SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
$15 minimum wage didn't decimate the local economy, after all
Critics would have you believe that upping the minimum wage in restaurants will lead to massive layoffs and closures. But since raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour nearly a year ago, the restaurant industry in New York City has thrived.
I'm a professor with a focus on labor and employment law. My research on the minimum wage Critics would have you believe that upping the minimum wage in restaurants will lead to massive layoffs and closures. But since raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour nearly a year ago, the restaurant industry in New York City has thrived.
I'm a professor with a focus on labor and employment law. My research on the minimum wage suggests a few reasons why this might be true.
The article goes on to explain why the rise in the minimum wage has not been as bad as had been predicted; in fact, it claims the both restaurant revenue and employment are up.
However, these claims are contradicted by 2 Anonymous Coward submissions, which could be from the same AC but we cannot tell, of the same story from the New York Post:
As predicted, the $15 wage is killing jobs all across the city
https://nypost.com/2019/09/30/as-predicted-the-15-wage-is-killing-jobs-all-across-the-city/
Just as predicted, the $15 minimum wage is killing vulnerable city small businesses, with the low-margin restaurant industry one of the hardest-hit as it also faces a separate mandatory wage hike for tipped staffers.
In Sunday's Post, Jennifer Gould Keil reported on the death of Gabriela's Restaurant and Tequila Bar — closing after 25 years. It struggled all year to find a way out, gradually laying off most non-tipped employees, including some chefs, only to find that quality suffered and customers fled. Owners Liz and Nat Milner finally hung it up.
Other eateries share the pain. In an August survey of its members, the NYC Hospitality Alliance found more than three-quarters have had to cut employee hours, more than a third eliminated jobs last year and half plan to cut staff this year.
"It's death by a thousand cuts," the Hospitality Alliance's Andrew Rigie told The Post, since "there's only so many times you can increase the price of a burger and a bowl of pasta."
Finally, there is another AC submission which claims that the minimum wage has had an effect - but that it is only part of the story. It is important to consider the increase in rents in NY City, and that there might be a shift in the entire market.
Famous Restaurant where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Bartended Closes Due to Rising Minimum Wage
[...] And yet, even this high level of sales wasn't enough to inoculate the business from the rising cost of rent and wages in New York. Coffee Shop co-owner and president Charlies Milite told Forbes that rent had become "unusually high," accounting for close to 27% of the restaurant's gross revenues. Add in the scheduled $2-per-hour minimum wage hike set to take place on December 31—an increase that, across Coffee Shop's 150 employees and multiple dayparts of service, would have added $46,000 to the monthly payroll—made it impossible to break even by cutting costs elsewhere.
"It's a wakeup call for our industry in general," Milite said. "When a restaurant is one of the top-ranked restaurants in America, sales-wise, and can no longer afford to operate, you have to look at that and say there's a shifting paradigm in the business."
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3 Original Submission #4
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @07:55PM (4 children)
http://www.centernyc.org/new-york-citys-15-minimum-wage [centernyc.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @08:29AM (3 children)
That article is making false statements, even on the small section you quoted. In Seattle, both hours worked as well as the gross wages for restaurant workers declined, more so than even critics had expected.
This [nytimes.com] article, though from the NYTimes, does a reasonable job of describing the situation if you can sidestep the editorializing. It also points to the problem: both sides of the issue claimed victory. How? The critical side goes without saying, but the advocates simply claimed that Seattle was in a boom phase and so the wage losses had nothing to do with the minimum wage hike - no, it was a simple 'regression to the mean.' The researchers responded to this by showing how they controlled for it, the advocates disputed that, and back and forth they went. However both sides did accept a decline in employment and wages, only the reason was in dispute. So your article's statement that there were 'no employment/wage declines' is simply false.
The point here is that after-the-fact analysis is completely worthless. You need to stick a group of advocates and a group of critics in a room together before a change, and have them draw up ranges they expect to see. For instance a "loss" of 3% is clear evidence of a failure, a gain of 6% clear evidence of a success -- everything in between is a wash. You agree upon measurement methods, and then provide regular updates. You'd need to set up ahead-of-time controls for things like recessions, but this can be done. Not a simple task to be sure, but one that might actually give you something like the lost of art of impartiality.
For further evidence that this sort of retrofitting is not isolated, here [phys.org] is another more recent article comparing two other studies on Seattle. They studied whether prices had inflated as a result of the minimum wage. Once again one said clearly yes, the other said clearly no. Neither is lying, they're just massaging their numbers and assumptions in a way to get whatever conclusion they want. Social science in a nutshell.
This leads to the deterioration of discussion in society and increasing radicalism. Your article made false statements, but you naturally believed it because it confirmed your biases, which you feel are true. But the catch is that those biases are likely how you ended up getting linked to that article in the first place, as I doubt you're a regular patron of whatever CenterNYC is. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy: anything you read online on a topic will tend to support your worldview unless you actively seek out things that you don't believe to be true - which most do not. And as a result of this little phenomena people end up thinking somebody saying things that run against their worldview must be an idiot or, at best, grossly misinformed by 'fake news.' Because after all we'd never be the ones consuming such things, and everything we've read says exactly what we thought!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @01:28PM (2 children)
That may be true for Seattle, but the article is about New York City and not Seattle.
I'm sorry. I realize that it's difficult to understand that places other than your annoyingly hipsterized city actually exist. I'm here to tell you that a bunch of other places exist. No. Really.
