ECONOMICS 101: Seattle waffle shop closes after minimum wage increases to

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It’s about time we send all of our politicians and about half of our voters back to Economics 101.

Seattle is the latest example of finding out the hard way:

On January 1, the minimum wage for every Seattle employee increases to $20.76. The change applies to all businesses, regardless of size.

Previously, if an employee earned at least $2.72 per hour in medical benefits or tips, a business could pay its workers $17.25 per hour.

‘This is financially just not going to make sense anymore. Because, just for me, the increase would cost me $32,000 more dollars a year,’ said Corina Luckenbach.

Luckenbach has owned Bebop Waffle Shop, a breakfast spot in Seattle, for the last decade. But after the new minimum wage law went in effect on January 1, she had to shut the doors.

It’s about a $4/hr more to employ someone in Seattle than it is anywhere else in Washington.

Luckenbach tells FOX 13 Seattle she thinks employees deserve to be paid more; she just cannot afford to keep up with the change.

For businesses who provided tips, the change to the minimum wage was a 20% increase.

Luckenbach says she has cried every day since her decision to close the doors, knowing that a huge part of her life is going away and that a community staple loved by West Seattle is disappearing.

Of course, she also regrets that she’s closing because, as a gay business owner she considered her store a “safe space” for the people of Seattle, especially since Trump’s reelection.

(I’m wondering if she realizes that she’s just getting everything she voted for?)

And it’s not just Seattle.

New minimum wage laws have either gone into effect or will go into effect in twenty-one states and 48 cities and counties sometime during the new year.

The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that studies the effect of minimum wage, issued a report which estimated that 9.2 million workers will see their wages increase by a total of $5.7 billion.