News, Relief for Workers at Bottom: Minimum Wage Goes Up. (employment, application)

[JD59]

Isaiah Reed barely gets by, working about 20 hours a week on the grill at a Nashville, Tenn., Wendy's.

His salary: just $7 an hour. That's $560 a month, if he gets all of his hours. Reed rides the bus to work, has a roommate and is on TEXTfood stamps but still struggles to pay the bills.

Relief for Workers at Bottom: Minimum Wage Goes Up - ABC News

[JS1]

My sister makes minimum wage, and she was so excited about her raise to $7.25 an hour until she discovered that her hours were being cut (along with everyone else, so it's not her performance).

I told her to expect fewer hours when minimum wage goes up, but she "failed" my economics lesson and believed that when minimum wage goes up, it automatically increases her earnings. This is not the case, especially in a down economy.

When you make minimum wage, it means that your true economic worth to your employer is less than the minimum wage, and the only reason why you make minimum wage is because it's the law. However, it is not the law that you make minimum wage for 40 hours a week. Government can't create wealth even at these low standards.

When I worked at McDonald's (the poster child for minimum wage work) several years ago making minimum wage, I never had a problem getting 20 hours a week, and that was only because I was available 20 hours a week.

This is not the case anymore. There are places where they are not accepting applications for employment. Every single McDonald's has implemented their "nuke it and serve it" method of cooking instead of cooking from scratch. Some of the restaurants have automated soft drink machines that fill the cup with ice and the chosen drink for the drive-through, and automated french fry machines that fill the basket with frozen fries. I'm sure they are working on ways to automate the next step of putting the basket of fries into the vat.

Ordinarily these innovations could be considered a good thing, but the reality is that McDonald's has no choice but to automate the crap out of everything because the cost of unskilled labor continues to increase beyond reasonable levels.

[lisdol]

It might be relief for some, but not others (the article does cover this on page 2). On another career board, an out-of-work medical assistant posted looking for a job. She had been one of two MAs in the office until the minimum wage went up (she had been making $6.55/hr) and the physician decided he could not pay two people the new minimum wage, so she got canned.

Not sure how common this is, since of course a certain level of work needs to get done and there is a breaking point where others simply cannot do any more.

[jetgraphics]

Government imposed "minimum wage" ignores the consequences - that increased cost for labor shifts to the retail price - where the po' folks pay for the taxes and wages - or employers cut back.

It's a feedback network. It's common sense.
But government has no incentive to use common sense...

What is needed is to boost the buying power of the wages. What would boost the buying power of wages?
Reducing inflation would be nice...
How about reducing taxes?

You should be aware that any tax on a company or labor shifts to the retail price. Where else to companies get the money to pay taxes?
If the tax wasn't shifted to the customer, and the tax levy eliminated the profit, the company tanks.

So who's foolish to believe that we can "tax" the producers for the benefit of the consumers, parasites, and plunderers feeding off the public treasury.

Government makes nothing but more government.
Government gives nothing but that which was taken from someone else.

And when government "gives" you everything - you've lost everything.