Fast-food workers threaten global strikes

[123456789A]

$15 an hour? That would be funny if the fast food places said ok, you are all being replaced by robots.

[SierraSonic]

Did you miss the part where I said savings?

How about you stop pretending that everyone who has 3 kids and works at McDonalds clearly had a much better life before hand and are just down on their luck. Here's a hint, most of them didn't.

Where are your numbers to back that up?

 

My numbers here tell me that of the 15% of people in poverty, 16.9 Million are children, about 22% of the 15%, who can't control their income, and by reason of most opposing the wage hike, aren't supposed to.

 

Another 9% of that 15% is seniors, which leaves the rest as adults in between 18 and 64. Read this:

 

According to the US Census, in 2007 5.8% of all people in married families lived in poverty,^[35] as did 26.6% of all persons in single parent households^[35] and 19.1% of all persons living alone.^[35] More than 75% of all poor households are headed by women (2012).^[36]

 

^{Women earn less than men, yet they lead the most of these impoverished households, theres some correlation there. Yes, some of them give the majority a bad name, but you cant honestly expect me to believe that there is more people in poverty by "choice" as you put it, the math disagrees with you.}

 

^{http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/05/news/economy/unpaid-child-support/}

 

Unpaid child support... from people who earn the minimum wage, which barely supports one person, plus having 17% of it taken away per child. I guess if you don't want them to be able to pay for it, we can keep growing that side of the pie where we do.

[Mr. Gibs]

Where are your numbers to back that up?

 

My numbers here tell me that of the 15% of people in poverty, 16.9 Million are children, about 22% of the 15%, who can't control their income, and by reason of most opposing the wage hike, aren't supposed to.

 

Another 9% of that 15% is seniors, which leaves the rest as adults in between 18 and 64. Read this:

Your numbers say absolutely nothing about them having a better job before they had kids and worked at McDonalds. Because I guarantee you that most of the people you see with 3 kids and working at McDonalds didn't.

The average BASIC cost of raising a kid is estimated to be $250k from ages 0-18. 3 kids means $750,000 or about $40k a year. You're telling me all these parents with multiple kids and working at McDonalds earned enough money to pay $40k a year just for basic supplies for their kids? That's not including anything extra, rent, utilities, groceries for yourself etc etc etc.

Sure maybe they had a husband who had a decent job and earned enough to support them but #### happened and they got divorced. But then the husband would have to pay child support and have his wages garnished if he didn't. Now if the husband had a ###### job / no job and couldn't afford to pay anything in child support it goes back to my first point. Why have 3 kids? Sure accidents happen and birth control isn't 100% effective...but 3 times? And then you have things like plan-B and abortion.

------

Tell me something, say these people all got $15 an hour and their ###### bosses went "too bad you're fired, I got robots now" then what? Like I already pointed out McDonalds already has robots that take all the drink orders and fill them properly with the exact amount of ice and soda/juice. Panera is slowly replacing all their cashiers with tablets. You don't think this is going to continue to be rolled out? Hell you have vending machines in Italy and Japan that can make a pizza for you. The technology is already there and it's becoming cheaper everyday.

[Shiranui]

Nothing to add, except to say that +primortal is my hero in this thread.

[DocM]

$15 an hour? That would be funny if the fast food places said ok, you are all being replaced by robots.

That tech exists, has been field tested and will be deployed as soon as labor costs make them viable. They don't take days off, will work 24/7/365 and don't strike.

As usual, these people are pricing themselves out of unskilled jobs.

[SierraSonic]

Your numbers say absolutely nothing about them having a better job before they had kids and worked at McDonalds. Because I guarantee you that most of the people you see with 3 kids and working at McDonalds didn't.

The average BASIC cost of raising a kid is estimated to be $250k from ages 0-18. 3 kids means $750,000 or about $40k a year. You're telling me all these parents with multiple kids and working at McDonalds earned enough money to pay $40k a year just for basic supplies for their kids? That's not including anything extra, rent, utilities, groceries for yourself etc etc etc.

Sure maybe they had a husband who had a decent job and earned enough to support them but #### happened and they got divorced. But then the husband would have to pay child support and have his wages garnished if he didn't. Now if the husband had a ###### job / no job and couldn't afford to pay anything in child support it goes back to my first point. Why have 3 kids? Sure accidents happen and birth control isn't 100% effective...but 3 times? And then you have things like plan-B and abortion.

