Thursday, November 02, 2006

Restaurants and the minimum wage

Voters in Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, and Ohio are voting on whether the minimum wage will be increased for their state. Restaurant owners are worried that they will be hurt the most from a higher minimum wage. If the minimum wage is increased the restaurants will have to make up for the money lost. The restaurants may raise their prices which would most likely decrease the number of customers. Some restaurants would reduce the number of workers. A study done at Ohio State University found that about 60 percent of restaurants fail after three to five years. If the minimum wage is increased, the failure rate of restaurants could become even higher because many will have higher prices.

1 comment:

Greg Delemeester said...

I agree with Drew. I suspect restaurants and other entry level service jobs will feel the brunt of the higher minimum wage before anybody else.

There is another issue here though that I wonder what you all think about. Is it wise to put legislation like the proposed increase in the minimum wage on the ballot for voters to decide? Do you think voters have enough information to make educated decisions?