Don’t Link Layoffs, Minimum Wage Increase

If the owner of Chanteclaire restaurant really intends to lay off five people simply because of the minimum wage increase, it means he has such a poor understanding of the economics of his business that he deserves to fail [“Raising Minimum Wage, a Dilemma,” Dec. 31].

Raising the minimum wage has nothing to do with the number of people he needs to run his business. The fact that he can lay off five people means that he has been operating with five people too many, and that would be true even if the minimum wage was not raised. If he has five people too many, he has been wasting money for years.

The point is that all this nonsense about minimum wage increases causing job losses is economic nonsense. If that were true, how do you explain what happened after the last minimum wage increase? At that time, unemployment fell to its lowest levels in years.

Sanford Thier

Marina del Rey