San Francisco’s harsh $15 minimum wage law is hurting a well-know comic book store in the city.  The owner of Comix Experience, Brian Hibbs, says he supports a living wage in concept, but the tough new law will require $80,000 in extra revenue each year.  “My jaw dropped.  Eighty-thousand a year! I didn’t know that.  I thought we were talking a small amount of money, something I could absorb,” he says.

San Francisco’s Proposition J kicked in on May 1st, forcing wage payments to $12.25 an hour.  “That’s just the first of four incremental raises that threaten to put hundreds of such shops out of business,” reports National Review Online. The mandatory scale rises to $15 by 2018.

Owners of another beloved local business, Borderland Books, say that, while they support the concept of a living wage, “we will be closing our doors no later than March 31st.”  The good news is a generous crowdfunding campaign has put off Borderland’s closing for a year.  But how long can a business operate on charity?

A similar strict $15 wage law is hitting businesses in Seattle as well, as shown by the fate of workers at businesses like Z Pizza, the Icon Grill and Cascade Designs.

These wage laws bar workers from voluntarily accepting less than $15 an hour in exchange for honest work.  As Comix Experience’s Brian Hibbs puts it, “Why can’t two consenting people make arrangements for less than x dollars per hour?” 

When punitive $15 wage laws force business owners to close or cut back hours it reveals how mean-spirited such laws really are.  For some workers there is a wage lower than the mandated minimum.  That wage is zero.