Minimum Wage Hike Leads to Massive Loss of Restaurant Jobs in D.C.

30 Aug, 2016 by Dave Blount

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Restaurant workers in the District of Corruption have been treated to an entry level course in fundamental economics:

The minimum wage hike in Washington, D.C, is already devastating employment in the region and is linked to the largest loss of restaurant jobs in the last 15 years.

Officials raised the minimum wage in July of 2015 to $10.50 per hour, up from $8.25 since 2014. The Employment Policies Institute revealed in a May report that 48 percent of District businesses had already reduced staff or cut hours to deal with the increases since 2014. In the first six months of 2016, the restaurant industry in D.C. lost roughly 1,400 jobs, a historic drop for a six-month period, according to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

It could be that the city’s loss is suburbia’s gain:

The restaurant industry in the suburbs outside D.C. grew by 2,900 jobs over the same period.

Despite the easily predictable destructive effect of raising the minimum wage,

The minimum wage rose again in the District July 1 to $11.50 per hour, and will continue to rise over the next four years to $15 per hour by 2020.

By then, mobs of underachievers will be demanding $20/hour for unskilled work that is worth less than half that, and that in many cases can be done more efficiently by machine. The collectivist demagogues in charge will be happy to comply, knowing that the more people who get laid off, and the more who are never able to get onto the first rung on the economic ladder, the more votes there will be for the party of coercive wealth redistribution — at least until we get to the point where there is no more wealth to redistribute.

On a tip from Torcer. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.