Forums:
State minimum wage increase forces redemption center closure
BANGOR, Maine — Opponents of Maine's minimum wage increase’s worst fear is coming true.
While the increase puts more money in employee’s pockets, it is also forcing some employers out of business.
The Bangor Redemption and Beverage Center shut its doors this week after 36 years of business.
The "main thing causing this closure is the increase in minimum wage,” said the Bangor redemption center’s owner, Paul Baron.
...
In 2017, Baron and his wife, Wendy, had seventeen employees working at their redemption center on Broadway in Bangor.
Last summer, they were down to only eight employees and the Barons stopped taking a salary themselves just to make ends meet.
Any changes they made to try to save money, and the business, didn’t work this time.
This must be fake news, because Mike Tipping and the Maine Peoples Alliance told us this would not happen.
But there's a bright side:
School districts can hire the folks who sorted cans and bottles and turn them into school bus drivers!
Shortage of bus drivers force Maine school to close in RSU 71
