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There's certainly no shortage of people who think they are worth more than they actually are. You know the type--a burger flipper expecting an engineer's wage.
That employers can't find enough such people is proof that they are indeed worth more than whatever price the employer thinks they are worth.
Too many employers rely on a model that requires that people work for peanuts.
If the workers aren’t worth a decent wage, what makes the product worth even a penny?
People buy the product. That is what gives it value. As for what makes it, humans or automation, the consumer does not care a bit. Each is, in that regard, a means to an end.
The CEO of restaurant chain &pizza says there's no labor shortage, only a wage shortage.
He's been paying employees $16/hr since before the pandemic and says he's fully staffed.
He said he'd received more than 100 applications for each job this year.
So goes the claim that we need illegal aliens here to do the jobs that Americans supposedly won't do for a fair wage.
Uh no. We all knew that companies could increase wages but they didn’t want to so they claimed they couldn’t. We are now seeing that yes, yes they CAN increase wages. Has nothing to do with immigration. Take it to the immigration forum if you can’t bear to not bring up immigration in every single topic.
One big issue with raising the minimum wage is $15/hour sounds unreasonable to people who came of age during an era when $15/hour was well off and what you made if you had a college degree. They have a knee-jerk reaction that burger flippers are not worth that because in the 1980s or 1990s, they weren't. They don't even consider the fact that so many things have changed since those days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocko20
Then get some livable wage skills.
A livable wage is subjective based on where you live and who you ask.
The world has changed since 1985. What was a livable wage back then isn't anymore and opportunities that were readily available back then aren't now. One of the biggest things holding our country back is the fact most baby boomers are still living in the past.
These days, a masters' degree is no guarantee of qualifying for a living wage.
I think that should go a long way toward ending the "labor shortage", no?
I don’t know about that.
Anecdotal story:
Spent a few weeks on a road trip in Ky and Tn in June. We encountered short- staffing situations everywhere. One Marriott Courtyard advised us on check in most of housekeeping had quit and apologized that they could not freshen up room during our stay.
In Tennessee, we intended dinner at TGIF, early one evening.
Placed our orders and waited and waited. Eventually a waitress told us that the kitchen staff had quit and there would be no food service. She offered to refill our ice teas. She returned to tell us she was quitting, too. She makes $2.13/ hr. before tips and can’t live on it.
We finished out tea and went inside to pay. No one behind the bar or at the door so we left.
When people up and quit they are not eligible for unemployment benefits. The duration of benefits is capped by state.
Unemployment peaked in April, 2020 due to Covid and impacted people in many sectors, not just restaurants and lodging.
Those laid off then are not eligible for benefits, now.
The workforce’s in most sectors have become increasingly fluid as people chase better wages/ benefits, different employers, continued ability to work remotely or just a change in scenery.
If your business is paying a higher wage than other competitors sure you will be fully staffed. But if everyone pays 15 or 16 per hour the same problem will occur. And costs of everything from rent will go way up meaning 20 or 25 an hour will be demanded. Its a vicious cycle.
$15 an hour is $30,000 a year, barely a living wage in many parts of the country.
Meanwhile, rent (along with food and clothing and everything else) has been going up, up, up for decades while wages have remained stagnant. And guess what? Rents continue to go up. I got a second rent increase in two years just this month but no corresponding raise in my wage to offset it. Multiply that by the decades that wages have been held down while everything else continues to rise and you get to where we are today, where people working 40 hours a week cannot support themselves.
No one is holding back the increase in the cost of living, but you are advocating that wages should be held down anyway, as the cost of everything else continues to rise. And then you wonder why people can't survive without government aid.
$15 an hour is $30,000 a year, barely a living wage in many parts of the country.
Meanwhile, rent (along with food and clothing and everything else) has been going up, up, up for decades while wages have remained stagnant. And guess what? Rents continue to go up. I got a second rent increase in two years just this month but no corresponding raise in my wage to offset it. Multiply that by the decades that wages have been held down while everything else continues to rise and you get to where we are today, where people working 40 hours a week cannot support themselves.
No one is holding back the increase in the cost of living, but you are advocating that wages should be held down anyway, as the cost of everything else continues to rise. And then you wonder why people can't survive without government aid.
People have their heads willfully in the sand if they don’t know or understand this. Either stupid beyond all belief or deliberately ignorant.
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