How a $15 minimum wage led to a $16 BLT
If you’re tired of paying $16 for a BLT, look no further than the $15 minimum wage craze to place your blame.
Restaurant owner and entrepreneur Brian Will knows this well — and was confronted by one of his friends because of it.
His friend sent him a text while he was sitting in the restaurant that read, “Hey, Brian, I’m sitting here eating your BLT and at $16, you know it’s only bacon, lettuce, tomato, and bread right?”
“I said, ‘You know Dan, let me break this down for you. I want to give you some perspective. That sandwich might cost $16 but we’ve got $20,000 of rent in that building; we’ve got $6,000 of utility; we’ve got $60,000 of payroll; and then we’ve got our general OpEx expenses that all have to get paid for out of the gross profit margin in that sandwich,’” he explains to Glenn Beck.
The sandwich itself, Will explains, “has about $5 of actual food cost.”
That leaves $11 of gross profit, but $2 of that goes to rent and utilities. $2.50 goes towards fixed operational expenses like TVs, music, mats, and towels.
The labor to make the sandwich is $4.50.
“That only leaves me with a profit of $2,” Will tells Glenn.
When COVID hit, his employees were getting extended unemployment benefits and didn’t want to come back to work.
That’s when he made the switch to $15 an hour minimum, which has now jumped to $16.50 minimum.
“That’s why we have to keep driving the price of these things up. Everybody wants to get paid, and they want a big salary. They want a living wage, but all that does is drive everything up,” Will says.
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Fight for $15 dies in Senate with 8 Democrats voting against
The United States Senate on Friday rejected an attempt by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, with a number of Democrats opposing the measure.
Seven Democrats and one independent senator who caucuses with the Democrats opposed the minimum wage increase. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), and Angus King (I-Maine.) voted with Republicans on a procedural point of order that prevented Sanders' proposal from being added to the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 spending bill.
All together, the Senate voted 58 to 42 against including a $15 minimum wage in the COVID-19 bill.
The minimum wage increase was not likely to pass the 50-50 Senate given Sen. Joe Manchin's opposition to a $15 per hour minimum wage. He prefers instead to adopt an $11 per hour minimum wage indexed to increase with inflation.
Complicating matters for Democrats was a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian last week that including a provision to raise the minimum wage in the COVID-19 spending bill would violate the budget reconciliation rules. Democrats invoked budget reconciliation to pass the bill because Republicans do not support several provisions amounting to nearly $1 trillion of spending they say is not related to coronavirus relief.
Under budget reconciliation, Republicans will not be able to filibuster, lowering the threshold needed to pass the bill from 60 to just a simple majority. If the minimum wage increase were included with the COVID-19 relief bill, budget reconciliation would not apply and Democrats would not be able to pass it.
Although some of the seven Democrats who voted with Republicans likely support a $15 minimum wage, they were forced to vote against it today to save the larger $1.9 trillion relief bill.
Still, the vote infuriated progressives.
"There is not one state in our country where you can make ends meet on the current federal minimum wage. Not one!" Sen. Sanders tweeted. "How quickly would Congress raise the minimum wage if they were forced to live on $7.25 an hour? Outrageous."
Sen. Sinema drew particular ire on social media for the way she voted, giving an emphatic thumbs down on the Senate floor.
Did Sinema really have vote against a $15 minimum wage for 24 million people like this? https://t.co/Jv0UXLKLHI— Sawyer Hackett (@Sawyer Hackett) 1614971844.0
In a statement she released after the vote, she clarified her support for a minimum wage increase, calling for the matter to be taken up separately from the COVID-19 bill.
"Senators in both parties have shown support for raising the federal minimum wage and the Senate should hold an open debate and amendment process on raising the minimum wage, separate from the COVID-focused reconciliation bill," Sinema said.
Steven Crowder: 'A $15 minimum wage would only benefit the RICH!'
On Monday's show, Steven Crowder delved into why he believes a minimum wage increase would only help the rich and why the liberal elites appear to support it.
In this clip, Crowder asserted that, in his opinion, corporations support raising the minimum wage because small business owners would likely struggle to pay their employees $15 per hour and would be crushed out of business as a result.
Watch the clip for more from Crowder. Can't watch? Download the podcast here.
Did the minimum wage increase pass?
President Joe Biden's economic relief package, which includes raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, is being worked on in a House committee. For the latest information on the wage hike, click here.
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CBO: Joe Biden's minimum wage hike would kill 1.4 MILLION jobs
A government analysis of the proposal from Democrats to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour says that it would cost the economy 1.4 million jobs if implemented.
The startling analysis was released Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The jobs would be lost cumulatively over four years because the proposal would gradually raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to more than twice that amount by 2025.
The report said, "17 million workers whose wages would otherwise be below $15 per hour would be directly affected, and many of the 10 million workers whose wages would otherwise be slightly above that wage rate would also be affected."
The CBO found that in addition to those who would lose employment, another 900,000 people would be brought up above the poverty line.
Also, revenues into the government would increase based on the proposal, but those would be offset by increases in spending due to the rise in the cost of products and services. It estimating raising the minimum wage would increase the government's deficits by $54 billion over 10 years.
Republicans have opposed the proposal, especially at a time when so many have already lost their jobs over the shutdown from the coronavirus pandemic.
"In Iowa, [a $15 minimum wage] would hammer our small business, when they are trying to get back on their feet, they are most vulnerable right now," said Republican Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa).
Despite making it a plank in his 2020 presidential platform, Biden signaled in an interview Sunday that the proposal would likely be abandoned in current legislation being negotiated by Congress.
"My guess is it will not be in it," Biden said. "I don't think it is going to survive."
Here's more about the minimum wage proposal:
How raising the minimum wage to $15/hr would impact the economy and workerswww.youtube.com
thefederalist.com
AOC FAILS The Minimum Wage Debate & Economics!