------

Tell me something, say these people all got $15 an hour and their ###### bosses went "too bad you're fired, I got robots now" then what? Like I already pointed out McDonalds already has robots that take all the drink orders and fill them properly with the exact amount of ice and soda/juice. Panera is slowly replacing all their cashiers with tablets. You don't think this is going to continue to be rolled out? Hell you have vending machines in Italy and Japan that can make a pizza for you. The technology is already there and it's becoming cheaper everyday.

So then what does it matter if they are going to lose their jobs anyway? Free vs an hourly rate, which is cheaper?

 

http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-570.pdf

 

Taking into account, (families, and single parents, and children with no parents,) with the amount of family in poverty 100% poverty or less, against the fact that there is no data collected on multigenerational households, and that there is no personally identifiable information, there is no way to correlate a historic track of a persons job history or their effort in success. I expect less that .1% of the 15% working in poverty are trying to not succeed; and even if you include the people that aren't working you have a majority of them disabled mentally or physically.

 

You should really be more concerned with those not working, and not trying, but you shouldn't be punishing those that are trying.

 

http://www.citylab.com/work/2013/12/minimum-wage-was-once-enough-keep-family-3-out-poverty/7773/

 

Again, okay I get that you hate the idea of people just mindlessly having children when they cant afford it, I just can't agree with you that a significant number of people are like that, or that anyone who works below the poverty line don't deserve to have children, as the minimum wage used to support two children per single parent, now they can barely support themselves. Let alone plan for the future. Someone has to do these jobs until they are phased out by robots, they might as well be able to live a decent life!

[timster]

That tech exists, has been field tested and will be deployed as soon as labor costs make them viable. They don't take days off, will work 24/7/365 and don't strike.

As usual, these people are pricing themselves out of unskilled jobs.

there are already thousands of McDonalds over in Europe that are set up with the automated cashiers.

[Mr. Gibs]

Again, okay I get that you hate the idea of people just mindlessly having children when they cant afford it, I just can't agree with you that a majority of people who do work below a living wage don't deserve to have children, as the minimum wage used to support two children per single parent, now they can barely support themselves. Let alone plan for the future. Someone has to do these jobs until they are phased out by robots, they might as well be able to live a decent life!

How about you stop looking at the past?

Like seriously I get it life in the 70s and 60s were so much better than life right now. But the reason why we're in this ###### was because of the policies that were put into place back then. That golden age you seem to like bringing up wasn't really a golden age. It was a bunch of people who screwed up their children's future because they wanted a better life then.

 

You should really be more concerned with those not working, and not trying, but you shouldn't be punishing those that are trying.

And by just increasing the minimum wage you'll be punishing those who are trying even more.

Economics isn't as simple as "k lets just increase this value here" because if it was, then we'd all be driving Ferraris and living in giant mansions.

[DocM]

there are already thousands of McDonalds over in Europe that are set up with the automated cashiers.

What's been tested here goes beyond cashiers. They have robotic food prep connected to tablet based ordering systems.

[SierraSonic]

How about you stop looking at the past?

Like seriously I get it life in the 70s and 60s were so much better than life right now. But the reason why we're in this ###### was because of the policies that were put into place back then. That golden age you seem to like bringing up wasn't really a golden age. It was a bunch of people who screwed up their children's future because they wanted a better life then.

 

And by just increasing the minimum wage you'll be punishing those who are trying even more.

Economics isn't as simple as "k lets just increase this value here" because if it was, then we'd all be driving Ferraris and living in giant mansions.

You are telling me the minimum wage policies are the reason why the economy is horrible even though it really hasn't kept up since the early 60s? That alone means it hasn't had an effect at all! It fact it proves that even with the minimum wage becoming more worthless the economy still got worse!

 

And how is this going to boost or damage the economy, the current proposed plan is to aim for $10.10. Which should make prices of individual items go up 1 penny!

[Mr. Gibs]

You are telling me the minimum wage policies are the reason why the economy is horrible even though it really hasn't kept up since the late early 60s? That alone means it hasn't had an effect at all! It fact it proves that even with the minimum wage becoming more worthless the economy still got worse!

I didn't say it was only the minimum wage policies did I? There were a lot of stupid policies and things done by people back then who didn't think about the future or couldn't care about the future.

 

And how is this going to boost or damage the economy, the current proposed plan is to aim for $10.10. Which should make prices of individual items go up 1 penny!

And here we go again....

