In the second episode of the TNR video series “Travels with Charlie – Vermont Politics in Real Life,” host Charlie Papillo visits Chef’s Corner Cafe and Bakery in Williston to discuss raising the minimum wage and paid family leave with Chef Jozef Harrewyn and Democratic state Rep. Dylan Giambatista.
House lawmakers on Friday voted to adjourn the 2019 legislative session and to reconvene in 2020 as they ended the year by failing to pass the top agenda items of the majority party: paid family leave and a $15 minimum wage.
The House on Wednesday passed a Democrat-backed bill that would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2026, but it’s unlikely the legislation could survive a veto by the governor.
Pass a law mandating that workers earning less than $15 an hour make ends meet within their household budgets at the current minimum wage of $10.78. Just mandate that they buy more food, shelter, heat, etc. with the resources they have.
Restaurant Business Online reported: “Nearly 1 out of 10 in areas with a recently increased minimum wage have closed an operation since the cost hike, and 71 percent have attempted to pass along the rise to customers by raising menu prices, according to new research.”
It would also be nice if they considered the plight of private businesses that will be forced to raise the prices for their goods and services and that have customers who are unwilling or unable to pay those increases.
Give Peter Shumlin credit. When he realized he was going to be the engineer of massive train wreck, he stopped the train and took it off the tracks lest more damage would be done.
The legislation threatens to drive out of business the small shops and restaurants that cannot survive political manipulation of their costs. Their disappearance will destroy many entry level opportunities.
The General Housing and Military Affairs Committee on Friday voted 7-3-1 to approve the Senate-passed $15 minimum wage by 2024.
California’s minimum wage increase has cost the state thousands of jobs worth of growth in the state’s booming restaurant industry, according to a recent study by the University of California Riverside.
Martin used his own experience at his family’s general store to illustrate the impact that a higher minimum wage would have on rural Vermont. He didn’t buy the argument that “people will start spending more because they will be earning more.”
Legal fees, for example, probably wouldn’t change much as a result of the new policy, but the home and health care of senior citizens could change a lot.