You mean minimum wage hikes come out of *our* pockets?

[Schneed10]

I wouldn't exactly say this thread is full of economic scholars, but I'll throw my two cents in.

First some facts. When the federal minimum wage was instituted in 1938, it was set at 25 cents per hour, which if adjusted to inflation would be worth $4.19 today. It was adjusted many times since, in 1968 it was $1.60, which would be worth $10.86 today. In 1981 it was set at $3.35, which would be worth $8.71 today.

So it is not at all unreasonable to say that minimum wage should be set at $10. Now, $15? That's completely unreasonable and out of line with history, at no time has the inflation-adjusted minimum wage been worth more than it was in 1968 when it was worth $10.86 in today's dollars.

Now, those saying corporations will innovate to find labor savings, that's absolutely true. And it's only natural that as labor costs increase, the incentive to find those savings increases. More people will definitely find themselves out of work, but to a large extent that will happen anyway. The ROI on a capital investment like kiosk order entry may be outstanding when labor is $10 per hour, but it's still good when it's $7 per hour. So innovation and automation will continue, regardless.

Philosophically, I agree with CRedskins in his assertion that the minimum wage should not be a wage anyone aspires to. Everyone should aspire to much more than that. But the problem is the skills of our workforce are not to the level where many can reasonably aspire to more than the minimum wage. Right now there are 5.4 million job openings in the United States. Why don't they get filled? Because most require significant skill, particularly STEM skills. Unfortunately, too many of our workers are minimally productive, with minimal skills.

So what's the logical solution there? Every lefty in the US will say oh we must invest in STEM curriculum for our schools! Problem is no school programs will take if the parents and students in the most challenging communities don't give a shit. And far too many do not give even one shit about improving their skills. Harsh? Yes, but reality.

So you come back to what you do about minimum wage. It's not going to help people aspire to more. It's not going to fix their shortage in skill and work ethic. It's simply a matter of asking corporations to pay them enough to cover the most basic living expenses. If people can work 40 hours a week and still qualify for food stamps, like is the case all over the US currently, then the minimum wage is too low.

Bring it to $10 and index it to inflation. Minimum skill people will continue to lose jobs no matter what as the world continues to automate.

[CRedskinsRule]

Schneed, but labor cost is not just the minimum wage. With new healthcare and family leave initiatives, labor cost is going up far more than the 1960s or at any other time in the nation's history. 3 years ago, the owner of the company I work at had several positions in the general warehouse section that if their pay hit $10, they were capped there and most often chose to leave. Now the lowest paid employee starts at $9.50, even with min wage at 7.50, or whatever it is. And the company has raised several standing prices twice in the past 3 years, when it hadn't raised them in the first 7 years I worked here, and longer than that actually. It's certainly only one company's story, but we pass our costs on to the hospitals we serve, so their facility costs have gone up and with more government regulation they are actually using our service more which increases their cost another step. Which brings us back to the OP of the thread - Regardless of whether there is a line on a receipt that says Min Wage Fee or not, raising the min wage will be paid for by the consumers in society.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by MTK

I'm calling bullshit to above

Confronting the Parasite Economy

The premise that small companies paying low wages are somehow hurtful to our economy is the biggest pile of shit I have ever read. I have a friend who owns a successful photo shop. By successful I mean he can stay in business where many in that market can't. He owned three locations but recently closed one because he simply could not afford to staff it even at the current minimum wage. The business, as many in the low wage area, has miniscule margins. Raising labor is simply not an option. What is it that so many people don't get about many of these jobs? They are low skilled and can be filled by virtually anyone willing to work. Why would any company, especially one that exists on a thin margin, pay more in labor costs?

[MTK]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

The premise that small companies paying low wages are somehow hurtful to our economy is the biggest pile of shit I have ever read. I have a friend who owns a successful photo shop. By successful I mean he can stay in business where many in that market can't. He owned three locations but recently closed one because he simply could not afford to staff it even at the current minimum wage. The business, as many in the low wage area, has miniscule margins. Raising labor is simply not an option. What is it that so many people don't get about many of these jobs? They are low skilled and can be filled by virtually anyone willing to work. Why would any company, especially one that exists on a thin margin, pay more in labor costs?

