San Diego's new minimum wage hike: Will it help or hurt during a pandemic?

[Zorro]

Business owners ravaged by COVID-19 wrestle with how to cope with higher labor costs while low-wage workers welcome anything that will put more money in their pockets

As many of the county’s beaten-down businesses enter the new year still in the grips of a crippling COVID lockdown, they face yet another financial tug on an already precarious future — an 8 percent jump in the minimum wage.

The timing, they say, couldn’t be worse as many struggle to eke out what little revenue they can until vaccines take hold, the pandemic eases and some semblance of a profit returns.

To be sure, employment in sectors like leisure and hospitality is already down by double digits, but for those businesses that are still operating, even at minimal staffing, labor costs will rise this year as the minimum wage jumps a dollar an hour across the county. In the city of San Diego, it will rise from $13 an hour to $14 , while in the rest of the county, the $14 hourly rate will apply to companies with 26 or more employees. For smaller businesses, minimum wage workers will see their hourly pay increase from $12 to $13.

“It’s coming at an awful time. There are so many things we’ve been trying to fight as individual restaurants and as an organization,” said Jeff Rossman, taking a break from the kitchen at his Terra American Bistro where he and his crew were preparing 60 pre-packaged to-go meals for New Year’s Eve. “We even tried to get the minimum wage increase stayed by the governor and he came out and said no.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2021-01-01/san-diegos-new-minimum-wage-hike-will-it-help-or-hurt-during-a-pandemic

[WhiteTara]

1. Minimum wage in Arkansas is now $11. per hour.

We've come a long way here. When I moved here 11 years ago, it was $7.25.