City, I worry about the effects of one municipality enacting a local minimum wage that would be much higher than what it might be in an adjoining one. Say KCMO versus Overland Park or Lee's Summit. For it to work effectively, the minimum wage increase would have to be enacted by all municipalities throughout the Metro at the same time. Otherwise, a higher minimum wage for KCMO will encourage businesses to move to nearby cities with lower minimum wages, and new businesses will choose to locate there to keep their costs low.

One can make an argument for higher minimum wages in urban areas versus the state overall, or even nationally, because in many places living in the city is much more expensive than living in rural areas, or small towns. I'm not opposed to higher minimum wages in urban areas. I just think it has to be done within the overall metro, and not by one single municipality.

It doesn't make sense for KCMO to try and match a minimum wage paid in a place like Seattle, San Francisco, or New York City, because those places are much more expensive places to live. Even graduated, it's a huge wage change standard for our metro.

It would be less damaging if the federal minimum wage was raised gradually to $15 an hour--to provide workers the ability to get by. Then no single municipality or state would "price themselves out of the market." Then individual states and metros could decide to augment that depending on the cost-of-living in that area.

One of the distinct problems in our economy, especially recovery from a recession, is that a huge part of our growth is dependent on consumer spending. If workers are barely getting by, they aren't spending to grow the economy, or help it recover faster. If you take a trillion dollars, and distribute it to millions of workers, it effects the economy more, and in better ways, than if you place that same trillion in the hands of 1 percent of the population. The one percent simply cannot spend it fast enough to effect the economy. Many of the one percent don't put it back in investments that grow the economy. Business doesn't growth fast enough, and add jobs, because there aren't enough people buying their products. We also lose the multiplier effect with that trillion dollars when it is in the hands of too few. When you put that money in workers hands, it keeps getting spent in the economy over and over. The truck driver tips the waitress, who pays for child care, and the child care worker goes to the hair salon. The hair stylist buys new clothes. The sales associate at Macy's goes out to dinner, and tips the waitress.

If our minimum wage had kept pace with productivity gains and was $21.72 an hour, consumer spending would be much higher, and our economy would be much bigger. The real economy is not based on corporate valuations and the investment community's concepts of what things might be worth via speculation, but mostly in trade--the buying and selling of goods and services.

[flyingember]

In a Metro like Kansas City, I worry about the effects of one municipality enacting a local minimum wage that would be much higher than what it might be in an adjoining one.

There's two things that make the most sense to happen short term
1. companies that have a lot of workers at the minimum wage will want to relocate to the lower wage state. Like east bottoms to Argentine kind of move.
2. employees on the lower end will want jobs in the higher wage state so they'll start looking for jobs in Missouri.

There's no doubt some places won't survive such a wage increase but it's also an opportunity for a business to get rid of poor performing oworkers and gain better workers looking to make a higher wage in Missouri.
This doesn't have to be a job in Missouri raising rates and Kansas employers all staying the same. You could see a place in another city match the wage increases. There's going to be places that want to pay more for competitive hiring reasons but couldn't compete on prices without more of the market paying workers more. So this becomes an opportunity for some service businesses to reposition as a premium option.

A higher minimum wage is the kind of thing that can easily snowball over a few years.

[shinatoo]

any stats on how many workers in KCMO are making minimum wage? I would guess it's pretty low. And also how many are making more than minimum and less than 13 an hour. I bet that's the bigger number.

[aknowledgeableperson]

There could also be a ripple up effect that might affect KCMO more with regards to jobs. Not only those at the minimum wage level will see the increase but also those that are between the federal minimum and the new city minimum. Those also affected could be those working $1 or so above the federal minimum. Will they also get a bump up to maintain the spread those jobs had over the federal minimum?

[normalthings]

How much of an advantage will this give Kansas?

[JBmidtown]

There's two things that make the most sense to happen short term
1. companies that have a lot of workers at the minimum wage will want to relocate to the lower wage state. Like east bottoms to Argentine kind of move.
2. employees on the lower end will want jobs in the higher wage state so they'll start looking for jobs in Missouri.

Exactly.
KCMO gets an influx of low-skilled, low-educated workers while the suburbs get all of our businesses that move there.
This city will empty out in a decade. Much like now all that will be left are Govt and teaching jobs.
The only people living in KCMO will be illegals and basement-dwelling left-tard hipsters that post incessantly about "progreTHivism" and 2 chord bands.
Way to go liberals and KCMO, you've just put the last nail in the coffin you sheeple idiots.

Hmm maybe. It would still be better than Overland Park.

[flyingember]

There's two things that make the most sense to happen short term
1. companies that have a lot of workers at the minimum wage will want to relocate to the lower wage state. Like east bottoms to Argentine kind of move.
2. employees on the lower end will want jobs in the higher wage state so they'll start looking for jobs in Missouri.

Exactly.
KCMO gets an influx of low-skilled, low-educated workers while the suburbs get all of our businesses that move there.
This city will empty out in a decade. Much like now all that will be left are Govt and teaching jobs.
The only people living in KCMO will be illegals and basement-dwelling left-tard hipsters that post incessantly about "progreTHivism" and 2 chord bands.
Way to go liberals and KCMO, you've just put the last nail in the coffin you sheeple idiots.

You missed a key point from that pairing.

Many of the very best low skilled workers just left the businesses that moved for one back in KCMO.

Companies that tried to move to pay less could easily end up with the very bottom of the market in terms of skill.

Kansas is $7.25 while KCMO will be $8.50. A 10% raise is enough to mess with the market in an area terms of who applies for a job where.