John Kerry won’t be taking his bicycle to a DC repair shop.
A bike shop which owns stores in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia has a revealing message on a promotional flyer forwarded to AEI scholar Mark Perry. It shows a real impact of minimum wage on local businesses and consumers.
The promotion from Revolution Cycles reads, “Pricing at our Georgetown store will reflect a surcharge to meet the minimum wage requirement.”
Of their four stores, only one is in D.C. Perry called the store to investigate the amount of the surcharge, and Revolution informed him it was 13 percent.
Servicing high quality bikes isn’t cheap. The three advertised repair packages range from $139.99 to $259.99 — so 13 percent adds between $18 and $40.
The person who emailed Perry said, “My natural choice would have been the Georgetown shop since I live near there.” Then he saw the flyer, “So I brought my bike to the Arlington, Virginia store. No big deal. But the claim that minimum wages have no negative impact on Washington’s economy seems wrong from my humble perspective.”
In Virginia, the minimum wage is $7.25; in the District, it’s $10.50, 43 percent higher. In Maryland, it’s $8.25.
While liberal economists deny minimum wages cause price inflation, this example helps debunk that myth.