Just whose side is the Washington Post on: that of the little guy or the small plate? The paper approvingly cited an economic study last week that found minimum wage hikes in the San Francisco Bay area were more likely to shutter average restaurants than those favored by foodies. Eateries with middling ratings on Yelp are 14 percent more likely to go out of business for every dollar increase in the wage floor, according to the research from economists Michael and Dara Lee Luca. Five-star joints, by contrast, “don’t experience that same effect,” the Post reports. And that’s okay—because, as the story’s headline snootily states, “Minimum-wage hikes do close restaurants. Just not the ones you care about.”
Who is this “you” of whom the Post speaks? Clearly not the waiters, short-order cooks, busboys, and dishwashers at Average Joe’s House of Hamburgers. They, after all, are likely to care about the restaurant where they make their living, even if it isn’t Michelin material. If the owner can’t afford the umpteenth increase in the minimum wage and turns out the lights, it’s the workers who, deprived of wages and tips, pay the most direct price. But, hey, they’ll find something else! “Because food service is a high-churn industry,” the Post explains, “the fact that one restaurant closes does not necessarily mean more people will be unemployed.” We suspect that’s cold comfort food for those out of a job. But the Post has made it clear that those aren’t the “yous” they care about.
Then again, the Post is hardly alone in discounting the plight of those put out of work by minimum wage hikes. Even the supposed advocates of those displaced workers prove to be glib Darwinians championing the survival of the Yelp-certified fittest. A lawyer for a labor rights group told the Post, “If anything, the study shows that a higher minimum wage might make the market more competitive and reduce the number of poor performers.”
So go ahead, you politicians, raise the minimum wage. It will cull the restaurant herd of the weak, the “poor performers.” No hipster will be inconvenienced by the loss of his favorite artisanal ramen-noodle place. No millennial will miss her salted-caramel-mocha-crappuccino of choice. No, only the sad little people who work at sad little restaurants will suffer. And we’re sure they’ll find something at some place less sad. Won’t they? If not, what’s the Yelp rating for the boutique fromagerie where they can go to get their hard cheese?
