Restaurants In D.C. Slash Jobs After Minimum Wage Hike

A few days ago we wrote about the job losses starting to pile up in Seattle in the wake of that city's passage of a $15 minimum wage (see "Something "Unexpected" Happened When Seattle Raised The Minimum Wage"). In that post, we noted that seemingly no amount of empirical evidence would ever be sufficient to convince certain elected officials that setting artificially high labor rates would ultimately only serve to hurt the people at the lower end of the pay spectrum due to permanent job losses.

Seemingly no amount of empirical evidence can convince progressives that raising minimum wages to artificially elevated levels is a bad idea. Somehow the basic idea that raising the cost of a good ultimately results in lower consumption of that good just doesn't compute. Though it does seem odd that progressives in states like California lean heavily on higher taxes as a way to curb, for example, fuel consumption. Could it be that the left actually does understand the basic economics of the minimum wage debate but don't find the math behind it to be particularly "politically expedient" in certain instances?

Despite the futility of our efforts, we thought we would offer up one more example of minimum wage hikes killing jobs for low-income workers. This example comes from Washington D.C. For those not familiar, back in early June, the City Council of Washington D.C. passed legislation to raise the District's minimum wage from $10.50 per hour to $15.00 by 2020. Minimum wage in the District was already scheduled to increase to $11.50 in July 2016 and the remaining increase will be phased in over the next 4 years.

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