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In theory, this decision makes sense. If you're having employees track the time that they work, it's weird to ask them to clock out before doing a little bit of

In theory, this decision makes sense. If you're having employees track the time that they work, it's weird to ask them to clock out before doing a little bit of end-of-day work. In practice, since Starbucks pays above minimum wage, I suspect they might just lower hourly wages by 1-2% if the average worker now clocks in for 1-2% more hours.

smhost 8y ago
This should also be a crime.
crooked-v 8y ago
I would suspect that the marketing cost of lowering wages by 1% is far more than the money saved by lowering wages by 1%.
- lpolovets 8y ago
  Agree, but you can probably "hide" it so that it's subtle. E.g. you give people slightly smaller raises, or don't increase initial salaries for new employees over time as quickly as you might have. I'm not making a value judgment on whether this would be okay, but I think Starbucks could do something like that without the world noticing.
- syshum 8y ago
  Yes but they are getting rid of Straws so they can hide things like that if they wanted ;)
lsc 8y ago
>If you're having employees track the time that they work, it's weird to ask them to clock out before doing a little bit of end-of-day work. "weird" isn't the word I'd use. There needs to be a word for fraud that nets the fraudster not very much money because they are defrauding someone who already has very little. To me, that seems especially economically destructive, as you are transferring money from someone with little (who therefore places a high marginal value on dollars) to an entity that has much (and therefore has a lower marginal value on dollars.) - I mean, on top of the usual distortion and value loss caused by fraud.
- dsajames 8y ago
  The slang for this is "raping the poor".
panarky 8y ago
It's a commonly held misconception that businesses must raise prices by the same percentage that wages rise. Wages and benefits are probably around 20% of the cost of running a coffee shop. A simple example P&L: Sales 60000 Rent, COGS 25000 Labor 12000 Op Exp 9000 G&A 5000 Taxes 2000 ---------------- Net Income 7000 So if you take wages up 1.0% to $12,120, you only need to increase revenue by 0.2% to maintain the same net income.
- ilovetux 8y ago
  Just from experience, 20% is the very low end but if your hitting 28-30% then that's too high. I do agree with your overall statement. Source: being a fast food manager at a big chain for many years.

smhost 8y ago

This should also be a crime.

crooked-v 8y ago

I would suspect that the marketing cost of lowering wages by 1% is far more than the money saved by lowering wages by 1%.

lpolovets 8y ago
Agree, but you can probably "hide" it so that it's subtle. E.g. you give people slightly smaller raises, or don't increase initial salaries for new employees over time as quickly as you might have. I'm not making a value judgment on whether this would be okay, but I think Starbucks could do something like that without the world noticing.
syshum 8y ago
Yes but they are getting rid of Straws so they can hide things like that if they wanted ;)

lsc 8y ago

>If you're having employees track the time that they work, it's weird to ask them to clock out before doing a little bit of end-of-day work. "weird" isn't the word I'd use. There needs to be a word for fraud that nets the fraudster not very much money because they are defrauding someone who already has very little. To me, that seems especially economically destructive, as you are transferring money from someone with little (who therefore places a high marginal value on dollars) to an entity that has much (and therefore has a lower marginal value on dollars.) - I mean, on top of the usual distortion and value loss caused by fraud.

dsajames 8y ago
The slang for this is "raping the poor".

panarky 8y ago

It's a commonly held misconception that businesses must raise prices by the same percentage that wages rise. Wages and benefits are probably around 20% of the cost of running a coffee shop. A simple example P&L: Sales 60000 Rent, COGS 25000 Labor 12000 Op Exp 9000 G&A 5000 Taxes 2000 ---------------- Net Income 7000 So if you take wages up 1.0% to $12,120, you only need to increase revenue by 0.2% to maintain the same net income.

ilovetux 8y ago
Just from experience, 20% is the very low end but if your hitting 28-30% then that's too high. I do agree with your overall statement. Source: being a fast food manager at a big chain for many years.