People often complain about power concentrating in a few companies, but an interesting side effect of that is that it should, in theory, increase the bargaining power of labor. It's a lot easier to unionize a handful of huge companies than it is to unionize a whole bunch of smaller companies. This move by Amazon is probably a reflection of that.
Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
431–440 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#432>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…
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…
> Wow, does the top comment always have to be cynical?
Middlebrow dismissals are a hacker news staple.
http://www.byrnehobart.com/blog/why-are-middlebrow-dismissal...
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#433>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…
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…
I -for one- applaud this example of cynical enlightened self interest.
Because no matter how cynical or self interested, there's still the enlightened part. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, fwiw.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#434Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that due to their currently loss-making Amazon Studios though?
It’s due to the fact that any ounce of profit they would have they instead re-invest into the business. Which, by the way, is (part of) why they’re so dominant.
Another chart showing what Amazon has been doing:
https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_4298_a...
Net income doesn’t do that naturally or by accident.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're out of touch with the job market and reality itself. It's not easy for these people to just "get a new job". They get paid minimum wage and are probably living paycheck to paycheck. If these people just "move jobs", they're out a paycheck for weeks and may lose their car, their home, not be able to eat, etc.
> If these people just "move jobs", they're out a paycheck for weeks and may lose their car, their home, not be able to eat, etc. This gets floated around a lot. At least in the US I can't imagine a scenario where not paying bills for 1 or 2 months results in homelessness and a repo'd car. Being both a homeowner and a landlord, I could not pay my mortgage for a year before legal processes kick in, and if my tenants d…
There's a ton of people that live in crap motels with weekly rent.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#437Earlier 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.
Except it doesn't work like this. Employment is not an unlimited supply, and when you have the choice between starving (yes some people do not have any money saved) and working for $7.25, you choose to work for $7.25. Almost nobody who goes to work for a minimum wage job can afford to say "it's okay, I will find a better, high paying job later". "Basic economy" is not an argument.
And if someone is incapable of producing more than $15/hr worth of value with their labor, should they remain perpetually unemployed and dependent on welfare? Or should they earn what they can and allow for public benefits to top them up to a survivable standard of living?
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#438Earlier 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.
The modern world was built by corporations. Access to clean water, cheap and healthy food, energy, infrastructure. Yes taxes fund a lot of it but it is corporations that largely do the work at least in the US. Being for-profit is a good thing on the whole because that enables the corporation to continue solving problems for more people. Obviously there is a dark side too. The pursuit of profit left uncheck leads to harming the environment, screwing people out of money, etc which is why regulators are needed.
To say corporations are all bad all the time is bullshit. Likewise to say corporations are all good all the time is also bullshit. Like everything, there are pros and cons. Overall I think our capitalist economy does more good than bad. If it didn't, none of us would be able to be having this debate because we would be too worried about the next meal.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
Putting myself in their shoes is exactly why I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. What paycheck would they risk loosing if they can't find a job anyway ? Minimum wage exclude and marginalize poor people Asymmetry and inequalities are everywhere. I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mi…
> I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. I think they should be allowed to vote and agitate for whatever they think is best for them. And thus.... viola, minimum wage and subsequent increases. Although I know majorities are a touchy subject with libertarians since there are like six of you total nowadays.
I agree with the first sentence. The rest of it is a personal attack, please read the guidelines and respect rules of places you make use of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's how employment pools work. Sure, there's an element of "this job is only worth $7.5/hour, so if we have to pay someone $15/hour we won't do it", but I'd suggest that those jobs are actually not that common. I'd instead suggest that most jobs need doing, and they will just cost more. Ditches still need digging, burgers still need flipping, and it will just cost a bit more now.
You don't need to speculate. There is a research that shows it does hurt lower skill workers : http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663.pdf
That's an interesting read, in summary it seems that rises in the minimum wage have a small negative impact, mostly for low paid young people.
That makes sense, there's going to be jobs that just aren't profitable when the wages go up. If I can make $4 on a box of shleem, and the kid who packs the shleem's wages go up $5 I have to pack the shleem myself, or stop selling it.
One thing that the report mentioned, and is maybe a possible cause of this negative increase, was that kids will leave school sooner when the minimum wage is higher. Perhaps to counter the issue there could be some sort of means-tested grant system to help keep kids in school?