In the '60s my parents opened a small diner near downtown Los Angeles. As a child, I watched my parents sitting at the kitchen table, discussing their plans for what they considered a huge expansion of the business -- hiring a dishwasher. But my parents kept putting off the decision, in large part because of a proposed minimum-wage hike. This would've made the additional employee, as I recall my parents concluding, "too expensive."

This brings us to the impact of recent minimum wage hikes in California. The owner of a small restaurant told me that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti invited several small business owners to city hall to discuss the impact of a proposed minimum wage hike. Several brought profit-and-loss statements. Each business person, the small restaurant owner said, tried to convince the Democratic mayor that their profit margins were too small to take the wage hike without laying people off, cutting hours or raising prices, which usually means a falloff in business.

 

 

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