The minimum wage problem

[Radical Edward]

Let's pretend for a moment that servers do make minimum wage. They don't, they make like $2.00/hr, but let's pretend they do. In my state that's $7.25/hr X 40 hours = $290 a week. Now let's take off $75 for taxes, that's a generous $215 a week to work with or $860 a month. If I rent out my 2 bedroom basement apartment in Nowhere, Alabama, for the average local going rate of $600 a month, that server now has $260 a month left for gas, groceries, lights, water, car payment, insurance, healthcare, clothes/shoes (good non-skid sneakers ain't cheap), childcare, prescription meds, and literally WHATEVER ELSE is happening in their life. All of this for the privilige of being yelled at, whistled at, hit on, and smelling like grease 8 hours a day.

I know someone who actually threw a cheeseburger at a cashier. So all I'm saying is, if they can get unemployment benefits and be in the same crappy situation but without the yelling, whistling, and grease... I think we'd all make the same choice. It isn't that people don't want to work, it's that it's hard to get motivated for a job where you know you're going to be abused all day and come home exhausted to your damp, crickety basement hellhole and STILL not be able to pay your bills.

During the year 2017 I made $9,000 all year. That was my whole income. I ate Ramen noodles and drank tap water until I was actually anemic. I donated plasma so I could have gas money to get to my job. I remember sitting in my living room floor and crying because I'd had to buy cheap food for my dogs and no groceries, and the furnace in my house and just broken and it's really hard to be both hungry AND cold, and I was really angry that I couldn't kill myself because then who was going to take care of my dogs? And all the while, I WAS EMPLOYED. I was busting my butt every day at work, and I was still not able to afford to live.

Anyway, that's why restaurants can't get any help. Staying home and being broke is better than working all day at a miserable job and still being broke. I'm not saying that a $15/hr minimum wage would solve everything, but something is going to have to give because the peasants are going to fucking revolt at some point.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, glad I could clear this up for everyone.

[Jaglavak]

Yuppers!

Few things say 'the US economy is broken' more than this (https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/opinions/united-shades-the-wealth-gap-kamau-bell)

As many of us excitedly toss off our masks, freshly vaccinated (or freshly faking being vaccinated), and in a hurry to get back to "normal," there is something decidedly "not normal" going on. We're in an era of historic job loss, and yet there are jobs available. Except it looks like no one wants them.

These are the kind of jobs that usually aren't hard to fill ... or at least the kind of jobs that people have no other choice but to take. I'm talking about fast-food gigs, and the entry-level positions that traditionally can fill quickly with just a "Help Wanted" sign.

But right now, so few people seem interested in these types of roles that IHOP hosted a "National Recruiting Day" in many locations, and Taco Bell made it easier for applicants to interview from their car. A McDonald's in Florida is said to have even offered people $50 -- not as a "hiring bonus," but just to show up for the interview.

Also, if your income was that low last year, you probably qualify for a full package of grants & student loans to go to school. You'd still have to work nearly full time and you'd probably starve to death, but its an opportunity that will evaporate if you get a raise. Something to think about...

[fucktard loser]

pAN00Z-sYTI


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[Radical Edward]

I never left the pile.

[George Kaplin]

I literally don’t know shit about economics so this may be a really stupid question but, if the minimum wage goes up from $7 to $15 then won’t goods become more expensive and basically cancel out the benefits? Like, if you own a pet store or whatever and you sell your dog food for $10 each but then your staffing costs double, then you’re going to need to charge more for your dog food and stuff to cover the wages. And if everyone’s doing that then the people getting $15p/h won’t be able to buy any more stuff than they used to. So... what stops that happening?

[Solfy]

It's complicated and popular topic of study in economics. The fact that is is so complicated is a large part of why it's such a hotly debated issue - you can't know the ultimate effects until you enact it, at which point Pandora's box is wide open.
There's a really good summary here (https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-testimony-feb-2019/) if you'd like to read more, though I acknowledge that it's written from a point of advocating for a minimum wage increase. A counterpoint can be found here (https://www.cato.org/commentary/case-against-15-federal-minimum-wage-qa).

To your point, yes, it's likely that the price of goods will rise to some extent to cover the additional wages given to employees. But at the same time, by putting more money in the hands of more people, you increase the amount of buying in the economy, and with more things being bought the prices don't have to go up as much to accommodate the wage hike. This is a very simplified example - you also have to consider how/where people making the new minimum wage will be spending their additional money and how it flows through the economy, how resulting changes in hiring affect people at different socio-economic levels, etc. Labor is only one component of the cost of doing business and the other costs shouldn't change, so it's not like a doubling in wages will result in a doubling of prices.

If I may generalize, the two biggest arguments are that putting more money into the hands of poor people stimulates economic activity, which is good. But making business owners pay people more leads to higher unemployment, which is bad.

In my professional life I've been hearing complaining from several corners about the current pandemic assistance situation leading to worker shortages. "We pay competitive wages but no one wants to work!" they gripe. To which I never don't think "Then your wages aren't as competitive as you think." Instead of having to compete against Other Company down the street paying nearly the same wage, now they're competing against unemployment designed to help people who couldn't work even if they wanted to. People just want to get the pandemic over and end the relief payments and get back to the good old days of being able to use desperate people for cheap labor.

[BJMoose]

Keep in mind, too, that most people making minimum wage are limited to 30 hours per week so the employer doesn't have to cough up benefits like paid vacation and sick leave, and health insurance. It isn't easy being a "lucky ducky".

[BeeGee]

In a place like Austin, $600 would get you a bedroom in a four bedroom house that you'd share with two students who are on their way to a much better life and a psycho one of them picked up on 6th St. one night. I don't know anyone who lives on minimum wage alone. I've been a waitress, bartender, pizza deliverer, counter person, and temp staffer during the lean times. Working six days a week was a way of life for me for a very long time. I have no patience for people who are rude or dismissive of the average PWOT: Person Waiting on Them. Behind the register at 7-11, the counter at FedEx, the bar at the Mockingbird Saloon, or even the guy at Spectrum who wants me to disconnect the modem for the power source and wait 2 minutes. Put down your phone (well, not when you're on with Spectrum), look them in the eye, and interact. It costs nothing and might make someone else feel a little less like a meaningless cog.

