I swear to God, you’d think that the Democratic party just simply HATES people who live in cities.
The council voted 8 to 5 Wednesday to impose a super-minimum wage of $12.50 an hour — well above the District’s regular $8.25 minimum— on retailers reporting at least $1 billion in annual corporate revenue and operating in spaces of 75,000 square feet or more. A second and final vote is scheduled for July 10.
The bill — backed by organized labor and other advocates for workers — would affect stores already operating in the city, including Home Depot, Macy’s and Costco, which would be required to comply within four years. But the legislation, known as the Large Retailer Accountability Act, is generally seen as aimed at Wal-Mart, which plans to open six D.C. stores in the coming years.
Basically: if the law goes through, the expectation is that Wal-Mart will simply abandon three planned stores – and their jobs, and the sudden appearance of three new supermarkets in the DC food desert – which puts Mayor Vincent Gray (D) in a spot, because he’s been trying to get the aforementioned jobs and supermarkets into DC for some time. But that doesn’t matter, because unions > poor people in the current Democratic calculus, and God forbid that Democratic campaign donors be ever, ever thwarted… Continue reading DC City Council attacks Wal-Mart, poor people.