We need some way to get people to understand that the value of work isn't set by government and it isn't set by corporations. It's set by us. The reason burger flippers don't make enough to live on is because we don't value burger flipping that much. If it cost much more, we'd flip our own burgers, and then burger flippers wouldn't make any money at all. And I guess some idiots think that would be an improvement. I really don't get it. I suppose it's just par for the course with people who think government can work miracles by passing laws.
Right now, the value of work is certainly set by the government, at least at the lower end. That's why you see so many companies in so many industries paying at or right next to minimum wage.
Look , the burger flippers? They are idiots. you know this and I know this, as a rule they are being overpaid at $7.25 an hour.
They need a cash register with pictures on it, and even then they don't get your order right
They have no idea how to count back change
They often look like morons who just rolled out of bed and should be nowhere near food that I'm' going to eat.
They don't clean their restaurants
I could go on and on
And you know what? These fast food places LOVE that type of employee , because they can pay them jack diddly while hiring a couple good workers and paying them jack diddly as well and still sell lots of fast food. Meanwhile , we're supporting the loser employees with welfare. What is not to love for BOTH parties involved?
The ONLY person not getting what they want is you and I. We're getting screwed on both ends.
You move the minimum wage up to $10 an hour and suddenly fast food has to say "wait a minute, we're not paying losers $10 an hour" and they fire the losers, and hire GOOD workers who are now earning enough that they don't qualify for welfare.
The losers who refuse to make themselves worth $10 an hour? I don't care , they can starve...
That's where you and me disagree. I've worked at McDonald's, worked at Wendy's, worked at Subway.
I've been with the managers, been with the store managers, and even when to an OSU football game with the store owner.
None of them have ever suggested anything like what you say. Not one said "We LOVE that type of employee, because we can pay them jack diddly while hiring a couple good workers and paying them jack diddly as well and still sell lots of fast food".
It's simply not true. I mean possibly there's a few stores like that somewhere, but generally... employers HATE that kind of employee. When I was a manager, I hated that kind of employee for sure.
I keep asking this... what low-margin store have you run in your life, that you think you know what other people are thinking? You don't. Get over yourself Capital Judgement. You don't know.
My store, loved to give people raises. The problem was, no one worked hard to get a raise. We had guys that every 30 minutes, would just walk off the line, and light up a cigarette out back.
And see, you think that the reason people are lousy workers is because they are not paid enough. That these lazy worthless, thieves, would magically become model employees, if we paid them more money. That's simply not true.
We had a store down town where the starting wage was $10.00/hr. Now this is back in the 90s, when the minimum wage was $4.25. The owners of these franchises had more problems with bad employees there, than at my Wendy's. Why?
Because my Wendy's was in an upper middle class neighborhood. Wealthy people, tend to pass on the traits and work ethic that made them wealthy, onto their kids. So even though they were paid minimum wage, they still showed up, generally on time, worked the entire time, didn't steal, and also didn't attack the manager. (we had an inner city kid, who rode the bus to work there, flip out on the manager, and I remember thinking 'and you wonder why you stay poor...').
So the owner decided that from then on, he would only higher for his downtown restaurant, from the best employees of his smaller stores. He found out, that just paying people more didn't make them good employees. Good employees were good when they earned minimum wage, and when they earned a ton more.
A bad employee, doesn't become great, when they can earn more. It SEEMS like that, because when you go to a place with higher wages, you tend to find better quality people, but that's not because bad people were magically transformed into good people. It's because higher paying jobs tend to attract higher quality employees, and the employer weeds out the bad employees.
If you need more proof of this, just go look at trade skill training for prison inmates. An ex-convicted trained in pipefitting, and the reincarceration rate, among trained prisoners, is still what... 70%? Starter rate for a apprentice is $30K, and the average is $44K or whatever? So why do they end up back in prison? Why didn't the money magically make them into model employees?
Because it doesn't. That's all there is to it.
It doesn't work.
And BTW....... why did the owner pay people $10/hr starting wage downtown? Why did he do that? He didn't have to. There was no law. He could have started out people minimum wage down town too. Why was he paying the burger flipper $10 to flip a burger down town, and yet paid me a $4/hr out in the suburbs?
Again this isn't some deep physiological insight. It's not some super hidden agenda. You don't need a Ph.D, from MIT or Harvard, nor a team of government scientists working on grants......
Dur..... the Down Town store did 5X the business. It's that simple. Down town, you had people stumbling in at nearly all hours. And at 11 to 1, and from 4 until 6, the places was packed with lines out the door.
Where I worked, I can remember counting FIVE CARS between 1 PM and 4 PM. (not every single day, but routinely it was terribly low). During that time, the store likely lost money on payroll, and lost food (burnt dried fries, and bad burgers tossed out). And then you wonder why wages are low? Seriously?