The $15 Minimum Wage Is Wreaking Havoc On New York City Dining (wages, place to live)
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First, the MTA is a bad example. It's a government entity, and has much more important issues (to them) than making money (which it's never done - it loses money hand over fist.) Political and labor issues (which are related) are much more important to them.
Let's talk about fast food burger joints. I looked at three chains, McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. All told, there are about 37,000 or so of these scattered around the country. Not all are subject to a $15 minimum wage yet, but I bet every owner of one is thinking about it, and planning for it. There products are all broadly similar. I guestimated some numbers for the impact of a $15 minimum wage would be on a bigger outlet in NY. IIRC the jump to $15/hour, not from the old minimum when this process started, but from $9 (which appears to be the cheapest you can pay someone in order to get them to work for you in NYC), would cost them around $450,000/yr. In that cost environment, if they could aggressively automate, and get a shift down from 10 workers to 3, they'd save about $650,000/yr. If it could be done, I bet the franchise owners would be willing to spend one years worth of savings to achieve the savings.
Now, how many of these potential customers would it take to get equipment companies to do the R&D work to get the equipment running. With a potential customer base pushing 40K outlets from just three franchises (and probably much more), there's more than enough potential business to justify their investment.
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Originally Posted by NyWriterdude
How much money would it cost for them to invest in the creation of the equipment? Companies do cost benefit analysis when they determine how much automation will help their bottom line.
The MTA is an example of something that SHOULD be a lot more automated than it is. But this will change as metrocards are phased out in favor of smartphone apps and wireless contact cards.
Automation has come to the retail sector anyway in the form of Amazon and other online merchants. Amazon is buying an online pharmacy. Meaning doctors will be able to soon electronically submit prescription to Amazon, which will be able to bill the patient's insurance.
This automation was going to happen no matter what the minimum wage is, and is inevitable simply because it makes people's lives a lot easier.
I began using Amazon not because of the discounts. I got tired of going to certain stores and the staff not being able to tell me where something was in the store or if they had it. Incompetent, untrained staff that quite frankly just sucked. When you go online it's easy to search where they are in stock for an item, and if they are you just buy it.
Rosie was cool. I wouldn't mind having a million of her running the country.
But back to reality.
You would really get inside a self driving car??!
You'll trust the technology that much?
You couldn't pay me to get inside a self driving car.
How many people are killed in and by cars now. After they get the bugs worked out (a process that will have, and actually already has had, a body count), I bet that self driving cars (oh, and BTW trucks) will kill a lot less people than human driven vehicles.
I'll take my chances with humans over machines any day.
Self checkout is okay. Anything that doesn't carry the potential of bodily harm.
But robot barbers? Robot cars? Nope! Nunca! Too many things could go wrong.
And off goes one of my limbs.
Yeah. And those things have crashed! Because the pilots took it for granted and didn't step in when need be.
It happened awhile ago. Some Korean airline flew too low and they found out the pilots were busy doing something else and over relied on auto pilot & so was late in intervening.
I'd get inside a self driving car if there was a way you could take over incase it malfunctions.
And even then, no. I don't like them. They cause one to be overly confident and lax.
Like those airplane pilots.
Riding on an airplane is beyond my control. But willingly getting inside a self driving car is.
What you think should be has nothing to do with it, the fact is these now are adult jobs, whether you approve or not.
They may be adult jobs, but they're still low skilled jobs, thus they should not be compensated at $15. That's just the reality of it, and what will happen is companies will just hire fewer people and automate what they can.
So are you guys arguing there should be NO minimum wage?
Why would people work if they are not going to get paid?
Are you advocating a return to slavery?
Fact - Germany had no minimum wage till 2015.
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