Companies Are Preparing to Cut Jobs and Automate if Biden Gets $15 Minimum Wage Hike, Reporting Shows

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman once said that “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” When it comes to the $15 minimum wage hike supported by Joe Biden and many of his fellow Democrats, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the results will be ugly.

New reporting reveals that Chief Financial Officers at top American companies are “considering raising prices, cutting workers’ hours and investing in automation to offset a potential rise in labor costs.”

“Companies including Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Potbelly Corp. and Texas Roadhouse Inc. are already doing the math to assess what a higher federal minimum wage could mean for their operations and cost base,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Some executives fear that increases to the federal pay floor would drive up wages across income classes, hurting profits and forcing businesses to find savings to offset higher spending on labor,” the paper continues.

First and foremost, we can expect businesses to respond to artificially-high wage mandates by cutting jobs and reducing employee hours.

Why?

David Adams

Article URL : https://fee.org/articles/companies-preparing-to-cut-jobs-and-invest-in-automation-if-biden-gets-15-minimum-wage-hike/