I have no use for non-tippers. If you don't want to tip, a. stay home, b. eat out where there's counter service, and/or c. move somewhere where the culture isn't based on tipping servers.

[Inna Minnit]

Keep in mind, too, that most people making minimum wage are limited to 30 hours per week so the employer doesn't have to cough up benefits like paid vacation and sick leave, and health insurance. It isn't easy being a "lucky ducky".

30 hrs if you are lucky, and often you can't count on the hours that you do get.

When I worked for a grocery store, I was one of the full time cashiers. I was union. I didn't have the same schedule from day to day much less week to week. I never understood why they wanted to reinvent the wheel weekly.

I asked for vacation like a month ahead, bought concert tickets etc. They don't approve ahead, the schedule comes out on Thursday. I told them, I will be gone these days, do with that what you will.

One of the other things people are speculating as to the shortage of food service workers, is that these were "essential" and were subject to the brunt of the pandemic. There is some concern that many of those workers are dead or disabled.

[Radical Edward]

I literally don’t know shit about economics so this may be a really stupid question but, if the minimum wage goes up from $7 to $15 then won’t goods become more expensive and basically cancel out the benefits? Like, if you own a pet store or whatever and you sell your dog food for $10 each but then your staffing costs double, then you’re going to need to charge more for your dog food and stuff to cover the wages. And if everyone’s doing that then the people getting $15p/h won’t be able to buy any more stuff than they used to. So... what stops that happening?

The thing is, the cost of goods and services will go up regardless of what minimum wage actually is. Our minimum wage has been $7.25/hr since 2009, and in that time pretty much everything has become more expensive, but people aren't making more money.

But also, it's not like you have to raise prices by $15 per item to compensate for paying your employees that much. A few cents per item would suffice for most industries, and I'd gladly pay a few cents more for everything if the person ringing me up didn't have to sell her bodily fluids for gas money.

[Inna Minnit]

And $15 isn't a live-able wage. At least it's not here. It's just less abject poverty.

[What Exit?]

And $15 isn't a live-able wage. At least it's not here. It's just less abject poverty.

It varies by part of country. In NJ it is "share an apartment" or "live at home" money. But in parts of more states it is a livable wage.

Thing is $15/hr in NJ should push up other wages and will help those currently not making very much. It will also wipe out more fast food jobs, but those are the ones that can't be filled right now. So is it really a loss?

[Solfy]

Keep in mind, too, that most people making minimum wage are limited to 30 hours per week so the employer doesn't have to cough up benefits like paid vacation and sick leave, and health insurance. It isn't easy being a "lucky ducky".

Funny how the same people decrying the inability of small businesses to eat the added costs of a wage increase don't have a problem expecting those same small businesses to find a way to offer health care benefits.

When I worked for a grocery store, I was one of the full time cashiers. I was union. I didn't have the same schedule from day to day much less week to week. I never understood why they wanted to reinvent the wheel weekly.
When I worked retail, one place notoriously bad about scheduling with any sort of advance notice supposedly did it to make it hard for people to swap shifts. I could never figure that out - as long as the shifts were covered, who cares who worked when? Let the workers swap as they will. Heaven forbid we make it possible for the drones to have any sort of life outside ringing veggies at a fruit market.

[Radical Edward]

And $15 isn't a live-able wage. At least it's not here. It's just less abject poverty.

It varies by part of country. In NJ it is "share an apartment" or "live at home" money. But in parts of more states it is a livable wage.

Thing is $15/hr in NJ should push up other wages and will help those currently not making very much. It will also wipe out more fast food jobs, but those are the ones that can't be filled right now. So is it really a loss?

Here it's a decent amount of money if you're careful. I make $15/hr right now and I am mostly ok. I am not able to set anything back for savings, and every time a disaster strikes (most often broken car or appliance) I'm right back in the hole, but most weeks I can buy decent dog and cat food, some groceries, and keep my lights and internet on. I have crappy ACA health insurance, but my work does offer an IRA and life insurance.

A big difference is that in retail and fast food, corporate often keeps workers from getting 40 hours a week. Even at $15/hr, if they still only give you 15 hours a week you are fucked. They do this to keep from having to offer people any insurance or retirement benefits.

I do think raising the minimum wage would help some people, but I also think we need to engage in a huge cultural shift:

- insurance and retirement no longer tied to employment
- full time hours as the default option in most industries
- servers should be paid the same as the rest of the staff, and tipping should die a horrible death

[thorny locust]

[QUOTE=What Exit?;1693649]

I do think raising the minimum wage would help some people, but I also think we need to engage in a huge cultural shift:

- insurance and retirement no longer tied to employment
- full time hours as the default option in most industries
- servers should be paid the same as the rest of the staff, and tipping should die a horrible death

And also, should stop treating people like shit. That includes those of the bosses who do so, and also those of the customers who do, and also the people who set up how the work is done.

[Jaglavak]

When I worked for a grocery store, I was one of the full time cashiers. I was union. I didn't have the same schedule from day to day much less week to week. I never understood why they wanted to reinvent the wheel weekly.
When I worked retail, one place notoriously bad about scheduling with any sort of advance notice supposedly did it to make it hard for people to swap shifts. I could never figure that out - as long as the shifts were covered, who cares who worked when?

Management doesn't want people to have a second job. Then they would have to coordinate around everyone's second schedule. Worse yet, the other job might pay better. And then there's the nightmare scenario, where the other job offers training and a path to advancement and a future. How are they going to compete against that? Answer; don't. Just make it nearly impossible to have a second gig, but do it in a plausibly deniable way.

[Inna Minnit]

How are they going to compete against that? Answer; don't. Just make it nearly impossible to have a second gig, but do it in a plausibly deniable way.

Also tell them how crap they are and how lucky they are to have a job. Tell them you are family. So they never feel like they can do better.

[Jaglavak]

Oh yeah. They hire shrinks. Some years ago there was a derp BBQ pit thread by a guy who worked at Walmart. IIRC he took a second job and was unable to accomodate the random schedule changes.

