
How the Minimum Wage Affects Restaurant Hygiene - Judgmentality
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/13/550607377/how-the-minimum-wage-affects-restaurant-hygiene
======
clarkevans
I believe this is the paper being referenced -
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2992783](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2992783)

------
odammit
Well yay, I'm really glad I read that. I'll just go ahead and cook for myself
forever now.

Have you ever washed your hands in a restaurant bathroom just to be greated by
only a hand drying machine and think, "how the hell am I going to get out of
here without a paper towel to protect me from touching that dong-germ
encrusted door knob?"

~~~
callahad
I'm starting to see foot-operated door-pulls (e.g.,
[http://www.stepnpull.com/](http://www.stepnpull.com/)) around Minneapolis.

------
greggarious
Increasing minimum wage also increases tax revenue, maybe some of that should
be appropriated to the health department to vigorously enforce they law
against companies that feel entitled to profit at the expense of harm to
others.

------
Overtonwindow
I am supportive of higher minimum wages, but I think those who agree should
recognize and accept that a business exists to make money. Where one cost
rises, a business will find a way to reduce costs in other area. Be it lower
quality food, less employees, or in this case, less attention to sanitary
conditions. It's too bad a city can't take the radical, opposite step and get
rid of the minimum wage all together. That would be a very interesting
experiment.

~~~
callahad
Didn't we already run that experiment in the United States, from its founding
up through the early 20th century? In what ways do you suppose things would
differ today?

------
ceratopisan
This is a poor study. The "control" of NYC doesn't match Seattle in most every
respect, and switching to Bellvue - well, you can read the paper where they
say Bellvue followed the state minimums instead of the raises that Seattle
implemented, and had the same increase in low-level health violations.

It's a poorly made case of correlation.

------
justifier
This is apparently business owners failing to uphold state required hygienic
processes.. which in and of themselves are perhaps too forgiving

But my experience working restaurants shows under paying employees incited a
certain apathy in the workers causing lazy implementation of food handling
standards

I'd argue more pay makes the workers appreciate their work more which would
tangentially result in better hygiene

But for an owner to intentionally 'skimp' on hygiene practices due to
'reallocated profits' is ridiculous

Also the tone is ambiguous, is the intent is the paper that I am supposed to
see these dubious correlations of stats and think, 'they were right.. raising
the minimum was a bad idea'?

------
O1111OOO
I have to wonder if the restaurants in the study have also attracted new staff
as a result of the pay increases ($8 to $13-$15 an hour).

New staff may result in those not fully trained (yet), perhaps a small
percentage of new staff feel that certain responsibilities are beneath them,
new hires may get dumped with more of the "dirty" work, previous staff
dismissed in favor of new staff (for _various_ reasons), etc...

Just saying that there could be other factors are play here.

------
mbgerring
They sure buried the lede there

"Let me catch up with you. What we're seeing here is the research shows if
workers get paid more, _to earn the same profit_ , businesses need to cut on
something and where they're cutting is around the edges on hygiene?"

The issue is business owners who want to earn some ridiculous multiple of what
their employees do. The haircut should come from their profits.

~~~
brianwawok
What is a fair profit for the owner of a small restauraut? Put 500k in to
start it. Puts in 70 hours a week. Since you want to say what a fair profit
is, what is it? 30k a year? 200k? 500k?

~~~
the_evacuator
Restaurant profits are controlled by landlords. The rent goes up just to the
point where the business survives. Due to the natural shortage of space, this
works perfectly for landlords and not very well for anyone else.

What the minimum wage does is create an unmoveable barrier that can't be
negotiated away. Minimum wage lowers the maximum rent the landlord can charge
without killings the tenant. The wages come out of the landlord's pocket, not
the business's.

~~~
humanrebar
What about in small rural towns where rent isn't as egregious?

~~~
the_evacuator
I agree that minimum wages need not be uniform over large geographical areas.

~~~
humanrebar
> The wages come out of the landlord's pocket, not the business's.

I was referring to this claim. If rent is a relatively modest expense, how
does a minimum wage come out of a landlord's pocket?

------
TheAdamAndChe
People really are finding any way they can to make raising the minimum wage
look bad. With rising inequality, a growing lower class, and a shrinking
middle class[1], it seems like the business owners are going to grasp at
everything they can to pay the lower class less and less each year.

[1] [http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/11/americas-
shrinking...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking-
middle-class-a-close-look-at-changes-within-metropolitan-areas/)

~~~
gaius
By and large those who oppose it are not evil for the sake of evil but
concerned that the alternative is not a higher minimum wage but no wage at all
as workers in unskilled jobs are replaced by self-service or automation.
McDonalds is already doing it. The answer is using technology as a lever to
help people do higher-value-adding work and incentivising people to upskill
into those jobs after a brief period at entry level. Not raising the level of
entry level so high that it pulls the ladder up.

I say this as someone who started working before the minimum wage even
existed, at a fraction of what it was when it was introduced.

~~~
35bge57dtjku
The people who complain about it seem to be owners who just complain because
complaining is free and any they are against increase whatsoever:
[http://www.workingwa.org/sky-aloft/2015/tom-
douglas](http://www.workingwa.org/sky-aloft/2015/tom-douglas)

~~~
gaius
We have the situation in the UK where people on minimum wage get top-ups via
the welfare system which makes no sense, I'd like to see an increase
sufficient to negate that, because it's just taxpayers subsidising businesses!
But £15/hr for unskilled work can't be justified. £9-10/hr is probably about
right.

