I am involved with one business that has over forty employees in San Francisco. All of the employees were paid more than the minimum wage.
San Francisco raised the minimum wage for businesses in the City and the first effect was to drive out all minimum wage businesses that could move. The entire sewing trade moved next door to Daly City. Over 1,000 businesses left in the first few months of the new law.
The S.F. minimum wage keeps rising and will reach $9.25 per hour next year. Not only did this specifically hurt all the restaurants in the City with non-family employees (about 2,000) because waiters are all paid minimum wage. Waiters usually receive two thirds of their wages in tips on top of their minimum wage.
Now it turns out that everyone earning within a few dollars of the minimum wage is demanding a raise. People at the $9.50 to $ 12.00 per hour level consider their wages as a ratio to the minimum. As the minimum goes up they want to maintain their $1.00 to $3.00 advantage.
One solution businesses have used to pay the higher wages has been to eliminate all medical coverage on employees. Price increases are occurring in some retail fields but in the short run cost cutting has been implemented. Costs being cut include sanitation, product quality, capital improvements and all employee benefits.
It is hard to argue that our anti-commerce Board of Supervisors has done something to help workers with their City wide requirement of a high minimum wage.