Say you are a company that builds and operates large retail stores, selling consumer goods at desirable prices and that you have been successful across the land. Let’s call you … oh, Walmart.

Now, let’s say you want to open some stores in Washington, D.C. and that, in accordance with the law, you are prepared to pay minimum wage for entry and low-level employees.  This is known, in the trade, as “how you do business.”

Well, you have a problem. Washington, D. C. does not want your lousy minimum wage jobs.  (Or you, it seems.)  To keep you out, it passes a law requiring you to pay wages well above minimum as defined by law and which, interestingly, is more than the city’s lowest paid employees.