When the Gold Rush Ends, the Pick and Shovel Dealers Suffer Most

If you got a chuckle out of the idea of some California state employees getting temporary pay delays, all that laughter's gonna die in sorrow when you hear this tale of woe.

Because of the Golden State's overdue budget, state employees who don't have recently locked-in contracts are only receiving federal minimum wage. (Their pay will be restored once the budget is passed.) If that doesn't melt your flinty bosom, consider the plight of restaurateurs in the state capital. From the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 newsletter comes the cruel news that state employees can't keep stuffing their pieholes on $7.25 Per Hour:

"Minimum wage is going to kill us," said [Art] Vallejo, who owns three restaurants near the Capitol. "No one can afford to eat out on minimum wage … I pay my dishwashers more … I'll have to close down at least one restaurant and lay off staff because of this."

Like many local businesses, Vallejo was hanging on by a thread until the end of furloughs, hoping that business would soon bounce back.

"Furloughs hurt businesses all over Sacramento," Vallejo said. "Minimum wage will finish the job furloughs started and kill off scores of small businesses."

Minimum wage will cost the state economy $1 billion a month and cause the loss of more than 5,000 private sector jobs, according to a recently completed economic analysis.

"We all depend on state employees," said Rob Kerth of Sacramento's Midtown Business Association. "Our small businesses will be collateral damage from minimum wage."

These public sector workers and their trickle-down economic theories…

Comments

[Max]

I must be missing something. It's pretty hard to dine out on minimum wage whether it's earned in the private sector or the public sector. Is this supposed to be funny? Do public sector workers just lie around all day, so they deserve only minimum wage, and the restaurants deserve to go under? Sometimes you rightwingers are hard to read.

[Tulpa]

I must be missing something.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

[Statists Anonymous (SA)]

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol the governemnt?that our lives had become
unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves the government could restore us to
sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn demand our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him. be returned to us.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. the abuses of governemnt.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs. desire to [use government to]control other people's lives.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character government.
7. Humbly asked demanded Himto remove our the shortcomings of government [and return our freedoms].
8. Made a list of all persons [whose lives] we had harmed wished to control, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure violate the freedoms of them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory [of our desires to control others] and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation strict constructionism to improve our conscious contact with God interpretation of the Constitution, as understood Himthe Founders designed it, praying desiring only for knowledge of His will for us the Founders wishes,
and the power to carry that out resist the Statist views others might have.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics Statists, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.

[Mike Laursen]

Weird. You've been hanging out here a long time now, presumably reading Cavanaugh's stuff. Yet you call him a "rightwinger".

[Max]

Oh, right. I forgot about the left wing of the market-worhiping cult.

[OMG]

Do public sector workers just lie around all day, so they deserve only minimum wage

Yes.

[Episiarch]

I'm sure there are many things that you find hard to read, Edward, starting with the dosage instructions on your anti-psychotics. They don't work if you don't take them, little buddy. I know you don't like the way they make you feel sleepy and impotent, but you need to take them every day, ok, big guy? If you take them, you can have an extra cookie. That sound good, buddy?

[Marshall Gill]

Cake. They all want cake.

[LarryA]

Do public sector workers just lie around all day, so they deserve only minimum wage?

Of course not. They go out for lunch.

If I ever find a job I'll be brown-bagging it until my credit cards get paid off.

[-]

"Minimum wage is going to kill us," said Vallejo

He should be feeding more trolls. That's free.

[hmm]

a bunch of old fossils looking to make a buck off skin color.

Yes and also depressing.

Do public sector workers just lie around all day...

No. They sit around all day. Most are ineffectual and believe they are entitled to what they get. (I used to be a civil service)

...so they deserve only minimum wage...

I don't think they "deserve" minimum wage. Some deserve no wage and I'm sure a few deserve more than they make. I feel comfortable in saying most don't "deserve" their wage. Or more appropriately most do not provide a service or good proportional to the wage they make.

...and the restaurants deserve to go under?

If the market is based on taking from those in the market by force, and those in the market can either not give anymore or they are unwilling, then yes the business in that market "deserve" (again the wrong word) to go under.

Whoever calls Timmeh a rightwinger is an idiot. He may have given the most retarded reason (is that a drink?) ever for voting for the Big O, which makes him a boob, but he is not a rightwinger.

[Warty]

He should pack up and move to Ohio. We could use some people that know how to make horchata.

[wingnutx]

You may be gettign a few from Arizona before too long.

Mmmmm, horchata.

[Bee Tagger]

Just imagine how many restaurants and jobs would be created if we paid state employees $72.50/hour. Or dare I dream.... $725.00/hour!

[JB]

No, the minimum wage should be $10,000 an hour, DUH!

[Ken Shultz]

"Minimum wage will cost the state economy $1 billion a month and cause the loss of more than 5,000 private sector jobs, according to a recently completed economic analysis."

Taxpayers saving money is cost.

It's Orwellian.

[tomhynes]

They are accruing their full salary, but only get paid $7 or so currently. The rest will get paid when state budget is passed.

[DADIODADDY]

theft delayed is still theft.

[juris imprudent]

Well, I guess it's good to know that it isn't just the part-time residents of Sacto that are all fucked up.

[Olivenhain]

Max I think the point is that Liberals love to ignore trickle down economics until it effects them. If this same story was about a large corporation no one would have written the story.

[Tim]

Dr. Zaius: The Forbidden Zone was once a paradise. Your breed made a desert of it, ages ago.

[Bronwyn]

I heard a CA state employee complaining on the radio the other day (an npr story, natch) about how her pay had already been cut by $11 an hour, and she has rent to pay and kids to feed, and she can't do it at minimum wage.

AND she declared, "I provide a service! People need their driver license to get to work. I help people keep their jobs."

ARGH!!!! Self-important non-producing @!#!@#$ (censored for the FCC's benefit).

[Citizen Nothing]

I heard that very quote and (of course) thought that very thing. Watta world.

[Torontonian]

"her pay had already been cut by $11 an hour, and she has rent to pay and kids to feed, and she can't do it at minimum wage."

Then she should quit the government job and go work for an employer who will more appropriately compensate her for the value she generates.

[Marshall Gill]

DMV workers in CA get $18.25 an hour?! You just can't find incompetence like that for a penny under $15?

[DADIODADDY]

monkeys could/would do this job for peanuts and/or bananas

[DADIODADDY]

wait, is that racist?