Seattle Enacts $15 Minimum Wage

Chinese wages are great. Working on going back. RMB has more purchasing power so things cost less. Comparing the bank rate to the dollar makes no sense versus living and working there in high skilled positions.

Food isn't garbage, it's fresh. Domestic products aren't made inferior either, only exports.

They're working on the pollution thing in the few smog filled industrial cities. But they take into account the whole economy and proceed slow and steady.

I don't dispute that companies moved. I do dispute the conclusion you draw from it even though you keep citing the actual reason.

The point is chains like McDonalds and Burger King won't be effected as much ,but smaller start ups or family companies will get hammered.....people will LOSE jobs and companies will fold! The Minimun wage should be around $10@max!

a.) No.

b.) No.

c.) For reasons that have been pointed out both in this thread and in its 30 predecessors.

d.) Again, no.

Source

Let's indulge a thought experiment:

Suppose the minimum wage jumps up to $10.10 per hour (federal, state, municipality, whatever). What jobs are lost?

The ones that are small business. Companies that can't afford to pay everyone a higher wage. Depends on what type of business they are in and how many employees. But it could effect how many people they employ.

I'm not against raising the min. wage but I don't know if I believe people at McDonald's flipping burgers should make 15 bucks an hour.

It can't be quantified specifically like that, the bottom end of everything would be lost, not certain jobs specifically. It would raise the minimum standards on everything, example you have 1 year experience, the new minimum required is now two years, because if you have to pay 10.10 instead of 8.00 you need every 3 workers to do the work of 4 now, to get the same cost effectiveness (roughly) that in effect punishes everyone in the system. The lesser skilled lose all applicability, and the skilled have to work harder even though they technically won't see any real gain. (yes money will go up, but the cost of living will go up with it, negating it).

They probably would ask the people getting paid a higher wage to take on more roles. So instead of two people doing the job you might end up having to do more work.

This is exactly where I hit my stumbling block.

Right now, at least in my city (NB: we were hit less harshly by the recession but have consequently been slower to recover from the losses that did happen), very low-income jobs have been getting by with fewer workers for the better part of 5 years now. I know a lot of places that, in a rational world, would have 3 employees but, for reasons I don't feel like examining right now, leave 1 lone sucker to do everything. And meanwhile I see plenty of minimum-wage service sector jobs with almost permanent "Help Wanted" signs posted. My local UPS store is losing its only two employees and they're desperate to find someone to work there (while still being hamstrung by corporate hiring policy, but that's a rant for another day).

Something isn't adding up.

Min. wage jobs aren't going to attract people that plan on being there long term. It has a high turn over rate at McDonald's etc.

That is why they are always "looking for help"

I wonder if that's in any way related to not being able to support oneself on the current minimum wage...



Also, I seem to recall that people rant endlessly about the lazy masses who have no ambition or interest in bettering themselves. A brainless job selling boxes and package shipment or stocking shelves in a dollar store seems right up their alley. Funny how those people evaporate when it comes time to explain that no one wants to work low-pay, low-responsibility jobs.

No one said you have to work at McDonald's. So if you don't like the pay go somewhere else.

But McDonald's isn't the company likely to be affected by a minimum wage increase. They typically promote quickly and increase pay for employees rather rapidly, anyhow. It's all those "small businesses"... the ones that don't actually pay minimum wage, anyhow, but allegedly exist.

The wage isn't the problem. It is the caliber of person applying for the job.

Spoken like somebody who never worked at McDonalds.

True. Care to correct me? And, for the record, remind me of what years you worked for them.

I don't even have a problem with McDonald's. (don't care for the food) but a hell of a lot of people must like it.

My former brother in law (sister divorced) had a Phd you know where he worked at Bregguer's Bagels. Granted he has a teaching job now. But do you really think he thought all that education was worth bagels ?

I don't remember him bitching about working at a bagel shop he was glad to have a job.

Sometimes. It's more of their work ethic and ability factored into what the boss thinks.

I was never one to be on time to work ever. But I always did what was asked of me and made sure what I had to do was done. So they overlooked my lateness.

