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photomikey posted:Um, this talk about how once McDonalds has to double the salary of every worker, all of the menu prices are going to double... I mean, I'm not an accountant or an economist, but I do understand math, and the basics of income and outgo, and it's not just talk. So, the guy who was general manager of a moving and hauling company, pulling down $17/hour bossing around guys who make $9/hour - they'll all be making $15/hour now, and he'll be making $17 (or maybe $17.50 or $18 if the boss gives him a bump, too) but instead of taking his family out to dinner a couple of times a week because he's spent a decade working his way up, now he's living the same lifestyle as the guys who do unskilled labor. I find it unsettling. 1) Minimum-wage earners will be spending much more money (especially since they spend a much higher proportion of their income than other wage earners), which is going to drive up revenue, especially at places like McDonald's and Wal-Mart. 2) Companies have expenses other than paying workers minimum wage. For instance, here's the Motley Fool's estimate of what would happen to McDonald's with a wage increase. It's also worth noting that our tax dollars are subsidizing those people working at McDonald's and Walmart. In fact, McDonald's has told its employees to get food stamps and Medicaid. That's loving bullshit; if your business needs food stamps and Medicaid for its employees to survive, you deserve to go out of business.
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Jun 27, 2015 10:11
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photomikey posted:Um, this talk about how once McDonalds has to double the salary of every worker, all of the menu prices are going to double... I mean, I'm not an accountant or an economist, but I do understand math, and the basics of income and outgo, and it's not just talk. So, the guy who was general manager of a moving and hauling company, pulling down $17/hour bossing around guys who make $9/hour - they'll all be making $15/hour now, and he'll be making $17 (or maybe $17.50 or $18 if the boss gives him a bump, too) but instead of taking his family out to dinner a couple of times a week because he's spent a decade working his way up, now he's living the same lifestyle as the guys who do unskilled labor. I find it unsettling. Do you honestly think that 100% of the cost of your Big Mac is labor?
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Jun 27, 2015 10:19
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Thanatosian posted:There are at least two important things you're not taking into account, here: This is my own pet peeve here. McDondald's is a highly profitable company. They could just make less profit. They don't actually have to raise prices at all. Are people going to decide that making a few less million is a bridge to far? The company would still be highly profitable eating the increased labor expense. There isn't actually an issue here.
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Jun 27, 2015 10:40
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Blackchamber posted:I'm afraid that supervisors and managers are in just as poor of a position to negotiate as their underlings. There are always people they can promote up and there are just as many people in the 'labor market that is large and desperate' that have management experience. Retail is like a revolving door for managers, coming and going, especially when the store targets a certain demographic. Go to a store like Hollister, PacSun, Tillys, Ambercrombie, Old Navy, whatever and look at how old the managers are. Walmart, Target, etc has older management sometimes sure, but how many of those jobs are available? And do you want to push negotiations when all those other retailers have pushed out their managers who are looking for work? A retail supervisor who was in zero position to negotiate wouldn't be paid 50%+ or more than minimum wage like the guy in photomikey's example, because if his employers could pay their management less and still get good managers, they would. Glassdoor any of the companies you named -- on average, they pay management significantly more than minimum, because although it's a job lots of people are qualified for, paying more to get a good one is worthwhile. I think I'm good at what I do, so I've always negotiated; if your employer thinks you'll accept a low wage indefinitely, what incentive do they have to pay you more? Reznor posted:This is my own pet peeve here. McDondald's is a highly profitable company. They could just make less profit. They don't actually have to raise prices at all. Are people going to decide that making a few less million is a bridge too far? McDonald's earned $5.96 billion of revenue and $811.5 mil profit last quarter. Given that 17% of McDonald's revenue goes to labor costs (=$1.01 billion), if labor costs suddenly doubled and McDonald's didn't raise prices, they wouldn't be a profitable company. (These figures are only for McDonald's corporate -- many McDonald's are franchises, which typically make less profit and have higher %age of revenue as labor costs.) Plus, it's public companies' mission to make as much profit as possible. So McDonalds execs will keep on treating their employees like crap unless bad PR, a change in the job market, or government regulations make it unprofitable to do so.
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Jun 27, 2015 12:59
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This is the most depressing thread. It's like the reverse of that "why shouldn't I read atlas shrugged" thread  .
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Jun 27, 2015 15:06
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SERPUS posted:I make ~$32 an hour (salary non-exempt) and I barely get by. I have no idea how people making $10 an hour even eat regularly. I'm a US native born citizen. I visit every year, but live in Asia. If I lived in the US and made $32 per hour in most areas of the country, I would barely get by as well. The cost of living (CoL), taxes, user fees, etc. In the US costs are high and wages are low. What does the average American save? Hardly anything.
