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Minimum wage workers like those stocking grocery stores and cashiers at said grocery stores are pretty close to holding the world together (I realize many are n

Minimum wage workers like those stocking grocery stores and cashiers at said grocery stores are pretty close to holding the world together (I realize many are not minimum wage workers, but many are, or are close enough, that I believe it holds). If everyone who will organize and process transactions for groceries stores dissapeared, life as we know it would change immediately and for the worse.

oh_sigh 5y ago
If they all disappeared, wouldn't someone else just do the job for minimum wage + $1? Unless of course they were afraid if being disappeared too.
- IntelMiner 5y ago
  That's something we're seeing now. Except instead of the + $1 it's "come in for an interview and get a free (old) iPhone!" Or the endless snarky remarks plastered on restaurants about "nobody wants to work!"
willcipriano 5y ago
I suspect the minimum wage is quite well below the natural wage floor in most, if not all of the country at this point. Those cashier jobs pay over twice the federal minimum wage in my area, and I don't live in a particularly wealthy place. The only adults I've ever known that worked for minimum wage did so with other opportunities available to them, but took the part time minimum wage position in order to stay on Medicaid and collect other means tested benefits. If you were to raise the minimum wage to say $12 I'd expect the effect to be largely symbolic.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  I live in a fairly well-off place and most food service jobs pay about $7.25-9/hour, _maybe_ with tips. My university (3 hours away) pays $8.50/hr for most student positions, a cruel joke when tuition is $10k+/year. Mine is about $13.5k but I have enough scholarships to bring it down to about 3k. Napkin math shows that, to afford a $13.5k tuition bill, one must work 1564 hours for the university. They cap you at 20hrs/wk so as not to overburden you, so you can pay off your tuition bill in a mere 78 weeks. I go to one of the least expensive state universities. A minimum wage raise would not be merely symbolic, at least not in Texas. If my university paid $12/hr, it would take 55 weeks to pay off tuition and at $15 it would take 44 weeks.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Tipped workers take some liberties with the income math. I spent a decade in the restaurant industry and front of house made considerably more than the back of the house while also paying less tax even though they were "only paid $2.75 an hour". Generally speaking cash tips are not reported and tax free, a server will make in excess of $20 an hour in a moderately successful resturant. The back of the house jobs now start around $13 an hour for unskilled labor in a hot and dangerous kitchen, every cent of it subject to tax. In addition by under reporting income, tipped workers often gain access to social programs that their true income would disqualify them from. I don't know what the deal is with your university in particular, but your local Amazon warehouse is paying $15 an hour as that is their national minimum. Walmart just recently announced they are moving to $15 nationally as well I believe.
    - jackson1442 5y ago
      I was more referring to places like McDonald’s. I have a friend who technically makes tips at Jersey Mike’s but people don’t _really_ tip at places like that, especially since it’s just a tip jar, so cash only. Tipped server jobs are actually in somewhat high demand around here since people generally tip well, especially with restaurants moving to those Toast PoS systems that prompt customers to tip.
      - willcipriano 5y ago
        A McDonald's owned by McDonald's itself (most are franchises and this is not the case) won't start you below $13, they aren't doing that because they are kind but because they found the wage floor for them to be about there. For context, I started dishwashing at the age of 13 at $8.25 an hour twenty years ago. In your position I wouldn't settle for one of those near minimum wage jobs take a look at things like garden centers, construction labor, bakeries, or even something like doordash that I hesitate to recommend but may be a better deal in this case. I do wonder why that town has wages so far below what I'm seeing around. Perhaps this has something to do with it being a university town and having lots of unskilled labor? I also do wonder if it being a self fulfilling prophecy is also a possibility, if you get a bunch of people together who belive that wages are lower then they are, a savvy busineessman might make that belief a reality. Either way it's a interesting case study, thanks for sharing your experience and I will consider it further as I continue to look into this topic.

oh_sigh 5y ago

If they all disappeared, wouldn't someone else just do the job for minimum wage + $1? Unless of course they were afraid if being disappeared too.

IntelMiner 5y ago
That's something we're seeing now. Except instead of the + $1 it's "come in for an interview and get a free (old) iPhone!" Or the endless snarky remarks plastered on restaurants about "nobody wants to work!"

willcipriano 5y ago

I suspect the minimum wage is quite well below the natural wage floor in most, if not all of the country at this point. Those cashier jobs pay over twice the federal minimum wage in my area, and I don't live in a particularly wealthy place. The only adults I've ever known that worked for minimum wage did so with other opportunities available to them, but took the part time minimum wage position in order to stay on Medicaid and collect other means tested benefits. If you were to raise the minimum wage to say $12 I'd expect the effect to be largely symbolic.

jackson1442 5y ago
I live in a fairly well-off place and most food service jobs pay about $7.25-9/hour, _maybe_ with tips. My university (3 hours away) pays $8.50/hr for most student positions, a cruel joke when tuition is $10k+/year. Mine is about $13.5k but I have enough scholarships to bring it down to about 3k. Napkin math shows that, to afford a $13.5k tuition bill, one must work 1564 hours for the university. They cap you at 20hrs/wk so as not to overburden you, so you can pay off your tuition bill in a mere 78 weeks. I go to one of the least expensive state universities. A minimum wage raise would not be merely symbolic, at least not in Texas. If my university paid $12/hr, it would take 55 weeks to pay off tuition and at $15 it would take 44 weeks.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Tipped workers take some liberties with the income math. I spent a decade in the restaurant industry and front of house made considerably more than the back of the house while also paying less tax even though they were "only paid $2.75 an hour". Generally speaking cash tips are not reported and tax free, a server will make in excess of $20 an hour in a moderately successful resturant. The back of the house jobs now start around $13 an hour for unskilled labor in a hot and dangerous kitchen, every cent of it subject to tax. In addition by under reporting income, tipped workers often gain access to social programs that their true income would disqualify them from. I don't know what the deal is with your university in particular, but your local Amazon warehouse is paying $15 an hour as that is their national minimum. Walmart just recently announced they are moving to $15 nationally as well I believe.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    I was more referring to places like McDonald’s. I have a friend who technically makes tips at Jersey Mike’s but people don’t _really_ tip at places like that, especially since it’s just a tip jar, so cash only. Tipped server jobs are actually in somewhat high demand around here since people generally tip well, especially with restaurants moving to those Toast PoS systems that prompt customers to tip.
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      A McDonald's owned by McDonald's itself (most are franchises and this is not the case) won't start you below $13, they aren't doing that because they are kind but because they found the wage floor for them to be about there. For context, I started dishwashing at the age of 13 at $8.25 an hour twenty years ago. In your position I wouldn't settle for one of those near minimum wage jobs take a look at things like garden centers, construction labor, bakeries, or even something like doordash that I hesitate to recommend but may be a better deal in this case. I do wonder why that town has wages so far below what I'm seeing around. Perhaps this has something to do with it being a university town and having lots of unskilled labor? I also do wonder if it being a self fulfilling prophecy is also a possibility, if you get a bunch of people together who belive that wages are lower then they are, a savvy busineessman might make that belief a reality. Either way it's a interesting case study, thanks for sharing your experience and I will consider it further as I continue to look into this topic.