$5 Footlongs Cut Short in San Francisco

San Francisco Subway has cut the $5 Footlong due to the cost of doing business in a city with an extraordinarily high minimum wage. As the San Francisco Weekly wrote, “Unless you like tuna — that’s the $5 Footlong of the month — and that’s all you can get in this city for five measly dollars.” In San Francisco, minimum wage is based on the “August-to-August change in the Consumer Price Index,” meaning that as of January 2012, it jumped to $10.24 per hour. As one worker put it, “The rent, the food – the owner says it’s everything.”

The left constantly avers that minimum wage doesn’t mean fewer jobs or higher prices – that it merely means less profit. As Subway’s price changes in San Francisco prove, that’s absolutely false. Costs get passed on to the consumer, or to fired employees. In the case of Subway, the outcome will likely be both.