Small companies aren't the issue, large corporations are.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Schneed, but labor cost is not just the minimum wage. With new healthcare and family leave initiatives, labor cost is going up far more than the 1960s or at any other time in the nation's history. 3 years ago, the owner of the company I work at had several positions in the general warehouse section that if their pay hit $10, they were capped there and most often chose to leave. Now the lowest paid employee starts at $9.50, even with min wage at 7.50, or whatever it is. And the company has raised several standing prices twice in the past 3 years, when it hadn't raised them in the first 7 years I worked here, and longer than that actually. It's certainly only one company's story, but we pass our costs on to the hospitals we serve, so their facility costs have gone up and with more government regulation they are actually using our service more which increases their cost another step. Which brings us back to the OP of the thread - Regardless of whether there is a line on a receipt that says Min Wage Fee or not, raising the min wage will be paid for by the consumers in society.

Absolutely. But when poorer or working class workers get a raise from $7 to $10, or from $9.50 to $12 as you're noting, there's a much higher velocity of money with working class folks than there is with higher income folks.

Meaning when a working class person gets a bump from $9.50 to $12, that money gets spent almost immediately, mostly in the communities in which they live. Which helps offset some of the concerns we're talking about here with unemployment and higher costs to consumers. When higher income folks get a raise, it tends to go to savings or get invested, which doesn't directly help the communities in which they live.

There are winners and losers, for sure. But overall minimum wage hikes are not damaging - you can go back and look at unemployment statistics and inflation rates shortly following each minimum wage hike in the past, no significant damage shows in the data. That really is the end all be all to this discussion - if you can't show that unemployment or inflation was impacted by minimum wage hikes, then you have no argument. It's all there on the Bureau of Labor and Statistics' website, have at it.

The bottom line is the minimum wage is there for a reason, to enable a person to get by with the most basic of necessities. The minimum wage has historically been worth anything between $6 and $11, in today's dollars. The current wage is on the low end. It needs to be brought up so that these folks don't have to be subsidized by the government in the form of food assistance.

[Schneed10]

But $15 is absurd.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Absolutely. But when poorer or working class workers get a raise from $7 to $10, or from $9.50 to $12 as you're noting, there's a much higher velocity of money with working class folks than there is with higher income folks.

Meaning when a working class person gets a bump from $9.50 to $12, that money gets spent almost immediately, mostly in the communities in which they live. Which helps offset some of the concerns we're talking about here with unemployment and higher costs to consumers. When higher income folks get a raise, it tends to go to savings or get invested, which doesn't directly help the communities in which they live.

There are winners and losers, for sure. But overall minimum wage hikes are not damaging - you can go back and look at unemployment statistics and inflation rates shortly following each minimum wage hike in the past, no significant damage shows in the data. That really is the end all be all to this discussion - if you can't show that unemployment or inflation was impacted by minimum wage hikes, then you have no argument. It's all there on the Bureau of Labor and Statistics' website, have at it.

The bottom line is the minimum wage is there for a reason, to enable a person to get by with the most basic of necessities. The minimum wage has historically been worth anything between $6 and $11, in today's dollars. The current wage is on the low end. It needs to be brought up so that these folks don't have to be subsidized by the government in the form of food assistance.

Agreed. My discussion is more toward the $15-17 group. My company already basically has a 9.50 min wage even though its still legally in the 7s.

Sent from my S6 Edge

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Absolutely. But when poorer or working class workers get a raise from $7 to $10, or from $9.50 to $12 as you're noting, there's a much higher velocity of money with working class folks than there is with higher income folks.

Meaning when a working class person gets a bump from $9.50 to $12, that money gets spent almost immediately, mostly in the communities in which they live. Which helps offset some of the concerns we're talking about here with unemployment and higher costs to consumers. When higher income folks get a raise, it tends to go to savings or get invested, which doesn't directly help the communities in which they live.