The response was to put him on probation and send him home for the day. And an essay was due on his boss's desk the next morning about why he was grateful to have a job at Walmart. As I recall he was planning to write something far more colorful. But my google-fu isn't happening today.

Walmart may be putting on a friendlier face today but I think we can believe its not by choice. And there are legions of other users out there right behind them. The whole foot-on-the-neck approach was codified decades ago by the soulless undead creatures of the Business Roundtable at a pivotal meeting where the goals were evaluated and justified on the alter of profit and profit only.

[Jaglavak]

Linky (www.ralphgomory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Business-Roundtable-1997.pdf)

The Business Roundtable Statement On Corporate Governance September 1997

I. Introduction:
The Business Roundtable wishes to emphasize that the principal objective of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners...

...There has been much debate in corporate governance literature about the parties to whom directors owe a duty of loyalty and in whose interest the corporation should be managed. Some say corporations should be managed purely in the interests of stockholders or, more precisely, in the interests of its present and future stockholders over the long-term. Others claim that directors should also take into account the inter- ests of other “stakeholders” such as employees, customers, suppliers, creditors and the community...

...In The Business Roundtable’s view, the paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corpo- ration’s stockholders; the interests of other stakeholders are relevant as a derivative of the duty to stockholders. The notion that the board must somehow balance the interests of stockholders against the interests of other stakeholders fundamentally misconstrues the role of directors. It is, moreover, an unworkable notion because it would leave the board with no criterion for resolving conflicts between interests of stockholders and of other stakeholders or among different groups of stakeholders.

In earlier decades it was widely acknowledged that corporations existed to serve customers and the community as well as shareholders. Since then, these comments have basically been taken among corporations as carte blanche justification for laser focus on shareholders only, to the limit of the law.

[Jaglavak]

Then in 2019 in an attempt to hang a smiley face on things, the undead creatures put out a new statement on corporate governance. I'll let the Harvard Law School cover this one:

Six Reasons We Don’t Trust the New “Stakeholder” Promise from the Business Roundtable (https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/09/02/six-reasons-we-dont-trust-the-new-stakeholder-promise-from-the-business-roundtable/)

While we're at it, let's go ahead and add a seventh reason. Just a few days later, Wall Street drills Costco stock because it's paying workers $2 more an hour during COVID-19. (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-street-drills-costco-stock-because-its-paying-workers-2-more-an-hour-during-covid-19-172507787.html) Way to illustrate that groundswell of sentiment, guys. And as we all know, the prospect of a hit to stock price is the perfect excuse for any CEO to keep wages low. And the wheels go round and round.

This is the group of people who get taxed at 15%. This is the one and only group who was not asked to give up something during the Covid crisis. This is the group who was made whole during the 2009 crash, which they entirely engineered and did their level best to profit from. This is the group who is being made beyond wealthy now with rivers of free money straight from the Fed. These are the assholes who have every intention of riding this country to the bottom. The kind who would rather be royalty in hell than a harpist in heaven.

[mwm]

The past year and some change (well, really, the past 5 years and some change) have really knocked me for a loop, as far as my beliefs. I've always been fairly conservative/libertarian, but the previous doofus-in-chief and his cult just sickened me. Then the pandemic hit and really made me start rethinking myself. Lately, I've been thinking about the minimum wage thing and it's just so complicated and I still don't know what I think.
I still bristle somewhat at a national or even state-wide minimum wage, because a wage that would be impossible to live on in one location could be a great wage elsewhere. Our local CoL is fairly low here, so $15/hr is enough to live on and have a full life. $10-$12/hr is about the minimum to get by. Go two hours to the north, and $15/hr will have you just scratching by.
On the flipside, though, when I first started working, in HS, I worked retail. I was hired on at minimum wage but was a good deal above minimum wage within about 6 months. This was as a part-time, teenage employee, working nights, weekends, and summers while in school. When I left that job a couple years later because I graduated and moved away for college, I was 150%+ of minimum wage. I also had money in a profit-share program the chain offered. A person starting out at minimum wage now, or a person having to go to it for whatever reason -- loss of job, unable to work otherwise, etc. would not see that sort of treatment. I don't know what's happened in the ~30 years since then, but I don't like it.
The rallying cry of the Trumpers seems to be "people are lazy and won't work because the government is giving them money to stay home". I just don't believe that. I'm sure there are some people who are staying home because that's easier but unemployment doesn't work that way in the long-term, so it's not a good game to play. There are some who are doing it because the pay from unemployment is better than the jobs being offered. That speaks more about the jobs than the people. I think a big part of it is actually people who were working two or three jobs to get buy just stopped for whatever reason. When they were forced to stop working multiple jobs because of Covid19, they found ways to get by. Now that things are 'going back to normal', they don't want to return to the normal that was them having to work every waking hour. I know several people who have said as much and I can't blame them.

I just don't know what the answer is.

[Radical Edward]

I've had some other thoughts.

1. as mwm says, "normal" wasn't great to begin with and people don't want to go back

2. you can't spend a year and a half telling people they're heroes and then expect them to go right back to the same abuse. Now that they've been treated as disposable because people couldn't give up their fast food for a while to literally save lives, they are salty enough to not go back.

3. service workers were the ones hit hardest - they were never "heroes" at all, they were hostages who would get fired if they chose not to come to work because of fear of COVID. So their option was to stay at home and be destitute but safe, or work for food and rent and risk death. The stimulus bills didn't touch these people's problems; they were less than a band-aid and more of sticking a square of toilet paper on a sucking chest wound.

4. A lot of the people who would normally fill these positions may just honestly not have survived the pandemic. They are dead. Their colleagues, who saw up close what was happening, have noped out. It's possible that, especially in the hardest hit areas, we haven't fully realized the population loss that has taken place.

5. The pandemic may have been a low-key benefit to wage earners overall, because now that they are fewer and farther between they will have more bargaining power. Maybe it's time for unions to make a comeback. Don't forget that the Black Death was great for Europe's economy. A third of all the laborers were dead, so the ones left could get better deals. Morbid but true.