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Jun 27, 2015 17:04
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Another occasional problem is commuting costs. I used to make $13.30 doing office drone work, but my thirty-five-mile drive to and from my workplace meant my actual take home was not enough to accrue any additional savings. My bills were paid, but that was it. It might not be as bad now, as this was $4 a gallon gas time too, but subtracting $50 per week for liquid dino really drains your purchasing power. (Now, this is really my own fault for not assessing my situation earlier, but at least I am out of there now.) This leads to the main reason people don't do this: fear. "Yeah, I could try and get a job for $12 but what if I it doesn't work out? I can't accrue savings while currently working for minimum wage, so if a job change goes awry, I will be screwed in a matter of weeks." It's not at all unreasonable to stick with what you have.
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Jun 27, 2015 17:36
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Saeku posted:A retail supervisor who was in zero position to negotiate wouldn't be paid 50%+ or more than minimum wage like the guy in photomikey's example, because if his employers could pay their management less and still get good managers, they would. Glassdoor any of the companies you named -- on average, they pay management significantly more than minimum, because although it's a job lots of people are qualified for, paying more to get a good one is worthwhile. I think I'm good at what I do, so I've always negotiated; if your employer thinks you'll accept a low wage indefinitely, what incentive do they have to pay you more? I looked on glassdoor and yeah they do pay more than minimum, naturally, I found it funny though that the pay for retail management pays the same as when I left retail management... 7 years ago. And I don't think they have incentive to pay people more... which is why we are discussing the gov't raising the minimum wage, because companies don't want to do it themselves.
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Jun 27, 2015 17:50
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Reznor posted:This is my own pet peeve here. McDondald's is a highly profitable company. They could just make less profit. They don't actually have to raise prices at all. Are people going to decide that making a few less million is a bridge to far? The company would still be highly profitable eating the increased labor expense. There isn't actually an issue here. Yes, but do you really think McDonald's is going to eat the increased labor expense? Or will they just pass it onto the consumer like every other company does with increased costs of labor, supplies, gas, taxes, or anything else? Another thing nobody has mentioned is that if the minimum wage was raised to $15. an hour, they are going to start cutting costs by letting some people go. People who need that job. Seattle has recently raised their minimum wage to $15. quote:Forbes article We Are Seeing The Effects Of Seattle's $15 An Hour Minimum Wage The full article is here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/03/16/we-are-seeing-the-effects-of-seattles-15-an-hour-minimum-wage/
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Jun 27, 2015 18:26
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Magnetic North posted:This leads to the main reason people don't do this: fear. "Yeah, I could try and get a job for $12 but what if I it doesn't work out? I can't accrue savings while currently working for minimum wage, so if a job change goes awry, I will be screwed in a matter of weeks." It's not at all unreasonable to stick with what you have. It's basically this. The alternative is to work your minimum wage job AND work full time on your "opportunity," IE working 80+ hours/week on something that might not result in anything. Unemployed people putting maybe 10, 20 hours/week into their job search still burn out on job hunting due to the uncertainty involved, where one never knows if the effort they're putting in will ever result in anything. Now imagine committing 80 hours/week to the same level of uncertainty. Only a very small fraction of the population has the drive to actually accomplish this, and they're the people that the bootstrappers love to use as examples as to why we can stop "wasting" money on social programs, ignoring the fact that this is simply not a viable option for nearly everyone.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:27
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High Lord Elbow posted:The minimum wage is arbitrary anyway. Jobs pay for the value they create. A job that is forced to pay more ceases to be viable and is eliminated. Walmart doesn't say "oh, we've had a record breaking year, let's give all our low level employees higher wages!" Wages are determined by "what's the smallest amount of money I can pay to get this job done?" or really, "at what wage can I maximize profit?" (and let's just ignore the complication that maximizing immediate profit isn't always the goal of a business) Thought experiment: let's say that for a variety of reasons, lots of people are unemployed and need jobs right now. Company A is barely squeking by, and needs to hire some cashiers. Company B came out with some really innovative ideas and is having a killer profit year, and they also need to hire some cashiers. Will Company B pay more than Company A? Nope! Why would they? Lots of folks need jobs, and if they can get the same amount and quality of labor paying just as much as Company A, then they have no incentive to pay more, even though they're super profitable and their employees might be earning them lots more money than Company A's. quote:When you raise the minimum wage, all you're really doing is setting a new arbitrary number to represent the economic base unit, which is an hour of unskilled labor. Then after much hurt and maybe some inflation, you end up right where you started, with democrats buying votes from economic illiterates by raising prices and incentivizing businesses to eliminate jobs. photomikey posted:Um, this talk about how once McDonalds has to double the salary