Lefty businessman in San Francisco admits his business is threatened by the minimum wage increase

Lefty businessman in San Francisco admits his business is threatened by the minimum wage increase

Brian HibbsBrian Hibbs, owner of Comix Experience, has been forced to acknowledge that San Francisco’s minimum wage increase to $12.25/hour and eventually $15/hour is hurting his comic book business. He’s realizing that the lofty ideal of a higher minimum wage does not translate practically into running a profitable business.

National Review reports,

Hibbs says that the $15-an-hour minimum wage will require a staggering $80,000 in extra revenue annually. “I was appalled!” he says. “My jaw dropped. Eighty-thousand a year! I didn’t know that. I thought we were talking a small amount of money, something I could absorb.”

Hibbs says that the $15-an-hour minimum wage will require a staggering $80,000 in extra revenue annually. “I was appalled!” he says. “My jaw dropped. Eighty-thousand a year! I didn’t know that. I thought we were talking a small amount of money, something I could absorb.”

He runs a tight operation already, he says. Comix Experience is open ten hours a day, seven days a week, with usually just one employee at each store at a time. It’s not viable to cut hours, he says, because his slowest hours are in the middle of the day. And he can’t raise prices, because comic books and graphic novels have their retail prices printed on the cover.

A similar San Francisco business, the science fiction bookstore Borderlands Books, announced it will be forced to close its doors due to the hike. The New Yorker heard of its plight and started a crowdfunding campaign to delay the closure, but what kind of a way is that to run a business, begging for donations? Hibbs hopes he can keep his store afloat by starting a new club for subscribers that costs $240/year – ironically catering to the one percent. He admits that as a progressive, “We’re for a living wage, for a minimum wage, in principle. . . . But I think any law that doesn’t look at whether people can pay may not be the best way to go. Why can’t two consenting people make arrangements for less than x dollars per hour?” As the old adage goes, once young leftists grow up and face reality trying to make a living on their own, reality sets in and they transform into conservatives.

Rachel Alexander

Rachel Alexander is the editor of Intellectual Conservative. She is a senior editor at The Stream, and is a regular contributor to Townhall, the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research, and The Christian Post, and provides weekend news items for Right Wing News. She frequently appears on TV and news radio as a conservative commentator. She is a recovering attorney and former gun magazine editor. She previously served as a former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Arizona, corporate attorney for Go Daddy Software, and Special Assistant/Deputy County Attorney for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. As co-president of the UW Political Science Honor Society, she obtained degrees in Political Science and History from the University of Washington, followed by a law degree from Boston College and the University of Arizona. She was ranked by Right Wing News as one of the 50 Best Conservative Columnists from 2011-2017.

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