[Jaglavak]

6. The lockdown threw a lot of low paid folks out of work suddenly. Many of these resourceful and suddenly motivated individuals found other gigs and aren't exactly eager to return. Selling stuff on eBay, ads on your Youtube channel, start a small gardening service, college, trade school, new career, etc. They found another way to get by. Good luck getting them back.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Meanwhile, in Norway

I, an American citizen, earn 178 NOK per hour. At McDonald's. As the lowest ranking employee they have.

This works out to 21 dollars an hour US.

McDonald's is a wildly profitable business with tons of customers. This US corporation employs me and people more expensive than me all day long. About 120 employees and managers at this one store.

Compared to what I was making in the USA, which was 8 dollars as a worker and 9 dollars as a manager, I am making more than twice as much money. For folks making the actual minimum wage, it's basically triple the pay.

I get extra pay on overnight shifts, weekends, and holidays, which there are many. There are many calendar days per year when I earn double time, which would be 40+ dollars an hour.

I spend about 1000 kroners a week on groceries for me and my wife and our kid, so about what I earn in a given work shift, if the shift is 6 hours long. That's about 120 bucks. In the states, working a full shift would bring me home something like 50 dollars worth of pay, after taxes. Essentially, I need to work a bit over twice as many hours in the states to earn the same money as I get here.

It costs me about 50 dollars to fill my gas tank.

The mortgage payment I make is cheaper than my apartment rent was in the States. Our house costs about 300,000 US dollars. My apartment in the US was a 2 bedroom for 750 a month split 2 ways with a roommate.

So, housing is cheaper per month. Fuel is ever so slightly more expensive, but gas is ultra cheap in the USA compared to most places worldwide, so I am not doing badly here either. Groceries are more affordable, to the tune of half as many work hours needed.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/

Here is a comparison between the prices of Big Macs between countries.

In Norway, a Big Mac costs about 6 bucks, which is roughly 17 minutes worth of my time.

In the USA, that chart says 5.66 dollars per hour, which would be most of your hour.

Is Norway that strange? No, because places like Canada and Australia and the UK and many other comparable liberal democracies have McDonald's as well, and they pay their workers close to 15 dollars an hour as well. Look at the price of their Big Macs.

So, if Norway pays their workers close to three times as much, and other nations pay at least twice as much, as the USA, why aren't the Big Macs two to three times more expensive?

Why does it cost me fewer hours of labor, or a lower percentage of my income, to purchase the food?

The reason is because the cost of labor is not the cost of the product.

In these businesses, in the USA for example, labor can be a good quarter of the price of the product. The rest is taken up with insurance, power, phone bills, property taxes, cost of getting food items wholesale, paying for oil and trash pickup, and so on and so forth.

When you raise the cost of labor, you are raising a percentage of the cost of the product that is far less than 100 percent.

Instead, you are raising what can be 25 percent of the cost of the product.

So, if a Big Mac costs 5 dollars, the labor on that Big Mac is 1.25.

If you literally double the cost of labor, by giving everyone 200 percent of the money you were paying them, the maximum cost of the Big Mac is now 6.25.

However, a very large portion of the population, the folks working for minimum wages or near that level, suddenly has about twice their income or so.

Which increases demand.

You see, when I worked at pizza places or fast food joints in the States, I couldnt afford to eat there every day. I'd have to get the dollar hamburger, not the Big Mac. I couldn't afford a pizza from the shop I worked at, it would be almost 2 hours worth of labor to pay for it. I can't give up a quarter of my daily income for a single pizza.

Now imagine millions of people just like me, with twice as much spending money in their pockets.

Do you think maybe, just maybe, demand for products will increase?

All the folks that couldn't afford shit suddenly can, and they've been starving themselves of Pizza Hut and Wendy's and KFC and McDonald's because they couldn't afford that and good groceries at the same time.

So what do people do with money they can afford to spend? They spend it.

Sure, the product is now 25 percent more expensive than before. But they have 200 to 250 percent more income. (Or 300, in my case)

What's more affordable? A Big Mac in the States, when making minimum wage? Or a Big Mac in Norway, when making the absolute industry minimum, negotiated by my Union?

The answer is, having more money makes everything more affordable.

Yes, prices do go up. Slightly. Negligibly. They go up anyway, if you have not noticed. Keeping minimum wages as low as possible didn't stop all the other prices from rising over the past couple decades.

If you do not increase income levels, while prices rise, people will necessarily become poorer. People will necessarily spend less money. It will necessarily reduce demand and cause economic problems. Those problems are literally unavoidable.

It's simple math. The less you earn, the more expensive everything is. The more you earn, the cheaper everything is.

The price of labor and the cost of goods would only, ever go up at the same rate if the business only had one expense: labor.

No other costs of doing business. No shop upkeep, no stock to purchase, no rent to pay, no electricity.

And even in that scenario, the price for that good would go up exactly at the same level as the cost of labor, not more. You wouldn't be getting poorer, the same amount of your additional money would go to labor cost, and you would break even. That's the absolute worst case scenario, which is not realistic for 99.99 percent of all business.

If minimum wage laws applied to your kid's private babysitter, then yes. It could cost you double. For all other businesses, in other words, for essentially all your other expenses you ever have, the increased cost is offset by higher wages, and thensome.

That being said, the higher your income is right now, the smaller a percentage of your income being increased you are likely to see, so some labor-heavy services (like ordering pizza for delivery to your home) will probably increase faster than your income bump. If you're already very far from earning the minimum wage, that is.

And then, it might go up 25 percent. For one luxury service you don't need, and can easily bypass if you're feeling frugal.

And in return, this person doesn't actually need to earn tips for a living. Which cancels out the increase in price.

Are you seeing it now?

I was a manager at a Pizza Hut. I know how much labor cost, as a percentage of our total sales.

When we sold 7,000 dollars worth of food in a given day, I was not spending 700 hours of labor, people. I might have needed 20 people to work 7 hour shifts that day, rounded UP to 10 dollars an hour to account for managers getting paid more, from early morning to after midnight, which was about 1400 dollars.

Or 20 percent.

That means I could literally double the amount I paid my employees, INCLUDING hourly-rate managers, and the price of a 10 dollar pizza would become....

12 dollars.

Because I was already only spending 2 bucks per pizza on labor.