You really think a corporation or a small business is going to go "oh you know what we're happy with the profits we are making now, so we'll only make small increases to prices?" Oh wait they won't because we don't live in a fantasy world with fairies. Stop reading junk sites like "thinkprogress" because let's debunk some of that crap shall we?:

 

Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that a minimum wage at that level would add $200 million to Walmart?s yearly labor costs, which comes to just 0.8 percent of what it currently spends. That also represents just 0.06 percent of the company?s billions in yearly sales, Jacobs told ThinkProgress, so if the company decided to pass the entire cost increase on to its customers, it would mean an extra penny for a $16 product.

$200 million huh. Let's do some very basic maths:

Minimum wage $7.25, proposed minimum wage $10.10. Difference of $2.85 an hour

Total number of employees who work for WalMart: 2.2 million. Let us assume that out of that 2.2 million, 1 million make minimum wage. I'm sure there's a lot more than that, but for simplicities sake let's just go with 1 million. Let's also assume most of these people only work 30 hours a week so that WalMart doesn't have to give them benefits.

2.85 * 30 = $85.5 more cost a week for each employee

85.5 * 50 = $4,275 more cost a year for each employee (assuming they work 50 weeks out of the year and get 2 weeks off which is pretty standard, sadly, in America)

4275*1000000 = $4.275 billion extra cost per year for 1 million employees who now make $2.85 more

Walmart's profits for 2013 = $16 billion So a wage increase of $2.85 for 1 million people would mean walmart would lose 25% of it's profits.

Where exactly did he get $200 million from? And do you really think the investors, board and wall street are going to be happy with a 25% loss in profit? No WalMart stock will tank and the investors will demand that WalMart bring their profit back up. So now WalMart can do one of two things, fire a ton of employees and keep a leaner but harder working staff (which could be a good thing) or raise prices across the board.

[Hum]

James Sherk, senior policy analyst in Labor Economics at the Heritage Foundation, says fast-food work is meant to be temporary.

 

?The fast food industry is heavily composed of teens and college students, and of people who are not staying there long,? Sherk says.

 

?The average turnover is 150% in the industry, so people are leaving after eight months.?

 

And protesters are in the hundreds in the U.S., Sherk says, which is ?hardly representative? of the industry as a whole.

 

?I feel this is largely a public relations campaign,? he says. ?It?s less than one in 10,000 workers in the industry, and $15 makes $10.10 seem reasonable when you are otherwise calling for a 40% raise in the minimum wage. At a time of high unemployment, it seems pretty absurd.?

 

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2014/05/15/fast-food-strikes-go-global-but-is-goal-any-closer-to-being-met/

[123456789A]

That tech exists, has been field tested and will be deployed as soon as labor costs make them viable. They don't take days off, will work 24/7/365 and don't strike.

As usual, these people are pricing themselves out of unskilled jobs.

 

I can't wait until fast food robots. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are fed.

[DocM]

^ and they may even get the f***ing order right.

[FloatingFatMan]

^ and they may even get the f***ing order right.

 

Oh hell yes... I'm sure we've -all- got little stories about -that- particular experience!

[The Teej]

As a McDonald's employee in the UK, I find these strikes hilariously absurd. Sure, we have our small internal issues from store to store (all stores do, regardless of the company) but the majority of those stores have a business manager with an open door policy (mine does), which allow these issues to get resolved. There are also yearly pay reviews which give you the opportunity to get a pay increase above the NMW (I've known some crew members to max out the pay increase - which is higher then a starting shift managers wage.

 

All McDonald's stores have apprenticeship schemes which allow you to get an NVQ in Hospitality and Catering, and the further up you go on the food chain, you get even more educational opportunities (we're talking up to degree-level qualifications), and that's in addition to the on-the-job training you get when it comes to, not only McDonald's procedures (which is an obvious one), but general food handling procedures and being an ace at customer service.

 

Is it the perfect job? Haha, no. But is it a good job, with plenty of opportunities given you're willing to put in the effort, working with a team of energetic and friendly people? Yes, most definitely.

 

If England is one of these countries participating in the strike, I'll laugh all the way to the bank with the extra hours I'll be taking off of them!

[DocM]

This is about a dying union, the SEIU, trying to worm its way into a new sector. They are highly political, even for a US union, and new memberships have been shrinking because of it. Especially in health care facilities.

That's it.

[SierraSonic]

I can't wait until fast food robots. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are fed.

Neither can I, so people could stop thinking that all minimum wage earners are only fast food workers, and then people may stop spouting crap how awful all minimum wage earners are single teenage parents with 4 children of their own while living with their parents.

