Minimum Wage Hikes Sending Restaurants the Way of the Shopping Mall?

Fox Business discusses minimum wage hikes with Iain Murray.

Eighteen states raised their minimum wages at the start of 2018, but increasing labor costs are strangling the dining industry so much that restaurants could soon face the same fate as shopping malls.

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Who suffers from these trends? One answer is low-skilled and entry-level workers, who are often the first layer of staff cut when profits run thin or new technologies are introduced.

“I think it’s a real problem for people with low educational attainment and a low basic skills base,” Iain Murray, vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told FOX Business. “That sets you in a trend whereby it’s very difficult … to gain the extra skills to [get] a job even at minimum wage. That sets you in for long-term unemployment.”

Read the full article at Fox Business.