CDZ Minimum Wage Madness

[jwoodie]

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

 

[TNHarley]

People, especially "progressives" and "liberals" are selfish. They refuse to see the big picture.
BTW, artificial wages are NOT a good sign of an economy..

 

[depotoo]

Deceit
When these forced wages are averaged in, it will show an increase in median wages, and give them foder to push a false dichotomy that the economy is great, wages are rising and things are just swell under this Democratic governor and President.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

 

[depotoo]

The need for fast food workers to depend on that job for a living is a failure of the education system.

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

The need for fast food workers to depend on that job for a living is a failure of the education system.

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Perhaps the owners could take just a little less profit ?

 

[depotoo]

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

The need for fast food workers to depend on that job for a living is a failure of the education system.

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Perhaps the owners could take just a little less profit ?

 

[320 Years of History]

First, rather than just the hype, why not present some simple facts in your OP? Oh, I know, it's hard to "grind the axe" of causality and doom when the basic facts of the situation are laid out for all to see.

So what facts might they be? All of the following is taken from this Pew Report: Who makes minimum wage?

• 64% of minimum wage earners are part-time workers.
• 75% of minimum wage earners are 16-24 years old. (the restaurant industry accepts this info)
• 77% of minimum wage earners are white, and half of the 77% are women.
• Minimum wage earners work largely in the following industries
  
  
  
  
  
  
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, [in 2013],
  • 1.532 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour;
  • nearly 1.8 million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others),
  • for a total of 3.3 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.
• The percentage of the hourly-wage workforce that receives minimum wage has declined to 4.3% of the 75M such workers in the nation and 2.6% of all wage and salary workers. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking that information (1979), the figures were 13.4% and 7.9%, respectively.
• Economists continue to debate the extent to which minimum-wage laws reduce poverty, income inequality and/or overall employment.
• After a three-step increase in 2007-09, today’s minimum wage buys more than it did recently, but its real purchasing power is about where it was in the early 1980s — and below its late-1960s peak.

From a different source, the National Restaurant Association, we get the following facts:

• Of the key operational challenges facing the industry, 78% of fast food restaurants (the type that would have min. wage workers, because the workers in fancier places are tipped) identify employee recruitment and retention as not being a significant challenge.
• Lots of other stuff from the NRA is here: https://www.restaurant.org/Downloads/PDFs/News-Research/research/RestaurantIndustryForecast2014.pdf .

 

[TNHarley]

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Unfair trade. Not free trade. Our trade policies are an abomination.

 

[320 Years of History]

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

Truly I would not, but then again, nobody was held at gunpoint and forced to open a 3% margin business, now where they? I'm not going to feel for someone or several someone's who willfully chose to invest their resources into the restaurant business and who subsequently complains about the low profit margin. (Not saying that's you; just saying one had/has other options...one had to because nobody is forced to open a restaurant.)

 

[oldsoul]

First, rather than just the hype, why not present some simple facts in your OP? Oh, I know, it's hard to "grind the axe" of causality and doom when the basic facts of the situation are laid out for all to see.

So what facts might they be? All of the following is taken from this Pew Report: Who makes minimum wage?

• 64% of minimum wage earners are part-time workers.
• 75% of minimum wage earners are 16-24 years old. (the restaurant industry accepts this info)
• 77% of minimum wage earners are white, and half of the 77% are women.
• Minimum wage earners work largely in the following industries
  
  
  
  
  
  
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, [in 2013],
  • 1.532 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour;
  • nearly 1.8 million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others),
  • for a total of 3.3 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.
• The percentage of the hourly-wage workforce that receives minimum wage has declined to 4.3% of the 75M such workers in the nation and 2.6% of all wage and salary workers. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking that information (1979), the figures were 13.4% and 7.9%, respectively.
• Economists continue to debate the extent to which minimum-wage laws reduce poverty, income inequality and/or overall employment.
• After a three-step increase in 2007-09, today’s minimum wage buys more than it did recently, but its real purchasing power is about where it was in the early 1980s — and below its late-1960s peak.

