In a county that is the only one in the region to experience a net loss in private sector jobs (3885, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) - including the loss of 2141 retail jobs - since 2000, local Dunkin' Donuts franchise operator Boris Lander has been a one-man job creation machine. In just the last few years, he has opened up so many locations in Montgomery County that I've lost count. The jobs these stores create are opportunities for those at the entry level of the job market, exactly the type of person the Council purports to care so deeply about.
Lander has become the point man for the business community's concern over the latest wage hike. He has put real numbers on the table, to quantify just what the negative impact a $15 wage will be on jobs. The Council ignored the data, and actually even boldly stated it was doing so.
One thing that really jumped out in the wage discussion, was that the Council is not conducting any legitimate research on the fiscal impacts of the laws it passes. It's left up to private business owners like Lander to take their time to produce such data - and then the Council simply dismisses the evidence.
Montgomery County started behind the 8 ball even before this Council passed two minimum wage increases. The high-tax jurisdiction hasn't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in two decades. Its wealthiest residents are fleeing in numbers so significant, their exit has cratered county revenues, and shuttered the vaunted "Rodeo Drive" retail strip in Chevy Chase.
But the impact of the previous wage hike has been explosive - and not in the way the Council promised. Many fast food restaurants I patronize all across Montgomery County - all of them except one - have radically slashed the number of employees. You'll often find one cook in the kitchen, and one or two cashiers out front (depending if there is a drive-thru) - and that's it. Some restaurants have even installed touch screen ordering systems.
It turns out the touted "success of Fight for $15" was a complete failure. And this is in a Montgomery County where restaurant growth has "slowed since 2012, and remains flat," according to Melvin Thompson of the Restaurant Association of Maryland (by comparison, Frederick's grew 5.4% and Fairfax's by 6% in 2015 alone).
The impact on us, the residents who patronize businesses here, has been even greater. Prices of Big Macs and fries have significantly increased. There's essentially no such thing as a Dollar Menu anymore at McDonald's. Not only have workers lost jobs, but those at the bottom have lost the ability to get a substantial amount of food for a low price (and if you feel the urge to make a snarky comment about those who get by on fast food, you're probably a paid Guy Friday for the $130K-salaried Whole Foods elites on the Council).
CEOs - and the relocation firms they contract with - are getting the latest headlines from Montgomery County, and the news is not good. Even though the new $15 wage doesn't target the kind of high-wage firms we should be convincing to move here, it is a strong indicator of MoCo's hostility to business. The Council's willingness to recklessly jump off the $15 cliff by itself in the region for purely-self-serving political reasons sends a clear message to businesses here and around the world - Montgomery County is closed for business.
48 comments:
Shut up Dyer, you just got a raise.
Back in 2014, an acquaintance in NM emailed me after they got living wage.
“We were looking forward to it when it was announced. The pay went up, the rent went up, groceries went up, day care went up and I’m still struggling. Same shit, new numbers.
6:30AM Aren't you the nosy one. What's it matter?
Have you ever tried the salad bar at Whole Foods? You can get a meal of the same size for less than McD's, and it's far healthier and tastier.
6:30am wrote his comment while slackening the belt on his sloppy khakis and popping free Bethesda Chocolates into his slobbering mouth.
The fringe benefits of being the official chocolate store blogger in Bethesda.
Dyer sure picked a stable of winners this week - Sears and McDonalds.
I don't agree with the minimum wage either, but PLEASE stop with the "moribund" nonsense. It really hurts your credibility.
Maybe if these birdbrain business owners just put together feasible business plans they would be fine but instead we have numbnuts like Dyer running around making everyone dumber
The raise in min wages in great news for the hardest working employees in Bethesda, it's a shame Dyer does not support them
7:10: And when you make that claim while my article links to multiple sources that declare Montgomery County is "moribund" and "stagnant," it really hurts your credibility.
7:02 #1: Yeah, Pulitzer-worthy stuff on that site. "5 ways George Leventhal is making our lives better" "Larry Hogan's mere existence has outraged John Delaney...AND YOU SHOULD BE OUTRAGED, TOO!!!" "How to reheat take-out food - and Robert Dyer's old scoops."
7:02 #2: More likely to win than the incumbents on the Council in 2018.
7:12: Getting fired is "great news?" You sound like Hans Riemer's sugar daddy Mitt Romney. "I like to fire people." Mitt and Hans - what a team!
