San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. minimum wage rises to $9.79 in 2009

[marmar]

S.F. minimum wage rises to $9.79 in 2009
Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, December 26, 2008


(12-25) 16:13 PST -- San Francisco's labor force will get a small dose of good cheer in the New Year when the city's minimum wage climbs 43 cents to $9.79 an hour.

An ordinance approved by city voters in 2003 ties the annual wage increase to the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index, a measure of the average price of goods and services. San Francisco will have the second highest minimum wage in the United States in 2009, behind only Santa Fe, N.M., which is scheduled to mandate $9.92 an hour in 2009.

"Basically, our minimum wage allows people to keep up when inflation goes up," said Greg Asay, an analyst in the city's Office of Labor Standards Enforcement. "With no corresponding increase people fall behind. For people who are just getting by, this uptick is keeping their heads above water." Predictably, some employees are encouraged, while their bosses are not so sanguine.

"Business is down everywhere. Down, down, down," said Saad Benchra, owner of Mythic Pizza at 551 Haight St. "This is not the right time for this. Business owners have so many costs and paying almost $10 an hour just makes it worse." .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/25/BAAP14UAG2.DTL

[glowing]

1. Did the business owner think, perhaps if everyone had more money to spend, business wouldn't be down

At some point people are going to have to make a living wage. That is not even a living wage..

[marmar]

2. Yeah, the pretzel logic among corporate and business types is astounding....

Wages are stagnant even as the cost of living rises, and CEOs sit around in a quandary as to why people aren't buying cars and big TVs.

[SheilaT]

3. Henry Ford, in 1914, started paying

his workers $5.00 per day, about double what auto workers were getting at the other car companies. It enabled the auto workers, among other things, to actually buy the cars they were making. And it started American workers on the road to middle class prosperity.

It never fails to amaze me to listen to the arguments against raising wages, be they minimum or otherwise. If managers had to give back wages as so many ordinary workers, such as in the airline industry, have had to for the last decade and more, maybe they'd have a better appreciation of the need for decent wages.

[riverdeep]

4. Can you survive on one minimum wage job

in San Francisco? Even at nearly $10/hour, the living expenses have got to be astronomical, except in the most crime-ridden areas. Or you could just work three jobs, which our President seems to find admirable.