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I don't know which side to believe in this thread - the one that implies that higher wages lead inevitably to higher corporate profits, or the one that implies that higher wages cause an infinite regress towards higher prices. Both sound equally plausible!
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Jun 28, 2015 17:28
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Jeza posted:I don't know which side to believe in this thread - the one that implies that higher wages lead inevitably to higher corporate profits, or the one that implies that higher wages cause an infinite regress towards higher prices. Both sound equally plausible! Just let them slap fight until they realize they're both wrong. Basically we're going to be here a while....
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Jun 28, 2015 18:04
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Imaduck posted:Sure, but there may be other areas to cut costs, or perhaps only the lowest-performing McDonalds are the ones that need to be shut down. 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. At least here you are admitting the possibility that unemployment may increase if we increase the minimum wage by a lot. Some people in the Debate and Discussion thread on this subject desparately wanted to believe that doubling the minimum wage was a slam dunk and would come with zero economic drawbacks. Edit: People in that thread also desperately wanted to believe that a huge minimum wage increase was good way to transfer wealth from company profits -> workers. That doesn't make sense to me. The people who buy goods made with minimum wage labor are really the ones paying for the minimum wage increase, not the companies. The companies will raise prices to offset the increased cost of minimum wage workers. Or maybe they will, as you said, go under or be more efficient with their workers, and then they won't be transferring wealth to minimum wage workers as well. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 19:11
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Jeza posted:I don't know which side to believe in this thread - the one that implies that higher wages lead inevitably to higher corporate profits, or the one that implies that higher wages cause an infinite regress towards higher prices. Both sound equally plausible!
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Jun 28, 2015 19:28
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Orange Sunshine posted: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. KittyEmpress posted: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. OK, let's chill. Why would Wal-Mart decide not to raise prices when its costs have increased and it can make more money by raising prices? Corporations like Wal-Mart have one goal: to make the most profit possible. You can call price raises "greedy," but that won't stop them from happening. FWIW I'm in favor of higher prices on consumer goods and higher minimum wage. The only reason goods are so cheap right now is because retailers have slashed prices to compete with discounters like Wal-Mart and Amazon, who treat their workers horribly so they can sell cheap goods in volume profitably. All of our staff are good people who deserve to live decently, and when the business does well, the staff see it in raises and bonuses. But knowing our figures, paying everyone $15+/hr right now would bankrupt us. But if the Wal-Marts of the world raised their prices, then we could raise our prices, stay competitive, and be able to pay our staff well. There'd be inflation, yeah, but I don't see any proof or argument that it'd exceed the benefits to low-income people.
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Jun 28, 2015 19:39
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Saeku posted:I'm a manager at a near-minimum wage retail business in Ontario, where the minimum wage is $11/hr CAD (currently =$8.93 USD, but our currencies were at par when this minimum wage was implemented) and tied to inflation. My experience has been pretty different than yours. It's easy for me to find someone reliable with retail experience for minimum. Perhaps retail stores are different from restaurants. Pizza restaurants attract a different sort of employee than a retail store.
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Jun 28, 2015 20:12
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laffo at people being worried about the profits of corporations. Those motherfuckers pay people to worry about that poo poo why the gently caress are you doing it for free?
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Jun 28, 2015 21:01
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Orange Sunshine posted: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. So tl;dr, they do the job they're hired to do and you make a profit with these people. I am not really seeing the problem. If they were a problem, why wouldn't you just pay more already for better talent? Also it seems the argument is that if you raise wages beyond a certain point, certain segments of people might be completely unemployable. That doesn't make much sense since the distribution of available talent hasn't changed, just their cost, so you're still going to be selecting from a pool of people who for one reason or another are stuck at a lovely cashier job or pizza delivery job. Automation is something that can potentially change this, but currently those solutions don't exist for a lot of these positions otherwise they'd already be in place. And of course, a business is always going to try to go towards automation if it means lowering their costs, regardless of the wages. An example of that is self check out cashier things at drug stores and grocery stores. Minimum wage has remained the same, yet, they're still trying to replace the cashiers anyway--and cahsiers bring in A LOT of money for a store, way more than they get paid even, so clearly it isn't their wage that is the driving factor. As far as in the D&D thread, proponents of increasing the Min Wage didn't say there would be zero negative effects at any min wage, but that for all of the previous min wage increases, we haven't seen them. Their solution is quite simple and pragmatic, increase the min wage in small steps every year and see if any negative effects happen. Once they become significant enough you can stop increasing the minimum wage.
