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The Bourgeois Pig

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Chicago just passed a minimum wage increase that will take it to $13 in 2019. Quite reasonable. Business owners are not happy. Shockingly, as business owners have said with every piece of labor legislation in American history, they are claiming it will cost jobs. But sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up:

Mason Green, the owner of Bourgeois Pig Cafe, 736 W. Fullerton Ave., said the raising minimum wage comes at a time when his restaurant and coffee house already is struggling since the closure of Children’s Memorial Hospital.

“I’m already charging $9 for a sandwich. I can’t be charging $11, $12 for a sandwich,” Green said. “No one’s going to pay that.”

Green said he is considering switching from counter service to a full-service restaurant so employees would be eligible for the lower minimum wage paid to waitstaff and rely on tips.

Green said most of his 25 employees make $8.25 an hour and the highest-paid employee earns $13 an hour plus a small amount of tips left in the jar at the counter.

He is also considering extending hours and applying for a liquor license to close the gap.

Business at the cafe, which has been open since 1993, has dropped 30 percent over the past three years after the closure of the hospital, Green said.

So the owner of The Bourgeois Pig opposes a decent minimum wage for workers. Huh. It’s one thing to wear your ideology, but this is ridiculous. Plus if you want a cutesy capitalist name, you set yourself up for these jabs. But seriously, the higher minimum wage is not going to require raising sandwiches by $2 an hour. If that’s the case, 2 sandwiches per worker per hour make up for those wages. And if you aren’t selling 2 sandwiches per worker per hour, you are not going to stay in business anyway. I’m sure the hospital closing doesn’t help this guy, but that’s the reason for his problems, not paying workers a little more. Not to mention that all the other workers in earning less than $13 would have more money to spend on his sandwiches.

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