Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#331

Post by nostromo » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #17

>In addition, the company also pledges its public policy team will lobby for an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 — it doesn’t identify a specific wage that it’s targeting, but instead says, “We believe $7.25 is too low. We would look to Congress to decide the parameters of a new, higher federal minimum wage.” I'm going to take a wild guess and assume it will be $15/hour. That way they'll get to look pr…

I think this is a calculated move against Walmart.

Amazon could easily survive in a $15 minimum wage environment, but it'd be a much larger blow to Walmart (which employs many times more low wage workers), which would have to increase prices or reduce profitability.

"Your margin is my opportunity" - Jeff Bezos. This quote also works when thinking about raising your competitors' expenses.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#332

Post by monktastic1 » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:03 PM UTC

L_Rahman wrote: post #274

pkulak wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, does the top comment always have to be cynical? This is exactly what everyone wanted Amazon to do. Maybe it's time to suck it up and give praise where praise is due? There are also benefits to paying more salary than your competitors (no hiring shortages, best employees, low turnover, etc), so I'm not going to blindly accept that it's now in Amazon's interest to drag the rest of the industry along with them. But…

When the topic in question is how one of the most powerful companies on Earth chooses to use its power we should strive to always be this cynical. Skepticism of concentrated power is the ur-American political belief. We seem to have forgotten that lately.

Cynicism and skepticism are different beasts with different outcomes. Skepticism asks "Did they do it for X reason? Let's investigate." Cynicism says "They can only have done it for X reason. Let's castigate."

Cynicism is lazy. And generally, it has the effect of disheartening anyone from even trying to do the right thing. That people are cynical is of course understandable, but it's nothing to strive for.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#333

Post by theandrewbailey » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:03 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #87

swebs wrote: post #17

>In addition, the company also pledges its public policy team will lobby for an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 — it doesn’t identify a specific wage that it’s targeting, but instead says, “We believe $7.25 is too low. We would look to Congress to decide the parameters of a new, higher federal minimum wage.” I'm going to take a wild guess and assume it will be $15/hour. That way they'll get to look pr…

$15 an hour will push a lot of people out of being employable. There is a greater tolerance for whom you will accept at current wage points. The other effect of a much higher starting wage is you will have people enter the market who did not think the wage was worth their time. The people who cannot be relied on to show up on schedule, quit and want to come back, have some issues in their credit or criminal backgroun…

A national $15/hour minimum wage isn't going to fly in places like small town Kentucky or West Virginia. Those places don't have good jobs anymore, and the only businesses left are a drive-thru and a Dollar General. They can barely afford a dozen or so people working at minimum wage now, and they can't run a place with half the employees. Their customers can barely afford to shop there and can't take paying more to cover it. The only reasonable option in this scenario is to close.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#334

Post by ttoinou » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:03 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #304

ttoinou wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really going to starve ? Why aren't the products you need to buy to not starve cheaper ? Maybe because of this kind of laws

In a free market without minimum salary, it would be difficult for people living alone and having kids (so they have to pay rent and for kindergarten or school), to compete with someone living with parents (and not paying any rent) or with immigrants living 8 people in a room.

And of course, in minimum wage societies money, resource, wealth just fall from the sky and all the people you described have kids, nannies, multiple houses just like that.

We should just ban poverty it will solve everything

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#335

Post by WillPostForFood » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:05 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #277

wjnc wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in this respect: Amazon chooses to link the two discussions themselves. They could have easily made their communication less open to an easy attack by pledging $15 an hour while lobbying silently, or at least communicating that on another moment. They could have noble intentions with both moves. I'd even expect them to have noble intentions since $15 seems an unreasonable large increase from $7.25. Why link to t…

Wait, why is it bad that Amazon is lobbying for this? Would you say it was bad if, say, ACLU was lobbying for a $15 minimum wage? My guess is that from Amazon's point of view, they are winning political points by not just raising their own minimum wage to $15, they are also using their standing in the industry to increase quality of life for non-Amazon minimum wage workers. If they succeed, I am happy to grant them t…

By lobbying for the $15 minimum wage they are working to make sure that their competitors don’t retain any competitive advantage on wages. So now the brick and mortar shop that is barely in business because of competition with Amazon is going to get hit with a big bump in wage costs. They either will raise prices, or go out of business, both scenarios benefit Amazon.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#336

Post by mindcrime » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:06 PM UTC

meko wrote: post #302

pkulak wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to shame a company for behavior you don't like, I think you should be prepared to give praise when they do exactly what you just asked for. When you constantly move the goal posts just so that you never have to abandon your righteous anger for even one day, what kind of incentive does that give companies to change their behavior?