There are winners and losers, for sure. But overall minimum wage hikes are not damaging - you can go back and look at unemployment statistics and inflation rates shortly following each minimum wage hike in the past, no significant damage shows in the data. That really is the end all be all to this discussion - if you can't show that unemployment or inflation was impacted by minimum wage hikes, then you have no argument. It's all there on the Bureau of Labor and Statistics' website, have at it.

The bottom line is the minimum wage is there for a reason, to enable a person to get by with the most basic of necessities. The minimum wage has historically been worth anything between $6 and $11, in today's dollars. The current wage is on the low end. It needs to be brought up so that these folks don't have to be subsidized by the government in the form of food assistance.

This imo is the strongest argument for the a bump in the minimum wage...I made a similar argument a couple years ago. It feeds the tax base and a lot of times big companies (McDonalds, Walmart, etc) get that money back in retail sales. Consumer economy folks

[That Guy]

well, even when i was in high school, McD's here was paying $9 when minimum was $6, cause that was just the going rate to get employees in fairfax/springfield.

ben and jerry's pays $20/hr to their employees (because the owner doesn't feel that the 383:1 ratio between the lowest/highest earners in some companies is morally right). of course, they have supermarket sales to subsidize their storefronts.

smaller companies would probably have a harder time just due to basing their businesses on current labor costs and generally being lower margin (since they don't get scale economies).

I don't know that i have a real point or opinion on it honestly. fast food is already at $8/meal around here, and that's a pretty bad value, so i avoid it. i think that's the only real place where it affects me personally. obviously a big wage bump would also cause inflation on some scale too, but that's harder to judge.

[MTK]

Bottom line for me, it's pathetic that folks should have to work 40 hours + and still have to rely on food stamps and rent assistance. When you're a global corp paying shit wages, they should be forced to pay livable wages, and healthcare for all needs to be addressed too but I don't want to get things too far off track here.

[Schneed10]

Uh oh, you brought up healthcare, I'm in healthcare. We're officially off track, your fault!

No seriously, not to derail, but just want to say something that everyone might find interesting from a moral dilemma standpoint. Where I work we have an amazing HIV clinic, we're in a very poor section of Philadelphia where you would naturally find more HIV patients. Our physician who runs it is outstanding.

We also are part owners in a Medical Assistance HMO in this same neck of the woods, and plenty of the patients see our HIV physician routinely. Well the members of our Medical Assistance HMO are racking up incredible costs on HIV medications, even people who are in the Medicare product are doing so. It's killing us financially, the drugs are so expensive.

So we asked the physician why are we doing so poorly on the Medicare patients. She said HIV treatments have advanced to the point where now these people are living. In the 80s they'd all be dead, but now they live into their 60s, 70s, 80s because of the advances in treatment.

So the treatment is working, causing them to live longer, and require more treatment for more years because they remain alive.

That is exactly what healthcare is supposed to accomplish. But it also illustrates why healthcare has gotten so expensive. We as an industry can do more to limit cost growth, but it's going to keep getting more expensive because of things like this.

Want to extend cancer survival rates from 3 year to 5 years? Those extra two years of life come with an awful lot of drug treatments.

All this is to say, we all need to understand that the cost is going up and up and up. It will affect all of us. To expect that we don't have to bear some of the cost burden as individuals is unrealistic.

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/f...182914617.html

fast-food-workers-becoming-obsolete

While the choice will be up to the franchisees, many will likely embrace the option as a way to save on labor costs. Wendy's President and CFO, Todd Penegor, acknowledged recent pressure on the labor market in a recent earnings call.

"We've been able to create some efficiencies on labor across the restaurant ... like customer self-order kiosks, mobile order, and mobile pay," Penegor said. Kiosks could possibly "mitigate any of the inflation" seen on the wage front for Wendy's, and could for other chains as well.

As the fight for a higher minimum wage continues, some argue that higher labor costs will force fast-food companies to cut staff.

