If you were a business owner faced with $10.10 minimum wage would you..

[healthmyths]

How many of those 4.5 million companies pay their employees minimum wage?

FACTS again..
In 2011 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum.

Together, these 3.8 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 5.2 percent of all hourly-paid workers.
Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2011
From the above chart from the US Census Bureau, of the 3.8 million nearly 2 million are under 24 years old.

The problem that raising minimum wage causes is the decline in jobs for unskilled young people.
This is NOT considered by advocates of raising minimum wages and the robot janitor is a perfect illustration of the effect.
It happened with elevators. Even Obama recognizes what ATMs have done to teller business.
Keep raising the minimum wages closes the doors on unskilled labor to learn a skill.. like getting to work on time. Cleanliness.etc,...

You didn't answer my question. I didn't ask how many people earn minimum wage ... I asked how many of the 4.5 million people you mentioned earn minimum wage.

YOU asked how many of the 4.5 million people earn minimum wage.
BLS says..In 2011 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum.

 

[pvsi]

A) Since the minimum wage paid is actually $10.87 (people forget employers pay equal SS/Medicare...) versus what a janitor at $7.25 ($7.80 with FICA)..as a small business owner would you pay the additional $3.06 per hour or $6,375.98 more per year.. OR

B) fire the janitor and buy the below for $7,184 and in the first year save $15,431?

HMMMM which should you do????

Keep spending $22,000 or
save $22,000 by letting the janitor go?

Janitor robot does more than clean floors Concept droid has the flexibility to be a commercial success
Janitor robot does more than clean floors | News | TechRadar
View attachment 29420

Me and my father have decided over a decade ago, shortly after Bush got elected, that it's best to keep the business small with me and my father working - the hassles of hiring were too much, downright scary filling out the tax forms.

 

[Ame®icano]

Janitor robot need maintenance and servicing.

If company had one janitor, replacing him/her with one robot won't make big impact, you still have to pay someone to service and support a robot. If existing janitor learns how to do it, it will make his job easier and maybe increase his pay. If company has ten janitors, they can replace them with ten robots and still have a need for just one maybe two support persons. That's where real saving is, cause most of janitors, if not all will lose their jobs.

 

[Faun]

FACTS again..
In 2011 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum.

Together, these 3.8 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 5.2 percent of all hourly-paid workers.
Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2011
From the above chart from the US Census Bureau, of the 3.8 million nearly 2 million are under 24 years old.

The problem that raising minimum wage causes is the decline in jobs for unskilled young people.
This is NOT considered by advocates of raising minimum wages and the robot janitor is a perfect illustration of the effect.
It happened with elevators. Even Obama recognizes what ATMs have done to teller business.
Keep raising the minimum wages closes the doors on unskilled labor to learn a skill.. like getting to work on time. Cleanliness.etc,...

You didn't answer my question. I didn't ask how many people earn minimum wage ... I asked how many of the 4.5 million people you mentioned earn minimum wage.

YOU asked how many of the 4.5 million people earn minimum wage.
BLS says..In 2011 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum.

The 1.7 million you are referring to are among all companies. I'm asking you how many were there in just the 4.5 million companies you're citing?

 

[Faun]

The minimum wage has been raised many times since it's inception and yet somehow we've managed to survive.

And even prosper.

Only if you call a declining labor force participation "prosperous".

The labor force participation rate is not an indicator of the economy.

 

[Ame®icano]

It has a snowball effect. If you have to pay the janitor 10.10, then you now have to increase other employees pay...since the secretary was making 10/hr, now you have to bump up her pay to 13. Now the IT assistant who was making 13, will now expect a pay increase as well. And so on and so on up the line. It's not just bringing up the bottom...all boats have to rise as a consequence. You're looking at cutting at least 1/3, and saddling the remaining employees to pick up the slack. So congrats on the pay increase, and hope it doesn't lower morale that it cost some of your peers their job.

I would add something to this...

People that were making minimum wage of $7.25 and got their pay increased to $10.10 will not have their situation improved much, if any. Even if they do, it will not last for long, since they are still at the bottom of the ladder.

Example.

Poverty line for family of 4 is $23,850. If someone is making minimum wage of $7.25 and work 2000 hrs a year (50 wks/40 hrs), total income is $14,500 a year, well below poverty level. With increase in pay to $10.10, with working the same number of hours, the new total income is $20,200, still below poverty line.

That family will still receive government assistance such as food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, but since difference between two MW incomes is $5,700, that's about how much government will have to pay less in assistance and get more in SS and Medicare taxes.