 

I didn't say it was only the minimum wage policies did I? There were a lot of stupid policies and things done by people back then who didn't think about the future or couldn't care about the future.

 

And here we go again....

You really think a corporation or a small business is going to go "oh you know what we're happy with the profits we are making now, so we'll only make small increases to prices?" Oh wait they won't because we don't live in a fantasy world with fairies. Stop reading junk sites like "thinkprogress" because let's debunk some of that crap shall we?:

 

$200 million huh. Let's do some very basic maths:

Minimum wage $7.25, proposed minimum wage $10.10. Difference of $2.85 an hour

Total number of employees who work for WalMart: 2.2 million. Let us assume that out of that 2.2 million, 1 million make minimum wage. I'm sure there's a lot more than that, but for simplicities sake let's just go with 1 million. Let's also assume most of these people only work 30 hours a week so that WalMart doesn't have to give them benefits.

2.85 * 30 = $85.5 more cost a week for each employee

85.5 * 50 = $4,275 more cost a year for each employee (assuming they work 50 weeks out of the year and get 2 weeks off which is pretty standard, sadly, in America)

4275*1000000 = $4.275 billion extra cost per year for 1 million employees who now make $2.85 more

Walmart's profits for 2013 = $16 billion So a wage increase of $2.85 for 1 million people would mean walmart would lose 25% of it's profits.

Where exactly did he get $200 million from? And do you really think the investors, board and wall street are going to be happy with a 25% loss in profit? No WalMart stock will tank and the investors will demand that WalMart bring their profit back up. So now WalMart can do one of two things, fire a ton of employees and keep a leaner but harder working staff (which could be a good thing) or raise prices across the board.

1) So that point is irrelevant as people are always going to oppose any meaningful legislation toward the future, look at the climate change debate and how any real progress is being held back in the name of money now.

 

2) Any business that uses the logic of "minimum wage was raised, lets just recklessly up prices to not only cover the higher cost of labor, but also increase profits at the same time" deserves to fail. There is a time and place to look for more profit, and this time isn't it.

 

3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/mike-duke-minimum-wage_n_3806200.html

Less than .5% of walmart employees earn minimum wage. Your math is off since 45% is 90x more than reported working at minimum wage. Assuming that the average walmart employee earns $12.78, there is no way more than 15% of walmart employees wages would be boosted to meet the $10.10 wage proposed. Seriously, quit guessing, use real numbers, at least try to be close if you have to guess.

 

4) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/small-business-jobs-november-_n_1118776.html

Businesses were able to run for over 30 years with the minimum wage at a level where it would be value at $15 today. The average monthly wage of a small business employee is $2637, or $16.48 an hour. Small businesses aren't going to be as affected as your "math" stated. Oh wait, in this case you didn't provide any numbers at all.

 

5) I used references that aren't "crap" according to you. Though realise that all of these points came from thinkprogress, I just went to thinkprogress' sources and used them.

[Gotenks98]

Here's an idea....don't ####ing have kids that you clearly cannot support.

My wife and I both have pretty stable and pretty good incomes and we are still waiting to have kids. Want to guess why? We want to save up for important things and make sure that when we do have kids, we aren't going to be worrying about "#### can we support them."

That's what responsible adults do. If I worked at McDonalds the last thing I would do is have kids, let alone 3 kids. I wish there were more in-depth checks before people can have kids. My boss who is extremely nice and would make a great parent, has to go through hell before him and his wife can be foster parents mostly to make sure the kids don't suffer. But if you work at McDonalds and pop out 3 kids that you clearly can't support? Nobody cares.

Because part of that is true? Sure there are a ton of people who are just down on their luck, lost their job w/e. But likewise there are a TON of people who have kids they clearly can't afford or even support.

News flash for you, unless you win the lottery you will never have enough cash or things for kids. Its just not going to happen. My wife and I had this same logic at first. We are year number 9 of our marriage and finally decided to have kids. I could see if you were saying you wanted to finish school first or have fun taking trips and stuff but the money thing will never be enough. Once we came to that conclusion we decided to have kids.

[Mr. Gibs]

2) Any business that uses the logic of "minimum wage was raised, lets just recklessly up prices to not only cover the higher cost of labor, but also increase profits at the same time" deserves to fail. There is a time and place to look for more profit, and this time isn't it.

