Are there any positives of hiking the minimum wage to $15 per hour? Study after study suggests that there isn’t a single thing that supports the idea of raising the minimum wage.
Case in point, a $15 minimum wage creates dirty restaurants.
According to a new study by professors from Indiana University, Ball State University, and Villanova University, the higher minimum wage in Seattle isn’t just shedding jobs, it is also resulting in restaurants being less clean.
That’s right. That restaurant you’re going to tonight may be unsanitary because of the $15 minimum wage.
The report authors concluded that every dollar jump in the minimum wage led to an increase of 6.3 percent in total health code violations. Many of the health code violations were “blue code”: employee cleanliness, dirty toilet facilities, garbage not being properly disposed of and the paucity of prevention of pests.
This makes a lot of sense because the higher labor costs enable businesses to reduce hours for employees or slash staffing levels. When this happens, employees who would normally be working to clean the restaurant are either not there or have been allocated to do something else.
In April, it was reported that minimum wage hikes primarily impact low-quality restaurants. In other words, a 3.5-star restaurant would experience a 14 percent increase in shutting down than a five-star restaurant. Why? Because the low-quality restaurant runs on thinner profit margins than some of the big boys.
Another study this past summer discovered that the minimum wage lowered the incomes of workers.
In the end, a higher minimum wage only benefits corporations, leftist politicians and unions. The ones who are affected the most are the impecunious and small businesses.
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