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

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

#661

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

java_script wrote: post #386

ttoinou wrote: post #285

Earlier 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.

Please keep ideological flamewar off HN, regardless of how annoying or wrong another comment is. It leads to degraded discussion, as amply demonstrated below!

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

#662

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

java_script wrote: post #546

ttoinou wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thank you for the constructive feedback. I have some to offer as well. This is you: https://i.imgur.com/jPyEBOD.jpg

That is so... zany that I'm not going to ban you for it, plus it actually took a bit of work to make. But come on.

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

#663

Post by skybrian » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

rubidium wrote: post #491

There's been similar moves in the past. Most famous of which is Ford's $5 / day. http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2014/01/03/blogs/post-per... Ford's quote from the time is relevant today: “The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers.…

Yeah, I don't take that explanation at face value because it's describing a perpetual motion machine. Sales to your own employees are only going to be a trivial amount of revenue for any reasonable business. And I'm sure he knew that.

But interpreted charitably, it's showmanship. This is a way to show leadership, get a lot of publicity, and hire better workers, so what's not to like?

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

#664

Post by your-nanny » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #628

bhupy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can't pay a basic living wage, for fair hours, in safe conditions, with necessary medical benefits, then you don't have a job to offer. Why not let the employees decide if the job is worth taking? If there exists people willing to voluntarily take a job given its wage/conditions, you have a job to offer.

Because jobs are nowhere near a perfect market. * The switching cost for jobs is very high. You lose the social network of people you know at the old job, all of the knowledge and skill that's specific to that company goes out the window, you may have to uproot and move. * Jobs are not transparent. It is fantastically hard to tell if a new job is going to be better than your current job. You know the base numbers lik…

forgot to mention those nasty anti-market non competes.

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

#665

Post by chiefalchemist » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

This is:

- 25% PR

- 25% free advertising for their openings (i.e., Amazon pays well)

- 25% necessity (we're at full-employment)

- and 25% ROI (they've figured less turnover and better quality employees are worth the investment)

The question is: how will this effect other companies in the markets where Amazon employs a measurable number of people.

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

#666

Post by behringer » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #218

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…

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…

No what we want Amazon to do is pay a fair wage. Did they offset hourly wage with some other benefit making the total benefits the same? I'd really like to know where this extra money is coming from.

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

#667

Post by kidsnow » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

I was driving past In-N-Out burger yesterday and they offer $16 an hour to start and then goes up to $18 an hour. No wonder the employees there are usually happy.

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

#668

Post by SEJeff » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

lambda_lover wrote: post #654

SEJeff wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but Dollar General is doing just fine: https://qz.com/1120552/the-retail-apocalypse-isnt-just-amazo... The small mom and pop stores have been closing at record paces due to things like Walmart and Amazon. A higher minimum wage might speed that up, but it just moves things faster in the direction they've been moving for decades already. The thing that blows my mind is what the federal government (by the d…

Couldn't agree more. It's also silly that there's a federal poverty level at all -- I see a poverty level as only useful on a scale as granular as county/parish, even state level is probably too large to give any useful data (for reference, I grew up in Northern New York State and now live in NYC, and any New York State poverty level is meaningless in both of those places because they're so disparate). It's a shame t…

A federal minimum wage as a "line that you have to meet or beat" seems sensible enough to me for states that want to screw people. That said, it should definitely be per state and even per-city, as you've mentioned. I was just pointing out the severe problem with the current system and how it is really doing a disservice to those underprivileged citizens.

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

#669

Post by sampl » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #663

rubidium wrote: post #491

There's been similar moves in the past. Most famous of which is Ford's $5 / day. http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2014/01/03/blogs/post-per... Ford's quote from the time is relevant today: “The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers.…

Yeah, I don't take that explanation at face value because it's describing a perpetual motion machine. Sales to your own employees are only going to be a trivial amount of revenue for any reasonable business. And I'm sure he knew that. But interpreted charitably, it's showmanship. This is a way to show leadership, get a lot of publicity, and hire better workers, so what's not to like?

> Sales to your own employees are only going to be a trivial amount of revenue for any reasonable business.

So true. But I wonder if locking in a steady “home base” to the overall market of price-conscious general consumers makes it worthwhile strategically.

Selling to employees isn’t sustainable long-term, but as a strategy for bootstrapping/sustaining word-of-mouth among your customers it might be very smart.

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

#670

Post by kidsnow » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

smilbandit wrote: post #618

rubidium wrote: post #491

There's been similar moves in the past. Most famous of which is Ford's $5 / day. http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2014/01/03/blogs/post-per... Ford's quote from the time is relevant today: “The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers.…

and thus grew the middle class. The middle class is something we truly need to focus on growing again.

Those making $200k-$500k are the new middle class. Are you making that much but only own one house? Are your cars more than 5 years old... Ding... you're in the middle class.