So, when you see an article about someplace other than Seattle, it might be a good idea to recognize that it's not actually Seattle. I know, I know, that's just crazy talk. And you need to run to the pop-up health and beauty aids truck (gluten-free toothpaste, I'm sure) as it's only in your neighborhood for a few hours every week.
Please, just try to remember that places other than Seattle really do exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 02 2019, @04:42AM (1 child)
Did you not read the quote?
It's like more than 5 words suddenly cause people to lose all reading comprehension nowadays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 02 2019, @05:11AM
Did you get your gluten-free toothpaste?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @07:59PM (17 children)
So shitty businesses closed and made way and made workers available for better run businesses? Imagine that!!
If your business only survives because you don't pay your workers, maybe it's time to re-evaluate its viability, product and/or management
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:01PM (5 children)
It looks more like academics in their ivory tower only look at government-manipulated statistics that tell a different story than what restaurant owners are experiencing in reality.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:07PM (3 children)
Reality is a troll to some people:
http://www.centernyc.org/new-york-citys-15-minimum-wage [centernyc.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:21PM (2 children)
Let us look where the data is coming from:
https://www.labor.ny.gov/stats/lstechqcew.shtm [ny.gov]
And what do you need to do to be counted:
https://eligibility.com/unemployment/new-york-ny-unemployment-benefits [eligibility.com]
Uh, so there is a minimum wage threshold to be counted. If you raise minimum wage you will be counting more people, even if there is no increase in jobs.
It is academics drawing the wrong conclusions from government-manipulated statistics. Just as I said. This took me under 10 minutes to figure out.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:47PM (1 child)
More details:
https://www.labor.ny.gov/ui/dande/titles/title2.shtm [ny.gov]
https://www.labor.ny.gov/ui/dande/titles/title5.shtm [ny.gov]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:51PM
How the hell is this offtopic? It shows you what they measured to come to the conclusion that restaurant jobs are growing.
Someone moderating this thread can't draw conclusions from themselves and needs to be told what to think apparently.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday November 02 2019, @05:32PM
So your theory is that the Trump administration is manipulating the figures to favor higher minimum wage?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:42PM (3 children)
Yeah, it's working great. Businesses are letting employees go until they're one employee short of the number needed to conform to the $15/hr law. So you now have a short staff, under $15/hr, part time, no benefits, and pissed off cunstomers because there's only one person at the register and the shelves are bare because there's nobody stocking.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:31PM (2 children)
How is that not working great?
Businesses that won't pay their employees, that don't seem to mind that they are short staffed, don't care if customers are pissed off, probably shouldn't be in business in the first place.
Let them disappear to be replaced by better run businesses.
Companies will do anything and everything to attract and retain bright competent people -- except pay them and treat them well. Unless they exhaust all other options first.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @01:59AM (1 child)
We're not talking mom & pop shops here. This is nationwide chains like Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree, anyplace that can get by with fewer than 25 employees per store. They're even skirting that number by promoting employees to some sort of bullshit manager position (janitorial manager) putting them on salary and working them overtime witch works out under $15/hr.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @01:41PM
Theft from the workers by employers breaking labor laws out-paces all other theft by something like 10:1 in the USA.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Informative) by stormreaver on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:39PM (4 children)
That interpretation would only be valid if the market were experience a shortage of workers (who would have already gone to those "better run businesses" before the wage increase). The reality is that there have been more workers than jobs for a very long time, so every closing business produces more unemployed (and maybe unemployable) workers.
When the combination of the ACA and a minimum wage hike struck my city, there were lots of minimum wage workers who either lost their jobs entirely or had their hours cut in half.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @05:24AM
Yeah, and when they made slavery illegal a lot of cotton farms had to close down
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @01:56PM (2 children)
Where's that logic coming from? The "better run businesses" still didn't increase their wages until forced to by the law, what's the incentive that would get workers to move from where they are to the "better" businesses without the wage increase?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Friday November 01 2019, @04:10PM (1 child)
If there was a shortage of workers, employers would have been competing for them, and the workers would have already been employees there. Better-run businesses would have had the financial ability to pay more and/or offer better working conditions. Since neither of these things happened, we can assume there was no shortage of workers. Since such places typically treat their workers as replaceable cogs, we can assume that there was actually an oversupply of workers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @05:16PM
Coach Butterworth (Bad News Bears) has a chalkboard lesson for you...
And, past tense, there's really no need to guess, the data is out there.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:12PM
So destroy a business to make way for another one that costs even more to run.
You do realize that is 100% the broken window fallacy, right? right?.... Right?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @01:41AM
We didn't need those jobs anyway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilsa on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:14PM (32 children)
So here's the part that caught my eye: "And yet, even this high level of sales wasn't enough to inoculate the business from the rising cost of rent and wages in New York. Coffee Shop co-owner and president Charlies Milite told Forbes that rent had become "unusually high," accounting for close to 27% of the restaurant's gross revenues."
So they had a rent that was so high, they had to choose between that or giving their employees a living wage. I think it should be pretty obvious where the problem is, and the minimum wage isn't it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:24PM (15 children)
Here is the part that caught my eye:
(Score: 4, Interesting) by isostatic on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:32PM (7 children)
$14.3 million in sales
27% is rent, so $3.86m a year in rent
Why don't they simply pay a lower rent - pay 10% less rent, and that leaves the money to pay the staff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:46PM
Because the rent is too damn high! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @01:43AM
And if they move out of New York City, then they wouldn't have to pay the staff either!
