5 ms·
Angry letter from minimum-wage Yelp employee (now fired)
- exolymph 11y agoI feel really conflicted about this story. On the one hand, she's shooting at the wrong target: CEOs don't make minimum wage and healthcare laws. On the other hand, Yelp is a Bay Area tech company and something feels really wrong about their low-prestige support employees struggling to make ends meet. Then again, that's how supply and demand works on the labor market...
- stray 11y agoNo. Paying someone the minimum wage sends the message "If I could pay you less, I would". Legal minimum wage establishes a limit on how evil people are allowed to be to each other. And working for minimum wage sends the message "I still believe I can work my way out of this". In my opinion -- if you don't have enough money for a tip, you don't have enough money to eat at a restaurant -- and if you don't have enough to pay a living wage for every job at your company -- you don't have enough money to hire anybody. Minimum wage laws are meant to prevent employers from exploiting the vulnerable. She had the perfect target in her gunsights.
- gus_massa 11y agoCurrent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11138086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11138086 (74 points, 8 hours ago, 20 comments)