You just explained capitalism in a nutshell. Businesses CARE ABOUT PROFITS. That's the whole point of businesses, it's to make a profit. And it's to make as much of a profit as possible. Investors aren't going to go "well you know what, $10 billion is a lot of money we should just stop and call it good." No they'll go "We want $20 billion." And so on.

Now maybe you'll understand why I've been banging my head against the wall with you saying "ONLY raising the minimum wage won't solve ####." You're NOT fixing the root of the problem, you're just fixing a tiny hole and thinking that it'll solve everything. No all you'll do is make the rich even richer, the middle class even poorer, and the lower class even more poorer.

 

3) http://www.huffingto..._n_3806200.html

Less than .5% of walmart employees earn minimum wage. Your math is off since 45% is 90x more than reported working at minimum wage. Assuming that the average walmart employee earns $12.78, there is no way more than 15% of walmart employees wages would be boosted to meet the $10.10 wage proposed. Seriously, quit guessing, use real numbers, at least try to be close if you have to guess.

You should read the entire article:

 

Yet that figure excludes part-time workers, a group that likely makes up a substantial share of Walmart's workforce, thought not its majority, according to the company.

You'll actually find that if you look up market research on how much walmart pays their associates, the average is $8.81. Not $12.48. You'll also find that most Walmart employees don't work full time or earn more than $25,000. The full time thing is important because Obamacare requires that companies give full time employees health benefits. If they don't then they get taxed extra. Walmart gets around this by limiting most of their staff to working part time only.

 

Businesses were able to run for over 30 years with the minimum wage at a level where it would be value at $15 today. The average monthly wage of a small business employee is $2637, or $16.48 an hour. Small businesses aren't going to be as affected as your "math" stated. Oh wait, in this case you didn't provide any numbers at all.

I already told you to stop looking at the past. There wasn't as much competition for one and a ton of jobs existed in the US. There's significantly higher competition now and cheap labor from China and other Asian companies are making it difficult for US companies to keep manufacturing and other unskilled jobs in the US.

I'm also pretty sure that statistic doesn't include franchises which ARE considered small businesses. So sure McDonalds Corporate may have made $6 billion in profit last year, but the vast vast vast majority of stores aren't owned by McD corporate. They're franchises. McD corporate doesn't control their wages, the franchise owner does.

News flash for you, unless you win the lottery you will never have enough cash or things for kids. Its just not going to happen. My wife and I had this same logic at first. We are year number 9 of our marriage and finally decided to have kids. I could see if you were saying you wanted to finish school first or have fun taking trips and stuff but the money thing will never be enough. Once we came to that conclusion we decided to have kids.

There's a big difference in what I was talking about and what you were talking about.

Someone making 20k a year simply cannot support 3 kids. If I earned 60k a year, now I have a much greater chance of being able to support 3 kids.

[SierraSonic]

You just explained capitalism in a nutshell. Businesses CARE ABOUT PROFITS. That's the whole point of businesses, it's to make a profit. And it's to make as much of a profit as possible. Investors aren't going to go "well you know what, $10 billion is a lot of money we should just stop and call it good." No they'll go "We want $20 billion." And so on.

Now maybe you'll understand why I've been banging my head against the wall with you saying "ONLY raising the minimum wage won't solve ####." You're NOT fixing the root of the problem, you're just fixing a tiny hole and thinking that it'll solve everything. No all you'll do is make the rich even richer, the middle class even poorer, and the lower class even more poorer.

 

You should read the entire article:

 

You'll actually find that if you look up market research on how much walmart pays their associates, the average is $8.81. Not $12.48. You'll also find that most Walmart employees don't work full time or earn more than $25,000. The full time thing is important because Obamacare requires that companies give full time employees health benefits. If they don't then they get taxed extra. Walmart gets around this by limiting most of their staff to working part time only.

 

I already told you to stop looking at the past. There wasn't as much competition for one and a ton of jobs existed in the US. There's significantly higher competition now and cheap labor from China and other Asian companies are making it difficult for US companies to keep manufacturing and other unskilled jobs in the US.

I'm also pretty sure that statistic doesn't include franchises which ARE considered small businesses. So sure McDonalds Corporate may have made $6 billion in profit last year, but the vast vast vast majority of stores aren't owned by McD corporate. They're franchises. McD corporate doesn't control their wages, the franchise owner does.

There's a big difference in what I was talking about and what you were talking about.

Someone making 20k a year simply cannot support 3 kids. If I earned 60k a year, now I have a much greater chance of being able to support 3 kids.