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday November 01 2019, @08:33AM (4 children)
Presumably _someone_ can afford to pay that rent; be it more profitable shops (clothes? electronics?) or offices. The rent matches what the market can pay...
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday November 01 2019, @10:54AM
You'd think that was the case. In which case it's good that shitty resturants that cant afford to pay staff or rent shut down.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @01:51PM (2 children)
Actually, the landlords can afford to sit on empty properties for a long, long time - empty properties are low effort, low maintenance, and they can be milked as losses for tax purposes, used to attract "redevelopment incentives" etc. Bottom line: a lot of landlords just don't need the money, so if they want higher rent, they'll either get their higher rent, or maybe dream of the day they get bought out by a big(ger) developer for a huge lump sum profit.
We bought some land from a seller - willing to sell for $4400/acre, as evidenced by the fact that's what she eventually sold to us for, but the Real Estate broker had the idea that she "controlled" the market in her local area and no way would that kind of land EVER sell for less than $6000/acre, and she was doing a pretty good job of it, too, as evidenced by the fact this particular piece of land, and others like it, had been on the market for 10+ years with no serious offers. The broker failed to communicate our offers to the seller, and actively did everything in her power to stop the deal from coming together - only when I sat at her desk and talked the offer through with her, then stood up to walk across the street to another broker and split her commission did she finally relent and call the seller, advising her to not take the deal but grudgingly following her legal duty to present all offers.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday November 01 2019, @07:21PM (1 child)
> the landlords can afford to sit on empty properties
I was under the impression from TFA that these are reasonably high profile, high rent commercial properties in New York - not the sort to stay empty, like some random fields in the middle of nowhere might be.
> We bought some land from a seller
In my experience, real estate agents are quite crooked. By not passing on offers to a vendor, they artificially depress the price; then purchase the property through a third party and sell for profit. It's a well known scam (illegal in UK, but rarely prosecuted).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @08:12PM
Oh, don't get me started (well, you already have, but I'll try to be brief...)
We made an offer on a "bank held" property that had been on the market with no apparent action other than periodic price drops for about 8 months. We offered asking, cash. Our offer was not acknowledged by the selling broker until 4 days later when they informed us, as circumspectly as possible, that another party had recently made an offer exceeding our own and the property was now under contract. This kind of thing has happened more than once, and the scam I think is happening there is: bank requires periodic price drops on the listed price of the property, buyer gets in bed with the broker and obtains some kind of defacto right of first refusal when any legitimate offers come in, then the legitimate buyers are frozen out of the market while the incestuous local industry snaps up the properties as cheaply as possible. Same property was rehab-ed and turned for roughly 100% profit within a year, but that's not an opportunity that's actually available to the public.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Codesmith on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:32PM (2 children)
That's a really interesting number that they bring up:
150 employees x 38 hours per week x 4 weeks x $2.00 per hour = $45,600.00
That's a lot of staff to have at minumum wage. I would have expected that key holders and shift managers would already be getting paid more.
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @02:04PM (1 child)
There's a little bit of "it's not fair" handwringing going on with the minimum wage increase - sure, key holders and shift managers _were_ getting paid more than fresh hires, but with the minimum wage increase, they all got raises - and the ones that had worked their way up are, in a relative sense, right back at entry level, even though entry level is now higher than what they were being paid before.
When the .com boom hit, we had a similar situation with tech employees. Back in the early 1990s entry level BS degrees were typically $30K/yr, Masters' $36K, with the usual insulting COL raises that brought most people up around $45-50K/yr by the end of the decade, but with the .com boom, our interns fresh out of school were getting offers for $70K+. So, everybody got a bump up around $70K, just to make sure that we didn't lose a bunch of people to better money across town, and... those $10-20K differentials that had built up over the years due to experience, meritorious service, etc. were mostly erased.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Codesmith on Friday November 01 2019, @02:47PM
'd suggest the DotCom boom was rather different in its drivers of wage increase.
I can see what you're saying about raises all the way up, but there is no requirement to give everybody a $2/hr raise. It finally brings base wage up to a reasonable standard, and if you've been relying on a low base wage to underpay your low and mid-level managers it will cost you. If a shift manager is making $20/hr, offering them a $1 premium would probably fly. Office staff at the $25/$30 level can probaly be offered a couple of percentage points over they annual wage discussions.
A commenter above point out $14 million a year revenue. By my numbers the 150 employees would cost $5.3 million. That's a pretty low percentage for service industry operations; wages costing over 50% are not uncommon.
150 employees x 50 weeks x 38 hours x $15 / hour x 125% (payroll expenses) = $5.3 mil
(I work in a manufacturing facility, 38 employees and $8.5 million revenue. Last year we managed about 8% profit.)
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Friday November 01 2019, @02:45AM (3 children)
It's very simple. The most important dollar figure for the customer, when it comes to it, is the final amount of money they end up spending at the restaurant. Let's say that I bought a $20 meal and tipped $3 - I'm up for $23. Now instead, let's charge the customer $23 but explain that tips are not required - the customer still only pays $23. The waiter gets no tips, but has a higher base wage and ends up with about the same amount of take home pay.
