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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

Not being beaten up by police is part of your rights, but freely deciding how you want to work with someone else, and not being forced into the gig economy, is a right too. Every state seems to have certain coalitions with way too much power, and in California it's exercised whenever well-established interests can rephrase something that benefits them in economically leftist language: "Let's all raise the wages of pizza delivery drivers (who work directly for managers who aren't using us as a minimum-wage-circumventing middle-man.)"

See also: "Supply and demand is a capitalist hoax, let's ban the construction of houses other than the ones I'm renting out."

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> having laws passed that force a pizza parlor manager to turn their drivers into unemployed app users

this sounds like an exaggeration, but I'm not familiar with the law you're referencing. what exactly are you talking about?

I think they mean minimum wage laws in general. Another comment mentioned that restaurants were reclassifying their workers as contractors to pay them less.

Describing this as restaurants being "forced" to reclassify their drivers is mildly disingenuous. There's some coercion in minimum wage laws, yes, but it does not specifically prescribe a particular solution to balancing your books. The restaurants could alternatively not offer delivery, or charge more for delivery orders. Lord knows companies are very good at passing along costs to consumers these days...

Low margin businesses like restaurants aren't at liberty to provide services in a more expensive way than their competitors. There's almost no "extra" money in the food service industry.

I'm not actually criticising minimum wage laws with this argument. If it applies to every possible way to hire someone, all of your competitors will have to do it too and the costs will be passed on to the consumer. I am however sharply criticizing minimum wage laws that have a tech company shaped loophole. Market forces will require every competing business to use the loophole if any of them do.

you are not wrong but there is more to it.. companies that incorporate have some tax advantages that other small business do not have; corporations with access to public markets also have many more advantages financially than closely held corporations; real estate ownership and financial leverage also make advantages that non-owners do not have.. there are doubtless other examples that I do not know about.. go the other way for a minute .. those that pay legal wages to employees have higher costs than those that hire "illegal" workers.. those that steal wages from "illegal" workers have lower costs than that.. undocumented or non-English speaking staff have been the rule not the exception for twenty+ years in California.. more examples that I do not know..

I think it’s funny how you’re basically criticizing the richest state for having the best policies and outcomes. Like what about Alabama? They are objectively worse at everything and they do exactly what you prescribe.

They're not actually worse at housing costs. But they have their own way-too-powerful coalitions that cause other troubles.

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