Other people would *** occasionally, but guess what, they were lazy workers who never got increases in pay from doing their work loads on time or early.

So the boss or bosses factor these things in.

Small business I'm referring too.

A big chain like McDonald's would never hire me, nor would I want to work there or in any food place, lol.

Exxon was great, but the managers have far more leeway.

During college, for spending money.

What's your point again?

My dream job is Huff Post I can complain about men while meeting like minded feminists.

Also I heard Arianna stops by the office all the time.

I worked at a junk yard right after college for about a year.

Selling used car parts on the internet and crap on ebay. $10/hr on paper for up to 40, after that was cash.

Convinced the boss to let me write programs for inventory of scrap metal coming in and a simple phone number address program. He loved to give out cash for extra work I did for him.

I had to buy a book one time on CGI scripting, he's like how much you pay for that? Pulls out cash, here you and an extra $20. lol

That's the kind of work, if i were an employer, would reward with additional cash incentives, due to profitable action or ideas, which reduces costs and over all time spent.

I did CVS (16, hated it, need money for first car though) $5.25 min wage days, Staples, Kinkos (way before FedEx), and love Exxon ( >:P ). Each one does whatever they want with how everything is run.

My favorite part of working at gas stations (did it 3 times) was the '*** customers' attitude. If they were nice, great, even chat it up, etc. Smoked weed with some ppl at one (who worked there). But if they were ***, or I was in a bad mood, meh, *** off bozo!

It's all about trust there. As long as you don't steal the cash, you got a job.

I don't seem to be grasping what you're saying here. The job market is so *** that people with degrees are working shitty jobs and quietly tolerating it, so the best solution is to ensure that poverty continues unabated?

I've heard plenty of stories about people with degrees and experience in practical fields (MBAs and computer engineers and the like) who have been happy to get a janitorial job paying $9/hour. Is that a sign of a healthy and sane marketplace? We make jokes about people with arts degrees working in fast food, but when people with master's degrees and science degrees are little better off and the captains of industry are doing everything in their power to keep it that way, does sitting idle while their profits wax fatter and fatter make any sense?

As I said, almost every low-wage service sector job (the bulk of minimum wage work) in my area has been pushing its employees to the limits of their ability to juggle responsibility by cutting as many jobs as possible. There's virtually no room for further cuts and these are the places that thrive on catering to low-income people, so the demand for these stores isn't going anywhere. Yet a glance at the stock average and quarterly earnings reports on any of these companies that happen to be publicly traded habitually registers considerable profit being funneled in a purely upward direction. A raise in minimum wage would cut into that profit, it's true, but closing a store would cut deeper and there's little enough room to reduce staff.

Yeah, I'm sure the mom-n-pop store that sells overpriced dogshit will close its doors. What a tragedy, it folded to market forces. They tend to barely be clinging to life as it is because no one wants to spend 30% more on something identical to what they can find online or in a corporate store.

Well, I actually did want for you to tell me more about what I don't know about McDonald's policy.

And I meant what calendar years. I don't even know how old you are (nor do I care), much less when you went to school. But let's suppose you graduated college in 2004: it would be a little unrealistic to expect that nothing has changed in the intervening 10 years, policy-wise.

Oh Radio Shack too. That was kinda ok. Just a lot of *** from the one manager. First he was sick one day and passed out in his car for 4 hours while I took care of ***. So then he was nicer to me. Then 9/11 happened and he wanted to head up to NYC to help for like a week and left me in charge (was in South Jersey at the time). So then it got way better after that.

Oh, and government regulating wages is now "market forces"?

I mean, you exact example signifies that they would have continued to conduct business if it wasn't for the fact that their labor costs increased, but you still consider that "market forces."

No wonder you are so clueless.

Now, let's hear from our "economancer" to tell us that we are wrong because she is a so-called "economist". Instead of saying why she is right and we are wrong.

I temp and my employers do this kind of thing for me all the time. That's why I'm asking who these small businesses are that will be screwed because I run into independent contractors and small businessmen who already pay over minimum wage and then pay under the table for the kind of work that I consider appropriate to the job (I have a strong work ethic, I guess most people don't?).