Total cost to customer remains steady. Business cost remains steady. Waiter income remains steady (but predictable). Fast food workers and behind-the-scenes workers (e.g. dishwashers) end up with better conditions. This actually benefits the small restaurant/diner, because their food becomes better value versus fast-food chains (who have to pay their workers more and therefore increase the cost of food, meaning the customer pays relatively more to visit McDonalds etc).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @02:07PM (2 children)
The European way (and, better, IMO...) Here in 'murica, you got the power when you sit down to a meal, staff don't kiss your ass and properly, it's entirely your option to walk out on 'em without pay - not the restaurant owner, now, you don't pay him and you end up in jail, but the ones you see face to face, for that 40 minutes you're sitting at the table, you OWN them.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday November 03 2019, @11:55PM (1 child)
Socially, Americans will almost never stiff the waiter a tip, even if they weren't that happy with the service, because "it's expected". It somewhat reduces the leverage that the diner has when it's assumed that a tip will be coming almost regardless of service level.
Diners in non-tipping countries still have a way to register their disgust with poor service - complain to the manager.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 04 2019, @12:34AM
Economically, American service staff will almost never do something worthy of a tip stiffing... maybe one time in a thousand have I been served by a waiter/waitress who was so blatantly bad that they deserved nothing for their service, but, it does happen, and more often than actually receiving bad service I have had the manager replace our wait-person with another who could do the job better.
Now, in St. Maarten, we had a bartender come, take our order, forget about us for 90 minutes, laugh about roaches crawling around on the table, and finally when we managed to grab him and remind him, rush our food out with some parts cold (like ice crystals from the freezer) and other parts having been retrieved from an extended stay under the heat lamp. There is a man who gets no tip from us, I'm sure he was getting plenty of tips from his alcohol drinking customers.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:26PM (15 children)
No, minimum wage isn't the problem. Inability to charge for their products might be a problem, but once all the cheap shops go out of business, you're left with the ones that have a working business model, and if higher prices are a part of the formula, then that's the way it is.
Tellingly, even with sky high rent AND higher labor costs, the market is doing just fine, thank you very much. People aren't going to quit eating burgers just because the cost goes up 10%.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @01:45AM (14 children)
We didn't need those jobs anyway. I sense a pattern here.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @01:21PM (13 children)
Actually, yes, that's the point. We don't need tannery apprentices with ~5 year life expectancy, we don't need sharecroppers who get deeper in debt to the company store each year just for rent and food, and we don't need pizza delivery drivers who net-lose money if they don't consistently break traffic laws while making their deliveries.
If you don't need the money to live, get a hobby. If that hobby is taking food orders and delivering plates of food to strangers, more power to you, maybe if there are enough people like that then there can be business models built on them.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 02 2019, @12:46AM (12 children)
Obvious rebuttal: You nostalgically lauded [soylentnews.org] your 100 productive acres (from last century) which implicitly require sharecroppers. We don't need sharecroppers, but your business model does.
And if you do need that money to live, then well, we didn't need that hobby anyway - by definition!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 02 2019, @02:38AM (11 children)
I get it now, even though you can troll through the archives for "supporting evidence" for your point, you just don't have basic reading comprehension. Nowhere in that statement of 100 productive acres on which to provide for your family was it intended, implied, or stated that sharecroppers were required, desired, or even considered - the sharecroppers are just a projection from your imagination to support your own world view.
If I had free and clear access, quiet enjoyment of 100 productive acres, why the fuck would I invite sharecroppers to come onto my land? So I can feed them too? Not my style, thank you. Far easier to hunt and gather from the woods, with a small plot in a small clearing to grow starches to cover for when the hunting isn't so good, and maybe the women would take an interest in growing vegetables and salads.
Pretty much agree there, unless I am not understanding you. I bring up the hobby thing because I've been in a number of small companies when the shit hit the fan and all the paychecks stopped. At that point, it becomes crystal clear who needs the money and who is just there because they like the place for whatever reason (often not much more than because it has become familiar and comfortable) - it's actually shocking how many people in those places _don't_ need the money and do continue without pay or good chance of future pay - close to 20% in my experience - not that that is representative of the larger population in general, but in those small high risk enterprises they tend to concentrate because the risk of loss of income isn't a risk for them.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 02 2019, @05:28AM (10 children)
The part where you were renting that land out to someone else. Those are the sharecroppers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 02 2019, @04:50PM (2 children)
If you've got more land than you need, why not? Depend on transients to provide your livelihood? Sounds like a fool's game.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 04 2019, @03:38AM (1 child)
Or the standard rent model for the lodging and residential rental industries. Somehow they get by.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 04 2019, @02:21PM
Key word: industries.
I believe the short analysis is: they have adequate resources to spread the risk so than when they to connect with a (minority, but far from rare) deadbeat tenant, they can absorb the loss and take it out of their paying tenants.
Individuals renting a single property that they need the income from? That is the fool's game, and for every 3 or 4 rosy stories of great tenants, best thing we ever did, the money is really great, there's one or two stories of: deadbeats trashed my house, never paid rent after the first month, took almost a year to evict them, I lost half the value of the property and have no hope of ever collecting on my legal judgement against them.
It's back to: it's good to be King - if you don't need the income, take the risk and it usually pays off. For serfs who have just what they need and not much more, attempting to act like a King is a good way to get yourself worse off than you already are.
Oh, and circling back to OP - if there's a minimum wage that's high enough for your tenants to actually pay rent and have enough left over to live, at least the ones who have a job aren't as likely to stiff you.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 02 2019, @04:56PM (6 children)
Where, in this comment you linked, is the word rent, or concept of renting your family's land? Having - simple ownership - not some government based rent seeking structure.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 03 2019, @01:51AM (5 children)
Like say UBI, minimum wage, etc?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 03 2019, @01:32PM (4 children)
No, not lauding Feudalism - maybe it was good to be King, do you identify with Medieval Kings in your current living circumstance? I was saying the Kings and their Courts might have comprised 2% or so of the population, but from my perspective what's good for the top 2% of the population is largely irrelevant to the remaining 98%.