If you double that, that's two extra bucks. A 12 dollar pie.

So, if millions of people in the USA suddenly have twice as much income, do you think maybe Pizza Hut would sell more pizzas?

More pizzas per hour means the cost of labor is an even lower percentage than usual. Labor cost is high when there are few customers and low demand for products.

Increase your customer base by 50 percent, by accounting for all these low wage people earning more money and now spending it.

The bump in labor cost doesn't even have to be the full 20 percent now, to cover the additional wages. Now, because we're selling more shit, we are more cost effective. I have more sales for the same number of hours of work, which means, ladies and gentlemen, the labor cost drops as a percentage, as income levels rise.

That is how I get paid three times as much as you, and my burger is a half a dollar more expensive.

It's because not only does labor and price not both increase in number at the same 1:1 ratio, but also because they don't even increase evenly.

Increased demand and economic activity necessarily drops the overall percentage of labor cost, because a worker making 60 hamburgers an hour costs the same as one making 30 hamburgers an hour.

Businesses are always more efficient and profitable when they have more customers. So labor drops as a percentage of the overall cost.

Gotta walk away from this post, but having worked in fast food service since I was 15, and being almost 38, in two different countries, as both laborer and manager, and having spent a lot of time comparing different wages and pricing levels between countries, this is what I know about how badly the United States is screwing you.

And it is precisely because the Senators and Congress critters you elect keep minimum wages stagnant and bust up unions, to make sure you work for starvation wages.

See, if you don't make that extra 7 bucks an hour, that is money that can line the pockets of Papa John Schnatter.

He would rather have that 7 dollars than pay it to you.

Which is why, you want a union that will say, you won't get any profits at all due to having no workers unless you pay us 15.

And then, he stays a rich billionaire, and his business does gangbusters, and you don't starve.

Edit: see image (https://i.imgur.com/4GZyfrB.png) in case above link stops working or hides behind a pay wall.

[expectopatronum]

my version, simplified:

:violence: "If you don't like shitty customers/low wages/poor working conditions/working a shitty job to make less money than you would staying home, which allows you to actually be able to comfortably pay your bills, get another job!"
:science: "Ok"
*restaurant closes due to lack of staff*
:raeg:


and scene.

[fucktard loser]

This will be the inevitable outcome of the chicken sandwich wars.
Xe235zBMUW8

[JackieLikesVariety]

Maybe it's time for unions to make a comeback.

FUCK YES :fist:


Askthepizzaguy

how'd you do it? how'd you get to Norway?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Maybe it's time for unions to make a comeback.FUCK YES :fist:


@Askthepizzaguy (https://www.giraffeboards.com/member.php?u=4051)

how'd you do it? how'd you get to Norway?

Not this website specifically, but for the past 12 years I've been playing a forum based parlor game "werewolf" or "mafia" or... whatever. There's all sorts of names for it. It's a game where 7 to dozens to 100+ players get together and basically try to figure out who is bullshitting them this time.

So that lets me meet people from all over the world, to some extent. At least, get to know them.

And in 2015 at a big meet-up between like a hundred of these forums, there was a tournament sort of event, and when I was done playing I met what would be my wife in the spectator chat.

Primarily because the wages and benefits are so poor in the USA by comparison, and because healthcare and education are vastly more inexpensive, and because my wife makes more than me, and would earn less money in the States, I made the call to leave the United States.

Now I've been married almost five years, and I have an 18 month old son and a daughter due in August.

My Norwegian is terrible and not improving very quickly. I miss a lot of the States, primarily the language, the climate, and the food. But I really do not miss the government.

Speaking of which: (politics)

Wages are just one of several dozen categories of measure you could compare Norway's government favorably against the performance of the US government. Very quickly off the top of my head: Only one deadly mass shooting ever, instances of murder in the low double digits per year (individual instances), a rate which is 10 to 16 times lower than the USA over the past several years. Low rates of property crime or violent crime. Ultra low criminal recidivism rates, the lowest recorded in the world. The government spends less per capita on prisoners because the prison stays are shorter and more rehabilitative. The police recently went 10 years without shooting a single person. Violence against the police is unheard of here. Police brutality is unheard of here. Norway takes in ten times as many refugees per capita as the United States does. College tuition is free, you get a slight hike in your income taxes after you graduate. You can never go bankrupt due to college debts. Medical care is vastly cheaper at the point of service, and if your income levels are low enough, you can pay nothing. You can never go into medical bankruptcy here. Wages, as I mentioned, are much stronger than those in the USA, unless you are in the top 20 percent of income levels, and then the gap between the rich and the poor isn't quite so large. We get paid paternity leave and maternity leave, lots of sick days, lots of vacation time that is paid. The press is rated as more free than the US press, the democracy is rated as more representative of the will of the people (no such thing as gerrymandering here, for example). The government is rated as less corrupt than the US government. The Norwegian government has a much better track record on issues of human rights. The Norwegian government has a generous state pension system which guarantees you can't lose your pension if the stock market crashes or your employer goes bankrupt. It's guaranteed by the government.

And how stable and secure is the funding of this government?

Rather than trillions of dollars of national debt added to the pile each year, Norway's budget is balanced and the nation carries no significant long term debts. The government owns a sovereign wealth fund that saves and reinvests a portion of the nation's oil industry profits, and that fund is now worth 1.3 trillion dollars in assets, and that money is held in trust for the Norwegian people, similar to how Alaskans get a piece of the Alaskan drilling. So, every Norwegian citizen is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think it's like 200k or something like that, but I am going by memory. This is one of the reasons why, pandemic or not, economic troubles or not, all of the Norwegian government's bills get paid every year, and there is no austerity or painful funding cuts due to fiscal mismanagement. That fund continues to grow because the state's budget is balanced so the fund just keeps getting added to.

While the US oil industry isn't quite at the same level of barrels of oil produced per capita, it is one of several industries that the world's largest economy could be taxing in order to create a balanced US budget and a sovereign wealth fund for US citizens.

Norway has oil and timber, the USA is a much more vast territory with more natural resources. US music, TV shows, movies, products, and businesses are exported worldwide. There's stuff you can tax to reproduce what Norway does. It might mean taxing several industries instead of one, but the world's biggest economy can obviously afford it.

