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| Minimum wage increase leads to teenager layoffs in Arizona |
| 2007-02-11 |
| Oh, for the days when Arizona's high school students could roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters or scoop ice cream without worrying about ballot initiatives affecting their earning power. That's certainly not the case under the state's new minimum-wage law that went into effect last month. Some Valley employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much that they're cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees. And teens are among the first workers to go. What is this "cause and effect" you speak of? I don't understand... Companies maintain the new wage was raised to $6.75 per hour from $5.15 per hour to help the breadwinners in working-poor families. Teens typically have other means of support. Mark Messner, owner of Pepi's Pizza in south Phoenix, estimates he has employed more than 2,000 high school students since 1990. But he plans to lay off three teenage workers and decrease hours worked by others. Of his 25-person workforce, roughly 75 percent are in high school. "I've had to go to some of my kids and say, 'Look, my payroll just increased 13 percent,' " he said. " 'Sorry, I don't have any hours for you.' " Ugh--PLEASE don't introduce math into this! This is Feel-Good™ legislation! Messner's monthly cost to train an employee has jumped from $440 to $580 as the turnover rate remains high. "We go to great lengths to hang on to our high school workers, but there are a lot of kids who come in and get one check in their pocket and feel like they're living large and out the door they go," he said. "We never get our return on investment when that happens." Dammit--let's just increase the minimum wage to $20/hr and be done with poverty altogether! It's so obvious! |
| Posted by:Dar |
| #3 "Minimum wage increase leads to teenager layoffs in Arizona" Cause, meet effect. Something socialists never seem to understand. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-02-11 22:16 |
| #2 Some of the best employees, that the grocery chains fight over, are the retarded and mentally slow. This is because the biggest complaint they have with normal kids is that they just don't show up to work. The get the job, sometimes even get trained, then just disappear. The retarded will be there every day, on time, and ready to work. And an employer can do a lot more with a retarded kid who is there, than with a smart kid who isn't. Amusingly, one now-defunct food chain a few years ago was surprised to get a run of normal intelligence teen girls who wanted to work as baggers. That lasted until they found out that the girls were hooking on the side, and would proposition men who would hit on them at "work". Very sneaky. They got away with it for over a year. The store then made the mistake of firing all its baggers when it found out, and the union cashiers were not happy at all having to bag for several weeks until they could hire new ones. The store should have just played dumb, and only fired a bagger if she got busted. A lot of men stopped shopping there, too. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-02-11 17:04 |
| #1 If Hillary gives me $10 million tax-free and a lifelong membership in the same health-care program she gets, I'll vote for her. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-02-11 16:32 |