of every worker, all of the menu prices are going to double... I mean, I'm not an accountant or an economist, but I do understand math, and the basics of income and outgo, and it's not just talk. If I'm a technology company with a patent on something really awesome, I don't say "oh, what's it cost to make this? Let's just add 10% to that and call it a day." Instead, my first question is "what will people pay for this?" Saeku posted:McDonald's earned $5.96 billion of revenue and $811.5 mil profit last quarter. Given that 17% of McDonald's revenue goes to labor costs (=$1.01 billion), if labor costs suddenly doubled and McDonald's didn't raise prices, they wouldn't be a profitable company. (These figures are only for McDonald's corporate -- many McDonald's are franchises, which typically make less profit and have higher %age of revenue as labor costs.) And to clarify, I'm not saying that wages aren't part of the product price setting equation, just that it's much more complicated than "wages go up, everything shuts down." quote:So, the guy who was general manager of a moving and hauling company, pulling down $17/hour bossing around guys who make $9/hour - they'll all be making $15/hour now, and he'll be making $17 (or maybe $17.50 or $18 if the boss gives him a bump, too) but instead of taking his family out to dinner a couple of times a week because he's spent a decade working his way up, now he's living the same lifestyle as the guys who do unskilled labor. I find it unsettling.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:34
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Imaduck posted:The bottom line is that if a company can't afford to operate while paying its employees a livable wage, then it shouldn't exist. Corporations aren't optimized for maximizing the livelihoods of their employees or providing the most benefit to society, so we probably shouldn't be letting them determine the quality of life for a large portion of our population. Absolutely the best summation of the issue that I have read.
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Jun 27, 2015 21:21
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I think it was Chris Rock that had a good piece on min wage: this is your employer's way of saying "I would pay you less if I could but the government says I can't." People stay at min wage because it's either that or having no money at all. Take your pick.
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Jun 27, 2015 21:41
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MightyJoe36 posted:Another thing nobody has mentioned is that if the minimum wage was raised to $15. an hour, they are going to start cutting costs by letting some people go. People who need that job. Show me a company whose employees make minimum wage where there are more of those employees on the clock at any given time than is absolutely necessary, and I'll show you a lovely manager. But really, those people don't actually exist, because if a company could make one person do the work of two, and experience no negative results on their bottom line, they're already doing it. Now if you're referring instead to low profit margin businesses that would actually go under entirely if this were the case, the argument could easily be made that those places weren't going to make it past whatever the next slump is anyway, and since their business model is based on being really lovely to their employees in order to just barely squeak by, gently caress em.
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Jun 27, 2015 21:46
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Cowslips Warren posted:People stay at min wage because it's either that or having no money at all. Take your pick.
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Jun 27, 2015 21:50
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photomikey posted:People stay at minimum wage because of their lack of skill and/or lack of drive. I agree with whomever said on the last page that they'd never seen anybody at a minimum wage job who didn't show up on time and do at least the bare minimum who didn't get promoted. Maybe they've never seen it happen but I've seen plenty of people who were hard, motivated workers who got stuck at a dead end minimum wage job because they didn't have the means or opportunity to get out of it. I'd assume it doesn't happen as much in middle class communities but in poor areas it happens pretty regularly.
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Jun 27, 2015 22:05
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Saeku posted:A retail supervisor who was in zero position to negotiate wouldn't be paid 50%+ or more than minimum wage like the guy in photomikey's example, because if his employers could pay their management less and still get good managers, they would. Glassdoor any of the companies you named -- on average, they pay management significantly more than minimum, because although it's a job lots of people are qualified for, paying more to get a good one is worthwhile. I think I'm good at what I do, so I've always negotiated; if your employer thinks you'll accept a low wage indefinitely, what incentive do they have to pay you more? That article is of low quality and is in direct opposition to the earlier motley fool article of higher quality. I don't know where you are getting your numbers from but I'll allow them. it doesn't account for people with 15 in their pocket buying more food and that is disingenuous. I know we can't project that number but it can't be ignored. I would be interested to see a comparison of profit margins of McDonald between high and low wage countries and their prices, that would be a better number in this discussion. You can't excuse bad behavior by saying, "but they really want to do it." photomikey posted:People stay at minimum wage because of their lack of skill and/or lack of drive. I agree with whomever said on the last page that they'd never seen anybody at a minimum wage job who didn't show up on time and do at least the bare minimum who didn't get promoted. In my area the ambulance drivers who drive around answering 911 calls saving lives and doing heroic things often make minimum wage. The jobs are hard to get because of competition and you strictly monitored and evaluated. By comparison in my area you can easily work for a private company to do odd insurance work and get paid significantly more. At the private company so long as you have your licenses in order they don't actually care what yo do. The best, most dedicated and most important workers in this scenario make monies such that it is hard to live as an adult. That is once specific example. Reznor fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 22:11
