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Well, all businesses run operations dif and have dif margins, so let's not forget that. I run a recruiting company. From our data a few things have popped up. F

Well, all businesses run operations dif and have dif margins, so let's not forget that. I run a recruiting company. From our data a few things have popped up. First, people want higher wages in the lower wage industries. They are asking for $15-20 per hour. Second, lot of these people don't want to go back to the same labor jobs they had - they want to do something different. the problem with this is that they want to get paid more than they were making before for jobs in which they have no exp. For those that think the worker knows they can get more money, it's not the majority. They only know if someone told them. A lot of low wage workers who risked it and stuck it out during the pandemic are upset they really didn't get wage increases. Their employers sure didn't offer it to them. And now they want to quit and get their benefits like the rest. There is a lot going on here. One group though that does want to work are the teenagers. Issue is that they want $20 per hour...this fiasco is probably going to continue for a while.

rendall 5y ago
It sounds like a seller's market.
- fridif 5y ago
  A seller's market created by a law in which if the buyer pays too low of a price, very bad things happen to them.
  - rendall 5y ago
    One would expect in that case lots of laborers with wages at the minimum, and many more looking for work. What we're seeing in the description is not that.
    - fridif 5y ago
      I reckon the jobs are not on offer because the restaurants only want to pay a small amount (they have razor thin margins and an employee costs more than just salary [workers comp, insurance, equipment, liability etc]). Previously people accepted the small amount, but now they aren't because they're (currently still) being paid to stay home in most cases.
      - rendall 5y ago
        I do agree with you that a minimum wage potentially has unintended negative consequences for those looking to work but do not have valuable skills to offer. An employer may make do without rather than hire a day laborer for instance at an expensive rate. We might disagree on whether negative consequences are inevitable. By your assessment, though, it seems the seller's market is not caused by the minimum wage, but by COVID relief packages? Also, I'm sorry you're getting downvoted. I only downvote if someone goes against community guidelines, and not if I simply disagree with them
        fridif 5y ago
        No problem, I'm used to the downvoting :) I think it is important to distinguish a couple of things. If there are businesses out there, like maybe McDonalds or Walmart, who are easily able to pay $20 per hour instead of $7.50, and are choosing not to do so because of a desire for even larger profits, then yes, this is evidence of a mild seller's market for labor and also a lack of market savvy on behalf of McDonalds/Walmart. If those corps are already offering $20 an hour and benefits and still people are not showing up to work, then it is a roaring seller's market for labor, and must in theory be caused by some other external source that is causing laborers to feel $20 is too low. Where are they going, what are they doing? Are they taking the opportunity to pursue a degree? Are they staying at home playing video games? Have they all found a job making $42 an hour talking on the phone at home? We would need the data to answer these questions. But in the exact case of restaurants, I genuinely think most of them do not have the money. I haven't ever in my life met a restaurant owner who has a stable financial situation with a paid off mortgage, nice car, and 3 kids put through college already having become cardiologists or something like that. But I've met a lot of other people who have done all that. And I've met a lot of restaurant owners too. I think that all they can afford is $7.50-$12.50 an hour in most cases, with no benefits. And now that city centers have seen a good portion of their residents with lots of disposable income move away, I suspect that most restaurants have lost the financial base that used to support them. I saw a video of a restaurant owner during the pandemic in NYC who cut his staff from 45 to 3 and was just barely able to pull it together and survive. Was he paying his people more than $15 an hour? Don't know.
Nekhrimah 5y ago
> this fiasco Your comment is informative, but, come on. This "fiasco" is supply in demand in action. When it (occasionally) favours the workers, it doesn't deserve to be described so negatively.
- flippertheD 5y ago
  Well, sure. Just keep in mind how supply chains are working right now. Fiasco / failure - well, most workers didn't even get raises yearly to keep up with annual inflation. I'd say that's negative, although the market "working". Where is the equilibrium then? The balance will be found but at what detriment to society on numerous levels? How many people don't have healthcare? How many people work three jobs? All this is catching up and to me, it's a fiasco...will we see social unrest because of it, or better yet, have we in some ways? What about people finding purpose in life and taking pride in their careers at these lower levels of labor. Compared to 100 years ago maybe we are better off, but I think there could be at least an 80% improvement in the system.
  - flippertheD 5y ago
    Oh yea, and although we have made "progress", we must all hail the great economy structures we currently have that leaves out environmental externalities. This wonderful society and world where almost all living systems are in decline. To stay on topic with restaurant workers. Remember how hard those people in the kitchen work, many of them who don't speak english and make a set hourly rate, while all the people in the front of the house make massive tips that they don't have to share. just sayin...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lumost 5y ago
Why shouldn't a teenager make 20 an hour? At 16 your looking down the road at 2 very expensive options. 1) Go to college and earn a degree for 120-240k dollars 2) Start paying rent, owning your own car, healthcare, food, and leisure activities. Both of these are expensive directions to take. It used to be that someone could pay for school with a summer job, why shouldn't it be now? It doesn't appear the education changed at all.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > Why shouldn't a teenager make 20 an hour? It's not that he "shouldn't". Rather, many businesses cannot afford to both pay teenage employees $20/h, and also to not raise the prices. Some businesses can raise prices just fine, but others are not able to, as the customers will stop buying at higher price point. For example, if all groceries doubled their food prices, I'd still buy food (though maybe less than before), and likely spend more on it than I used to. However, if all restaurants doubled their prices, I'd pretty much stop eating out altogether, except special occasions.
  - lumost 5y ago
    However if all groceries doubled their prices then all workers would demand higher wages to compensate. Other businesses would need to become more efficient with their labor or reduce margins. In the short-term this means CEOs get paid less, and investors see higher ROI in labor efficient business models. It's obvious that teenagers can't make 1k/hr without breaking the economy - but I don't see any reason why $20/hr would be outside of historic norms. In 1981 the minimum wage was ~$3.25/hr, translating to ~9.71/hr today. Given the advances in technology that have driven a more than 2x increase in real economic productivity over that period why shouldn't the starting wage be $20/hr for teenagers?
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      All workers demand higher wages at all times. Workers demanding higher wages stronger and harder won't raise aggregate wages by much, as there is only so much that is actually being produced, and aggregate wages can pretty much only be increased through increase in aggregate supply: the margins are already pretty thin, especially in retail and food service business, and the CEO pay is pretty small component in grand scheme of things (CEOs also don't actually consume much of their earnings, they invest most of it, so you can't actually transfer much of consumption from them to workers). > Given the advances in technology that have driven a more than 2x increase in real economic productivity over that period why shouldn't the starting wage be $20/hr for teenagers? The growth in economic productivity hasn't been uniformly distributed across industries, and it's been pretty low exactly in the industries depending on cheap, low skill labor. What are the advances in technology between now and 1981 that made restaurants 2x more productive?

