Actually, more commonly the employers just close up shop. Usually if they were paying much below the new minimum wage, their business model simply doesn't work with higher wages. The high school students and uneducated black youth are out of jobs, yes, but no one is hired instead.Seth wrote:More importantly, every time the minimum wage is imposed or increased, entry-level employees like high school students, and particularly uneducated black youth, lose their jobs because employers aren't willing to pay unskilled employees more than they are worth, so they hire more experienced employees instead.
It's the former: wait staff are supposed to earn their money through tips, and that's how the restaurant industry runs most efficiently. Wait staff are kind of like independent contractors in this respect.Seth wrote:This is a cart-before-the-horse conundrum. Do wait staff earn their money through tips because that's how they are supposed to earn their money and therefore they can be denied an equal minimum wage, or do they earn their money through tips because the government has FORCED them to do so by discriminating against them with economic policy? I say it's the latter, and the proof is that in most other countries, wait staff are paid the prevailing minimum wage, and tips are gratuities intended to encourage exemplary service. One construction of the term "tips" is "to insure prompt service." Another is the very word "gratuity," which means a payment beyond what is required.
The reason wait staff are paid wages and no tips in continental Europe is because those countries have strong socialist traditions; letting better wait people earn more through higher tips would be antiegalitarian, so they're paid more uniform wages.
There is a world outside Merka...