From a different source, the National Restaurant Association, we get the following facts:

• Of the key operational challenges facing the industry, 78% of fast food restaurants (the type that would have min. wage workers, because the workers in fancier places are tipped) identify employee recruitment and retention as not being a significant challenge.
• Lots of other stuff from the NRA is here: https://www.restaurant.org/Downloads/PDFs/News-Research/research/RestaurantIndustryForecast2014.pdf .

Damn, I was really hoping to have a discussion about this one... Oh well, case closed, court adjured. End of story. Can we get back to the big boys and girls table now?

 

[oldsoul]

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Unfair trade. Not free trade. Our trade policies are an abomination.

Could you explain just what exactly you mean? While I would generally agree with your statement, I may well disagree with your reasons for beleiving our trade policies are horrible.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

The need for fast food workers to depend on that job for a living is a failure of the education system.

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Perhaps the owners could take just a little less profit ?

If your business plan involves paying slave wages then you dont deserve anything. In fact you are making it worse for legit concerns who pay more. Its a race to the bottom.

 

[oldsoul]

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

The need for fast food workers to depend on that job for a living is a failure of the education system.

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Perhaps the owners could take just a little less profit ?

If your business plan involves paying slave wages then you dont deserve anything. In fact you are making it worse for legit concerns who pay more. Its a race to the bottom.

Slave wages? You make me laugh.

 

[depotoo]

No, they weren't. They chose it, not realizing they would be forced by others to run their businesses on either less profit, or having to increase their pricing, ,whch might not work, just to satisfy others wants.
And neither did anyone force the employeed at these restaurants to go to work for the wages the owners can sustain for their businesses to succeed.

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

Truly I would not, but then again, nobody was held at gunpoint and forced to open a 3% margin business, now where they? I'm not going to feel for someone or several someone's who willfully chose to invest their resources into the restaurant business and who subsequently complains about the low profit margin. (Not saying that's you; just saying one had/has other options...one had to because nobody is forced to open a restaurant.)

 

[depotoo]

What a laugh you are! Did anyone hold a gun to these peoples heads to accept the wages these fast food places can sustain?

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

The need for fast food workers to depend on that job for a living is a failure of the education system.

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Perhaps the owners could take just a little less profit ?

If your business plan involves paying slave wages then you dont deserve anything. In fact you are making it worse for legit concerns who pay more. Its a race to the bottom.

 

[TNHarley]

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Unfair trade. Not free trade. Our trade policies are an abomination.

Could you explain just what exactly you mean? While I would generally agree with your statement, I may well disagree with your reasons for beleiving our trade policies are horrible.

We get fucked on our trade deals. I mean, look. We have lost a HUGE percentage of our manufacturing jobs since the 70s. Our actual manufacturing is up to an all time high, yet, our jobs are wayyy down. We got less rich, so third world shitholes could get less poor.
It isn't fair trade when you lose all the jobs and get stuck placing foreign junk on the shelves for artificial wages while they make it all.
It also isn't "fair" when your bureaucracy makes it too expensive and unfair to keep your money here.
Both problems come from the same group of people.

 

[oldsoul]

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Unfair trade. Not free trade. Our trade policies are an abomination.

Could you explain just what exactly you mean? While I would generally agree with your statement, I may well disagree with your reasons for beleiving our trade policies are horrible.

We get fucked on our trade deals. I mean, look. We have lost a HUGE percentage of our manufacturing jobs since the 70s. Our actual manufacturing is up to an all time high, yet, our jobs are wayyy down. We got less rich, so third world shitholes could get less poor.
It isn't fair trade when you lose all the jobs and get stuck placing foreign junk on the shelves for artificial wages while they make it all.
It also isn't "fair" when your bureaucracy makes it too expensive and unfair to keep your money here.
Both problems come from the same group of people.

I agree. Sadly, we have done this to ourselves. This is a big reason, IMO, that unions are losing membership, and can't figure out why. They wanted to get their members compensated better, and they did, it's just that now, it's cheaper to set-up shop in Mexico, and haul the stuff up here to sell. I know, there are other contributing factors, but we are talking about wages/compensation in this thread, so I "Keep It Simple, Stupid"(KISS).
Yeah, the "big bad corporations" could have taken a hit on their profits... but... then THEY would be out of a job. See, the people who run these big cororations are beholden to their shareholders, and these people will not accept lower profits than are possible.
For those who beleive they would, ask yourself this, "Would you pay more for everything, without an increase in pay, just to make sure that it's all fair?" If you would, congratulations, now go tell your boss you don't want to be paid so much, because others are poor. If you would not, then maybe you should re-think your stance. Why should others do something you are not willing to do? Because they are rich? Why would that matter? Do they not have just as much right to raise their standard of living as you do?