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Holy poo poo everyone is forgetting a MASSIVE assumption which is that people who work minimum wage only work 40 hour work weeks, AND ALSO that if you raise the minimum wage that people will continue to work as many hours as they had even though their pay in increased. Although a couple people would, most would choose to work the less hours, thus the increase to unemployment isn't nearly as high as people make it out to be. MightyJoe36 posted:Yes, but do you really think McDonald's is going to eat the increased labor expense? Or will they just pass it onto the consumer like every other company does with increased costs of labor, supplies, gas, taxes, or anything else? This is exactly my point that yes there would be less jobs, but also people would have less need to work 60-80 hour work weeks because that's what is required to work a livable wage. It also decreases overtime which allows for more positions to be available. Mcdonalds would lose a negligible amount of money increases their wages to their workers especially with everyone else having to. Saeku posted:McDonald's earned $5.96 billion of revenue and $811.5 mil profit last quarter. Given that 17% of McDonald's revenue goes to labor costs (=$1.01 billion), if labor costs suddenly doubled and McDonald's didn't raise prices, they wouldn't be a profitable company. (These figures are only for McDonald's corporate -- many McDonald's are franchises, which typically make less profit and have higher %age of revenue as labor costs.) DOUBLED?!?!?!?! You do know all managerial and corporate wages go into payroll as labor costs, and you're foolish to think that they would DOUBLE if you raised minimum wage. I'd expect a 30% increase to labor, which although is high don't get me wrong, is nowhere near loving double. That's absurd. Double  get it together.photomikey posted:My question is not what happens to all the people who were making $8 or $10 or $12/hour who are now making $15/hr - that's a loving great deal. My question is that all the people who have spent the last ten years clawing their way up the ladder to a decent job that pays $15 an hour, about DOUBLE minimum wage, who are now making... minimum wage. What happens to them? And all the people making $15-20/hour, double, almost triple minimum wage, who are now making... one step from minimum wage? First off minimum wage increases are BETTER for those who did that because companies will understand that your value is higher than the minimum wage, or you can take your services elsewhere. However it's very doubtful that you'll gain a double increase to your wages, there's no reason you couldn't leverage an extra 10k a year at that point. No it wont make a caste system that's ridiculous. YOu're implying there will be those who make minimum wage, then the upper rich class which will consist of everyone making 100K+? Like that absurd. Also I forgot to tell the answer to the question. You work 60+ hour work weeks.
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Jun 27, 2015 22:16
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Veskit posted:No it wont make a caste system that's ridiculous. YOu're implying there will be those who make minimum wage, then the upper rich class which will consist of everyone making 100K+? Like that absurd.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:13
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photomikey posted:Yes, that's exactly what I'm implying. You put a dollar figure on it, which I didn't, but yeah, $100k seems like a fair enough cutoff. Show your work and explain how that is possible. Use real life examples if you have to (there's a lot of countries with high minimum wages) or economic reasoning. You know what just use your thoughts and make a cohesive train of thought of how this happens.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:32
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Reynold posted:Show me a company whose employees make minimum wage where there are more of those employees on the clock at any given time than is absolutely necessary, and I'll show you a lovely manager. Doesn't sound to me like you know too much about management for these kinds of jobs. In a perfect world all your employees are never sick, never go on vacation, never call in sick to go gently caress off somewhere with their pals, etc. They always are reachable by phone when you need them to come in, and they are content with the amount of hours you give them. That's the biggest one, hours per week/pay period that they work. Some people are cool with working less than 20 hours, but most people would rather work more to make more money. Its why its on most job applications as 'minimum hours expected' or something like that. Then availability, what days can they work? So if you hire joe blow in school and he doesn't get the amount of hours he wants he might quit and go elsewhere, and then its a pain in the butt interviewing and training, so you kind of have to factor that I'm going to have to give this schmuck some hours if I want to keep him around. Then you gotta cookie cutter that into his availability, and then you gotta have a couple other guys on the payroll for when in the imperfect world he can't make it in. Other guys who also have hours they need and stupid availability. So eventually here and there you are going to have overlaps where you have 3 people doing the job of 2 or whatever. Its the nature of the beast. You shouldn't think about it as 'more people than absolutely necessary' for the above reasons, and thinking the manager is lovely, but rather how hes making use of those bodies that he/she has there that makes them lovely. If you can lean, you can clean.
