Who’d a-thunk it? Following $15 per hour minimum wage in SeaTac, local businesses are adding ‘living wage surcharges’?

From Mark Perry of "Carpe Diem."

 

"Erin Shannon, Director of the Center for Small Business writes on The Washington Policy Center blog that “In SeaTac, Everyone Pays for the $15 Minimum Wage“:

Last week I blogged about SeaTac employers who have responded to the new $15 minimum wage law by reducing or eliminating the benefits workers receive.  Employees earning the new wage say they have lost benefits such as 401k, paid holidays, paid vacation, free food, free parking and overtime hours.  As one SeaTac worker put it, “It sounds good, but it’s not good.”
But workers aren’t the only ones paying for the high wage.  Consumers are also picking up the tab, in the form of increased prices.  Many SeaTac businesses have tacked on an additional fee to mitigate the increased cost of labor.  On the receipt pictured above, a $6.93 “living wage surchage” was added to a $84.00 parking charge.  That is the equivalent of a 8.25% tax.
Contrary to what supporters claim, increasing the minimum wage does not create jobs and stimulate the economy.  The higher wages are not free money.  The increased cost must either be absorbed by the employer, which is impossible for many who already operate on shoe-string profit margins, or it must be passed on to workers, in the form of reduced hours and benefits, and consumers, in the form of higher prices.  Either way, someone pays.

MP: A $15 per hour minimum wage might sound good in theory, but ends up having many unintended, secondary, negative consequences in the form of less employment, reduced hours, reduced job and business creation, higher prices for consumers, etc. In the end, and maybe very soon, it will be evident that SeaTac’s $15 per hour minimum wage, like all government mandated price controls, are really an “economic death wish.” Milton Friedman pointed out years ago that, “Just as Freud pointed to the death wish in individuals as a fundamental psychological propensity, the appeal of socialism and the opposition to capitalism is really a form of an “economic death wish” for society on the part of intellectuals [progressives].”

Note: The company that issued the receipt above is MasterPark at the Seattle’s SeaTac Airport.  According to its website, the company now charges a $0.99 per day “living wage surchage.”  For a 7-day period that would add $6.93 and 8.25% to the base fee of $84. For a 30-day parking fee of $199, the $29.70 “living wage surcharge” would add a tax of almost 15% to the base rate."