What was "better" in that model was that the serfs had relative autonomy and control of their productive land. Sure, they paid taxes to the Lords (landlords?), but we can romanticize at least that they were reasonable, on the order of a tithe to the Church and another tithe to those who "protected" them - no doubt often in the way that the Mob families "protect" local businesses, and no doubt some Lords took quite a bit more than a tithe, in all manner of types of payment. A tithe to the 2% would fall into the (now long defunct) Ben & Jerry's ideal of no more than a 5x pay differential across all employees of the company.
Compare to the modern "serf" who lives in a landlord's building but has no access to productive land, only the option to labor for money in other landlord's businesses - money which they cannot eat, but only exchange for food in yet other landlord's businesses. They still pay taxes at every turn, often higher taxes than the landlords do, and their labor comes with pre-requisites of training for which they usually pay, transportation which they must purchase, etc.
Now, in the more populous regions of the middle ages, the landlords would place restrictions on hunting in "their" land, harvesting of trees, and other less than ideal restrictions - agrarian feudalism breaks down under population pressure fairly quickly - but, so does the entire planet with modern population pressure.
I see those as "rent seeking" by the 98%, not the 2%, and I would call that positive progress.
There's nothing bad, and quite a bit good actually, about stratification of income and wealth, up to a point. Whether that point is Ben & Jerry's 5x income differential, or a 100x wealth differential, or some other limit - at some point excessive income/wealth differential devolves into tragic nepotism, you get idiot children taking control of empires.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 04 2019, @03:40AM (3 children)
Food which they can eat. There's not much point to the argument when that money buys a lot of food, shelter, etc.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 04 2019, @02:33PM (2 children)
Does it, though?
Florida minimum wage: 8.46 USD per hour
Minimum rent in Jacksonville seems to be around $500 per month, or ~60 hours of work (neglecting taxes): https://www.trulia.com/for_rent/Jacksonville,FL/0-500_price/ [trulia.com]
Cost of food for 1, top Google result: $250 per month, or ~30 hours of work. https://www.google.com/search?q=average+grocery+bill+for+1&ie=UTF-8 [google.com]
So, if you're lucky enough to get full time employment, that's ~$1350 per month, with $750 right off the top for minimal food and shelter - $600 left over to handle transportation, clothing, emergency expenses. To secure that full time employment, and be able to shop for economical food and clothing, you're either going to need a car, or spend the remainder of your non-working waking hours on public transit, going with the car option, top Google result is $2500 per year in Florida, or another $210 per month.
Down to $390 per month now, revisiting taxes, just FICA is 7.65% (quite the bargain, considering you'll probably be needing social services multiple times before retirement), there's $100 per month gone, down to $290 now - and you're still naked.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:37AM (1 child)
So even at minimum wage - which most people are earning more than, that's pretty damn good.
Or split the rent and food costs with other people and drive a used car. It's not rocket surgery.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:30PM
No, what it is is scraping bottom. Some wizard somewhere came up with a "minimum emergency fund" figure of $2200ish. Without that much cash cushion, you can expect to encounter typical, probable emergency situations which require that much money, and will be a whole lot more expensive if you don't have that much money readily accessible somehow. The above analysis, neglecting clothing or any other "unnecessary" expenses, would require 10+ months of savings to build up such a princely emergency fund.
Sure, we can shack up with other working poor, 4 to a bedroom - no chaos or added risk / expense in doing that, is there? Your idea of sharing transportation sounds good, but that's the dopeler effect - it only sounds good coming at you real fast, once you look at the overall expense profile, owning your own transportation is a very cheap thing compared to the risks to employment and time costs of not having control of your own transportation, plus - you can work Uber/Lyft in your spare time for that awesome extra $30 per month of net income - assuming you're immortal and $1.25 net profit per hour is worth more than the risk of injury while driving to you - you did get comprehensive health coverage in that minimum wage job, didn't you?
By the way, $2500 per year is the net expense of a used car, not a new one. Little things like legally required insurance take up almost half of that, fuel and maintenance costs of driving 100 miles a week eat up the rest. New cars have lower maintenance and sometimes lower fuel costs, but way more than make up for that in depreciation.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:48PM (3 children)
A rightwing newspaper (the NY Post) and a pro-business magazine (Forbes) find stories that raising minimum wage is bad. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you...
The fact that they found a few individual stories of closing restaurants shouldn't be a surprise. Restaurants fail all the time. I remember hearing that 50% of restaurants fail in their first year, although I never fact checked it.
If they had actual data, like the first article linked to at http://www.centernyc.org/new-york-citys-15-minimum-wage [centernyc.org] , I'd be more inclined to believe they actually had a side to their story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:54PM (1 child)
Anecdotes are better than BS massaged or misinterpreted data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:02PM
So we
agreeare of one mind? (the AC hive-mind)(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @02:10PM
The vast majority of their readers wouldn't notice, it won't change their opinions, and it doesn't give the readers any better talking points when they argue with their liberal acquaintances.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:18PM (24 children)
NYC is so pricey that $15/hr is still not a living wage. Other costs are so high that for many businesses doubling the salary was a small percentage of their costs that they were usually able to pass on to customers. The economy is booming, so that additional cost was sustainable. Now try raising minimum wage to $15/hr in various parts of the deep South, the Midwest, or rustbelt where things are not expanding so much. Perhaps there might still not be much damage, because we've generally held down wages for quite some time. That doesn't mean there isn't a threshold where it starts to have the effects that conservatives claim. If we keep pressing for higher wages, I think it's generally accepted that you start to see something called a "wage price spiral" that leads to inflation. This is something the Federal Reserve hasn't mentioned in decades. When they do, the remedy is higher interest rates to keep the currency from tanking and destroying the economy. The Fed has actually been in the opposite position for quite some time. There is probably room for $15/hr min or more in most of the country.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:32PM (16 children)
Absolutely. Put minimum wage at $300 per hour and there will be problems in today's economy. However, as you point out, $15 per hour still isn't much of a living wage, even in the Deep South - assuming you expect that living wage to have a chance to pay a mortgage on a $200K home - whether that be through saving a down payment and ownership, or via rental from someone else who has done that.