 

[Tommy Tainant]

What a laugh you are! Did anyone hold a gun to these peoples heads to accept the wages these fast food places can sustain?

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

The need for fast food workers to depend on that job for a living is a failure of the education system.

California just raised its minimum wage from $9 to $10 per hour and restaurants are already raising menu prices in response to this increase. The same people who argued a month ago that it would have no effect on prices now acknowledge this result as if it was expected all along, while continuing to push for a $15 per hour "living" wage on the basis of "fairness." Don't they understand this will require yet another hidden tax on consumers?.

What is wrong with these people? They are not stupid, but they consistently deny the reality of cause and effect until after their schemes have been implemented. Only then do they accept the consequences as if they had been inevitable from the beginning.

Is this due to deceit, willful ignorance or something else? Do they find the real world so abhorrent that they must live in an alternate reality of wishful thinking? Is reasoned debate possible with these people?

The need to impose a minimum wage is another failure of the free market.

Perhaps the owners could take just a little less profit ?

If your business plan involves paying slave wages then you dont deserve anything. In fact you are making it worse for legit concerns who pay more. Its a race to the bottom.

Its possible that these people might struggle to get other jobs. They still need to be protected from those who would exploit them. Its a huge issue in the UK and a ticking bomb.

 

[320 Years of History]

Perhaps you would like to run a business with a 3% profit margin?

Truly I would not, but then again, nobody was held at gunpoint and forced to open a 3% margin business, now where they? I'm not going to feel for someone or several someone's who willfully chose to invest their resources into the restaurant business and who subsequently complains about the low profit margin. (Not saying that's you; just saying one had/has other options...one had to because nobody is forced to open a restaurant.)

No, they weren't. They chose it, not realizing they would be forced by others to run their businesses on either less profit, or having to increase their pricing, ,whch might not work, just to satisfy others wants.
And neither did anyone force the employeed at these restaurants to go to work for the wages the owners can sustain for their businesses to succeed.

I see....so in other words, they elected to enter a market and after doing so found at least one of the following to be so:

• The business/market risk(s) they wagered would not materialize did, and now that they have, the restauranteurs' struggle is someone else's fault.
• They failed to consider all the potential business/market risks that could happen, and now that one or some they failed to foresee and incorporate into their business decisions/plans have become manifest, the restauranteurs' struggle is someone else's fault.
• They did consider all the potential business/market risks that could happen, but assigned the incorrect weighting to them when incorporating them into their business decisions/plans, and now, the restauranteurs' struggle is someone else's fault.
• They didn't thoroughly understand (or bother to gain a thorough understanding) what it means to go into business and what it takes be successful at it, and having more money than sense, went into the restaurant business, and now that rising wage and food costs have materialized, the restauranteurs' struggle is someone else's fault.

Puh-lease...I'm just not of a mind or heart to say more than "I'm sorry things didn't work out for you" to such business owners/investors. The reason is that such things as those above are exactly what distinguishes successful businesses/business owners and managers from unsuccessful ones. That's the nature of opting to go into business.

Unlike restaurant owners/investors who, before starting it, clearly had some meaningful extent of material resources to invest into their business and had options for what to do with their lives, low wage workers often don't have such or as many options. So if there's any group for whom I have a greater degree of sympathy, it's low wage workers.

FWIW, there is one line of argument that I could conceivably support with regard to the assertion that minimum wage increases have net negative impacts or have at best a neutral impact. I have yet to see anyone present one of those lines, and none of them have appeared in the popular press that I've seen over the past decade or more. I'm certainly not going to open the door to any of them because, quite frankly, I don't know whether I'd arrive at one or the other of the two conclusions I noted, for I'd need to do the research to find out how I'd conclude. Frankly, I lack the will to do the research if I don't have to. Call me lazy, if you want, but I'm not willing to grind anyone's ideological "axe."