Anything Norway can do, the US could easily do. There's no magic involved, just math and good management.

If we can afford to spend X trillions of dollars on tax breaks for billionaires without budget offsets, and X trillions of dollars on foreign wars, I am pretty sure we could instead be using that money to fund the same basic levels of government service and social safety nets seen in basically every other liberal democracy with an advanced economy on Earth.

That's what I think.

There is much I miss about the USA. It's everything I knew.

Here, my son and daughter will almost always earn far more money, never worry about how they will pay for schooling, never, ever have to worry about how to pay for healthcare. They will never go bankrupt really for any reason, unless they start a business that goes bankrupt.

They will almost certainly never experience a school shooting. Only one has ever happened here, and no one was harmed. They will never wake up to another mass shooting every week. Everyone here except the super old has some conversational level of English skill, as it is a required subject for school age kids.

They will never experience Wage Theft, which is the single largest dollar amount of property crime committed in the USA, literally exceeding all burglary, robbery, larceny, and other types of property crime combined.

Here, there is too much union and government oversight for wage theft to ever fly even once. In the USA, my wages and all the wages and even tips of the folks working with my at a pizza joint were being stolen from and improperly reported to the IRS, after we reported the honest numbers to our employer, they were changed by management. So we would pay taxes on tip income never earned, and get less money in gas mileage than we were promised.

Oh, and the parliamentary system means there are like a dozen political parties you can vote for, and even if they don't win majorities, they win seats based on proportional representation.

That means I do not have to vote for Party A in order to ensure Party B doesn't control everything.

I can vote for Party C through L instead, and if there are enough voters to get a seat, I am now represented. This gets rid of the two party system, prevents gerrymandering.

Did I mention elections are publicly funded and that you can't bankroll a candidate and win elections by simply outspending people? That eliminates most of the corruption.

It also eliminates essentially all of the partisan nastiness. You never see politicians lying about or flaming each other here like you do in the States.

...why Bernie keeps harping on and on about places like this... :ohdear:

You know, at one time in my life, I was a voting conservative Republican. Back before the Iraq war, let's say. I had a lot of respect for Bush Sr, for example. I had my reasons. Less of them nowadays.

I do not think I can even convince most liberal/progressive Democrats how much better things can really be. There's a window of realistic that limits the imagination. You have to think everything i am describing is fantasy nonsense: Partisan kool aid. Happy talk that can never be realistic.

Well, I live in Narnia and it's apparently a real place, and Aslan runs the shit out of it. The kooky progressives were right.

What will blow your mind is that the right wing party is currently in power.

By policy, they make Hillary Clinton look like a conservative Republican. That is our right wing. Obviously they haven't torn unions apart, ended taxes for the wealth fund, privatized universal healthcare, privatized college tuition, or privatized our pensions, or privatized our prisons yet.

That makes them left of Democrats. That is Høyre, the Norwegian right wing party. Which makes sense when you compare Eisenhower's Republican platform to the modern Democratic platform on economic issues.

US Democrats are pre-Nixon Republicans. Which means they are sane and capable of running the country very well, respectably. But it also means there is still room to move in a more progressive, FDR like direction, and get some actual progressive liberalism in there.

That's outside what is considered reasonable or possible or plausible in the USA, but since I basically live in Narnia, I know it can be done if people actually tried it out.

Life's been quite a journey. I wouldn't believe a word of anything I just said except that's what I wake up to every day. It makes the "greatest country on Earth" which was a thing I used to believe feel like a third rate country. And it has absolutely no excuse for being that way, because the wealth does exist, and in much greater quantities.

There is a right wing here and they're sharp as a tack, civil, and kind, and the left is the same way right back.

Wackadoodle militia people waving Nazi flags never storm our capitols. People don't drive cars into crowds of political opponents having a rally.

Is this not the most absurd sounding place you've ever heard of? It all sounds completely effing made up.

Meanwhile, most other advanced liberal democracies see Breaking Bad and find it baffling how ANYONE would ever need that much money for medical issues.

The Narnia is the United States, that's the outlier, that's the ridiculous and unrealistic place. I used to think it was normal. Nothing I've described about the USA is even remotely normal. That's the outlier, for a supposedly advanced economy with a representative liberal democracy.

It's only normal because for a good third of a massive continent, that's what normal is to the people living there. It is not average. It is well below average and for no good reason at all.

Sweden does everything we do, and they don't produce a drop of oil. This isn't even hard to replicate.

Might not be able to do it all across the USA, too conservative.

But California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada can band together and reproduce all of this. The Northeast can band together and reproduce all of this. The "blue wall" midwest states could do the same. The East coast can do the same.

A few cooperation agreements between liberal states over a large population and geographic area, and you could pass every policy. Then you just have to worry about the borders with the far right Republican states.

My advice, think smaller and state / region level for trying to pass policy, and think bigger and bolder on what you're trying to do.

Then, when those liberal states produce the same results Norway has, or Australia, or Canada.... you might get Republicans tired of living under such obviously inferior systems and they might want to join these little inter-state cooperative pacts.

Convince em with results. Just replicate the results, and there's not even an ideological argument that can really oppose the policies, because practicality overrules ideology when the results are this much better.

Like I said, I used to be a conservative Republican. And I was wrooooong.

All this stuff sounds like magic tricks. Well, produce these results which are objectively superior and stunningly easy to verify, over a time period of many decades, and I will believe in magic.

If faith healers could cure cancer and heal amputees and make the dead walk again, reliably, testably, verifiably, you would go to one for a good reason. That's a valuable service.

If the "magic" works, reliably and repeatably, testable and observable, it is no longer magic, but science.

That's my attitude, and that's why I went from being a conservative to being a very not conservative. Show me the science, don't just promise me the magic. Show me the money.

Well, I got shown the money. In every sense of the word. And to be honest, that's a lot of real money, really well managed, really accomplishing amazing shit.

[Askthepizzaguy]

As for unions:

Unions are like political parties or political candidates.

A party will not fix all your problems, a candidate that wins an election will not fix all your problems. That is too generic.