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Jun 28, 2015 00:38
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MettleRamiel posted:There's been lots of talk these last couple of years about raising the minimum wage to a "living wage." Every time this debate comes up, the people against the raise will say that it is mostly teenagers and part timers, while the people for the raise will say that it is single parents. I'm not here to argue which one is true, but anecdotaly as none of my friends or family, regardless of education, have been earning the minimum wage since they were teenagers, I am curious as to how people would remain at such a low income. Even the dumbest and laziest people I know managed to show up to work enough to get promoted or the gain the experience to get a better job. Only 1% of workers are at minimum wage, many are near it though. Also most the 1% are restaurant employees who make a lot more after tips. So no, you aren't going to find many people at all that actually only make minimum wage because it is incredibly rare. Reznor posted:This is my own pet peeve here. McDondald's is a highly profitable company. They could just make less profit. They don't actually have to raise prices at all. Are people going to decide that making a few less million is a bridge to far? The company would still be highly profitable eating the increased labor expense. There isn't actually an issue here. McDonald's could but corporations are run by people that don't really take 'let's just eat it' as an answer. McDonald's most likely response would be a quicker phase in of automation, first starting with the touchscreen ordering and things like that. If they don't they will be at a competitive disadvantage versus other companies that do, and while we can wish for ponies we aren't going to get them-- the current system isn't going away any time soon. Even look at how quickly automation technology is advancing in places like Amazon factories. Stuff like that could eat up tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs once it matures. Focusing on minimum wage as the path to lowering income inequality is going to be a long term loser because many minimum wage (or close to it) jobs are going to go bye-bye in the next decade. tsa fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 01:12
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Having to hire and fire people on a hourly and almost minimum wage sucks rear end because none of them are dependable. Maybe if we paid people more then more would be expected of them but I highly doubt it. People will always game the system.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:57
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How many people here have run a minimum wage business or spent a truly extensive amount of time working for one?
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Jun 28, 2015 02:23
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Rich people itt using arguments that have been refuted for 30 years that stay in circulation because republicans and rich people are actually idiotic.quote:Only 1% of workers are at minimum wage, many are near it though. Also most the 1% are restaurant employees who make a lot more after tips. So no, you aren't going to find many people at all that actually only make minimum wage because it is incredibly rare. Holy loving poo poo how are you so loving wrong, you idiot? 4.8% or so of hourly workers make the federal minimum wage or below. If you raise it to look at state minimum wages, more than 10% of hourly workers work minimum wage jobs. If you look at the highest minimum wage currently available [11 dollars] then it jumps to the idea that something like 27% of americans make less than that. oh and if you extend it to 'near mimimum wage' [which is a dollar or less above minimum wage for an area] it actually jumps from 10% to something like 18% Also, have you ever loving worked in a restaurant, you ignorant idiot? I have, and I also have been part of families that did it as a living. You know who make a lot more after tips? Fine dining servers. You know how much of the restaurant employees in america are fine dining servers? less than 5%. Leaving out the fact that most of those 'restaurant employees' you're talkign about are actually fast food places, most of which don't allow tips, look at actual places where servers will be working 95% of the time - places like Applebees, TGI Fridays, or loving Denny's. I worked at Applebees, you know what the average percentage of tipping was, throughout the whole store? 8%. If I served 30 tables over the course of my shift (far average for any shift besides dinner, still a bit above average for dinner), I would, on average, make about 60 dollars in tips. And then I'd have to split it four ways for the rest of the crew. This meant that working 5 days in a week, I'd make about 55 dollars over minimum wage. If I had only dinner shifts that were only above average. Oh except wait, something like 45 (edit: 47) states still allow you to lower your wages below the federal minimum wage, if you expect that your employees will make enough in tips to reach the difference on their own? Gee, did you not know that? So in actuality, compared to the 8 dollars an hour I was meant to make? I made about 4.75 an hour. And then made about $1.40 more per hour on a perfect week, for 6.15 an hour. Sure, one time I had a guy come in with a party of 10 and the tipped me 200 bucks on a 150 dollar check. Once. In a year and a half. I can count dozens of times when people didn't tip at all. You are literally mentally retarded if you think 1% of workers make minimum wage, and those who do make 'a lot more' after tips. Oh wait I know what you meant by 1% of people work minimum of wage, clearly if you're going for that level of statistic you only mean 1% of white people? Oh except no, even if I assume you were being racist and only counting non-minorities, 2.3 or so percent of white americans work minimum wage jobs. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 02:29
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Seriously, you know what raising the minimum wage will do, you bunch of wannabe economists who have never actually seen what the minimum wage is? It'll mean people will start buying more poo poo, which will by the same metric mean prices wont go up as much. Did you know that? Walmart 'having' to raise how much they pay their workers would also raise how much everyone who goes to walmart [note: more people go to walmart than work for walmart] meaning that it has an actual studied by actual experts net benefit on the economy, and in some cases can gasp even make prices go down. The idea that doubling the minimum wage would double our cost of goods and thus be worthless is such a hilariously stupid idea. You know why prices would go up in the event of a minimum wage raise? It wouldn't be because of raising the minimum wage would require higher prices to have the same profit margins - it would be because the corporations would decide they could milk more money out of us, using it as an excuse, since so many people believe that bullshit. This is literally the only reason why big companies would need to raise prices 'because of' a 15 dollar minimum wage. Oh but what about the small mom and pop restaurants, that can't afford to pay that much with their limited clientele? Poor and struggling people do not go to sit down restaurants, they either go to McDonalds or buy cheap sale food. If you raise how much money like 25% of americans have access to, guess what happens? Suddenly those people who would never or once a month go out could go out once a week, without breaking their banks. These small restaurants that barely stay in business because no one can go to them? Usually go out of business because no one can afford to go to them often enough to put them in the black, not because they're paying their workers too much! Raising how many people can go to them would gasp, actually help the economy, and help them! Who would have loving thought.