rendall 5y ago

It sounds like a seller's market.

fridif 5y ago
A seller's market created by a law in which if the buyer pays too low of a price, very bad things happen to them.
- rendall 5y ago
  One would expect in that case lots of laborers with wages at the minimum, and many more looking for work. What we're seeing in the description is not that.
  - fridif 5y ago
    I reckon the jobs are not on offer because the restaurants only want to pay a small amount (they have razor thin margins and an employee costs more than just salary [workers comp, insurance, equipment, liability etc]). Previously people accepted the small amount, but now they aren't because they're (currently still) being paid to stay home in most cases.
    - rendall 5y ago
      I do agree with you that a minimum wage potentially has unintended negative consequences for those looking to work but do not have valuable skills to offer. An employer may make do without rather than hire a day laborer for instance at an expensive rate. We might disagree on whether negative consequences are inevitable. By your assessment, though, it seems the seller's market is not caused by the minimum wage, but by COVID relief packages? Also, I'm sorry you're getting downvoted. I only downvote if someone goes against community guidelines, and not if I simply disagree with them
      - fridif 5y ago
        No problem, I'm used to the downvoting :) I think it is important to distinguish a couple of things. If there are businesses out there, like maybe McDonalds or Walmart, who are easily able to pay $20 per hour instead of $7.50, and are choosing not to do so because of a desire for even larger profits, then yes, this is evidence of a mild seller's market for labor and also a lack of market savvy on behalf of McDonalds/Walmart. If those corps are already offering $20 an hour and benefits and still people are not showing up to work, then it is a roaring seller's market for labor, and must in theory be caused by some other external source that is causing laborers to feel $20 is too low. Where are they going, what are they doing? Are they taking the opportunity to pursue a degree? Are they staying at home playing video games? Have they all found a job making $42 an hour talking on the phone at home? We would need the data to answer these questions. But in the exact case of restaurants, I genuinely think most of them do not have the money. I haven't ever in my life met a restaurant owner who has a stable financial situation with a paid off mortgage, nice car, and 3 kids put through college already having become cardiologists or something like that. But I've met a lot of other people who have done all that. And I've met a lot of restaurant owners too. I think that all they can afford is $7.50-$12.50 an hour in most cases, with no benefits. And now that city centers have seen a good portion of their residents with lots of disposable income move away, I suspect that most restaurants have lost the financial base that used to support them. I saw a video of a restaurant owner during the pandemic in NYC who cut his staff from 45 to 3 and was just barely able to pull it together and survive. Was he paying his people more than $15 an hour? Don't know.