Increase in MW will not help those people much, will increase their risk of losing jobs and only side that benefit is government itself. There is an old saying, dog doesn't bark to warn the village...

 

[Moonglow]

It has a snowball effect. If you have to pay the janitor 10.10, then you now have to increase other employees pay...since the secretary was making 10/hr, now you have to bump up her pay to 13. Now the IT assistant who was making 13, will now expect a pay increase as well. And so on and so on up the line. It's not just bringing up the bottom...all boats have to rise as a consequence. You're looking at cutting at least 1/3, and saddling the remaining employees to pick up the slack. So congrats on the pay increase, and hope it doesn't lower morale that it cost some of your peers their job.

I would add something to this...

People that were making minimum wage of $7.25 and got their pay increased to $10.10 will not have their situation improved much, if any. Even if they do, it will not last for long, since they are still at the bottom of the ladder.

Example.

Poverty line for family of 4 is $23,850. If someone is making minimum wage of $7.25 and work 2000 hrs a year (50 wks/40 hrs), total income is $14,500 a year, well below poverty level. With increase in pay to $10.10, with working the same number of hours, the new total income is $20,200, still below poverty line.

That family will still receive government assistance such as food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, but since difference between two MW incomes is $5,700, that's about how much government will have to pay less in assistance and more in SS and Medicare taxes.

Increase in MW will not help those people much, will increase their risk of losing jobs and only side that benefit is government itself. There is an old saying, dog doesn't bark to warn the village...

Then it's not a very good dog..

 

[Ame®icano]

It has a snowball effect. If you have to pay the janitor 10.10, then you now have to increase other employees pay...since the secretary was making 10/hr, now you have to bump up her pay to 13. Now the IT assistant who was making 13, will now expect a pay increase as well. And so on and so on up the line. It's not just bringing up the bottom...all boats have to rise as a consequence. You're looking at cutting at least 1/3, and saddling the remaining employees to pick up the slack. So congrats on the pay increase, and hope it doesn't lower morale that it cost some of your peers their job.

I would add something to this...

People that were making minimum wage of $7.25 and got their pay increased to $10.10 will not have their situation improved much, if any. Even if they do, it will not last for long, since they are still at the bottom of the ladder.

Example.

Poverty line for family of 4 is $23,850. If someone is making minimum wage of $7.25 and work 2000 hrs a year (50 wks/40 hrs), total income is $14,500 a year, well below poverty level. With increase in pay to $10.10, with working the same number of hours, the new total income is $20,200, still below poverty line.

That family will still receive government assistance such as food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, but since difference between two MW incomes is $5,700, that's about how much government will have to pay less in assistance and more in SS and Medicare taxes.

Increase in MW will not help those people much, will increase their risk of losing jobs and only side that benefit is government itself. There is an old saying, dog doesn't bark to warn the village...

Then it's not a very good dog..

Really? Then explain why dog barks?

 

[Moonglow]

I would add something to this...

People that were making minimum wage of $7.25 and got their pay increased to $10.10 will not have their situation improved much, if any. Even if they do, it will not last for long, since they are still at the bottom of the ladder.

Example.

Poverty line for family of 4 is $23,850. If someone is making minimum wage of $7.25 and work 2000 hrs a year (50 wks/40 hrs), total income is $14,500 a year, well below poverty level. With increase in pay to $10.10, with working the same number of hours, the new total income is $20,200, still below poverty line.

That family will still receive government assistance such as food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, but since difference between two MW incomes is $5,700, that's about how much government will have to pay less in assistance and more in SS and Medicare taxes.

Increase in MW will not help those people much, will increase their risk of losing jobs and only side that benefit is government itself. There is an old saying, dog doesn't bark to warn the village...

Then it's not a very good dog..

Really? Then explain why dog barks?

To hear themselves speak..

 

[OnePercenter]

So lets put this into prospective.

With existing contracts the two companies that I angel invest will see $55M dollars in revenue for 2014. The lowest wage earner makes $23.50/hr with company paid benefits. Employee costs will be $26.4M.

When an employer tells you he can't afford to pay $10.10/hr.......He's lying, stupid, or has no business being in business.

 

[auditor0007]

A) Since the minimum wage paid is actually $10.87 (people forget employers pay equal SS/Medicare...) versus what a janitor at $7.25 ($7.80 with FICA)..as a small business owner would you pay the additional $3.06 per hour or $6,375.98 more per year.. OR

B) fire the janitor and buy the below for $7,184 and in the first year save $15,431?