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Jun 28, 2015 02:44
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Minimum wage workers are incredibly rare. *lights cigar with a jackson*
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Jun 28, 2015 02:46
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KittyEmpress posted:Seriously, you know what raising the minimum wage will do, you bunch of wannabe economists who have never actually seen what the minimum wage is? It'll mean people will start buying more poo poo, which will by the same metric mean prices wont go up as much. Did you know that? Walmart 'having' to raise how much they pay their workers would also raise how much everyone who goes to walmart [note: more people go to walmart than work for walmart] meaning that it has an actual studied by actual experts net benefit on the economy, and in some cases can gasp even make prices go down. Hmm, so Walmart will be paying more money in labor costs, and they'll have more buyers competing to buy their goods (increased demand), but somehow those things will combine to lower prices? Tell me more about your expert knowledge of economics.
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Jun 28, 2015 02:59
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Series DD Funding posted:Hmm, so Walmart will be paying more money in labor costs, and they'll have more buyers competing to buy their goods (increased demand), but somehow those things will combine to lower prices? Tell me more about your expert knowledge of economics. No, it will not combine to lower prices - it will combine to lower the prices required to maintain the same level of profit. Here', lets do some babies first math for you! Say walmart stocks 200 TVs. Say that in a month, walmart sells 10 of that TV currently. Wow that's a lot of unsold TVs, but hey, people can't afford luxury goods always. Then you raise how much money people have! Now walmart sells 50 of that TV in a month, because more than 25% of americans will be affected by most proposed minimum wage raises. They may, also, buy that surround sound system, or whatever. In total, more people are buying goods, that otherwise would not be bought! Gee, how loving basic an idea. Prices would go up, but not because of 'need' to make a profit, like you people in this thread have been arguing about. It would go up because as a corporation, Walmart would want to charge as much as they could for anything they could get away with doing so, to raise their profits further. That is not the fault of 'labor costs' in the least though, and claiming it is is one of the most backwards idiotic arguments. Edit: The basics is, if you, as a business, get at least twice the customers per week than you have employees, then the cost of running your business would run the same. Walmart employs something like 300k people nationwide at below the 15 dollar minimum wage level. They get, on average, around 900k-1mil customers per day. This means that assuming the increase is to 15 dollars, the 6,300,000 nationwide customers would - if they follow the average of 55% of americans making less than 15 dollars an hour - have around 3,200,000 customers with higher amounts of spending money. Look at how many more customers with more money to spend there they would have, compared to how much labor cost they would have to make? KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 03:07
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KittyEmpress posted:No, it will not combine to lower prices - it will combine to lower the prices required to maintain the same level of profit. Here', lets do some babies first math for you! This is stupid because Walmart is just the outlet where the goods are being sold. The factory that makes those tvs now has to pay all their laborers minimum wage too and they arent going to cut their profits down either, so the cost of the tv goes up. So people have more money in their pockets to buy more tvs, until they get to walmart and see the tv costs more too and they can't afford it now any more then they did before and we are back where we started. Unless the tvs arent made in america, and more businesses decide to move out of the country so they can use cheaper labor... naw that wouldnt happen. Haven't we covered enough, as even you admitted, that the real reason this isn't going to change a thing because the businesses will not decide profit isnt as important as being good people? Saying the reason is greed doesn't change it. Edit: and if labor is cheaper overseas due to a new even higher minimum wage, wont only lovely jobs that pay minimum wage be left. Cant outsource fry cook... yet. Blackchamber fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 03:14
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The manufacturer of the TVs? Oh no, now they're selling ten times the product, how terrible, clearly that will still mean they'll lose money compared to when factories would pump out so many of something that would sit on shelves and not sell because no one could afford them. Like seriously you could at least try and make your arguments on good faith, instead of going 'no this isn't how it would work, because companies are assholes'. The most important thing to note with a 15 dollar minimum wage isn't that people will have TWICE the money to spend - it will mean they have any money to spend, at all. Lots of people work for minimum or near minimum wage and then have nothing left for luxuries. So you're not getting 'twice' the money from people in terms of the amount of people buying your goods and services, you're getting entire subsections of the population who never or once a year bought things, who suddenly have the ability to buy goods. What would actually happen with the TV manufacturer + walmart is this - the manufacturer sells a ton more of their product, probably either sees the same level of profit or an increase. Same as walmart would. Like, the minimum wage is going up in Seattle, and I haven't seen any big news about how anything has super gone so expensive that even former non-minimum wage people can't afford it, like you guys are literally assuming will 100% happen. Edit: Blackchamber, is your argument literally 'well if we pay people enough to survive and live comfortably, then companies will just use foreign people and pay less?' Really? They already do that. Like 90% of what you buy is made in countries cheaper than america wage wise. What raising the minimum wage would do would mean the millions of people in minimum or near minimum wage jobs that can't be shipped over seas would be able to live and survive. There is no way america will ever make corporations stop shipping 90% of manufacturing jobs overseas, unless we completely break away from corporate owned and run america or do like libertarians want and abolish the minimum wage, so they can buy their slave labor locally. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 03:24
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Also holy gently caress, you know what else a higher minimum wage would do? Allow people to afford to go to college like all of you people keep harping on about. It would allow people to have savings, and thus make the ability to either go themselves or send their kids more common! It would mean people who would otherwise go hilariously into debt to go to higher learning do it. So in fact, raising the minimum wage would have long term changes to our nations amount of non-college going workers, who are basically forced in to minimum wage jobs.
