Minimum wage is already “livable”

[braalian]

And if you can easily be replaced by someone with no work experience you're not important either

Fast food chains and supermarkets are finding out that burger flippers and shelf stockers are more important then they thought. They’re only replaceable if there’s workers out there willing to replace them.

 

[Blues Man]

Fast food chains and supermarkets are finding out that burger flippers and shelf stockers are more important then they thought. They’re only replaceable if there’s workers out there willing to replace them.

Not really.

They are finding out that when you pay people not to work people don't want to work.

 

[Anomalism]

Fast food chains and supermarkets are finding out that burger flippers and shelf stockers are more important then they thought. They’re only replaceable if there’s workers out there willing to replace them.

My local Publix is absolutely loaded with employees every time I go there.

 

[braalian]

Not really.

They are finding out that when you pay people not to work people don't want to work.

Wouldn’t that mean that the low-wage labor market should have returned to normal once the extra $600 a week ended? (which I agree was stupid) Why aren’t they returning to those low paying jobs if the gravy train has ended?

 

[Mac1958]

Fast food chains and supermarkets are finding out that burger flippers and shelf stockers are more important then they thought. They’re only replaceable if there’s workers out there willing to replace them.

It's looking like the last 18 months have cause a lot of Americans to reevaluate their priorities. Quality of life among them. Maybe spending half your day doing something you hate isn't all that attractive any more.

You never know. Life is funny. This could turn out to be a good thing in the long run.

 

[Lisa558]

It's not incumbent on an employer to pay his employees a "living wage". While many do (I do), it's important to be mindful of the fact that every job has a value, and that value is not determined by whether or not the person doing it can afford generic Pop Tarts or the real thing.

Running my supply chain is worth a lot more than minimum wage. Making coffee and mopping floors aren't.

Almost no one who works for me is paid minimum wage. The few who do are working to get spots elsewhere in the company because there will come a time when their current jobs are eliminated and contracted out...

And the definition of “livable” aside, many of the 2% who are at the low rate are either part of a couple or a teen living at home. In my case, my lowest-paid employee (still above minimum wage, though) was a high school student who wanted to earn some spending money part-tIme.

In today‘s dollars, I was paying the kid around $600 a month - which was money out of my own earnings, of course. But If I had to raise it to say $800, I’d figured it’s way too much for a kid to make collate copies and run envelopes through a franking machine - even the $600 was a favor - and I’d eliminate that position. I’d just to some of it myself, and augment the role of next-lowest employee (the admin asst) to do some of it also, and tell her increase her pay by $2/hr to compensate for it. She’d be thrilled - an increase of close to $4,000 a year - and I’d save that much as well out of my own pocket.

The one who would suffer for it? The kid with no job skills and no work experience, and now no job.

Leftists thinking the rich billionaires should just pay their workers more don’t have a clue.

 

[Anomalism]

Leftists thinking the rich billionaires should just pay their workers more don’t have a clue.

Maybe they don't realize how much of our economy is actually small businesses.

 

[braalian]

My local Publix is absolutely loaded with employees every time I go there.

It varies by region I guess. Back in Michigan some individual KFCs and McDonalds have reduced hours or even shut down for days at a time despite high demand because they just can’t hire enough workers to keep the place running.

 

[Lisa558]

Wouldn’t that mean that the low-wage labor market should have returned to normal once the extra $600 a week ended? (which I agree was stupid) Why aren’t they returning to those low paying jobs if the gravy train has ended?

SOME of it is because they expanded welfare for lower-earning people. Beginning last July, Biden not only increased the child tax “credit” (that taxpayers used to offset taxes owed) but made it available to everyone, regardless of whether they pay taxes at all.

So now a mom with three school age kids and a part-time job at Walmart of 25 hours a week at $1200 a month (to supplement the family income) just stay at home and collect $1000 a month from other people’s money.

 

[22lcidw]

It's looking like the last 18 months have cause a lot of Americans to reevaluate their priorities. Quality of life among them. Maybe spending half your day doing something you hate isn't all that attractive any more.

You never know. Life is funny. This could turn out to be a good thing in the long run.

Extreme Feminism has caused wages to stagnate and taxes to shoot up. With the result of more divorces, less marriages. higher personal debts, women finding out that the work jobs they do not like as men did when it took one person to run a family and a civilization on its way to tanking.

 

[Lisa558]

Maybe they don't realize how much of our economy is actually small businesses.

That’s exactly it. A good chunk of small businesses are REALLY small - a Mom and Pop place with two or three employees - with owners earning less than $100,000. RequIring them to increase wages by even $3 an hour, or $9 total for all three, would be around $400 more a week, or $1600 a month, or close to $20,000 a year out of net income.

 

[Lisa558]

That is why we can't trust right-wingers with public office.