It needs to be a specific, well run political party, and a very smart, very hard working candidate.

A union needs to not be corrupt, and it needs to do a very good job. In the USA, unions started getting corrupt, started selling out, started getting affiliated with the mob, and got unreasonable and greedy.

The purpose of your union should not be to screw over everyone besides your union members. It should be regularly purged of bad leaders, liars, corrupt people, and idiots. It should have the purpose of making sure, whatever the cost of living or inflation is, your wages and benefits exceed that rise, and provide you with a comfortable living, not necessarily vast wealth unless the business is actually making a huge profit margin and you provide skills or educated experience that is hard to replace.

Then, yes, a union will help.

Otherwise "a union" will not help more than "a political party" does.

Part of why we gave up on unions in the USA is we stopped caring about the difference between a good, non corrupt, reasonable union, and "a union".

Unions let us down just like political parties and bad leaders did.

Like democracy itself, it takes vigilance to maintain it, and prevent it from going bad.

Good unions are the best thing that ever happened to you.

If you bring bad unions back, you'd probably have been better off just setting wages by raising the federal or state minimum wages.

The specifics matter. Specifics and nuance over generalities, always. Not just in politics and economics, but in every other aspect of life.

[Bob3141592]

A long time ago, the old United States outlawed slavery. One person could no longer own another. But that's the only real possession they outlawed. They did not outlaw inhumane exploitation of others. In the US, they have institutionalized this abuse into the economy. A huge problem is how we interpret capitalism. Capitalism concentrates money into fewer and fewer hands. On the lower end all of people's money has been sucked away from them, and desperate people are set up for exploiting. The US is fine with that, since decency was never a national pastime here. If supporting the disadvantaged was allowed, if paying people what they are worth helped them live a decent life, the flow of wealth to the rich and powerful would slow down. That's blasphemy in the US. It will never happen in the US. Not where money is power and nobody gives a fuck for anyone but themselves.

[Jaglavak]

Underpinning all of the above is a basic fact of human nature. In times of plenty people compete, but in a mostly peaceful way. In lean times the claws come out. (https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/27/africa/violence-war-climate-jebel-sahaba-scn)

OK. 7.8 billion people on a planet of limited resources, plus rapidly oncoming massive climate change, plus rampant plague, equals lean times ahoy. The pie is going to get smaller so people are stepping on each other trying to lock in their slice now. People are people and that's not going to change anytime soon. We're just using different tools to get it done these days, that's all.

[BrickaBracka]

Having money isn't everything.

Not having money...is everything.

I've been in both situations. Poor enough to need the heat left at 55 degrees and put plastic sheeting on the windows, while eating plain pasta from a food pantry box that a friend had to go pick up because the car was broke down. And well off enough to not even remember to check the bank account to see if the paycheck went in before buying something.

In a society where each person seeks their own interest, and where corporations are tools leveraged by those with much to gain even more...this is the end result. Exploited workers.

Without a significant cultural shift - the likes of which isn't possible within our lifetime - your only way out of the minimum wage rut is to either leverage / exploit / lie / skill / "earn" your way up the ladder, steal from others through vaguely dubious legal loopholes the way our millionaires do, or move to another place which actually values humanity.

That's it. Buy into the system if you're able, steal from the system if you're able, or switch systems.

For the record I hate that it boils down to this. And I'm in the top 25% of earners in this country, but considering that the gap between the top 1% and the top 10% is many times larger than the gap between the top 10% and the bottom 90%...that's not saying much. It's like having a C grade. Yes it passes. It's not bad. Many have it worse. But it's no honor roll.

[JackieLikesVariety]

or the past 12 years I've been playing a forum based parlor game "werewolf" or "mafia"

...snip...

there was a tournament sort of event, and when I was done playing I met what would be my wife in the spectator chat.


that is a great story. I am so happy for both of you! :heart:

Without a significant cultural shift - the likes of which isn't possible within our lifetime

I'd like to point out we are capable of HUGE cultural shifts, and fairly quickly too.

we can do better as a society, but we sure have to make it happen.


there are tons of good posts in this thread - good for you, Radical Edward - but a lot of you are depressing the hell out of me (Jag!) because I know you are right. :(

[Radical Edward]

So while we're here, let me tell you guys about some jobs I've had:

I worked at a sandwich shop that rhymes with Wizno's (WE LIKE THA MOON) as a shift manager for $6.00 an hour. SHIFT MANAGER. FOR SIX BUCKS AN HOUR. NO BENEFITS. I was responsible for counting down the register, running reports, training new employees, orders, inventory, getting yelled at by angry customers, making deposits to the bank, and being responsible for what everybody else was doing while on the clock. All of this on top of making sandwiches, doing dishes, mopping floors, trash runs, and all the regular stuff involved with working in a restaurant. For $6.00 an hour. I was 19 years old and hadn't grown the balls to realize that you don't take more responsibility without more money. A couple of the employees were high school kids, one was a college student, and the rest were grown ass adults with kids and mortgages trying to keep their lives together.

I was kitchen manager at Chuck E.'s for $250 a week, salary. I'd usually work about 50 hours, so that's about $5.00/hr. No benefits. Same situation as above, but with pizza instead of sandwiches, which is way grosser. You'd go home and dig flour out of your ears. Also with fewer employees. Regular employees made $5.15/hr and they deliberately hired high school kids so they wouldn't have to offer them more than 15 hours a week.

I was comanager at someplace that has Pizza!Pizza! hot and ready, for $8.50/hr, so I had all of the above responsibilities with hiring and firing powers on top. No benefits. This job was also a 30 minute drive from my house, so whatever extra I earned from the higher wage was eaten up by gas and car maintenance costs. The regular employees at the time made $6.75/hr and each worked about 15 hours. The only full timer besides myself and the other comanager was the dough guy. Most of the employees were college students, but a couple were grown ass adults. One woman had 11 kids and 3 full time jobs. She napped in her car in between.

