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With all the talks of how good a $15hr will be for people with no skills, it makes me wonder what will happen to all these no skill employees now. Many times minimum wage jobs are given to people that will get a job that most people refuse to work, as most people will not flip burgers or mop floors etc. If wages did go to $15hr, now employees can be much more selective on who they hire as many people would work for $15hr compared to $7.25 hr.
So when many of these no skilled workers that no one wanted to hire previously because of their poor worth ethic, poor appearance, or ghetto/rotten attitudes, but had no choice because no one else would take the job, now cant get a job because better applicants will now works those positions, will they do the next thing in resorting to stealing since they can no longer provide for themselves and no one will hire them since there will be less jobs available.
Its only 3 ways people can provide
1. Work to pay for what you have
2. Get assistance from the government to get what you have
3. Steal/Rob to get what you have
Choices 2 and 3 are going to go up big time if min wage goes $15hr nationwide.
I talked to a friend that runs a business in Seattle where the city just decided to move the minimum to 15. He said he fully understands his staff needing the money but explains it has to come from somewhere. In his case 50% will come from reduced total compensation (all optional staff/benefits eliminated) and 50% will come from increased prices. If this does not work he will move the business if possible or just close it.
In today's economy he simply does not have any other options... he takes a modest salary, has commitments to pay start-up loans, and what little profit there is retained for emergency/growth. He told me that he regrets starting the business now that regulations over the past few years have reduced his chance for a real payout to compensate for the risk, work, and time he has dedicated.
Minimum wage / benefit laws will actually hurt workers in many cases.
I don't think the world ended but you'd have thought it was going to with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sorta like what's going on right now. People like to predict the most dire things. They predict that prices will go up if we all get raises. Well, far as I can tell they are going to go up anyway which puts low wage earners even further behind. We see/hear people complaining about prices every day and yet they don't want low wage earners to be able to keep up? I work in retail and hear it from just about every other customer.
If the minimum goes up to $15 hour it won't happen in one fell swoop. It'll be 'doled out' over a seven year period. Someone making $10 hour will wait seven years for that $5 raise, which averages out about 71 cents a year raise. It's not like everyone making $10 hour NOW will be making $15 next week/month/year, whatever.
I don't think the world ended but you'd have thought it was going to with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sorta like what's going on right now. People like to predict the most dire things. They predict that prices will go up if we all get raises. Well, far as I can tell they are going to go up anyway which puts low wage earners even further behind. We see/hear people complaining about prices every day and yet they don't want low wage earners to be able to keep up? I work in retail and hear it from just about every other customer.
If the minimum goes up to $15 hour it won't happen in one fell swoop. It'll be 'doled out' over a seven year period. Someone making $10 hour will wait seven years for that $5 raise, which averages out about 71 cents a year raise. It's not like everyone making $10 hour NOW will be making $15 next week/month/year, whatever.
Prices are going up already mainly because of inflation, government regulation, taxes, etc...forcing companies to pay more for labor is not going to lower prices. What people don't seem to want to accept is that companies keep their wages as low in response to their customers demand for low prices. Shoppers by and large are simply not willing to pay higher prices just so that some stranger working the cash register can earn a "living wage".
Also, if the min wage of $15 an hour is so great, why force workers to wait 7 years? Why not have it effective immediately? Probably because the politicians know that the disastrous effects of such a sharp rise in labor costs would be too severe for their reelection goals. It's really designed to spread the unemployment increases out in such a way that it would either go largely unnoticed by the average voter or in a way that the unemployment increases doesn't take its toll until after the politicians are out of office.
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