Companies don't really deserve praise, practically ever because their motives are ultimately guided by profits. They only act in the interest of revenue. Sometimes those interests align with the employees, but let's not pretend this isn't self preservation on amazon's behalf.

Companies don't really deserve praise, practically ever because their motives are ultimately guided by profits.

That's not actually true.. it's a caricatured straw-man argument, usually employed by people who want to attack Capitalism in the general sense.

Of course companies have to make a profit to survive; but not all companies ruthlessly optimize every single variable to squeeze out the last $0.0000001 of profit, regardless of the side effects. At the end of the day companies are made up of people, and even if big-shot CEO's tend to have more pyschopathic tendencies than average, they're still human beings. And they usually answer to boards, and are advised by other managers, who are also human beings.

Not saying all companies are noble, virtuous, and pure or anything. But hyperbole in the other direction is just as inaccurate.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#337

Post by GrumpiNerd » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

turtlecloud wrote: post #265

driverdan wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you pay your employees $7.25... ...then you're paying the wage your employees are willing to work for. Basic economics in action. If you're making fun of this you need to take an econ 101 class.

Do you really want to test the limits of Econ 101? People are willing to work for pennies. Just look at India. If you want to turn USA into a third word country with high levels of income inequality that’s how you do it. Have some empathy. Otherwise the peasants will revolt, and they have guns.

Too bad that Bernie wants to take their guns away.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#338

Post by patagonia » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

ptbello wrote: post #191

Call me cynical, but it could also be that AMZN will be automating all those lower paid jobs - as in: soon they won't even need 7.25$/H employees because they'll have machines. In this scenario, 15$/H would just be their current price point for the following tier of bottom of the chain not-yet-automated tasks.

Wow brilliant analysis. Automate the lower pay jobs away before your competitors can. Push for raise in minimum wage. This is “Walmart kills mom and pop shops” at a whole new level.

This is also how I see the robot job apocalypse playing out and why we need political change that can handle both the wealth generation and rapid job churn / requirements for job training that AI and robotics will bring. Either pay more or have the wealth disbursed. The alternative is, as has always been, concentrate the wealth in the owners of capital. But this times it’s different. Current wealth generation by capital is unprecedented. And technology allows control and capture of that wealth in an unprecedented manner. At the same time regulatory and political structures have done nothing to deal the with the negative costs associated with the process. What is the point of having an economic machine the likes of which history has never seen if it all just ends up on a ditigal legder for a few dozen people while automated factories are running in the dark and requiring resources stripping the planet of resources needed for you know like ecosystems and such. Not sustainable. So. Yeah. Amazing move for Amazon. Where does everyone else fit in the picture.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#339

Post by maxlybbert » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #272

maxlybbert wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that many people aren’t worth $15/hour. Having a well-stocked grocery store is worth $15/hour if the person doing the job is fast. But slower stockers may lose their jobs altogether. Most companies I’ve worked at have had mailrooms. Very few have had people actually working in them. Which tells me that when the buildings were designed, the mailroom was considered valuable enough to include in the…

Or you know, email and that internet thing got pretty big.

I recently read Fischer Black’s book Exploring General Equilibrium. I’m sure I’d seen the argument before, but one passage that stuck out was the discussion on how something can lose all value when technological advances make it obsolete. It is true that’s partly to blame.

But those companies still send and receive a lot of paper and packages. It’s just that there isn’t any staff dedicated to doing the sending and receiving; instead it’s included in everyone’s job description.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#340

Post by eli_gottlieb » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #141

swebs wrote: post #17

>In addition, the company also pledges its public policy team will lobby for an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 — it doesn’t identify a specific wage that it’s targeting, but instead says, “We believe $7.25 is too low. We would look to Congress to decide the parameters of a new, higher federal minimum wage.” I'm going to take a wild guess and assume it will be $15/hour. That way they'll get to look pr…

> they'll get to look progressive for adopting this wage early, while mitigating their competitive disadvantage by forcing every other company to raise their wages too eventually. That's deeply cynical. In the process, they're actually paying real people more money. Which is sort of critically important if you care about this issue and not just taking pot shots at Amazon on HN.

Hot take: if you really want to take shots at Amazon, the best thing here is that their wage rates are going up, draining money from the General Bezos Evilness Pot and towards the employees, who can use it for things like unionization campaigns or pro-worker lobbying. If Amazon literally wants to spend its own money advocating for a shift of power from capital to labor via a minimum-wage rise or other improvements in workers' rights, well, I'm happy to see Jeff Bezos selling us the rope we'll hang him with.