We can't get rid of human nature, we can only try to limit it. You are seriously saying you expect all/most/enough to matter, companies will greatly raise prices to a point where the labor increase wouldn't matter. It is unrealistic to expect the worst from everybody most of the time, sure you can expect the big player to push their agenda and try something like this, but smaller player will take the user base away from them. If a smaller player tries this they deserve to go out of business if that is the reason they failed, of course instead of blaming greed they will blame the wage hike. You defend the fact that businesses rely on supply and demand, yet you say a minimum wage would cause it to be based more on greed. You can't have both, sure the greedy may try but I personally hope they fail. Currently demand is slipping because more and more people cant afford anything other than necessities. Do you know how many businesses are based on you buying more than food shelter and clothing? It's not worth arguing this point because you are going full blast expecting the worst of all or most people, where as I'm in the realistic center expect the majority of people to play ball, while I expect some to exploit any situation.

 

Raising the minimum wage bring the lowest earners back up to the point where their should be, AND other actions should still be taken on from other angles, but those aren't a discussion for minimum wage topic. I'm not here to argue tax code, and other laws, Quick point, we should raise prices on imports from these countries so even if they can be made cheaper, they would be sold at prices of higher quality goods, consumers would choose the higher quality made in america products if the cheap imports cost the same. But again, a different topic.

 

Right now we are looking at the minimum wage in context to how it will affect businesses, the economy, and the lives of people.

 

Article after article states that if the poor spend more money, since they don't save money, the economy gets boosted. Peoples lives improve because they can survive easier. Businesses take no hit as they just raise prices, even if some greedily raise it more than they should, unless prices get raise more than 25% from all businesses it would still be a net gain for all minimum wage earners. You make it seem like it would destabilize every company. Also you are using investors as an excuse, I thought we didn't care about big companies as they will survive, were talking about the small companies here right? So why mention investors? Most small companies aren't publicly traded.

 

Link me to your market research, I want sources from you as your math has been proven flaky in the name of proving a point.

 

The biggest benefit of boosting the minimum wage is that it pushes people off of government assistance, which takes the burden off of you as a tax payer. Quit caring more for huge corporations than individual people, if a company fails another will just come and replace it, if a person fails, we shouldn't expect another to replace them, we should help them. I rather help a person, not a company.

 

Honestly it doesn't matter what the average pay of any company personnel is, other than if it is below a living wage. There is no reason why, other than higher profits which big whoop, a company shouldn't pay any employee no matter what work they do, a living wage for full time work.

 

Another topic related to minimum wage but still set off from it is the amount of part time workers vs full time, and how full time jobs are shrinking, we need to regulate that after a certain time working with a company part time workers become full time. Sure I see this leading into more temporary status workers, but at least they would know going in it's temporary and can choose to look for more permanent work. Again, another topic.

 

With McDonalds franchises, or basically any business small or large, expected to raise prices, they won't lose employees or need to cut new employment, but you state they will. So you are telling me, companies will raise the cost of their products, limit their employees hours and benefits, and not consider new hirers. You are truly just looking at what could possibly be the worst case scenario and using that as the bases for your discussion. Try to be realistic and look at what will most likely happen instead of being pessimistic. Also realise the minimum wage was raise before, and the economy was boosted not hurt every time! I expect prices to go up to match new labor, some companies will go above that requirement, but it will no where be equal to the wage increase across the board. Again, you looked at a certain topic, without adding up the numbers, and just spouted crud, please look at the math, you are wrong.

 

People make mistakes, you act as if having children is a malicious act to get money, even though any support is less than minimum required to survive! It used to be you can support two children if your significant other dies, or leaves. But now if anything happens you are screwed!

[Mr. Gibs]

We can't get rid of human nature, we can only try to limit it. You are seriously saying you expect all/most/enough to matter, companies will greatly raise prices to a point where the labor increase wouldn't matter. It is unrealistic to expect the worst from everybody most of the time, sure you can expect the big player to push their agenda and try something like this, but smaller player will take the user base away from them. If a smaller player tries this they deserve to go out of business if that is the reason they failed, of course instead of blaming greed they will blame the wage hike. You defend the fact that businesses rely on supply and demand, yet you say a minimum wage would cause it to be based more on greed. You can't have both, sure the greedy may try but I personally hope they fail. Currently demand is slipping because more and more people cant afford anything other than necessities. Do you know how many businesses are based on you buying more than food shelter and clothing? It's not worth arguing this point because you are going full blast expecting the worst of all or most people, where as I'm in the realistic center expect the majority of people to play ball, while I expect some to exploit any situation.

