All your Starbucks will go out of business. Or get robots.$5.00 coffee is not for me. I go to 'Quick Trip' or buy online and save !
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| Economy |
| Feeling the pain of a $12.25 minimum wage |
| 2015-04-11 |
| [CBSNEWS] With cities such as Seattle phasing in higher minimum wages, one city has already had a taste of a $12.25 hour baseline rate, and the experience hasn't been all that painless. After voter approval, Oakland, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, a neighbor to the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... , boosted its minimum wage by more than one-third to $12.25 an hour on March 1. With one month of higher wages under their belts, 223 businesses provided feedback on their experiences to the Employment Policies Institute, a fiscally conservative think tank. The experiences haven't been entirely positive as more than one-quarter of respondents said they're somewhat or very likely to shut down as a response to the new wage law. Almost half of businesses have increased prices to cope, while another one-third said they've reduced employee hours or their hours of operation to meet the higher costs. The study could serve as a barometer for other cities that are considering boosting the minimum wage, the EPI said. "The effect is going to be on the employees," said Muriel Sterling, the owner of a small Oakland-based child care business, on a conference call to discuss the study. "People are [letting] employees go and increasing the duties of the employees present." She added, "It's a bad situation." To be sure, 70 percent of businesses that responded were small employers with fewer than 15 employees, and those smaller businesses may be less capable of absorbing higher labor costs than larger corporations. Some Oakland restaurants have boosted prices by as much as 20 percent as a result, The San Francisco Chronicle reported last month. Others have added a mandatory service charge to help cover the higher costs. That's causing some restaurant owners to worry that they'll lose customers to competing restaurants in other towns. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... minimum wage hikes remain popular with voters and politicians. Three-quarters of Americans support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 by 2020. In January, 21 states raised their minimum wages, benefiting more than 3.1 million workers. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #12 ...the real rate of inflation or the fake one the Feds use to keep their 'inflation adjusted' pensions from expanding like a exploding nova? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-04-11 18:53 |
| #11 Why not index the Federal minimum wage to annual inflation. Should basically zero out. |
| Posted by: Vernal Spavins7649 2015-04-11 16:38 |
| #10 Further, I understand a lot of union contracts have minimum wage multipliers embedded in them. My Dad the Teamster Terminator used this a lot. My understanding is that such clauses are exceedingly rare and a minimum wage raised is just that. Now, however it does lead to wage compression which is either A. Good B. Bad So pay more for the same shit, but maybe the guy across the counter buys another carton of Winstons per year, all the while the junior assistant night manager watches and considers stuff. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2015-04-11 14:26 |
| #9 It's called Supply and Demand. Flood the labor market and you drive down wages. Minimum wage is just a patch to cover the damage caused by that act. H/T Powerline - The first “great wave” of U.S. immigration took place from roughly 1880 to 1930. During this time, according to the Census Bureau, the foreign-born population doubled from about 6.7 million to 14.2 million people. Changes were then made to immigration law to reduce admissions, decreasing the foreign-born population until it fell to about 9.6 million by 1970. Meanwhile, during this low-immigration period, real median compensation for U.S. workers surged, increasing more than 90 percent from 1948 to 1973…. In the 1960s, Congress lifted immigration caps and ushered in a “second great wave.” The foreign-born population more than quadrupled, to more than 40 million today. This ongoing wave coincides with a period of middle-class contraction. The Pew Research Center reports: “The share of adults who live in middle-income households has eroded over time, from 61% in 1970 to 51% in 2013.” Harvard economist George Borjas has estimated that high immigration from 1980 to 2000 reduced the wages of lower-skilled U.S. workers by 7.4 percent — a stunning drop — with particularly painful reductions for African American workers. Weekly earnings today are lower than they were in 1973. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-04-11 10:42 |
| #8 Raising minimum wage also raises all the other wages between the old and new minima. Further, I understand a lot of union contracts have minimum wage multipliers embedded in them. Eventually the whole manpower cost structure shifts upward. Prices go up. Workers have more money to spend though, so once everything shakes out, we might be back where we started (as long as government outlaws automation.) There is one big exception to that - since income taxes are 'progressive', inflation of the wage structure increases government tax revenues by MORE than the wage increase. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2015-04-11 10:26 |
| #7 Oh! The government will always just print more money! That's how economics works. |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 2015-04-11 09:55 |
| #6 BP! To the re-education fun camp wih you! sined: Hysterical Prog |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 2015-04-11 09:53 |
| #5 Central planning has zero chance of working. Why? You can only plan yourself. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2015-04-11 09:45 |
| #4 Hell raise it to 25 dollars an hour. Central Planning(tm) should work at least once through sheer chance. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-04-11 09:22 |
| #3 All your Starbucks will go out of business. Or get robots. $5.00 coffee is not for me. I go to 'Quick Trip' or buy online and save ! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2015-04-11 05:42 |
| #2 All your Starbucks will go out of business. Or get robots. Discussing race relations with a robot might actually be an improvement. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-04-11 05:23 |
| #1 Just wait until it hits $15/h. All your Starbucks will go out of business. Or get robots. Either way... the people that actually need the minimum wage jobs are fucked. Enjoy your progressive paradise!! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2015-04-11 01:18 |