I also recently worked at a blue and yellow electronics store and a blue and white sporting goods store for $9.00/hr, about 10-20 hours a week, no benefits. I was a regular sales person and customer service specialist, no other powers. The pay was a little better, but this was after an increase in minimum wage. The job was less gross and more fun, but with even fewer opportunities for advancement than the restaurant jobs. There was high turnover because of this, so we were constantly on shift with trainees who were on their first day and didn't know anything, so we'd have to compensate. For many employees this was their second or even third job. Most were college students, but a couple were adults trying to support themselves or their families. Shift lead positions in these stores made around $12/hr, while the general manager was rumored to make six figures.

I could go on. The thing is, we need people in these jobs, but these jobs don't reasonably support people. That's why they can't get people. I don't know what's going to happen, but I figure some shit's going down in the next couple of years.

[fucktard loser]

This is why more people should be taking internships with guillotine makers, these are skills that will be in demand soon.

[Swammerdami]

This is why more people should be taking internships with guillotine makers, these are skills that will be in demand soon.
c2tLje1GHHs

[Solfy]

I could go on. The thing is, we need people in these jobs, but these jobs don't reasonably support people. That's why they can't get people. I don't know what's going to happen, but I figure some shit's going down in the next couple of years.

This is a great summary.

There has to be a tipping point where the cost of churn/turnover for companies makes it worth paying higher salaries, but too many places only look month by month instead of the big picture. This is driven all the way up - the big wigs' bonuses are based on quarterly profits, not on the long-term health of the company.

My first "real" job (not counting making $15/hr as a teenaged church organist - great pay rate, scant hours) was in a convenience store making minimum wage, which was $4.75 at the time. The woman who trained me was a single mother. To be able to work, she had to pay a babysitter $2/hr, which meant she was netting only $3.75/hr before taxes. She and her daughter were supposed to live on that?

I went to college and got an on-campus job. They bragged about how they paid a princely above-minimum salary of $5.15/hr. Then minimum wage was raised to $5.15/hr. They didn't raise our wages, just quit bragging.

My uncle ran his own pizza shop for over a decade. He burnt out after years of hiring people only to have them no show/no call for shifts, frequently being unable to make deliveries because his latest driver disappeared. Again. He had one long-time reliable manager. He caught her stealing from the business and that was the final straw. He sold the pizza shop and got a factory job.

[Jaglavak]

Here's an excellent idea:

The push to penalise big corporations with huge pay gaps (https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210610-the-push-to-penalise-big-corporations-with-huge-pay-gaps)

Many people feel that the gap between a company’s highest and median pay, known as its pay ratio, shouldn’t be sky high – an opinion that’s held around the world and across ideological lines. Increasingly, government officials are taking notice, and subsequently proposing taxes on companies that maintain pay ratios over a certain threshold. These measures, which have been increasing in the past few years, take aim at inequality, and generate revenue to fund vital public services.

As far as I'm concerned the tax should be 1000%. Give them a taste of their own stinking shit.

Of course then there are the usual litany of scum sucking bottom feeders trying to broadcast the usual lame FUD lies. Including this hilarious knee slapper:

...Ani Huang, who leads the Center on Executive Compensation, a Washington, DC-based organisation representing HR executives...believes that because executive compensation is fundamentally market- and performance-based, “increasing taxes based on the ratio of the CEO’s pay to the pay of the median employee is unlikely to change this basic premise” of how companies determine executive pay.

Market and performance based? Oh my aching ribs. Executive pay is ludicrously high because they can, period. If every CEO in the world fell off the planet and were replaced by the second in command, it would be nothing more than a speed bump for corporate profits.

[BrickaBracka]

As far as I'm concerned the tax should be 1000%. Give them a taste of their own stinking shit.


It's a good thing I'm not a superhero. It'd probably be like if Homelander gave a shit for at least the first few months / years until I calmed the hell down.

Tax in this scenario doesn't help...just makes them have to take additional losses to offset their tax liability, meanwhile the CEO still gets the pay. They just push their losses out for a different length of time.

It needs to be straight illegal, akin to wage theft. No accounting work necessary. There's a hard max to CEO and executive pay, and it's relative to median employee pay.

There also ought to be a regulation about median worker pay, and the association with company revenue. To avoid the inevitable fuckery surrounding "losses" and "write offs". Company earns X in yearly revenue? Has Y employees on staff? OK, median pay needs to be in some range as a ratio of X and Y. Give them a range because it will let companies fall onto a spectrum of the ones who give more to the employees, and the ones who give more to .... whatever else they'll be giving to.

Corporations are not people. They should exist to serve people. They are a means to band people together as a company, to provide a legal framework for them to perform work.

IT SHOULD NOT BE A VEHICLE FOR FURTHER ENRICHMENT OF THE WEALTHY. /endrant

[Swammerdami]

I certainly agree that wealth and income inequality is a problem. But I'm not sure the following idea is a good approach.Here's an excellent idea:

The push to penalise big corporations with huge pay gaps (https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210610-the-push-to-penalise-big-corporations-with-huge-pay-gaps)

Many people feel that the gap between a company’s highest and median pay, known as its pay ratio, shouldn’t be sky high – an opinion that’s held around the world and across ideological lines. Increasingly, government officials are taking notice, and subsequently proposing taxes on companies that maintain pay ratios over a certain threshold. These measures, which have been increasing in the past few years, take aim at inequality, and generate revenue to fund vital public services.

...
Market and performance based? Oh my aching ribs. Executive pay is ludicrously high because they can, period. If every CEO in the world fell off the planet and were replaced by the second in command, it would be nothing more than a speed bump for corporate profits.
First note that out-sourcing is increasing and widely deprecated. This law would encourage companies to further out-source low-paying tasks. Trying to include those out-sourced workers in a calculation would be difficult for several reasons.

Second, the one-size-fits-all ignores that companies have different structures and employment profiles. As just one example, high-paid TV personalities could incorporate their creative teams and contract to networks to circumvent the rule.

Playing whack-a-mole by adding a large number of new rules is not as good as taking better advantage of the existing, simpler system. Start by increasing tax rates on corporations and high earners.

Corporations deduct salaries from profit, but can only deduct the first million in each salary. (The detailed rule is more complicated than this.) This seems reasonable, if accompanied with the higher tax rates just mentioned. (Does this rule now apply to stock bonuses, etc.?)