Coyote Blog

12 Comments

1. Brad Warbiany:

   Isn't there a concern that you'll face *some* level of retribution from Minnesota's government for telling the truth so blatantly?

   Governments tend not to like that.

   August 21, 2014, 10:53 am

2. aczarnowski:

   Didn't know you were up this way. Which parks are you managing in MN?

   August 21, 2014, 12:23 pm

3. bigmaq1980:

   Bravo!

   If more businesses put up signs like that, folks would soon come to understand the impacts (at least part of them anyway) these policies do have.

   I'd like to see that for other things...Proportion of gasoline that is tax dollars, impact on price of Obamacare (once it hits a business), etc..

   August 22, 2014, 6:09 am

4. Russ R.:

   I'd expect the signs to be vandalized.

   August 22, 2014, 6:47 am

5. MNHawk:

   Careful. Low information journalism here likes to pile on to people like you, who convey too much information to low information Minnesotans.

   In all seriousness, I'll pass on what a consumer of low information journalism said, in the comments section of one of the article piling on Oasis Cafe for adding a surcharge:

   Can't you just absorb it by taking fewer vacations?

   August 22, 2014, 8:56 am

6. Not Sure:

   "Can't you just absorb it by taking fewer vacations?"
   Not everybody is a politician.

   August 22, 2014, 8:39 pm

7. Craig L:

   http://camprrm.com/category/minnesota-campgrounds/

   August 25, 2014, 7:17 pm

8. Joe:

   More businesses should do this. Let their customers know that they will pay more for this type of nonsense. Businesses should also let it be known to their employees how government regulations lead to lower pay.

   August 27, 2014, 3:33 pm

9. Magua1952:

   Can a human being survive on a minimum wage, say below $10 per hour? In the 1970s I earned $11 per hour as a college student. That amount then placed one in the lower range of the lower middle class. One could buy a low end house if he worked full time. In 2014 that amount is sad if not tragic. There is no way to pay for housing. Forget about driving a car. Eating would be a challenge. Why don't these minimum wage earners resort to violence?

   September 2, 2014, 12:17 am

10. Magua1952:

    Can a human being survive on a minimum wage, say below $10 per hour? In the 1970s I earned $11 per hour as a college student. That amount then placed one in the lower range of the lower middle class. One could buy a low end house if he worked full time. In 2014 that amount is sad if not tragic. There is no way to pay for housing. Forget about driving a car. Eating would be a challenge. Why don't these minimum wage earners resort to violence?

    September 2, 2014, 12:17 am

11. TruthisaPeskyThing:

    Jobs that pay minimum wage are not designed to support a family. And the minimum wage jobs attract a multitude of applicants who are not looking to support a family -- even a one-person family. Therefore the supply of labor relative to the demand for such labor means low wages for these jobs. The last research I saw: 93% of workers @ minumum wage jobs do not use their income to support a family -- in other words, they are typcially teenagers looking for spending money.
    If one wants to support a family -- get the training . . . do the discipline early in life . . . so that your only option is NOT a minimum wage job.
    Minimum wage laws have many unintended consequences -- including enticing teens to drop out of school because they think $18,000 per year is a lot of money!

    September 8, 2014, 10:22 am

12. Magua1952:

    You are certainly right that minimum wages are not designed to support a family. These wages are not capable of supporting an individual. One thing I learned when operating various small businesses was that my employees had to make a wage that allowed them to live without having their power turned off at home. By the way, they need to be able to afford a place to live in the first place. If I couldn't pay a wage that people could live on, my business model was a failure and I didn't deserve to call myself a businessman. Another point, high quality employees won't work for a failed business model, not for long. .
    A lot of dubious businesses could close and good riddance. An employer who pays $8.00 per hour, in 2014, can only be a net drain on society--so long as we maintain some basic social contract, that is, we recoil at the prospect of people living in cardboard boxes. Raising minimum wages would not have a large effect on the economy because these current minimum wages are pathetic. One might legitimately complain when minimum wages hit $15 per hour.
    Where I live there are almost no pimply faced teens working the low wage jobs. Instead one sees adults in their 20s, 30s and 50s working the line. 93% teen minimum wage workers probably describes my youth in the 1960s. These days people are raising families on minimum waged jobs, and they sign up for all the welfare programs, and taxpayers must subsidize the welfare.

    September 8, 2014, 2:23 pm