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Jun 28, 2015 21:13
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I work at a non-corporate small business so all the profits that aren't re-invested into the business go to people I know and like, or me. & I care about the profitability of neighborhood businesses because I like having nice places to shop or eat in my neighborhood instead of abandoned buildings, drug fronts, & payday loans.
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Jun 28, 2015 21:14
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and that's cool to do But I still dont see the sense in worrying about walmart and micky d's since the money goes to a group of people who are likely storing it in an Cayman islands account so they can spend it on child prostitutes in some 3rd world hellhole
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Jun 28, 2015 21:26
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Thanatosian posted: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. Nope. This is exactly the direction things should be going in. More people should receive food stamps and Medicaid. Everyone should. Along with free housing. Everyone should be given enough that they can live what is currently considered an upper middle class American lifestyle. Then people would have no reason to work and McDonald's would actually have to pay a decent amount of money to incentive people to work there, instead of exploiting peoples' unlucky life positions in order to pay them peanuts.
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Jun 28, 2015 22:24
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Orange Sunshine posted: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. if i had to work for your nazi rear end id be drunk at work too
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Jun 29, 2015 05:33
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The cost of labor is determined from the equilibrium in the market. The minimum wage sets a floor to this (Which was originally thought of as a why as protecting the lowest-earners, not to improve the economy). When you mess with the equilibrium too much, you can mess up the labor market just like every other market. There needs to be less people willing to work for almost nothing to get by to change that. I don't understand the argument where increasing the minimum wage will just make things better for consumption when that justifies an infinitely high minimum wage.
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Jun 29, 2015 06:50
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Eskaton posted:When you mess with the equilibrium too much, you can mess up the labor market just like every other market. There needs to be less people willing to work for almost nothing to get by to change that. So do you all seriously believe minimum wage will skyrocket overnight instead of the more probable gradually over the course of ten years or what?
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Jun 29, 2015 07:07
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Veskit posted: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 think it's heavily dependent on the industry. I think Walmart probably has labor costs as a smaller portion than most other industries including fast food. Mak0rz posted:So do you all seriously believe minimum wage will skyrocket overnight instead of the more probable gradually over the course of ten years or what? Uh, no. I'm not sure where you're getting that from my post.
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Jun 29, 2015 07:15
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chopper city posted:if i had to work for your nazi rear end id be drunk at work too Try being a manager of a pizza restaurant, and we'll talk again.
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Jun 29, 2015 10:34
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Orange Sunshine posted:Try being a manager of a pizza restaurant, and we'll talk again. I was a manager at a pizza restaurant and you just sound like a retard, hth. you're just salty that your drivers make more money than you do
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Jun 29, 2015 14:51
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Reynold posted: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. This primarily because you are now a lot harder to replace than you were when you were doing unskilled labor.
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Jun 29, 2015 15:07
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Cat Army
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MightyJoe36 posted:This primarily because you are now a lot harder to replace than you were when you were doing unskilled labor. This is theoretically true, but it's not reeaaaally true because the implication is that he is harder to replace because he was using a skill not used by the restraunt workers. I am assuming there isn't anything super weird about his hydraulic press, so he is probably spending his entire day positioning things on top of other things, then stepping on a pedal. This type of automation is present in a loooooooooott of that type of work, where essentially the difference is just learning how to operate a thing. When working with machinery you often get walked through the entire process of operation before they let you touch it for saftey reasons anyway. So the only thing you need is like, a basic level of self-preservation. (By the way this is not to say pay them less, this is to point out that it's a terrible justification for why restraunt workers are paid such small amounts) There may be some aspect about him that the employer prefers that would be hard to replace, but it is likely not an actual skill issue, just arbitrary choices by the boss.  Anecdotally, I made minimum wage taking apart and putting together engines and twice that in a job where all of my responsibilities involved answering a phone, and then sending an IM to somebody else with the caller's name and what they were calling about. This was an especially stark contrast for me because I was working both jobs at the same time, and would make more money in 3 hours of answering calls in the evening than I did all day doing poo poo that made people think I was a wizard. The place I did mechanical stuff was also making about 4x the profit of the other place, but if I ever brought up getting a raise they would start freaking the gently caress out. surc fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 20:11