They prefer to love their guns and be bigoted fascists.

So we should trust the left wingers who are paying people so much they can just quit their jobs, cause businesses to close, and simultaneously drive up inflation with all the free money?

 

[braalian]

SOME of it is because they expanded welfare for lower-earning people. Beginning last July, Biden not only increased the child tax “credit” (that taxpayers used to offset taxes owed) but made it available to everyone, regardless of whether they pay taxes at all.

So now a mom with three school age kids and a part-time job at Walmart of 25 hours a week at $1200 a month (to supplement the family income) just stay at home and collect $1000 a month from other people’s money.

Yeah, if that’s the case I agree with you. Welfare should be for the *working* poor and the disabled. There are very few legitimate reasons even a single mom couldn’t work a part time job.

At the same time, if the working poor are able to take advantage of the tight labor market to pressure companies to pay them more…. Then I say good for them. That’s a free market. It goes both ways.

 

[Anomalism]

That’s exactly it. A good chunk of small businesses are REALLY small - a Mom and Pop place with two or three employees - with owners earning less than $100,000. RequIring them to increase wages by even $3 an hour, or $9 total for all three, would be around $400 more a week, or $1600 a month, or close to $20,000 a year out of net income.

44% of our economic activity is small businesses. Lefties should keep that in mind when they start fighting for ridiculous labor constraints.

 

[Lisa558]

If you need lawn care service and get three estimates, do you always choose the highest one? How about a major plumbing project? How about a major auto repair.

Businesses don't do anything different than most of us. We choose to get the cheapest labor we can regardless how much money we have. How can you be critical of businesses when you do the exact same thing as they do?

You bring up an interesting point: I’ve noticed that the few remaining liberals in my life, always clamoring for other people to give out more money, are very tight-fisted when it comes to their own.

I had dinner with one of the, recently, and she was clamoring as to how we need to raise minimum wage. In thr meantime, she was a real pain to the waiter - her food wasn’t right, she wanted to change tables after our drinks were served, etc. - and yet when the bill call, she whipped out a little tip calculator (how stupid are sme of these people that they can’t figure out a tip.?). She paid 15% to the PENNY - couldn’t even round up to the nearest dollar!

 

[Lisa558]

Yeah, if that’s the case I agree with you. Welfare should be for the *working* poor and the disabled. There are very few legitimate reasons even a single mom couldn’t work a part time job.

At the same time, if the working poor are able to take advantage of the tight labor market to pressure companies to pay them more…. Then I say good for them. That’s a free market. It goes both ways.

Except the reason there IS a tight job market (from the employer’s side) isn’t the free market. It’s because of the expanded welfare misnamed “increased child tax credit“ - and small businesses are competing with the federal government. Go back to a true tax credit, as we had before Biden, and these people would go back to work.

 

[Lisa558]

44% of our economic activity is small businesses. Lefties should keep that in mind when they start fighting for ridiculous labor constraints.

They are so focused on getting back at the “rich man” that they refuse to see the damage they would do to small businesses, and the damage to people who work for them.

 

[Lisa558]

Have half the businesses in Seattle failed?

I don’t know about Seattle, but nationwide, we’ve had massive small businesses failures, largely due to COVID, and now that the ones hanging in by a thread can save themselves, you want the government to pay people to stay home and impede these businesses from hiring staff and getting people back to work?

You obviously never ran a small business and don’t know what it takes to get one off the ground, and keep it solvent. It’s all those traits that leftists hate: discipline, motivation, ability, and smarts.

 

[Lisa558]

If a business cannot survive paying employees what they are worth, what makes you think that a new business overpaying them will make a business successful? That's like trading in your car because you can't afford the $500.00 payments and getting a new car for $700.00 a month payments.

Don’t waste your breath. These leftists are clueless about the economy.

 

[braalian]

44% of our economic activity is small businesses. Lefties should keep that in mind when they start fighting for ridiculous labor constraints.

But this is only relevant for employers who currently pay their employees wages that are at or close to the minimum. How many of those are there, really?

I agree that a federal minimum wage of $15 would be stupid. In some states the cost of living is high enough that employers already *do* pay their lowest paid workers that much, or nearly.

In places like rural Alabama $15 an hour is still considered decent money. On the west coast, not so much.

So if California or Washington state want to raise their state minimum wage to $15, why not? To the point of this thread, I agree that the minimum wage was never intended to provide a middle class life style. It’s in the name, *minimum* wage. It’s a livable wage as in you have a roof over your head and you’re not starving. But what is livable in South Dakota and what’s livable in California are two different things.

So let the individual states continue to set their own minimums. Keep the federal one more or less where it is now and peg it to inflation. The market will sort most of it out anyway. The minimum wage is largely moot.