Evanston’s Human Services Committee is scheduled Monday night to again debate raising the city’s minimum wage and eliminating the lower minimum for tipped workers.
The proposal, pushed by Ald. Devon Reid (8th), was tabled at the committee’s August meeting amid concerns from several members about an adverse impact on local restaurants if businesses in neighboring communities had lower wage structures.
Since then Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has indicated his support for a five-year phase out of the lower tipped wage that the Chicago Sun-Times reports would give restaurateurs there time to swallow a 66% increase in labor costs.
The Chicago City Council is scheduled to vote on the tipped wage issue on Oct. 17.
The current draft of the Evanston ordinance would eliminate the lower tipped wage immediately, but a staff memo notes that “amendments that reflect ongoing legislative action in the City of Chicago and Cook County may be necessary or prudent.
The proposed Evanston ordinance would raise the minimum wage for businesses with more than 50 employees to $16.25 per hour next July, with cost-of-living based increases every year after that. The rate would be 75-cents lower for businesses with from four to 50 employees.
Elimination of the tipped wage has drawn broad support from progressive groups, but some restaurant workers who make much more than the minimum in tips now say it could ultimately cut their pay or lead to job losses as diners react to higher prices and new service charges.
The interesting thing about increasing the wage for restaurant servers is, progressives don’t include the voice of servers, they are not part of the equation, for progressives it’s a righteousness badge regardless of any consequences and once the race topic is introduced anyone who is against this new law is ostracized.
They also don’t include the voice of people like yourself, who would know first-hand how this sort of thing will (not) work out, particularly if implemented at the local level.
Let’s hope that Devon really gets what he wants, driving more restaurants out of Evanston.
The esteemed economist Dr. Thomas Sowell just turned 93, and he is still going strong… several apt quotes of his come to mind here concerning this wage debate:
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics…”
“There are no solutions, only tradeoffs…”
If I ruled the world, everyone – or at least our local government officials – would be required to read Dr. Sowell… starting with his latest book, “Social Justice Fallacies”:
https://www.hoover.org/research/social-justice-fallacies
“Social Justice Fallacies” reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed…
However attractive the social justice vision, the crucial question is whether the social justice agenda will get us to the fulfillment of that vision. History shows that the social justice agenda has often led in the opposite direction, sometimes with catastrophic consequences…”
Respectfully,
Gregory Morrow – Evanston 4th Ward resident
Excellent book.Reid should read it, as he is obviously economically illiterate.
Was it Sowell who rightfully said that socialism fails when they run out of other peoples money.
Clay wrote:
“Was it Sowell who rightfully said that socialism fails when they run out of other peoples money…”
IIRC attributed to Margaret Thatcher, but this was also ostensibly Sowell’s belief. He started out a committed Marxist in his 20’s, but quickly changed his tune when he was a U.S. Department of Labor intern, studying the impact of minimum wages on unemployment of sugar industry workers in Puerto Rico…
Respectfully,
Gregory Morrow – Evanston 4th Ward resident
Gregory: thank you for this!
Sowell grew up in Harlem. He understands the destruction of human motivation and productivity when the welfare state and victimization psychology prevail.
In this period of record business vacancies in Evanston the ONLY logical strategy is to help Evanston businesses increase revenues and decrease expenses. Instead, our city council does the opposite.
There are dozens of half blocks of stores in the CBD that have been vacant for years. For those who think this is a remnant of Covid I have a news flash. Evanston has been in decline for more than a decade. We are anti-business, anti-Northwestern, anti-development, and anti-police.
What we are is a socialist city that is led by a failed politician and a council that spends tax payer monies irresponsibly and uses Evanston as a Petri dish for woke experiments that do nothing more than virtue signal.
Evanston pays reparations, saves the climate, supports worker’s rights, defunds its police, rescues the “homeless”, sells weed, and tells landlords that they can’t evict rent scofflaws.
Look around folks. Evanston is entering a municipal doom loop. I know who’s to blame. Do you?
Could absolutely not agree with you more Paul Sheldon, 100% spot on. More people need to use their voice instead of following blindly with their head down and mouth closed cowering in fear of being labeled. Thomas and Dutch just announced their closure and closing on Sunday. Meanwhile Little Beans, Noir d’Ebene, Lush…have all closed or announced closures in the last month. What will it take for Evanston to wake up, how much more can our small businesses take when so many have already closed?
I’m not against living wages for workers. And I recognize that there isn’t always a relationship between how hard a waitperson works and how much of a tip they receive. But I worry that if this standard isn’t applied universally, that it will backfire. If meals in Evanston (before the tip) are more expensive than in the rest of the Northshore, business will slip, and folks will go elsewhere. Our downtown is primarily filled with restaurants these days, and we don’t want to lose them.
Indeed, if this is to happen it needs to be at the state level, at least. Ideally the federal level. European countries are all like this and it works fine, but they don’t try to do it at the municipal level.
“Progressives” and “social justice advocates” always see a problem and propose a solution Having worked as a social worker for fifty years I can testify that solutions for social problems are rarely simple Actually they are complicated and that unnerves a lot of people. I cannot call Devon Reid either a social justice advocate or a progressive. I could call him something but that wouldn’t be nice
I think if we can leave out the political buzz words anyone with a brain would know that Evanston is in need of more businesses to support the current financial obligations, and until we overflow that,we should STOP forcing the current tax base with more unfriendly policies for businesses and taxpayers. It’s basic math folks, we don’t have the money for it…or it might drive out what we do have. But we all agree Devon needs to go, he has an agenda for himself, and not his constituents.