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  • Seattle Minimum Wage Forces ANOTHER Business to Close

    04.30.2015 | News | |

    Just a few months after we reported on the harsh new economic reality facing many Seattle restaurant owners who are being forced by city government to raise their minimum wage pay, a local restaurant owner is reportedly closing her doors because of the outrageous law.

    To recap, on April 1st, Seattle’s minimum wage rose to $11 an hour. For some businesses, minimum wage will jump again to $15 an hour on January 1, 2017.

    In a Bloomberg interview in January, Subway franchise owner Matt Holleck said the unfair wage increase will force “businesses to close. I don’t know if i’ll be one of them. And hopefully I won’t be. But it’s going to affect business.”

    Sadly, Holleck was right.

    From Fox Seattle:

    It may be one of the first casualties of Seattle’s new minimum wage law. The owner of Z Pizza says she’s being forced to close her doors, because she can’t afford the higher labor costs.

    Devin Jeran was happy to get a raise, when Seattle’s minimum wage went up to $11 an hour at the beginning of the month.

    “I definitely recognize that having more money is important,” he says, “especially in a city as expensive as this one.”

    Unfortunately, he’ll only enjoy that bigger paycheck for a few more months. In August, his boss is shutting down Z Pizza and putting him and his 11 co-workers out of work.

    “Fortunately she keeps us in the loop, she didn’t just tell us last minute.”

    Ritu Shah Burnham doesn’t want to go out of business, but says she can’t afford the city’s mandated wage hikes.

    “I’ve let one person go since April 1, I’ve cut hours since April 1, I’ve taken them myself because I don’t pay myself,” she says. “I’ve also raised my prices a little bit, there’s no other way to do it.”

    Small businesses in the city have up to six more years to phase in the new $15 an hour minimum wage. But Shah Burnham says even though she only has one store with 12 employees, she’s considered part of the Z Pizza franchise — a large business. So she has to give raises within the next two years.

    And that’s what Liberalism looks like.

    Thanks to the kooks running government up in Seattle, 12 more people will have to find jobs to feed themselves and their families. That’s hardly the story that was sold to them when this crazy minimum wage increase was being debated.

    If I were, say, a Republican presidential candidate I’d nationalize what’s happening in Seattle and make the case once and for all that mandatory minimum wage increases hurt small businesses and destroy opportunity for the very people the policy attempts to help.


    Jerome Hudson

    Managing Editor

    Jerome Hudson has written for numerous national outlets, including The Hill, National Review, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and was recognized as one of Florida’s emerging stars, having been included in the list “25 Under 30: Florida’s Rising Young Political Class.” Hudson is a Savannah, Ga. native who currently resides in Florida.

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