HMMMM which should you do????

Keep spending $22,000 or
save $22,000 by letting the janitor go?

Janitor robot does more than clean floors Concept droid has the flexibility to be a commercial success
Janitor robot does more than clean floors | News | TechRadar
View attachment 29420

I fire the janitor in both scenarios, because regardless of his wage, the robot is cheaper. In your scenario, the higher wage is not the problem as there already is a cheaper way to go.

My business is a service business where payroll is my largest expense, by far. I already start employees out at $10 per hour, so let's say they increase the minimum from $8 to $10, do I do nothing, or do I raise my starting wage to $12? Assuming I raise my starting wage to $12, I will have to pass that cost on to my clients or lose some of my profit margin. My average employee produces at a rate of $30 per hour, so with a $10 wage, they are earning me $20 per hour. To keep that $20 profit margin, I would need to raise my client's rate from $30 to $32 per hour. So to give my employees a 20% raise, I need to increase the amount I charge by just under 7% in order to keep the same dollars in profit. My profit margin would actually drop a bit, but the dollars would remain the same.

As we can see, the increase in wages is fairly substantial, yet the increase to the customer is minimal, comparatively speaking. And yes, I realize I did not include payroll taxes, but I'm just showing it the way it really is. Too many people think if you raise the minimum wage of a fast food worker, all of a sudden, Big Macs will be $9.

 

[LittleNipper]

What happens to the wage of the worker who is already making $10.10? Now he has been reduced to a minimum wage earner...

 

[TemplarKormac]

A) Since the minimum wage paid is actually $10.87 (people forget employers pay equal SS/Medicare...) versus what a janitor at $7.25 ($7.80 with FICA)..as a small business owner would you pay the additional $3.06 per hour or $6,375.98 more per year.. OR

B) fire the janitor and buy the below for $7,184 and in the first year save $15,431?

HMMMM which should you do????

Keep spending $22,000 or
save $22,000 by letting the janitor go?

Janitor robot does more than clean floors Concept droid has the flexibility to be a commercial success
Janitor robot does more than clean floors | News | TechRadar
View attachment 29420

"I can't pay for this!" I would say. "I'll have to let some of my employees go to keep my business afloat." "If they ask me why I have to send a man with a wife and children home without a job, I'll simply explain, "blame the government, simply because they know nothing of restraint but everything about preaching greed as a virtue."

I would continue by saying "should my government care about the people who built these businesses, the could lecture us about caring about our employees. I'm sorry, but I have to do what's best for my business."

 

[LoneLaugher]

A) Since the minimum wage paid is actually $10.87 (people forget employers pay equal SS/Medicare...) versus what a janitor at $7.25 ($7.80 with FICA)..as a small business owner would you pay the additional $3.06 per hour or $6,375.98 more per year.. OR

B) fire the janitor and buy the below for $7,184 and in the first year save $15,431?

HMMMM which should you do????

Keep spending $22,000 or
save $22,000 by letting the janitor go?

Janitor robot does more than clean floors Concept droid has the flexibility to be a commercial success
Janitor robot does more than clean floors | News | TechRadar
View attachment 29420

"I can't pay for this!" I would say. "I'll have to let some of my employees go to keep my business afloat." "If they ask me why I have to send a man with a wife and children home without a job, I'll simply explain, "blame the government, simply because they know nothing of restraint but everything about preaching greed as a virtue."

I would continue by saying "should my government care about the people who built these businesses, the could lecture us about caring about our employees. I'm sorry, but I have to do what's best for my business."

Speaking from experience?

 

[Spiderman]

What happens to the wage of the worker who is already making $10.10? Now he has been reduced to a minimum wage earner...

What happens is all of a sudden it looks like more and more people are making only minimum wage so the politicians have a perpetual "crisis" to resolve.

Then we make the poverty level higher because the poverty level is a function of minimum wage then the pols get another perpetual crisis with the
new war on" poverty"

 

[nitroz]

I wouldn't care, because with profit margins after all expenses, it could still be covered.


Like my work. We made $3 million in pure profits last year after all expenses and bills were paid. They could pay lots lots lots more before going negative.

 

[midcan5]

The difference being no janitor means the floor gets dirty. No competent CEO and the company fails and everyone is out of a job.