Even in the 1980s, I couldn't hold down a minimum wage job in the deep South without my own transportation, there's a couple hundred bucks a month in today's world, no matter how you slice it.
Oh, you don't want state sponsored healthcare? I guess when your chef or waitress gets Hepatitis they're just going to have to walk it off while they work, can't afford any unpaid sick days with wages cut so thin there's barely money for food and shelter.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @01:47AM (5 children)
Why not assume living wage means that you want a chance to pay a mortgage on a $200 million home? There are other numbers than minimum wage that can scale up and down willy nilly.
(Score: 3, Touché) by acid andy on Friday November 01 2019, @11:47AM (4 children)
Your reductio ad absurdum doesn't work here, khallow. Quite obviously there aren't enough $200 million homes for every minimum wage worker and trying to build them all would likely lead to a massive property market crash and / or hyperinflation.
$200k houses on the other hand are a much more realistic proposition to create a basically decent minimum standard of living for all workers without a very noticable detriment to the economy.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @12:28PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @01:32PM
Zillow does tend to the high side, by about 15% on average:
https://www.zillow.com/home-values/ [zillow.com]
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday November 01 2019, @01:39PM (1 child)
It wasn't my figure, but in relative terms, they are.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 02 2019, @12:47AM
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @02:29AM (7 children)
Unless the restaurant owner is running a charity, or subsidizing the business somehow, 100% of the wages come from the customer, directly from tips, or indirectly from the purchase. In poor areas, a high minimum wage makes restaurants unaffordable to the local population. I guess city folk think that poor people do not deserve to go out to eat. This is why the electoral college exists. Policies that work in cities with wealthy customers to support artificial (non market determined) costs may not work in low income areas where there is no wealthy clientele. This is an example of why rural America should not be governed exclusively by a few of the most populated cities, which is what the popular vote would do.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday November 01 2019, @08:59AM
Maybe those areas would not be so poor if those living there could earn a decent wage.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @01:35PM (4 children)
Do your poor people not work? A doubling of minimum wage will not result in a doubling of the cost of restaurant food, but it will more than double the minimum wage worker's disposable income.
If your poor people aren't even working for minimum wage, then, yeah, I suppose they can skip the restaurant food.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:42AM (3 children)
Or drop it to zero. Not much point to these extrapolations when you're ignoring the downsides.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:36PM (2 children)
Back in the 1950s the Red menace was Communism, these days it seems to be the economic scare mongering of the Republican party - keep feeding fear of unemployment to the poor with a bootheel on their throats and sooner or later one of them will come and slash your throat in the night. The beatings will continue until morale improves is a perfect policy to foment mutiny.
Back in reality, there's not much point in working for minimum wage when SSI nets almost as much and you don't even have to leave the house to get it. Is that right, or good? I don't think so, but it's how a scary large portion of the rural South lives.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:29AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 07 2019, @02:26PM
Fractal patterns being what they are, the old concerns of sailing ships do tend to reflect up on today's society of billions in recognizable forms - if you're not too literal about things.
The peasants are not only revolting in their personal hygiene, but they are also starting to vote in more liberal legislators - one visible result: ERA seems likely to pass, only 98 years in the making, and all it took was a misogynist in the White House to drum up the necessary votes in the state legislature races.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Friday November 01 2019, @05:38PM
Maybe they don't, although I do think there is a particular respect that is shamefully lacking. I'm not poor, but I'm sitting here eating my meal which cost me less than $3 (YMMV by region). It's not glamorous, and I could afford better, but it's good enough. Eating out, having a waitstaff tending to your needs, is a luxury. If you're poor - by definition, luxury is the first thing you're cutting from the budget. At some point, everybody has to decide for themselves when it's more valuable to keep their money than pay someone else to wait on them. For those who save up for that nice date night, wouldn't you rather be getting that person who isn't frazzled and stressed about making rent, have a little time for banter (or through better service free up your time to banter with the people you came with) and really get your money's worth? This is a social opportunity partially wasted because the worker doesn't have the freedom to do anything more than the bare minimum for you due to pricing pressure driving down their personal resources and driving up their table count. Yet you feel entitled to this experience, at their expense?
Maybe we don't any of us need to eat at those kinds of places all the time. Maybe we need to make the dining experience more personalized and special, by making the everyday meal experience a simpler and less expensive one by paying all workers a decent wage and letting automation and economy of scale keep the prices down for basic meals that do not need waitstaff. If the simple meal is healthy enough at a good price, this can work for everyone. This requires a bit of adjustment on the part of fast food places and supply chains, and your rural areas need high quality foodstuffs available at decent prices which may require some kind of subsidy and/or regulation, but it can be done. I daresay not everyone is skilled enough to provide that fine dining experience and might be better served with a job running the automated machinery, too.
