Spilling the truth about the $15 minimum wage

Did The New York Times just inadvertently tell us what the real goal of the raise-the-minimum-wage campaign is? 

A Times editorial last week cheered Los Angeles’ enactment of a $15-an-hour minimum wage — but noted that restaurants, particularly fast-food joints, don’t like it. Said The Times: “The restaurant industry . . . will not go down without a fight.” 

We didn’t think that bringing down an entire industry was what the campaign for a $15 minimum was supposed to be about. Oops. 

Back in March, we noted that a similar hike in Seattle’s minimum wage was leading to a spate of local restaurant closings, given that labor costs account for 36 percent of the average restaurant’s earnings. 

Case in point: Z Pizza, which has to shut down — putting all 11 employees out of work — because its owner can’t afford the higher labor costs. Ritu Shah Burnham says she tried layoffs, cutting hours, price hikes and not paying herself — to no avail. 

And while small businesses have six years to phase in the wage hikes, she has only two, since she’s a franchise of a large chain. 

The Times dismissed such concerns, saying minimum-wage hikes can be offset by higher prices and by “paying executives and shareholders less.” 

That didn’t work for Burnham, who has no shareholders and is no executive — just a victimized small-business owner whose workers’ hourly wage is about to be cut to zero, thanks to their “advocates.” 

Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his new wage board are circling in on fast-food outlets here — even as the Times and union activists say that effort is too modest. 

Eat out while you still can.