6 ms·

These places are paying $25,000 a month in rent. The additional minimum wage is so small compared to that figure.

by wolco2 6y ago

seibelj 6y ago
Rent and labor are the highest costs for retail businesses. $15 minimum wage is not small, unless you believe a restaurant only needs to be staffed by two people. And good people in any industry, restaurants included, do not make minimum wage, but well above it. Minimally skilled workers make the minimum wage, and workers who are valued less than $15 per hour have no job at all.
- hazz99 6y ago
  Every "minimum wage" job I've ever worked (I'm in Australia) has paid at or above $15USD/hr. We have plenty of jobs and plenty of restaurants. Why is the US different?
  - jfengel 6y ago
    I don't know the details of Australian working life, so I can't speak to the specific differences. But a lot of things push down the lowest labor rates in the US: * A long history of slavery followed by systemic disenfranchisement, creating an underclass of poorly-educated people with few job skills and difficulty obtaining any employment. * A slightly-shorter-but-still-long history of using labor from people not legally allowed to be in the country, to whom protections (including the minimum wage) apply only sporadically or not at all. * Collapse of labor unions (happening now in Australia, I gather, but ongoing for four or five decades in the US) * Active, well-funded hostility to minimum wage laws, driven in part by a strong temporarily-embarrassed-millionaire ethos[1] in which people believe they will one day be rich and don't want their wealth siphoned off by the undeserving poor (even if they are, currently, poor themselves). * Even more racism, in which the minimum wage is seen as a giveaways to brown-skinned people who would not otherwise be able to earn it. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-socialism-never-took-root-in-america-because-the-poor-see https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-socialism-never-took...
- wishysgb 6y ago
  god forbid you pay the fucking employee half the money it takes to rent an apartment in the city. oh the greed
- wolco2 6y ago
  In those cases where supply is less than demand someone has to pay more. If there are no 7.50 an hour or 1 dollar an hour employees they need to pay at least $15. If someone is valued at less than 15 the owner still has to pay more. Same as in sports there is only one Michael Jordan you may value his services at 7.50 an hour but others will pay millions. Either you overpay or your position goes unfilled.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    In my experience, most of the opponents of minimum wage laws are not opposed to market wage realities. If the market values your labor at $25/hr, neither you or I care whether the minimum wage is $7.50/hr or $15/hr (with respect to you). If you can create $10/hr of value for a business, I think there's a reasonable argument that it's better for you to be able to have a job at $8 or $9/hr than to declare that arrangement illegal and force you to either be unemployed or find an employer who is willing to for whatever reason to pay you $5/hr more than than the value you contribute to the business.
    - wolco2 6y ago
      As a society it is not better. If they refuse to staff at $10.00 they do not hire or gain additional marketshare. Another company will take that business at that level. Or no company will step up and that will raise prices. Minimum wage simply creates a market floor.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        IMO, minimum wage both creates a market floor and by doing so shuts some people out of the labor market at the margin.
        wolco2 6y ago
        It shuts someone from a 10 dollar job that doesn't exist. But it doesn't shut people out of the labor market. Removing the floor creates a new cheap labor market where Americans are shut out because they can't afford to live in that wage group. That's why the cost of living should be connected to min wage. Take vegetable picking as an example. No one will pay an American min wage so they can't fill those jobs. They want 3 dollars an hour workers. No American can afford to live on that so they are shut out of those jobs. They import temp workers who can convert $3 American to $20.00 their currency and can live a higher standard of living to their peers. Removing the floor killed thousand of American jobs. Why would we import it to other industries?

These places are paying $25,000 a month in rent. The additional minimum wage is so small compared to that figure.

by wolco2 6y ago

These places are paying $25,000 a month in rent. The additional minimum wage is so small compared to that figure.

Rent and labor are the highest costs for retail businesses. $15 minimum wage is not small, unless you believe a restaurant only needs to be staffed by two people. And good people in any industry, restaurants included, do not make minimum wage, but well above it. Minimally skilled workers make the minimum wage, and workers who are valued less than $15 per hour have no job at all.

hazz99 6y ago
Every "minimum wage" job I've ever worked (I'm in Australia) has paid at or above $15USD/hr. We have plenty of jobs and plenty of restaurants. Why is the US different?
- jfengel 6y ago
  I don't know the details of Australian working life, so I can't speak to the specific differences. But a lot of things push down the lowest labor rates in the US: * A long history of slavery followed by systemic disenfranchisement, creating an underclass of poorly-educated people with few job skills and difficulty obtaining any employment. * A slightly-shorter-but-still-long history of using labor from people not legally allowed to be in the country, to whom protections (including the minimum wage) apply only sporadically or not at all. * Collapse of labor unions (happening now in Australia, I gather, but ongoing for four or five decades in the US) * Active, well-funded hostility to minimum wage laws, driven in part by a strong temporarily-embarrassed-millionaire ethos[1] in which people believe they will one day be rich and don't want their wealth siphoned off by the undeserving poor (even if they are, currently, poor themselves). * Even more racism, in which the minimum wage is seen as a giveaways to brown-skinned people who would not otherwise be able to earn it. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-socialism-never-took-root-in-america-because-the-poor-see https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-socialism-never-took...
wishysgb 6y ago
god forbid you pay the fucking employee half the money it takes to rent an apartment in the city. oh the greed
wolco2 6y ago
In those cases where supply is less than demand someone has to pay more. If there are no 7.50 an hour or 1 dollar an hour employees they need to pay at least $15. If someone is valued at less than 15 the owner still has to pay more. Same as in sports there is only one Michael Jordan you may value his services at 7.50 an hour but others will pay millions. Either you overpay or your position goes unfilled.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  In my experience, most of the opponents of minimum wage laws are not opposed to market wage realities. If the market values your labor at $25/hr, neither you or I care whether the minimum wage is $7.50/hr or $15/hr (with respect to you). If you can create $10/hr of value for a business, I think there's a reasonable argument that it's better for you to be able to have a job at $8 or $9/hr than to declare that arrangement illegal and force you to either be unemployed or find an employer who is willing to for whatever reason to pay you $5/hr more than than the value you contribute to the business.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    As a society it is not better. If they refuse to staff at $10.00 they do not hire or gain additional marketshare. Another company will take that business at that level. Or no company will step up and that will raise prices. Minimum wage simply creates a market floor.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      IMO, minimum wage both creates a market floor and by doing so shuts some people out of the labor market at the margin.
      - wolco2 6y ago
        It shuts someone from a 10 dollar job that doesn't exist. But it doesn't shut people out of the labor market. Removing the floor creates a new cheap labor market where Americans are shut out because they can't afford to live in that wage group. That's why the cost of living should be connected to min wage. Take vegetable picking as an example. No one will pay an American min wage so they can't fill those jobs. They want 3 dollars an hour workers. No American can afford to live on that so they are shut out of those jobs. They import temp workers who can convert $3 American to $20.00 their currency and can live a higher standard of living to their peers. Removing the floor killed thousand of American jobs. Why would we import it to other industries?