But if you just want to watch someone else scurry for your benefit, to feel better about your place in the world - maybe you should be paying a fair price for their time, and the bill should reflect that. The tipping model currently makes it too easy not to pay people what they're worth, and tragedy of the commons has ensued.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @07:55AM (1 child)
Which we should totally assume, I guess? Let's just assume that people will make terrible financial decisions, and then proceed to feel sorry for them for having done so.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @01:39PM
Like Obama used to flog: equal opportunity, a chance to succeed - not a guaranteed outcome, but at least the opportunity to make decisions that can reasonably be expected to lead to a good outcome.
You prefer hookers and blow? That's a lifestyle choice, and it's yours to make, complete with consequences.
You've given up on the hookers and blow and can still work 40 hours a week for minimum wage or better? Food, shelter, basic health care and the expenses associated with working don't seem to be too much to expect.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Touché) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 01 2019, @12:01AM (6 children)
All you math nerds are talking quantitative solutions when I can solve almost all the United States' problems in only a few lines of text: This is how we will Make America Great Again!
1 - Revoke all foreigners' work visas (unless those foreigners are making >= 200,000 dollar salaries) and immediately deport the motherfuckers
2 - Immediately deport all illegals, by force if necessary, or force them to work in labor camps for 3 hots and a cot.
3 - Mandatory e-verify for all employers, imprisonment for employers who violate those laws.
4 - Allow only American citizens to own American property
5 - Outlaw political lobbying and treat violation of those laws as treason
6 - Mandate that all dual-citizens renounce their non-American citizenship or face deportation to their other nation of citizenship
7 - Conduct a census after the previous rules have been implemented and executed
Then America will return to its former glory as a paradise-on-Earth.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday November 01 2019, @12:18AM
Then America will return to its former glory as a paradise-on-Earth.
"Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot."
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @01:49AM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @02:16PM (2 children)
The others will already have hillariously disasterous effect on the U.S. economy, but that ^^^ one is an instant guaranteed market crash.
Maybe the Federal government can seize all foreign owned property and slowly sell it back into the domestic market without crashing the price, like they used to do for cheese?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 01 2019, @06:10PM (1 child)
We have a lot of unemployed recent and not-so-recent grads (almost all of whom are more capable than an H1-B at less of a cost) who, if employed, will spend all there money here rather than send huge chunks of it overseas. How is that going to hurt our economy again?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @08:05PM
Oh, how about the same way that isolationism has always hurt every economy in the history of money?
You know, I went to University with a mix of foreign and domestic students, and I continue to see what comes out of the Universities and into the workforce. First observation: the H1-Bs almost always work for less. Second observation: the H1-Bs far less often take an entitled position with Dilbert's Wally style work output while expecting full pay and benefits. Third observation: in just about every field other than speaking English and understanding the nuances of local redneck culture, the H1-Bs held their own and usually exceeded performance of the domestics. I wouldn't hire one to sell used cars, but if I needed an employee who actually accomplishes something for the company, I'd put better than even money on the H1-Bs, when they're available.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @02:31PM
Ok, I'm all for 3, 4 could be good (it seems to work for China).
5, well, that one is downright unconstitutional (the constitution says people can petition the government for remission of grievances, that is, they can lobby for changes).
(Score: 3, Touché) by Appalbarry on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:51PM (3 children)
So, as I understand it, if I walk into the bank with a business plan that is predicated on paying rent that is 30% below the commercial market, and budgets electricity and gas at 50% of what the local utility charges, I'd be shown the door.
But if my 3% profit margin is calculated based on paying the absolute minimum wage to my employees, with no anticipation that the pay scale will ever increase, I'm obviously a very smart business owner.
(3% is considered a good margin in the restaurant business.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @12:31AM (2 children)
I think most people have 0 clue how much a restaurant costs to run. Most of the 'owners' do not own jack shit. There is some company in another state that owns the franchise. Some one else owns the building. They are probably renting the equipment. They are told which vendors they can and can not use.
The 'split' usually works about like this. 60-70% of your gross goes to the franchise owner. The rest (including taxes on that 60%), pay for your staff, vendors, etc you pay out of your remainder. Most owners are lucky to clear 100k a year. Many much much much less.
If you want to fix 15 an hour you have to start with fixing that. Take mcdonalds. They went from up 80%s of corp ownership to low % ownership. They converted them all to 'mom and pop'.
Where I live 15 an hour would put most of these places out of business. They are run that thin. One good recession and they will be gone. Everyone there will be out of a job. Take that same business and put it in a higher traffic area like new york and they *might* be able to survive 15 an hour.
Also many restaurants do not pay even min wage. Look up the tip wage. That is what they 'pay'. Oh they are supposed to make up the difference. But speak up on that? Yeah suddenly you are a slack ass, your hours are cut, or a reason to fire you within a month.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @02:22PM
Where I lived in the late 70s / early 80s, there were 8 fast food restaurants in a shopping center with enough market to support about 6. I think Burger King was the only one that hadn't cycled out of business and been replaced after 10 years. Every year or so, one of the two empty restaurants would be refurbished and reopened with a trendy new something that appealed. The local market was actually quite fickle and prone to flock to the "new thing" whatever it was, starving the existing restaurants for weeks, months if the new thing was any good. Of course with this kind of pattern, the "new thing" is almost always a raving success for the first year, or two, or four, until it gets tanked by the next "new thing" that comes along.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @02:43PM
Where you live... what's it cost to rent an apartment? What are food costs like? In short, what's it cost to exist there, and does your minimum wage make that a possibility? (And I'm not necessarily talking living alone, either, just what is it like to live there on what wages?) That's why states and municipalities are welcome to raise the minimum wage, to account for differences of location.
