Many observers regard such a suggestion as absurd on its face— “economic fantasy at its most delusional and counterproductive,” as my colleague Nick Gillespie put it here on Wednesday. These are low-end jobs in a generally free labor market. Nobody is forcing anybody to work at McDonald’s for $7.50 an hour. Besides, these companies couldn’t function if their labor costs were to double. I mean, who can make money on fast food while paying $15 an hour?
But if you look hard enough, you can find some enterprising souls who are doing just that. I first wrote about Moo Cluck Moo this spring, when the high-quality fast-food burger-and-chicken joint on a hardscrabble location in Dearborn Heights, Micighian, was paying $12 an hour. Even in a weak labor market, with plenty of people willing to work for less, the owners decided they’d construct their business model so that they would pay significantly above the market. In September, Moo Cluck Moo raised wages to the unthinkable level of $15 an hour.
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