Article from Town Hall by Timothy Meads.

This story is a tale as old as time. Or well, it’s at least as old as the Fight for $15 movement, which has been pushing the legally required minimum wage to be $15.00 per hour around the country. Six months after New York City enforced a $15.00 minimum wage, retail stores, restaurants, and other small businesses are struggling to employ their workers. They’ve been forced to cut hours and debate whether they want their business to be in NYC at all.

Likewise, Andrew Rigie of the New York City Hospitality Alliance says the only way that businesses could afford to allow overtime hours is if they transfer the cost onto the customer.

“Many people working in the restaurant industry wanted to work overtime hours, but due to the increase, many restaurants have cut back or totally eliminated any overtime work,” he said. “There’s only so much consumers are willing to pay for a burger or a bowl of pasta.”

Townhall previously reported that it isn’t just in places like NYC where restaurants are struggling. Restaurants Unlimited, Inc.  “which operates 35 restaurants ranging from fine dining to ‘polished casual’ eateries, including Henry’s Tavern, Stanford’s and Kincaid’s, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware,” in early July.

Read the entire article at Town Hall.

Image Credit: Thomas Good [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons