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I don't agree, because the technology is already there. I have seen plenty of working machines in fast food restaurants. But if customer service is decent, then people prefer dealing with a human.
I disagree that minimum wage laws have any impact on the presence of these kiosks. Stores were offering kiosks 10 years ago when minimum wage was less. If you were correct in your assertion, then they should not have been offered back then. I have not seen any self ordering kiosks at any fast food restaurant and I live in two major markets (Phoenix and Miami). Phoenix was one of the first markets to offer self ordering kiosks at grocery stores 10 years ago. The reason is the technology was not yet available. There are more nuances with ordering food than ordering static merchandise. If the technology was available 10 years ago, they would have offered it then regardless of the minimum wage.
But I do agree that if customer service was better then there would be less desire to use kiosks. Customer service is at an all time low for multiple reasons. I often find that orders are wrong and items are missing with no real repercussions. I think kiosks will help correct these orders. I think this has to do with the millennial generation's lack of insistence on customer service. They didn't grow up in the generation that the customer is always right and to address people with respect. So they often don't care if they are rude to you or their service sucks. They are just trying to get through the day.
What I find to be present with fast food is that the level of service and even food quality can vary tremendously from store to store, which wasn't the case in the past. You can go to two different McDonalds and experience a vast difference in speed of food deliver, accuracy of orders, customer service and even quality of the food. Unfortunately, there are a lot of dispassionate and apathetic owners who allow their employees to fail on multiple levels whereas other ones are run well and they have their act together. I think we all know the sketchy fast food join that you don't go to because it smells and they screw up the orders and is just poorly run. And this doesn't apply to McDonalds, but I've witnessed this at almost any chain restaurant or establishment such as Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Starbucks etc. We all know the bad ones.
I think someone need to take a basic math class. 7.5*40 is $300. Removing federal tax and social security this amount drop to $267, not $240. Also, there are 4.333 weeks in a month, not 4. $267*4.333 = 1160. You don't need to know maths to get this, you just need the basic common sense to use a tax calculator. US Hourly Wage Tax Calculator 2016 | The Tax Calculator
And you are wrong about the bus ticket too, because you can buy a 6 month or a 12 month ticket, and the price per month will be about $20.
How can a person earning minimum wage come up with $225 for an annual bus pass? It helps to make estimates based upon reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
You show the problem with the $15 movement, you can't even calculate your own salary, but you think that you understand the economic impact of raising minimum wages. One of the things you need to understand is that if people have low wages because they don't get enough hours, then the solution is not to increase minimum wage, that will just make it worse. The solution is to make it easier for small business, so that they can hire minimum wage workers. First get full employment, then you can start thinking about minimum wage.
You don't strengthen your position by being snarky, I calculated the salary correctly. Oh and by the way, the median wage in Albuquerque is not $15.54, it's $21.36 The statewide median wage is $15.54, but you chose to discuss Albuquerque, so it's better to compare apples to apples, don't you think?
And companies do not hire more employees because wages are low. They hire as many as they need. If wages go up, they raise prices In an industry like fast food raising hourly wages to $15, would cause prices to rise an estimated 4.3%. That means your $3.99 Big Mac would wind up costing $4.16, and an average fast-food meal costing $7.00 would go up in price to $7.31.
I don't agree, because the technology is already there. I have seen plenty of working machines in fast food restaurants. But if customer service is decent, then people prefer dealing with a human.
People are only willing to spend a certain amount for customer service. If two pizza chains provide the same pizza, cost 8 and 12 dollars, but the 12 dollar has far superior customer service, then a lot of people will pick the 12 dollar one. However, if the price difference is 10 and 20 dollars, then a lot more people will pick the cheap option.
You are talking about table service vs. order and pick up. They are two different things.
If the minimum wage went up to a reasonable level, perhaps the working poor might order a pizza one night a week. See, it works both ways. When looking at the economics of the situation we've already seen what a joke trickle down is. I know for a fact that the minimum wage was $2 per hour back in 1972. Whatever the minimum wage is now, it certainly buys less than $2 per hour bought then.
Stop victimizing the poor because of what the Stepford wives are telling you on FOX.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
This means, if minimum wage increase by a lot, then we will see a lot more self-service kiosk.
You already are seeing self service kiosks every where. If it wasn't for cashiers, people would just walk out.
And companies do not hire more employees because wages are low. They hire as many as they need. If wages go up, they raise prices In an industry like fast food raising hourly wages to $15, would cause prices to rise an estimated 4.3%. That means your $3.99 Big Mac would wind up costing $4.16, and an average fast-food meal costing $7.00 would go up in price to $7.31.
Problem: Fast food restaurants, allocate 33% of gross sale for food cost. 33% for wages. 33% for everything else from rent, and equipment costs, franchise fees, and if there is any left for profit to the owner.
Double wage costs, and you have to raise prices by 33% to cover the additional wage costs.
Problem, if the restaurant raises prices 33% volume will drop off, and can eat up any profit.
This is where automation is brought in to replace employees. I have relatives that own several McDonald's, and they all tell me that they are going to have to automate to greatly reduce the number of employees.
The hamburger making machine was invented 50 years ago, but was not put into use as it would cost more than wages it would replace.
They have invented one even better recently. It can pay for itself in 1 year, at today's wages. A $15 wage, and pays off in 6 months. It is now practical to bring them into McDonald's and the other restaurants. Only takes 1 person to keep it clean and hoppers filled.
I ran a large business for many years. We had the highest labor costs in the area. In the end I had to close our fabricating facility and send the work elsewhere in our area. When we started in the 1950's there were hundreds of similar fabrication and finishing facilities in the NE and when I closed ours there was only 1 remaining. What people never realize is that you can regulate all you want and make things difficult for companies but YOU CAN'T FORCE COMPANIES TO HIRE PEOPLE. If I am running a business (like I did) and my labor costs keep rising and I can't raise prices to cover it then I cut hours, lay off people, hire more part time employees. Fast food restaurants are constrained by price and if labor costs rise they do what they have to do and automation, reduced service and hours are solutions.
Problem: Fast food restaurants, allocate 33% of gross sale for food cost. 33% for wages. 33% for everything else from rent, and equipment costs, franchise fees, and if there is any left for profit to the owner. Double wage costs, and you have to raise prices by 33% to cover the additional wage costs. Problem, if the restaurant raises prices 33% volume will drop off, and can eat up any profit.
For Mc Donalds, the food cost is about 33.7%, but labor is 25.6%. But the real issue is that if the minimum wage is doubled that does not result in a very significant increase in the price of the product. This article explains it every well And their calculation is on the high end of what I have read elsewhere, but their estimate is that doubling the minimum wage from $7.50 to $15.00 would result in a 27% increase in price, so a $3.99 Big Mac would go up by about $1.00. Other researchers have calculated that a $15 wage would increase a Big Mac by 68 cents, and a source I cited earlier claimed it would increase prices by 4.3% but in this post I am offering the most conservative estimate of the impact of doubling the minimum wage and it's still not that awful...and there was no public outrage over that, in fact most of us never even heard about it, but raising the minimum wage seems to have become a matter of life or death for fast food restaurants
I ran a large business for many years. We had the highest labor costs in the area. In the end I had to close our fabricating facility and send the work elsewhere in our area. When we started in the 1950's there were hundreds of similar fabrication and finishing facilities in the NE and when I closed ours there was only 1 remaining. What people never realize is that you can regulate all you want and make things difficult for companies but YOU CAN'T FORCE COMPANIES TO HIRE PEOPLE. If I am running a business (like I did) and my labor costs keep rising and I can't raise prices to cover it then I cut hours, lay off people, hire more part time employees. Fast food restaurants are constrained by price and if labor costs rise they do what they have to do and automation, reduced service and hours are solutions.
Not exactly the same with fast food restaurants as with your business. If the minimum wage goes up, it goes up for every fast food restaurant, as long as there is demand for the product, prices can be raised throughout the sector without putting any one of them at a disadvantage. There are no lower priced substitutes that would provide an alternative for customers who frequent fast food restaurants.
Not a good sign, it looks like there will be fewer McDonalds jobs in the future.
The push for a $15 starter wage has negatively impacted the career prospects of employees who were just getting started in the workforce while extinguishing the businesses that employed them.
Nonsense. I work in software, and you can't slap together a system like this fully tested to deploy it overnight. This was in the planning for many years. The biggest problem at fast-food places are the lines are too long and this will speed it up. People only have 30 to 60 minutes for a lunch hour and this includes travel or and from the place and standing in line. This is an effort to streamline the process and allow fast-food businesses to better compete. Many people brown-bag their lunch so they don't have to waste time standing in line waiting for their order.
I believe it but with kiosks you will not earn a penny. Don't pretend the $15/hr isn't responsible in some way for the disappearance of jobs.
Sorry to destroy your fantasy, but the first interactive kiosks was developed in 1977. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_kiosk
Some grocery stores started to use them in the 1990s.
Speaking of grocery stores, most have self-serve for check-out too. I don't see you complaining about that.
It is technology driving this. But feel free to rage against the machine. ;-)
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