Andy Puzder, the CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, is convinced. "If you're making labor more expensive, and automation less expensive — this is not rocket science," Puzder told Business Insider's Kate Taylor.


raise the minimum wage to unreasonable amount, then you get less jobs, less people work. don't complain

This is a bunch of bullshit spouted by corporate greedy assholes that want to enhance the stock of yet more rich people. They are sucking the tax payers dry by supplementing their salaries via the welfare program, all the while, they hoard off-shore cash stashes and line pockets of rich stock owners.


Automation is only used as an excuse for the demand for high wages. Here is the cold hard truth. Technology is eventually going to replace ANY and ALL positions that can be disposed of via a terminal/robot. We saw this in the auto industry, and many other manufacturing jobs where technology advanced production. Hell, you even see the food ordering terminals now in Wa-Wa or Sheetz stations. It's inevitable that McDonalds, BK, Wendy's, etc follow this trend and it has absolutely nothing to do whether that employee is asking for 15/hr or not. That job is going to be replaced sooner or later.



Let me show you something. If minimum wage had kept up with corporate profits, the minimum wage would probably be sitting at around $21/hr. Let that sink in.

Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 If It Kept Pace With Increases In Productivity: Study


Middle class and poor people are being straight fucked by corporate greed and the oligarchs that rule this country.


More information on corporate profits compared to employee compensation.

Corporate Profit Margins vs. Wages in One Disturbing Chart | naked capitalism

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

That is exactly what healthcare is supposed to accomplish. But it also illustrates why healthcare has gotten so expensive. We as an industry can do more to limit cost growth, but it's going to keep getting more expensive because of things like this.

Want to extend cancer survival rates from 3 year to 5 years? Those extra two years of life come with an awful lot of drug treatments.

We don't face any more different problems than those of Canada or any other socialized health care country. Guess what? They pay a mere fraction of what we do. We spend more than 2-1/2 times what the average is.

Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries | PBS NewsHour


However, when you rank the systems, we don't come out on top. IN fact, when compared to the other socialized healthcare countries, we ranked dead last.

Forbes Welcome

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

We don't face any more different problems than those of Canada or any other socialized health care country. Guess what? They pay a mere fraction of what we do. We spend more than 2-1/2 times what the average is.

Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries | PBS NewsHour


However, when you rank the systems, we don't come out on top. IN fact, when compared to the other socialized healthcare countries, we ranked dead last.

Forbes Welcome

All true. Many many reasons for our higher costs, the biggest being that we have higher salary structures here in the US than in most developed nations. Lots of others too, some of which stem from our goofy third party reimbursement system.

But... So what? Are you suggesting that if we went to a single payer system we would bring costs down to the same levels as Canada? Because if that's what you're saying then you're grossly oversimplifying. That could reduce the costs attributable to administrative roles in healthcare, that's about it.

We have higher rates of obesity here than in any other nation, so we end up with more heart problems and more diabetes than does Canada and Japan. That care will need to be provided, regardless of payer system. We're always going to be more expensive because of our diet and culture. As long as we remain a nation of fatties we will have higher healthcare costs.

[That Guy]

well for healthcare to go down, there need to be some changes that i don't see happening.

- price transparency, which is a big problem, but also doesn't save any money by itself unless we go from deductable plans to
- coinsurance, even if it's only 10%, means that people won't choose a $500,000 procedure when a $50,000 procedure will do.
- much more emphasis on preventative/proactive care. ie, get your yearly (or how ever often) cancer screening = you're covered for cancer related issues. at least in cases where being proactive is a big cost savings. giving away floss and toothpaste is much cheaper overall vs filling cavities and making crowns.
- independent medical cost boards like MD has that set reasonable rates and aren't influenced by lobbying (MD has some of the lowest medical costs in the US)
Has Maryland found a solution to the U.S. healthcare cost crisis?

of course, the problems are that there are cross interests. the population wants to keep costs down, but hospitals make more money off surgeries than screenings, and drug companies MUCH rather get you on a product that requires long term daily use vs a one shot cure. changing things dramatically also involves a lot of effort.

still, bluecross is giving people $100/year (after costs) to get physicals done. it's not much, but it's something.