And if you'd read TFA's I think you would have found that in regards to this law the minimum for tip wage under the new statutes was a little over $10 an hour.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 01 2019, @12:00AM
"When a restaurant is one of the top-ranked restaurants in America, sales-wise, and can no longer afford to operate," maybe it needs new management?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday November 01 2019, @12:13AM (2 children)
Let's start at the top levels where the margins are greatest. Lots of cutbacks can be made up there without causing any real suffering.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @01:00AM (1 child)
Start w the POTUS, cut his salary to zero.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @02:15AM
He donates 100% of it anyway.
(Score: 0, Troll) by zion-fueled on Friday November 01 2019, @01:28AM (5 children)
What is $15/hr in NYC even? Whatever little gain for the employees easily inflated away. In a business paying $7/hr the rent likely exceeded payroll.
It was a cost of living increase plain and simple. Both sides are acting like this was some monumental thing. Everything didn't go out of business and the working class is no richer.
The dollar is worth less there. Something similar played out in SF where they couldn't fill regular jobs at what sounded like reasonable wages for anywhere else.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @02:25PM (4 children)
Whatever gain the employees got was 100% disposable income. If they went from $10/hr to $15 - that's not just 50% increase in salary, that's all money they (presumably) didn't "need" just to get by day to day. If their expenses have inflated 10%, they still have a 40% net raise.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:48AM (3 children)
I think we've got different definitions of "disposable". They were already under, it just brought parity. Both people and companies can run at a deficit. That supposed 40% is going to keep shrinking as time goes on.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:19PM (2 children)
If they were not making ends meet, then they were in untenable situations - counting the days of "runway" until financial ruin like an entrepreneurial startup. That's fine for businesses hoping to create new markets, or otherwise shake up the status quo - the majority of people shouldn't be faced with that kind of employment as their only option, falling back on social services when they "don't make it out of the hole."
In other words, I think it's fine for an experimental corporation to try and fail financially - we as a country can watch the corporation die and not shed a tear, or a penny, at their loss. People are not corporations, and when they hit bottom, somebody has to pick them up. Better in so many ways to make sure they don't go there than to let businesses exploit them on the way down and then leave social services and Chapter 11 protection to pay for and clean up the mess.
In some cities, sure, $15 per hour still doesn't "cut it" - but, that depends a whole lot on what you consider an acceptable lifestyle. 4 roommates sharing a studio in NYC can get some pretty cheap rent that way...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:57PM (1 child)
It shouldn't be this way but for many it is. Are 4 people living in a studio acceptable? Not really. Sleeping on the subway and showering at the planet fitness is also a lifestyle.
Most of the cities so proud of raising their minimum to $15/hr are where costs are the highest and it has the least effect. You touch on social services and that's part of the deal. Keeping people working for $7.50, the rest of that money does come from welfare and costs the government more. None of this was an altruistic endeavor, just cost shifting.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:42PM
While I agree, I also firmly believe in the right of those 4 people to live that way if they choose.
Back in 1988, renting a room in the NYC YMCA was a $100/week proposition and that was about the lowest rent in town short of stacking up with roommates or going completely homeless. Full time minimum wage employment should cover more than that - back in 88, I think it was around $3.50 per hour, so 29 hours a week minimum wage work just for the cheapest imaginable rent, then there's food, etc...
I think it still has a huge effect, changing lifestyles from "well, I waited tables until I spent all my savings and had to go sponge off of ..." to "well, I waited tables until I got tired of hoping for an acting gig so I finally moved away" plus a few more "I couldn't even find a job waiting tables" because the town isn't full of meat-grinder jobs with daily turnover.
That's basically all that any tax or wage or social services laws are, and shifting the true cost of employees to the employers sounds like the most "free market" idea I've heard in a long time.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @03:00AM
Around China town, almost every single door at street level is a restaurant. People that eat here are paid fairly well, given they can come into the center of the city for a meal, and their meals are not cheap (I had a $25 hot pot the other night -- after splitting three ways -- tip not included).
For these places, wait staff already earns a good wage. Three people tipping five bucks for this $25 meal, there's your $15/hr, and you're probably serving 8-12 people. That's a lot better than $15/hr. If the restaurant pays them a few bucks more on top, then more money all around.
Meanwhile, Target is also paying their people a bit more, and more are likely to splurge once a month and do Hot Pot for $toomuch.
That's in the city. Then there's outside the city. The wait staff gets a percentage of a low-cost meal, and if it doesn't add up to $15/hr by the end of the day, on average, they restaurant has to make up the difference. Smaller place (or in fact, much LARGER, with more room and fewer people), lower profit margin, cheaper area, increasing pay.
Outside the dense city center, this is indeed a burden. $15/hr in rural areas can certainly be quite a lot -- I was living out west for $450/mo rent. that's 30 hours work at $15/hr. The standard deduction meant that what I paid in taxes wasn't too bad, either. For a business, though, with fewer people moving through and existing in a cheap area, I can see why it's a death knell.
Solution? Let the cities set the minimum wage. By neighborhood, or by city limits, set the minimum wage. You can't expect a $15/hr minimum wage for a city worker/liver to apply the same way to someone living in a small town, far from the city. It's just not a 1:1 comparison.