OMG do you live in Never-Never Land? I'd have a hard time counting the incompetent CEOs and CIOs and other assorted idiots I have known in forty years in corporate America. Were you asleep in 2007 and 08 when incompetence required the government bail out the fools? Did you not hear or read about golden parachutes? Do you know no history at all? None?
Ever hear of the great depression? Jeez, the right wing is like an ongoing comedy act in which the players engage in dialogue right out of Harry Frankfurt's definition of BS.

"Throughout the nineteenth century, the loans which financed large American capital investment programs, mounted by private consortia, were continually defaulted on. The history of the American railroads is a history of default. More specifically, the history of American capitalism is one of default. This happened in a spectacular manner during the Panics of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1892-93 and 1907. None of this reneging happened in the civilized manner organized by a Solon or a Sully. Rather it involved a panic and a crash, which created massive bankruptcies, which in turn wiped out massive debts. Because of the disordered way in which each ripping up of obligations came, the result was always a short period of widespread depression before the cleansed economy took off again with renewed force. In the Panic of 1892-93 alone, four thousand banks and fourteen thousand commercial enterprises collapsed. In other words, the nonpayment of debt was central to the construction of the United States.... The great depressions of the last hundred and fifty years can be seen as the default mechanisms of middle-class societies. Depressions free the citizens by making the paper worthless. The method was and is awkward and painful, particularly for the poor, but it destroys the paper chains and permits a new equilibrium to be built out of the pain and disorder of collapse.... One of the most surprising innovations of the late twentieth century has been not only the rationalization of speculation but, beyond that, the attachment of moral value, with vaguely religious origins, to the repayment of debts. This probably has something to do with the insertion of God as an official supporter of capitalism and democracy." p403 John Ralston Saul, 'Voltaire's Bastards'

 

[Toro]

So lets put this into prospective.

With existing contracts the two companies that I angel invest will see $55M dollars in revenue for 2014. The lowest wage earner makes $23.50/hr with company paid benefits. Employee costs will be $26.4M.

When an employer tells you he can't afford to pay $10.10/hr.......He's lying, stupid, or has no business being in business.

In your angel investments, of those two, how many are in the hospitality business?

 

[Rshermr]

It has a snowball effect. If you have to pay the janitor 10.10, then you now have to increase other employees pay...since the secretary was making 10/hr, now you have to bump up her pay to 13. Now the IT assistant who was making 13, will now expect a pay increase as well. And so on and so on up the line. It's not just bringing up the bottom...all boats have to rise as a consequence. You're looking at cutting at least 1/3, and saddling the remaining employees to pick up the slack. So congrats on the pay increase, and hope it doesn't lower morale that it cost some of your peers their job.

I would add something to this...

People that were making minimum wage of $7.25 and got their pay increased to $10.10 will not have their situation improved much, if any. Even if they do, it will not last for long, since they are still at the bottom of the ladder.

Example.

Poverty line for family of 4 is $23,850. If someone is making minimum wage of $7.25 and work 2000 hrs a year (50 wks/40 hrs), total income is $14,500 a year, well below poverty level. With increase in pay to $10.10, with working the same number of hours, the new total income is $20,200, still below poverty line.

That family will still receive government assistance such as food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, but since difference between two MW incomes is $5,700, that's about how much government will have to pay less in assistance and get more in SS and Medicare taxes.

Increase in MW will not help those people much, will increase their risk of losing jobs and only side that benefit is government itself. There is an old saying, dog doesn't bark to warn the village...

So, let me understand your logic. You believe that the extra $5700 will not help those making MW????
I am sure you see some logic there that I am missing. And did you think others making under and over minimum wage will not also see an increase in their earnings??? Always have in previous mw increases. You may want to check history.
And check history to see how employment levels changed as a result of mw increases. You will find that there were few meaningful decreases in the ue rate. And you will find that those changes were transitory. Over a fairly short period, the ue rate went along as normal at higher wage rates. As it will again, in this case.

Over the past several decades, the incomes of the wealthy have increased at an amazing rate. By hundreds of percent. The incomes of the minimum wage worker has increased very little. So, think about it. Where could that increase in mw come from??? By the way, the mw in real terms, which is the only rational way to look at it, has decreased substantially since the late 1960's. Not so with corporate profits or the earnings of the wealthy. Which proves that income redistribution does exist. From the poor through middle class to the wealthy.

 

[editec]

Liberals need to explain why not make minimum wage $15/hr, $10000/hr, etc...there needs to be a implied reason for a ceiling.

No they don't.

What a preposterous idea.

You do not apply that specious logic to things you approve of, so why apply it to anything at all?