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Jun 28, 2015 03:31
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KittyEmpress posted:The manufacturer of the TVs? Oh no, now they're selling ten times the product, how terrible, clearly that will still mean they'll lose money compared to when factories would pump out so many of something that would sit on shelves and not sell because no one could afford them. Again you are making just as many assumptions as us 'dumbs' debating with you. The tv company isnt selling ten times the tvs because again they are passing the buck. Its not that the company is going to lose money, its about them knowing they could have charged more. Its always about charging what the market will bear. Oh noes! You really want me to use good faith when it comes to corporations and greed/profiting. Yeah you are right I really have no basis to say they are greedy, they certainly havent been before. Everyone is quick to point out Seattle but thats not a definitive answer. Its not like all business that sell products in Seattle are based there and produce their products there. So they have one market where they make a thinner margin, but thats fine because they are in other markets that make up the difference. But whos to say what will happen when those companies have to pay the minimum wage in all markets? Edit: about going overseas... uh that was my point, companies already go overseas for cheap labor. My point was what happens when its not just cheaper for the big boys to go over there and the niche products, but universally cheaper for all production? Lots of jobs that suddenly were making the higher min wage are cut altogether. Blackchamber fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 03:36
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Blackchamber posted:But whos to say what will happen when those companies have to pay the minimum wage in all markets? Probably not that much, which is the whole point. The primary reason people ship jobs overseas nowaday isn't because of wages, and low wage labor costs generally aren't a deal breaker to any not poo poo run operation. Walmart, fast food, restaurants in general, a lot of places would run perfectly fine with the increased minimum wage, and the money would come out of the shareholders/owners pockets, not the costs of production. I"m not sure if you're saying increasing it is a bad idea or unfeasible.... ZoneManagement posted:How many people here have run a minimum wage business or spent a truly extensive amount of time working for one? 
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Jun 28, 2015 03:41
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You know how my old boss at the zoo managed to have some 30-40 employees and barely paid a few cents over min wage, but had profits in the hundreds of thousands to millions? He classified us as temp or seasonal workers, so no one was getting min wage unless you'd been there for several years of 'seasons.' It is corporate greed, plain and simple. The man above could have paid everyone a base of $10 an hour (the highest person paid there was the vet tech. Who was capped at $13 an hour. For being an exotic vet in everything but degree.) and still be making money hand over fist. But it was more important that he pay people at $7 an hour, cash only, no digital traces, so he could keep more money for himself. He actually lost his zoo accreditation because he refused to pay employees the minimum the American Zoological Association said had to be base pay for working with loving exotic animals! The lead zookeeper in charge of the loving lions and tigers should not be working a second job to make ends meet, but she was. The watchman in charge of all security shouldn't have to have another fulltime job to feed himself (or herself. For a while as the night security I had my hours cut in half, and I had to choose between buying food for myself or being able to put gas in the car. My supervisor told me to take food from the commisary. Which was all animal food. Like half rotten melons and loving horse meat. But I was told I'd never starve as long as I wasn't too picky about what I ate.). I am a courier. I make more than min wage, but I live paycheck to paycheck, it's near impossible to have a nest egg, and just saying "go back to school and get a real job!" doesn't help anyone. For one, college isn't free, college loans are more predatory than lions, and "real jobs" aren't exactly easy to get. When I was a kid, I was always asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, as I assume everyone was, and I, like most kids, wanted to be something amazing, like an actress or a famous writer or a Shamu trainer. So when I was a stupid kid I figured when I saw adults working at the bowling alley, or as a cashier, that was what they wanted to grow up to to. Or it was a temp job that they had until their Real One came. I never realized that for so many people that had to be their real job because the alternative wasn't worth thinking about. The min wage should be renamed Livable Wage. And it should depend on the loving city too, but the base should be you can survive on this wage without needing assistance. And companies like Walmart and McDonalds who post HOW TO GET loving ASSISTANCE IN THEIR BREAKROOMS need to have all tax loopholes closed.