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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 from a page back, but I just want to say that this article is full of poo poo. First off, Seattle's minimum wage is phased in; it doesn't hit $15 an hour for anyone for four years, and doesn't hit it for everyone for seven. It hits the largest businesses first. Second, it says that Seattle restaurant closures have increased without actually citing anything for that statistic, then posts a few places anecdotally that have closed. Restaurants close in Seattle all the loving time. They also open all the time, to the point where The Stranger (our free weekly) frequently has a column dedicated to nothing but restaurant openings and closings. The restaurant industry here is immensely competitive, and still pretty goddamn remunerative. Several restaurants have even started pre-emptively paying their employees $15 an hour, and the Seattle Restaurant Association is a mouthpiece for the Chamber of Commerce, and will fight against literally any sort of vaguely progressive legislation.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:45
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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? I can guarantee you that at this very moment, even in cities/states where the minimum wage is still $7.25/hr, McDonald's already employs the absolute fewest number of people possible to keep a particular establishment running
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Jun 29, 2015 20:52
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surc posted:This is theoretically true, but it's not reeaaaally true because the implication is that he is harder to replace because he was using a skill not used by the restraunt workers. I am assuming there isn't anything super weird about his hydraulic press, so he is probably spending his entire day positioning things on top of other things, then stepping on a pedal. This type of automation is present in a loooooooooott of that type of work, where essentially the difference is just learning how to operate a thing. When working with machinery you often get walked through the entire process of operation before they let you touch it for saftey reasons anyway. So the only thing you need is like, a basic level of self-preservation. (By the way this is not to say pay them less, this is to point out that it's a terrible justification for why restraunt workers are paid such small amounts) Just to clarify, I wasn't justifying it, just stating something that I've seen to be true in the workplace.
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Jun 29, 2015 21:12
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Orange Sunshine posted:Try being a manager of a pizza restaurant, and we'll talk again. this_is_hard posted:I was a manager at a pizza restaurant and you just sound like a retard, hth. Anytime you have some authority on a subject on the internet, where you can't independently verify someone's identity, anyone you're arguing with automatically has more knowledge and experience than you do. So, saying "have you even shot a handgun?" is met with "I was Army Special Forces and I now own a gun range and a multi-state gun distributor", even when it's clear they've never shot a gun before.
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Jun 29, 2015 21:59
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photomikey posted:Anytime you have some authority on a subject on the internet, where you can't independently verify someone's identity, anyone you're arguing with automatically has more knowledge and experience than you do. So, saying "have you even shot a handgun?" is met with "I was Army Special Forces and I now own a gun range and a multi-state gun distributor", even when it's clear they've never shot a gun before. yah but it's not even like 'managing a pizza restaurant' is anything to brag about. you get paid barely more than minimum wage as is at most chain restaurants and almost always your delivery drivers make more actual money than you do 'all of my minimum wage workers have something wrong with them!' *makes $9/hr salaried, works 60 hours a week with infinite more responsibility*
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Jun 29, 2015 22:06
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MightyJoe36 posted:Just to clarify, I wasn't justifying it, just stating something that I've seen to be true in the workplace. I would be interested to hear about what makes you say that, because my post was about the fact that the thing you have seen to be true is not in fact true, and then my reasoning for that, and an anecdotal example from my life about how it has not been true in my personal experience. I wasn't actually trying to say you personally were justifying them being paid more, but I am super puzzled as to the purpose of that post if it wasn't to justify it. You make an absolute statement about their skills and that their payment was adjusted because their skills are more valuable. To me that reads as full support, which would basically be justifying it? Unless you're trying to say "This isn't justification because it's the goddamn way things are.  " in which case you make me sad, but I'd still be interested in actually hearing what leads you to think that instead of just one line "Here's the truth" posts!
