How will a $15 minimum wage effect cardrooms where dealers make ~$8-10 an hour, get taxed at a higher rate, and live off wages because their paychecks are so small it just goes straight to 401k if that's an option?

The cardrooms payroll for dealers will increase 50%. And for what? So dealers can nominally report more to the IRS but effectively make the same? Your cardroom is going to have to find that extra $ which will fall to the players: Higher rake.

I really can't understand why everyone in the US wants to keep wages so low. Real wage growth has barely budged since 1990 and how much has the Dow Jones moved in that time? January 2, 1990 2810.15 and it is now 16,643.01. All the money has poured into the rich and not the masses. Has anyone ever heard of social mobility and social inequity? I would bet that the US has the worst figures in the Western world.

One former Prime Minister was asked in an interview in the past few years about the Occupy Wall St protests and his reply was that he was surprised it happened earlier.

Solid point about wage growth and stock market returns... LOL

By the way, nobody cares what "one former prime minister" has to say. Where is this guy from?

When wages go up in general cost of living goes up too. In the long run it will make **** all difference to your daily life if you already work and have a liveable wage.

2nd point who really gives a **** about this. I know we are on a poker forum but not everything in this world has to relate to poker. You must be one sad miserable lonely (or possibly semi ******ed) mother****er if when you heard national minimum wage to rise to $15 the first thing (or one of the first things) you thought of was how will that affect poker. And not only that, have to rush off to 2+2 to make a thread about it.

****ing really ?????

If you want to debate politics then fine but this has **** all to do with poker

so 90% of people in this thread want to keep/decrease min wage?

holy**** america lolol...

I'm not sure about the rest of the thread, but I'd like to get rid of a federal minimum wage. Then hope my state also gets rid of it too.

This thread is about how it would affect poker, not total cost of living. The wage paid to dealers, porters, servers and cashiers in Nevada would all double since there is no tip wage. Do you think Orleans and Suncoast will still be able to have a $3 rake if that happens? Can Strip poker rooms keep rake at $4-$5 when faced with a doubling of the poker room's labor costs?

They may not raise the rake. They may decide to stop comps, charge for drinks, stop upgrading equipment, stop renting automatic shufflers, stop staying open 24 hours, stop using Bravo, install Poker Pro machines etc or simply close. They will have to do something because they certainly won't eat an increase in labor costs of that magnitude.

the overall affect on poker would be negligible imo although on that scale im guessing slightly more bad than good because free markets

I find it funny that many people in this thread are saying it's going to be bad when all the empirical data has shown that raising the minimum wage helps the economy. People who don't make a lot of money will now have extra cash to spend on things they need.
Just look at MN vs. WI and see how it's done in real life. WI is cutting budgets to make ends meet while MN has a huge surplus.

Also, to the people saying we shouldn't have a minimum wage are the people who don't understand history. We didn't have workers rights or a minimum wage, and it was pretty bad. Google the early 1900's and see the working conditions people put up with.

Then the consumers could protest and demand the government price fix the private sector, like in Venezuela. So we can have employees on one side demanding the government force the private sector to subsidize wages and consumers on the other demanding government subsidize private sector prices. Maybe then the government will realize that income subsidies should be left to the domains of the public sector.

Sorry, should have said his name. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Ignoring the politics, I can compare this to how it is in Australia where there is a higher minimum wage. The local casino spreads a fairly popular 2/3 NL game. There is no tipping, however there is an hourly time charge ($5) and a 10% rake (capped at $10).

I imagine this is how rooms will perform. I'm curious if it will also apply to Native American casinos as well.

You are considering the early 1900's before all the labor laws? Seriously? Raising the minimum wage to double is what is asked here. Raise it marginally you may have some short term affect on the average worker. Double it, you will have employers immediately raising costs of their products and lowering the amount of workers.

I find it funny that you are not aware of the empirical data that shows the opposite effect. I find it even more funny that this thread hasn't been shipped to the politics forum yet. Folks opinion of the effects is largely, if not entirely determined by their political view and which study they want to cite. None of the studies being any where near conclusive because of all the variables.