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Jun 28, 2015 04:01
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ZoneManagement posted:How many people here have run a minimum wage business or spent a truly extensive amount of time working for one? I am running a near-minimum wage business, that being a pizza restaurant. The thing about minimum wage workers is that there's nearly always something seriously wrong with them. Otherwise, why would they be working for minimum wage? These are the people who can't get any better. They might be alcoholics, or stupid, or generally incompetent, or have serious personality problems that make it difficult for them to get or keep a job. Just as their poor decision making in life has led to them working for minimum wage, their poor decision making at work makes them trouble to deal with. What you try to do is find people who do a reasonably good job, and then put up with whatever it is that's wrong with them. Ok, so they get arrested, or violate their probation and get put back in jail, multiple times a year. Or they get too drunk to come in to work a couple times a month. Or they wear the same dirty clothes every day. Or they're clearly high half the time they're at work. But if they can manage to do the job reasonably well while they're there, you let it slide, because you know whoever else you hire will have their own major problems, in addition to having to be completely trained, and it takes months for anyone to get to be really good at anything. I don't know what the effects would be of having a $15 per hour minimum wage. I'd be curious to see some sort of extensive comparison between how things work in Australia, which has a high minimum wage, and the U.S.
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Jun 28, 2015 06:50
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Blackchamber posted:Doesn't sound to me like you know too much about management for these kinds of jobs. That's funny, cuz it doesn't sound to me like you know poo poo about what I said either. When you need three people to run a small retail location, and person #2 doesn't show up, or calls in sick, or loving whatever, you fill his time with another employee, do it yourself, or make a decision to do without them for the day. When it becomes habitual, you hire somebody to replace that employee, and rid yourself of the problem. Small amounts of overlap happen for a variety of reasons, but scheduling three people to do the job of two on a regular basis does not. A manager that can't slap together a staff and balance their general availability for the sake of properly running a business is a lovely manager. You don't pay someone to hang out and do bullshit busywork in the off chance that they are needed to do actual work, that's stupid and wasteful.
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Jun 28, 2015 06:53
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Soviet Commubot posted:Do you honestly think that 100% of the cost of your Big Mac is labor? No, but McDonalds has suppliers, who pay labor. Their suppliers pay labor. Everyone's expenses go up and so do prices. Imaduck posted:The price of a product is typically not set by its cost. If people would buy Big Macs at a higher price, McDonalds would already being charging more for them. The price of a product is set for optimizing profits, i.e. if I set my product at this price, how many people will buy it and what will my profits be? this_is_hard posted:i too value my salary purely on what my neighbors make Hypothetically, if the minimum wage was raised to the point where I (as a skilled professional) was effectively earning the same as an unskilled clerk, I'd be infuriated and demanding a payrise ASAP.
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Jun 28, 2015 12:13
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tumblr.txt posted:
And this would not be a good thing? If the min wage was raised to $10 an hour, or 15, or any number, then everyone else who makes that amount would demand a raise and, gasp, the reason corps would decline it? The high levels want to hoard their money and always get more of it. But to keep their work force they would have to raise pay everywhere. Why is it that prices everywhere have gone up, that CEO pay is at an all-time high....but the wages have not, have in fact, stagnated? Perhaps it isn't the wage that is the problem then. Also quite seriously when I made min wage, I was busting my rear end a lot more than when I was making over $10 an hour. It seems funny but the less money you make, the more you have to work for it, and the more disposable everyone says you are, cause otherwise you'd have a better job.
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Jun 28, 2015 12:52
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Cowslips Warren posted:Also quite seriously when I made min wage, I was busting my rear end a lot more than when I was making over $10 an hour. It seems funny but the less money you make, the more you have to work for it, and the more disposable everyone says you are, cause otherwise you'd have a better job. This is true for me as well. I've never busted my rear end like I had to when I was making $2.15 an hour plus tip share at a restaurant, or $7.25 an hour in a warehouse. And I'd STILL get bitched at for not being fast or efficient enough. Now I work as a fabricator, at times making over $20 an hour just operating a hydraulic press all day, and when I'm done management thanks me for putting in long hours.
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Jun 28, 2015 16:45
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