Quote:26% of jobs pay under $10.00/hour. That's over a quarter of the work force.


Is Seattle going too far? I think they are. But I don't think that's the reason restaurants are leaving. I'm sure some are, and I wonder how many of those are doing so to make a political statement, rather than that they can't afford to do it. Just like many jobs cut hours after the Affordable Care Act was implemented.


A lot of restaurants fail. It happens. In fact a lot of small businesses fail, and it should be no surprise. Not everybody is able to run a business. Otherwise everyone would be business owners, and nobody would be employees. Businesses can and will fail. And if you're a supporter of the free market, then you should support that.


It's easy to say that minimum wage jobs are supposed to be a stepping stone. The fact is, sub $10.00 jobs are becoming more and more permanent. Finding gainful employment isn't as easy as it once was. You can blame minimum wage all you want, but companies are always looking for ways to cut costs. And it doesn't benefit people, because companies usually don't pass it along to customers. If they did, they wouldn't have billions of dollars worth of profits.


"This generation is lazy!" I hear people say. Their generation was clearly the best. (nevermind that they had things easier, not to mention some of the other things they did). "Teens don't want to work fast food!" Just look at how people treat TMD around here, to see why people don't want to work fast food. They call him "Fry cook" and use it as an insult as if working fast food is somehow demeaning. The last generation decided to demean such positions, rather than consider them respectable for actually doing some work (not to mention going to school at the same time) Also keep in mind that high school drop out rates are at a low. Meaning more and more kids are finishing school. They're trying to better themselves, which I'd find hard to call 'lazy'. But that's just me.

A job is a job and I commend people who would rather work for a living than relying on our taxes to just drift through life. But as I said, these jobs are simply stepping stone jobs. If you want to make flipping burgers your career, that's fine and nothing wrong with it. But businesses shouldn't have to front the cost at $11 or $15 dollars per hour because they decide to just "settle".. Go out and get an education. There's SO MANY different scholarships and government funding available to go back to school on. Just takes a little hard work on your part, and if hard work scares you, then maybe you are a Burger King lifer..


Sidenote.. When I say "you", I wasn't talking about specifically you..

---