So when the casino has to pay $15/hour to dealers, food servers, janitors, desk workers, keno sellers, etc, do you really think they're gonna just eat the difference or raise rake to cover it? Unlike what libtards think, there is no magic money tree and nothing is for free.

Federal labor laws apply to reservations. State laws generally do not. I'm not sure if that means that tribal casinos in California can pay a tip wage even though it is banned at the state level. A couple of Google searches make it look like California tribes comply with state min wage/tip laws but do not have to do so.

If tribal casinos don't have to double their labor costs but California card clubs do, that would create quite a difference in price points. California poker is already by far the most expensive in the country.

Most companies margins aren't as razor thin as they would like you to believe. That is how wages have gotten so out of hand as they are already. The change to minimum wage could easily be handled.

The economic illiteracy is baffling in this thread. The post above is the only post here that makes sense. Employers don't just start paying workers 15hr, they simply only keep those workers whose production merits 15hr and fire the rest, then invest in machines and tools that do the job for less.

Minimum wage jobs are the first rung on the employment ladder. You learn and acquire skills at your first jobs which prepare you for more lucrative economic opportunities down the line. One example that used to be popular in America was full service gas stations. Young men would pump gas for you and on the job they would also pick up skills from the older auto mechanics at the station and basically learn all about fixing cars and would later themselves become auto mechanics. These places don't exist anymore. When's the last time someone pumped your gas for you?

When you raise the minimum wage you are making it illegal for teenagers and low skilled adults and exconvicts to voluntarily contract at a wage both parties agree to....for millions of unfortunate Americans you are removing the lowest rung and many will never be able to climb the employment ladder after being denied this first opportunity. You consign them to a lifetime of poor economic prospects if they never get that first chance.

It used to be you get the job, get the girl, and then you start a family. Does anyone really think a kid delivering newspapers deserves a living wage that can support a family?

norfair18 wins the thread with the post above.

The "margins aren't razor thin" is laughable. Restaurants run 3-5% margin. Labor is 30% of costs. Make that 60% and the restaurant runs 125% of sales overnight. That either puts the place out of business or forces them to raise prices. You can force it on them gradually, but the result is the same. Casinos run about the same margin as restaurants, poker rooms are razor thin (the topic of the thread), if they are profitable at all.

Restaurants are already preparing for this by rolling out kiosks at the table. This replaces servers. Now a restaurant has 10 fewer employees. I suspect smaller poker rooms would do what Cherokee, NC does and roll out Poker Pro machines for lower limit games, if not for all of them. It is the same concept. Now they have the same labor cost but service was dropped considerably.

Dropping services like free drinks and live dealers is the same as raising prices but I don't see how any room wouldn't have to also raise rake if labor costs double, assuming they kept live dealers on.

This statement is completely false, there will be less disposable income floating around because the business owners will now be paying employees $15/hr for performing menial tasks, money that was formerly going to the casino is now going to the people working the cash register/cleaning the bathrooms. After the price of everything else goes up, the only way someone making min wage of $15/hr will have ANY disposable income leftover is if they are living in their mom's basement.

Price/Wage floors/ceilings create inefficiencies. Always have, always will.

Ugh! I didn't even think of this obvious angle.

As if the rake isn't bad enough already the last thing needed is an excuse to raise it even higher.

As Pokeradict stated above, Norfair's post wins the thread.

Don't the people making $15 an hour at 1-2 NL tend to move up? The bitter nitty regs are probably the guys making $5 an hour or less (or even lose at the game).

People crushing 1-2 aren't going to stay there if they can move up and potentially make more money.

Your post suggests that being a poker pro would be worse but then you give reasons why it would be better.

I still see people playing penny slot machines because they think it saves them money. So I doubt people are going to all move up from 1-2 NL. I still see a lot of low stakes players playing 2-4 limit, or recreational NL players sitting with tiny stacks in front of them.

raising minimum wage is overdue in america. if you think restraunts are on a razor thin profit margin then your clearly dont know any restraunt owners. maybe failing ones. all business fudge the books to show more of a loss for tax purposes .it will be harder on small failing businesses but overall putting money into the bottom half of the economy can only help it. its not going to happen by the way but keep watching fox news and listening to alex jones though.