Companies exist to make profits. AS MUCH PROFIT AS POSSIBLE. If you really think companies are only going to make small adjustments to their prices when people suddenly have more money to spend you are the one being unrealistic. I already pointed out plenty of times that in countries where the minimum wage is more, everything costs more. And most of that increase isn't because of taxes. It's because the local population has more money to spend.

Hell you don't even have to go to another country to see that. Go to a WalMart in a nice part of town, and go to one in a poor part of town. You'll see the prices are different. Each WalMart charges differently for the same item based on how rich/poor the local population who shops there is.

 

Article after article states that if the poor spend more money, since they don't save money, the economy gets boosted. Peoples lives improve because they can survive easier. Businesses take no hit as they just raise prices, even if some greedily raise it more than they should, unless prices get raise more than 25% from all businesses it would still be a net gain for all minimum wage earners. You make it seem like it would destabilize every company. Also you are using investors as an excuse, I thought we didn't care about big companies as they will survive, were talking about the small companies here right? So why mention investors? Most small companies aren't publicly traded.

Because most of the things people buy come from big companies?

 

The biggest benefit of boosting the minimum wage is that it pushes people off of government assistance, which takes the burden off of you as a tax payer. Quit caring more for huge corporations than individual people, if a company fails another will just come and replace it, if a person fails, we shouldn't expect another to replace them, we should help them. I rather help a person, not a company.

Except if you actually spent more than 5 seconds reading my post you'll clearly see that I'm not on the side of the corporation. I've even stated 5 times now we need to fix the problem but ONLY RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOESN'T SOLVE IT. It's like having a giant barrel that's full of holes and then going hmm yes this bandaid on this one hole will stop the leak.

I've also stated multiple times that the rich will become richer, the poorer will become poorer and the middle class gets screwed even more.

 

Link me to your market research, I want sources from you as your math has been proven flaky in the name of proving a point.

My sources are the very same article that you linked, the one that you couldn't read more than 1 line off.

You really think that WalMart is paying their employees an average of $12.84 an hour? Then why the #### are they protesting for a livable wage? Here's a nice report for NY State: http://brennan.3cdn.net/8ba7f4a1b9456459b2_a9m6bnxs1.pdf

I've also known people who have worked at WalMart. Sure it's not the worst place in the world to work but they aren't making anywhere near $12.84 an hour.

 

With McDonalds franchises, or basically any business small or large, expected to raise prices, they won't lose employees or need to cut new employment, but you state they will. So you are telling me, companies will raise the cost of their products, limit their employees hours and benefits, and not consider new hirers. You are truly just looking at what could possibly be the worst case scenario and using that as the bases for your discussion. Try to be realistic and look at what will most likely happen instead of being pessimistic. Also realise the minimum wage was raise before, and the economy was boosted not hurt every time! I expect prices to go up to match new labor, some companies will go above that requirement, but it will no where be equal to the wage increase across the board. Again, you looked at a certain topic, without adding up the numbers, and just spouted crud, please look at the math, you are wrong.

For most fast food restaurants their profit margin is tiny tiny tiny. Labor makes up a big chunk of their cost, to a point that raising it means they will go bankrupt. There's a reason why most fast food places are replacing workers with robots. Increasing minimum wage means they'll just start rolling robots out faster. Now what are those unemployed, unskilled, people going to do?

 

Honestly it doesn't matter what the average pay of any company personnel is, other than if it is below a living wage. There is no reason why, other than higher profits which big whoop, a company shouldn't pay any employee no matter what work they do, a living wage for full time work.

There is another reason, and it's called capitalism.

 

Another topic related to minimum wage but still set off from it is the amount of part time workers vs full time, and how full time jobs are shrinking, we need to regulate that after a certain time working with a company part time workers become full time. Sure I see this leading into more temporary status workers, but at least they would know going in it's temporary and can choose to look for more permanent work. Again, another topic.

Well a lot of workers are being forced into part time because their company doesn't want to pay for benefits, and doesn't want to the tax penalty if they don't. It's pretty pathetic.

 

People make mistakes, you act as if having children is a malicious act to get money, even though any support is less than minimum required to survive! It used to be you can support two children if your significant other dies, or leaves. But now if anything happens you are screwed!

Did I say that? Oh wait no I didn't. I just said I think it's stupid as all hell to have 3 kids when you make minimum wage REGARDLESS Of how fair that is or not.

