Explain how a business can afford $15 an hour. (lawyer, doctor, problems)
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GM still operates plenty in the US. Corporations moved over to china because you can have goods made here for $0 an hour and its still cheaper in china because the govt. subsidizes the cost of some of the materials. How is that fair? GMs mexico plant still pays workers $26 an hour.
In time the wages come up in the areas they move to. That's to be expected, however, they also create a new market by moving so they are not moving back. They went so they could sell us cheaper products because that is what we demanded. In the end, because wages come up in the areas they move to, we end up paying the same for a product made elsewhere. The only way production will come back here is if our hourly wages are low enough to make it profitable and that will not happen.
This has nothing to do with fair. It was never fair of us to demand the cheapest product possible. THAT is what drove manufacturing abroad. Yes, wages there are coming up/or have come up as in the case of Mexico (how long have we been there?) but the automotive companies enjoyed a lot of years of cheap labor in the meantime and we got the cheaper product we demanded. Now the prices are coming up but the jobs are there not here and we have no one to think except the person in the mirror. We got what we bargained for.
It's slightly over $31,000 a year. Please tell me why someone who dropped out of high school and takes a job waiting for a buzzer to tell them when to flip a burger is worth over $31,000 a year. Personally, I don't want to pay $12 for a cheeseburger, and neither do most people. Which is another reason that all of those kinds of companies would go out of business and we would end up with countless more unemployed, unskilled workers on the government dole.
$12 dollars for a cheeseburger. That's hiarious. That's what? A 400% increase? So, if we double wages, price goes up by a factor of four. Somebody needs remedial math classes.
Prices go up and people without wage increases lose some purchasing power. You don't have to consult an economic textbook on this, there are real-world examples.
$12 dollars for a cheeseburger. That's hiarious. That's what? A 400% increase? So, if we double wages, price goes up by a factor of four. Somebody needs remedial math classes.
Unfortunately, it may not be a stretch. You have to remember that it's not just the burger flippers wage that went up so raw material costs will go up too. It's like when gas prices go up. Gas isn't the only thing you pay more for. You also pay more for anything that is transported AND there's a price increase so the owners of the companies can afford the new price of gas. Since each layer will see that $15/hour increase, doubling wages will result in more than doubling end user cost. I'm not sure if it will quadruple but it will more than double. Unless they replace workers with robots. I hear McD's is working on that.
Personally, I know what I will do if minimum wage is raised to $15/hour. Get a part time job. With a masters degree I'm betting I can beat out the high school drop out for the job and the extra money I make will replace the buying power I will lose because of the increase. I'd also stop going to places like McDonalds. I'd expect prices to go up across the board from this kind of increase because everyone from the grocery store stock boy to the burger flipper is getting an increase and businesses will raise prices to compensate.
When was the last time minimum wage was more than doubled and what impact did that have on inflation?
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 02-21-2015 at 02:49 PM..
Lets hear you theories. The increased sales argument doesn't wrk either. If you've got a pizza chain and you have twice as many orders to fill, then obviously you have to hire twice as many delivery drivers to meet demand. According to Forbes, the average restaurant franchise makes a profit of 86k annually, at a place I worked they spent approximately 3k per week on labor, so how in the hell can a company afford to double that cost, adding an extra 156k in labor expenses when there isn't even 156k left over in profit? Even if sales doubles, the net profit comes out to about 20k even without hiring extra labor (which is obviously unrealistic). Who gets the shaft? The franchisee. Why should the guy running the place make less then his employees?
I can charge $15 for a cheese pizza, that is how I afford to pay $15 an hour, buy materials and pay all the overhead.
$25 if you want a supreme
$12 dollars for a cheeseburger. That's hiarious. That's what? A 400% increase? So, if we double wages, price goes up by a factor of four. Somebody needs remedial math classes.
I've noted my minimum wage experiences in this thread. How I bought a house and started raising my family on it. But like all stories it isn't complete.
At this time I could also buy hot dogs at the local dairy mart at 4/1.00. Minimum wage has slightly more than doubled since then. What's a hot dog cost? Can you buy even one for a $1.00 now? I can, maybe a little less. What is the increase in price?
Prices go up and people without wage increases lose some purchasing power. You don't have to consult an economic textbook on this, there are real-world examples.
It's still better than welfare.
Which means they buy less...which means fewer workers are needed in those minimum wage jobs...which means more unemployed people. Are minimum wage workers really willing to bet they will be the one to keep their job and not the one let go?
Prices will adjust and in the end they'll have no more purchasing power than they have now but everyone else will have less purchasing power which means they'll buy less...this becomes a downward spiral really fast. Doubling minimum wage is just too much change too fast. I looked at the history of minimum wage and it's taken about 20 years to double in the past. Are we due for an increase? Yes but not more than doubling the minimum wage.
It should be noted that a minimum wage job today has about the same buying power as a minimum wage job did in 1985 and around 1997. Where is this argument that we need to more than DOUBLE the minimum wage coming from? At $15/hour the buying power of a minimum wage job would be higher than it's ever been. One has to ask the question WHY are these jobs worth so much more today than they were yesteryear? According to the data I found, the maximum buying power was just over $10/hour in 2012 dollars and occurred in the late 1960's (this was a very short lived period of time). Right now we're about average for minimum wage buying power. So why do these jobs deserve so much more pay today?
I can see raising the minimum wage to $9/hour over a couple of year span of time but I can't see going any higher. These are not meant to be jobs you live off of for the rest of your life. You're supposed to increase your skills and increase your value to your employer so that minimum wage doesn't have to be raised for you to pay your bills.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 02-21-2015 at 03:00 PM..
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They're not.