Nekhrimah 5y ago

> this fiasco Your comment is informative, but, come on. This "fiasco" is supply in demand in action. When it (occasionally) favours the workers, it doesn't deserve to be described so negatively.

flippertheD 5y ago
Well, sure. Just keep in mind how supply chains are working right now. Fiasco / failure - well, most workers didn't even get raises yearly to keep up with annual inflation. I'd say that's negative, although the market "working". Where is the equilibrium then? The balance will be found but at what detriment to society on numerous levels? How many people don't have healthcare? How many people work three jobs? All this is catching up and to me, it's a fiasco...will we see social unrest because of it, or better yet, have we in some ways? What about people finding purpose in life and taking pride in their careers at these lower levels of labor. Compared to 100 years ago maybe we are better off, but I think there could be at least an 80% improvement in the system.
- flippertheD 5y ago
  Oh yea, and although we have made "progress", we must all hail the great economy structures we currently have that leaves out environmental externalities. This wonderful society and world where almost all living systems are in decline. To stay on topic with restaurant workers. Remember how hard those people in the kitchen work, many of them who don't speak english and make a set hourly rate, while all the people in the front of the house make massive tips that they don't have to share. just sayin...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lumost 5y ago

Why shouldn't a teenager make 20 an hour? At 16 your looking down the road at 2 very expensive options. 1) Go to college and earn a degree for 120-240k dollars 2) Start paying rent, owning your own car, healthcare, food, and leisure activities. Both of these are expensive directions to take. It used to be that someone could pay for school with a summer job, why shouldn't it be now? It doesn't appear the education changed at all.

xyzzyz 5y ago
> Why shouldn't a teenager make 20 an hour? It's not that he "shouldn't". Rather, many businesses cannot afford to both pay teenage employees $20/h, and also to not raise the prices. Some businesses can raise prices just fine, but others are not able to, as the customers will stop buying at higher price point. For example, if all groceries doubled their food prices, I'd still buy food (though maybe less than before), and likely spend more on it than I used to. However, if all restaurants doubled their prices, I'd pretty much stop eating out altogether, except special occasions.
- lumost 5y ago
  However if all groceries doubled their prices then all workers would demand higher wages to compensate. Other businesses would need to become more efficient with their labor or reduce margins. In the short-term this means CEOs get paid less, and investors see higher ROI in labor efficient business models. It's obvious that teenagers can't make 1k/hr without breaking the economy - but I don't see any reason why $20/hr would be outside of historic norms. In 1981 the minimum wage was ~$3.25/hr, translating to ~9.71/hr today. Given the advances in technology that have driven a more than 2x increase in real economic productivity over that period why shouldn't the starting wage be $20/hr for teenagers?
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    All workers demand higher wages at all times. Workers demanding higher wages stronger and harder won't raise aggregate wages by much, as there is only so much that is actually being produced, and aggregate wages can pretty much only be increased through increase in aggregate supply: the margins are already pretty thin, especially in retail and food service business, and the CEO pay is pretty small component in grand scheme of things (CEOs also don't actually consume much of their earnings, they invest most of it, so you can't actually transfer much of consumption from them to workers). > Given the advances in technology that have driven a more than 2x increase in real economic productivity over that period why shouldn't the starting wage be $20/hr for teenagers? The growth in economic productivity hasn't been uniformly distributed across industries, and it's been pretty low exactly in the industries depending on cheap, low skill labor. What are the advances in technology between now and 1981 that made restaurants 2x more productive?