With a higher minimum wage stores for the poors like McDonald's and Sears will do great business.
Absolutely we should be "anti-business" when it comes to businesses who pay their employees >$10. We're sitting at a stunningly low 3.1% unemployment; the idea that adding thousands of low paying jobs would be a positive is absurd. What would that accomplish? Attracting thousands of poor people who need to be on social services just to survive on their shit-pay job isn't beneficial to the county or its current taxpayers. Let Alabama have them.
I'm an actual conservative (not a "pro-business" Republican trying to trick the working poor into taking shit wages): I'm tired of my taxes subsidizing McD's bottom line. They can - and should - pay their own damn employees enough to live on rather than relying on social services to cover the difference.
I am not sure if we should be giving those MS-13s a raise.
Robert, you should read the economic studies on minimum wage hikes. The studies find that employment does *not* suffer and that price changes are a few pennies on the dollar.
I've got to agree with Robert on this. Usually I disagree with most of what he writes, but the County Council has, in fact, acted like morons on this one. As a small business owner this will make it harder for me to hire any additional staff.
7:12 clearly has never run or owned any type of business and I'm sure it's easy for them to make assessments when they're still driving their parents' land rover!
This is a bad move for business in the County!
"As a small business owner this will make it harder for me to hire any additional staff."
If you're paying staff less than $25K a year then we don't want you to hire additional staff. Your jobs are a massive drain on county taxpayers. It's that simple.
Dyer seems to be suggesting that most of the jobs in his coveted "Fortune 500 headquartes" are minimum-wage jobs.
Dyer is wrong I'm paid 190K per year - how can we trust his reporting if he gets basic facts wrong?!
Raising the minimum wage in high-cost-of-living areas like Montgomery County is exactly what needs to happen.
If it results in businesses investing in productivity increases, fine. Not every job can be immediately automated at a price lower than a $15/hr equivalent. The economic growth from those investments and the increased spending at the lower end of the economic scale will allow for more spending on training people to do jobs that require more skill and can't be as easily automated.
Dyer would make Maryland a slave state again if he could.
Abolish tipping at restaurants but raise meal prices proportionally, and you'll eliminate the negative impact on both restaurants and their customers, while having a much fairer system of pay for their employees.
"Let them eat Big Macs!" says Queen Roberta Antoinette.
I saw a person on minimum wage with a cell phone wearing nice shoes. They aren't poor enough!
Those lucky minimum wage butchers, bakers and baggers at Westbard Giant are all getting luxury EYA townhomes.
Why is it $15? Why not $14.5 or $16 or $12? How did the Council arrive at that exact number?
Ahh yes, they pulled it out of their ass.
People act like all these poor people are working minimum-wage jobs. It's very rare for the primary income earner in a household to be earning minimum wage at their primary job. Minimum wage is for entry-level workers (think first year of working). Anyone who does a decent job will be promoted quickly.
As another poster stated, umemployment is very low at 3.1%. If it's that low, the only way companies can get workers is to pay them more. You can see this at the new MGM in National Harbor. They are quite short-staffed at certain times of day -- they simply can't find enough people.
If you think that most minimum-wage workers stay in that category for only their very first year of employment, you are extremely poorly informed.
@11:05, I doubt you've ever had to spend a hard days work in your life. Why are people entitled to $15 an hour? There are many instances where that pay scale is inappropriate. But you can stay sheltered living off mommy and daddy's trust fund
Dyer doesn't know what fiscal means.
Also, businesses should pay a living wage. Otherwise, we all subsidize those businesses' payrolls through public assistance. Why are subsidizing Dunkin Donuts?
With that said, it would be nice for the council to be more thoughtful about its legislation.
It should be noted this will cost the county around $26 million a year because of wage subsidies as well as increases for county workers.
Why does this number matter? Well remember Leggett's excuse why the county can't end the liquor monopoly? They have no way to come up with the $30mln a year it generates.
Yet, they can find it for this idea.. hmmm..
8:39: Excellent points.
8:19: How are you "subsidizing Dunkin' Donuts?" Where in the Constitution is anyone guaranteed a specific wage? The bulk of "public assistance" and "social services" costs borne by MoCo taxpayers are being generated by illegal immigrants, who don't work at Dunkin' Donuts!