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Jun 29, 2015 22:12
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Eskaton posted:The cost of labor is determined from the equilibrium in the market. The minimum wage sets a floor to this (Which was originally thought of as a why as protecting the lowest-earners, not to improve the economy). When you mess with the equilibrium too much, you can mess up the labor market just like every other market. There needs to be less people willing to work for almost nothing to get by to change that. You're bringing high school level economics into this without backing up your position with any evidence of what you're saying. You even answered the problem you brought up in your own dumb post, that the equilibrium will be reset when the availability of labor falls drastically due to a minimum wage increase. Christ man get it together. Eskaton posted:I think it's heavily dependent on the industry. I think Walmart probably has labor costs as a smaller portion than most other industries including fast food. And your point being what? Again you're arguing for the sake of arguing without stating a defined position because you don't know what you're talking about to begin with. MightyJoe36 posted:This primarily because you are now a lot harder to replace than you were when you were doing unskilled labor. The actual reason is barriers to entry. The job describe takes licenses to do and those can be tricky to get.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:26
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Veskit posted:You're bringing high school level economics into this without backing up your position with any evidence of what you're saying. You even answered the problem you brought up in your own dumb post, that the equilibrium will be reset when the availability of labor falls drastically due to a minimum wage increase. Christ man get it together. quote:And your point being what? Again you're arguing for the sake of arguing without stating a defined position because you don't know what you're talking about to begin with. That's because I was concurring with you. I'm sorry if that's like taking a dump on your or something.
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Jun 30, 2015 01:20
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photomikey posted:Anytime you have some authority on a subject on the internet, where you can't independently verify someone's identity, anyone you're arguing with automatically has more knowledge and experience than you do. So, saying "have you even shot a handgun?" is met with "I was Army Special Forces and I now own a gun range and a multi-state gun distributor", even when it's clear they've never shot a gun before. I was a mcdonalds manager for many years and I can probably convince you I was. At any rate, this thread fascinates for that reason.
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Jun 30, 2015 01:20
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this_is_hard posted:yah but it's not even like 'managing a pizza restaurant' is anything to brag about. you get paid barely more than minimum wage as is at most chain restaurants and almost always your delivery drivers make more actual money than you do I'm the owner of the restaurant, not just the manager. My point was not that being a manager of a pizza restaurant is a rare and wonderful thing, but that anyone who has been (or who has been manager of a fast food restaurant) should have a pretty good idea of what sort of people work there.
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Jun 30, 2015 02:23
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Orange Sunshine posted:I'm the owner of the restaurant, not just the manager. *WHHOOSSSHHH* That's the point, going right over your head and only making the other guy look more correct.
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Jun 30, 2015 03:26
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Orange Sunshine posted:I'm the owner of the restaurant, not just the manager. actually the point is if you keep hiring retards for minimum wage maybe it is, in fact, you who are the retard makes u think, huh?
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Jun 30, 2015 03:28
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Orange Sunshine posted:I'm the owner of the restaurant, not just the manager. I think there's a difference between a fast food manager and a pizza restaurant. Very different.
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Jun 30, 2015 04:14
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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? They either get raises, or move on to do an easier job for the money and companies have to start offering better incentives to get people to do those jobs. It's not rocket surgery.
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Jun 30, 2015 05:34
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I somehow lucked into a $20/hr. job right out of highschool but the vast majority of my friends have multiple degrees, tons of debt and 8-15/hr. jobs. They have no real way of digging themselves out but I also don't have many options for advancement. Even my very, very skilled coworkers are having extreme difficulty getting decent - paying jobs at other places. The only two people I know who are making 60k+ a year, one got it through nepotism and the other worked minimum wage until they were poached by her former boss (she's brilliant but it was also a lot of luck).
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Jun 30, 2015 07:18
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ZoneManagement posted:I think there's a difference between a fast food manager and a pizza restaurant. Very different. I don't think there is, in terms of the type of employees you get. Any kind of sit down restaurant, even a Denny's, will have a different class of workers, career waitresses and line cooks and such. Pizza restaurants are just unskilled workers, just as you'd get at a fast food restaurant.
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Jun 30, 2015 10:56
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For some reason people forget you can go to college for free.
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Jul 2, 2015 14:52
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goodness posted:For some reason people forget you can go to college for free. ummmmmmmm 
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Jul 2, 2015 15:13
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goodness posted:For some reason people forget you can go to college for free. You know, trolling's better when you put in a little effort.
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Jul 3, 2015 00:33
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Liquid Communism posted:You know, trolling's better when you put in a little effort. Pell grant is free and covered my tuition, books And gave me an extra 1000$ in cash extra every semester. Or not and keep working at McDonald's. No sympathy for people who get degrees that won't get them a job.
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Jul 3, 2015 03:01
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goodness posted:Pell grant is free and covered my tuition, books And gave me an extra 1000$ in cash extra every semester. Or not and keep working at McDonald's. No sympathy for people who get degrees that won't get them a job. Slightly more effort, but still not quite there. Try a little harder, I'm so close...
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Jul 3, 2015 04:46
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