Initiative 82<\/a> passed in Washington, DC, in 2022 \u2014 raising restaurant-worker base wages from $5.35 per hour to just above $16 per hour over a five-year phase-in \u2014 restaurants started tacking \u201cservice fees\u201d of up to 20% onto bills to recoup the near-tripling of labor costs. <\/p>\nFull-service restaurant jobs in the District reportedly fell by 5% following the change, and total tipped-worker earnings dropped by nearly $12 million.<\/p>\n
The backlash was so intense that the DC City Council voted earlier this year partially to reverse the initiative and delay scheduled wage hikes. <\/p>\n
Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser wanted to go even further, advocating for a return to a minimum wage below $6.<\/p>\n
New York progressives aren\u2019t stopping at the minimum wage: Members of the City Council also want to expand the city\u2019s menu-labeling mandates for sodium and sugar.<\/p>\n
The City Council\u2019s latest idea would force restaurants and other food-service establishments to include tipping prompts in their online ordering platforms. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n
Back in 2015, New York became the first US city to require chain restaurants with 15 or more outlets to display a high-sodium warning next to salty menu items. <\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the council\u2019s Sweet Truth Act, originally passed in 2023, took effect, extending these warnings to high-sugar foods, another national first.<\/p>\n
Now progressive council members have introduced a bill to impose these salt and sugar labeling rules on all city restaurants, even mom-and-pop joints. <\/p>\n
Given that many of the bill\u2019s sponsors were prominent Mamdani endorsers, the bill will likely \u00adbecome law.<\/p>\n
Here, too, the economic evidence is clear. <\/p>\n
When the US Food and Drug Administration implemented nationwide calorie-count requirements for chain restaurants in 2018, it estimated that updating menus with new signage would cost $591 to $1,773 per establishment \u2014 pocket change to a national chain perhaps, but a costly burden for a neighborhood pizza joint.<\/p>\n
And as with minimum-wage mandates, these costs inevitably get passed on to consumers.<\/p>\n
Meantime, these labels don\u2019t change diners\u2019 behavior. <\/p>\n
While some studies have found a brief \u201cnovelty effect\u201d when nutritional labels first appear, research from Health Affairs and New York University shows no statistically significant impact on customers\u2019 eating habits.<\/p>\n
A study examining New York\u2019s 2015 sodium-warning mandate found no evidence that New Yorkers had cut their salt intake after the rule took effect.<\/p>\n
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Online tipping prompts<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s regulatory campaign keeps finding new fronts. <\/p>\n
The City Council\u2019s latest idea would force restaurants and other food-service establishments to include tipping prompts in their online ordering platforms. <\/p>\n
One provision mandates that at least one of the listed options be a 20% tip on the customer\u2019s total bill.<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s stated rationale is to champion worker tips \u2014 an ironic stance, given the progressives\u2019 simultaneous push to eliminate the tipped-wage credit \u00adsystem.<\/p>\n
Research does show that pre-set tip prompts can nudge customers toward higher gratuities, but there\u2019s a catch: People hate it.<\/p>\n
\u201cTip creep\u201d has become a modern irritation, and nearly a third of Americans list pre-entered tip amounts on touch screens as a pet peeve. <\/p>\n
Evidence suggests that such prompts can cause people to avoid ordering again from aggressive tip-soliciting restaurants.<\/p>\n
In September, during his mayoral campaign, Mamdani told The New York Times: \u201cFood is a very quick way to understand the rising cost of living in the city, because people remember the cost of staples in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
His diagnosis is right, as few things hit people harder than rising prices for eggs, milk or halal chicken over rice. <\/p>\n
But the mayor and his allies are waging a war on food that will push prices even higher for New Yorkers.<\/p>\n
From City Journal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few issues matter more to voters than food costs. Nearly 90% of Americans report stress about grocery prices,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[14010,81,35407,12545,9,56,63,65,64,299,31677,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-144675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-delivery-services","9":"tag-eric-adams","10":"tag-food-delivery","11":"tag-minimum-wage","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-opinion","18":"tag-tipping","19":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}