12:01: How does paying entry-level workers $15, and causing mass layoffs, "allow for more spending on training people" for higher-wage jobs? Whatever pittance in revenue government would take in would be wiped out by all the services used by the unemployed.
11:05 #1: You don't want entry level jobs at a time when African-American youth in MoCo have a staggering unemployment rate?
11:05 #2: I explicitly stated in the article that minimum wage is not relevant to major corporations in terms of wages, but that it sends the signal that we are not business friendly, and a costly place to do business. Our reputation very much precedes us, thanks to the bozos on the Council.
9:28: So, would you support an actual living wage like $24 an hour? How do you figure someone would "live" on $15 an hour in Montgomery County, Maryland?
There is no evidence that raising the minimum wage to $15 will cause "mass layoffs." Therefore, there should be no related increase in unemployment filings. There should, however, be a decrease in public assistance for employed workers. There should also be increase economic activity because lower income people are more likely to spend their money, and therefore there should be higher tax receipts.
Dyer, what exactly is the black youth unemployment rate in MoCo County?
Hint: It's not 59%.
http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/donald-trump/trump-misleadingly-puts-black-youth-unemployment-r/
Dyer why do you care? With all the free meals you get around Bethesda, it won't affect your eating habits.
6:43: So the mass layoffs and/or new touchscreens at the real-life Burger King, Arby's, McDonald's, etc. that I patronize are not evidence of mass layoffs? How much revenue do you figure is going to come from a $15-an-hour wage earner, and how will it offset the public cost of folks who will be unemployed after it goes into effect. And of the actual business owners who will be out of business, taking out their whole workforce in the process?
6:44: Actual employment rates for black youth in MoCo from 2015 "Connecting Youth to Opportunity" survey:
Only 8.7% of black high school students surveyed are employed, and only 30.7% of black high school dropouts have been able to obtain employment.
Among Montgomery County's young black high school graduates, only 39.7% of those surveyed currently employed.
6:45: I don't get free meals. In fact, the cost of fast food and groceries has skyrocketed since the initial minimum wage hike. The Dollar Menu was blown up by the County Council. You can't even get small fries for a dollar anymore! Thanks, crooked County Council! They should be in the slammer like their peers in Bell, CA.
The entire state of California is raising its minimum wage to $15, on a schedule similar to that adopted by the MoCo County Council.
Have there been "massive layoffs" in that state of 39 million people?
6:56: It hasn't gone into effect yet. So how could we use that to measure the impact?
What percentage of white high school students are employed? And what is the number for high school students, black and white, in Fairfax County?
Did you work when you were in high school, Dyer?
The first phase of the increase took effect in California 18 days ago, Birdbrain.
@706 - LOL - if this blog is his only job now, do you really think he worked in high school?
Tracking unemployment of high school students is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
Pound Sand Dyer.
Bethesdians wonder how someone who whines about the high coat of McDonald's Dollar Menu, actually pays his way at much nicer restaurants.
7:04: You're getting desperate after losing the argument.
7:06: Yeah, and that's not $15 yet, knucklehead.
7:08: No, it's actually solid data that indicates why the wage hike will disproportionally hurt young blacks.
Dyer @ 6:56 - No, anecdotal evidence is not sufficient to understand the effects of a minimum wage increase. Cite data. How many employees did those restaurants have before? How many do they have now? How do those numbers correlate with government mandated wage increases and installation of touch screens?
Although unemployment among high school dropouts may be a problem, the solution is not to provide them with shitty jobs. The goal should be to get them back into an education program so that they can be useful in the job market.
Also, 7:04 is completely correct to question your use of decontextualized statistics.
Dyer thinks that African-Americans are paid too much. If they are paid less, they will learn to appreciate work like real Americans do.
9:35: The problem cited in the study was unemployment - you have to have a job before you can argue about the salary being too low or too high.
@1219 - then that makes you unable to argue
9:07: Would you decide whether black youth in crisis here should be helped based on what a statistic was in another county? The numbers show - much like at MCPS - we have a problem in MoCo!
What is the ideal employment rate for high school students?
Shouldn't high school students be studying, preparing for college, rather than working?
Did you work when you were in high school, Dyer?
Lots of people worked when in high school. And college. Even rich ones. Even famous ones. Even poor ones who became rich and famous.
What's your point?
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