[SierraSonic]

Companies exist to make profits. AS MUCH PROFIT AS POSSIBLE. If you really think companies are only going to make small adjustments to their prices when people suddenly have more money to spend you are the one being unrealistic. I already pointed out plenty of times that in countries where the minimum wage is more, everything costs more. And most of that increase isn't because of taxes. It's because the local population has more money to spend.

Hell you don't even have to go to another country to see that. Go to a WalMart in a nice part of town, and go to one in a poor part of town. You'll see the prices are different. Each WalMart charges differently for the same item based on how rich/poor the local population who shops there is.

Everything would cost more, I agreed with that, we just disagree with how much, the math proves that those countries are slowly gaining in quality of life over america year in and year out. 

 

 

Because most of the things people buy come from big companies?

Yes, but again we just disagree on how much the prices will raise.

 

 

Except if you actually spent more than 5 seconds reading my post you'll clearly see that I'm not on the side of the corporation. I've even stated 5 times now we need to fix the problem but ONLY RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOESN'T SOLVE IT. It's like having a giant barrel that's full of holes and then going hmm yes this bandaid on this one hole will stop the leak.

And, I say that changing he value of minimum wage back to a living wage should be part of the solution.

 

 

I've also stated multiple times that the rich will become richer, the poorer will become poorer and the middle class gets screwed even more.

You just haven't proven that, and the PAST, which you so kindly ignore, shows that isn't true. Which is what I keep trying to tell you. Most major economic crises after the depression, happened whenever the value of minimum wage went too low. The 70sm and early 90s ring a bell.

 

 

My sources are the very same article that you linked, the one that you couldn't read more than 1 line off.

You really think that WalMart is paying their employees an average of $12.84 an hour? Then why the #### are they protesting for a livable wage? Here's a nice report for NY State: http://brennan.3cdn.net/8ba7f4a1b9456459b2_a9m6bnxs1.pdf

I've also known people who have worked at WalMart. Sure it's not the worst place in the world to work but they aren't making anywhere near $12.84 an hour.

They should be earning closer to $15, $10.10 and a slow gradual change to meet proper value over the years. Then each state should raise it further to meet that states specific demand.

Others should be earning more than the do now, they should be living in excess of what people who made minimum wage did years ago, not less. Profits are the worst argument against giving people a decent life.

 

 

For most fast food restaurants their profit margin is tiny tiny tiny. Labor makes up a big chunk of their cost, to a point that raising it means they will go bankrupt. There's a reason why most fast food places are replacing workers with robots. Increasing minimum wage means they'll just start rolling robots out faster. Now what are those unemployed, unskilled, people going to do?

Other minimum wage work, as the fast food industry isn't the only industry around, they are being moved off to robot anyway, this isn't going to speed it up, the technology won't magically arrive faster. Either way, there are companies out there that do pay decent wages and serve fast food as it used it be, places like Portillo's serve food fast and are a million times better for only a couple bucks more. http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Portillo-s-Salaries-E30799.htm

 

 

There is another reason, and it's called capitalism.

There is something called regulation, it prevents abuse of capitalism.

 

 

Well a lot of workers are being forced into part time because their company doesn't want to pay for benefits, and doesn't want to the tax penalty if they don't. It's pretty pathetic.

I agree, very pathetic. if only people without benefits and not working minimum wage could survive, let alone if they have anyone to support.

 

 

Did I say that? Oh wait no I didn't. I just said I think it's stupid as all hell to have 3 kids when you make minimum wage REGARDLESS Of how fair that is or not.

No, I did say you act like it though. I do agree it is a stupid mistake, but people do make mistakes, just in the past, the could afford to make one or two mistakes without completely jeopardizing their lives.

[astropheed Veteran]

I can't wait until fast food robots. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are fed.

 

I literally laughed out loud. That was perfect. Damn.

 

 

I do agree it is a stupid mistake, but people do make mistakes, just in the past, the could afford to make one or two mistakes without completely jeopardizing their lives.

 

 

I'm not paying for other peoples stupidity.

[SierraSonic]

I literally laughed out loud. That was perfect. Damn.

 

 

 

I'm not paying for other peoples stupidity.

By not raising the minimum wage you are paying more for their children than if it were to be raised.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/report-minimum-wage-hike-would-cut-food-stamp-spending-by-46-billion-a-year/2014/03/04/150e4bfa-a3db-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html