Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

businessinsider.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 248 posts

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#91

Post by Tade0 »

worker767424 wrote: post #69
Synaesthesia wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it won't. A human will be flipping those burgers and serving them to customer.

They're already replacing cashiers with kiosks. No reason to think some of the relatively more mundane kitchen jobs aren't next.

But robots don't actually replace these workers.

In the case of McDonald's the kiosks only generated more throughput, actually adding work, so all the staff assigned to taking orders was put into other work.

Meanwhile self-checkout, while actually reducing throughput somewhat, made it possible for the workers to take on other tasks in the store - of which there are many.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#92

Post by Negitivefrags »

kristopolous wrote: post #80
stretchwithme wrote: post #64

A society with no technology has hardly any wealth gap. People who can leverage multiple technologies can multiply their efforts. Mass communication, mass distribution and automation of all sorts. But Wall Street bonuses are subsidized by the fact the government socializes their biggest failures. Bailouts just encourage them to take greater risks, leveraging debt in dangerous ways that will blow up the system again.

Ok but during a crisis what's the alternative? The alternative now is to disconnect the systems from the possibility of contagion, but the nature of crisis is essentially an acknowledgment of a failure to achieve in those efforts. So what then, really?

The alturnative is letting things fail. It causes a lot of pain in the short term with people losing their jobs and general economic fallout. This causes a lot of suffering.

But on the other hand, the rich will lose more, and during the rebuilding a different set of people will gain the upper hand and end up on top.

It's hard to get the political will to actually allow what needs to happen to fix wealth inequality.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#93

Post by carlob »

anonytrary wrote: post #81

In the extreme case, what if the minimum wage was $500000000 dollars. That would not work, and it would create a society where everything is done under the table. Now, keep halving that value and ask at what point do people no longer feel required to do things under the table in order to make a basic living (sans criminals). It's not obvious what the right number is. On the other extreme, if the minimum wage was $0,…

> At some point in the next millennium, all work will be creative work

Or caregiving, more likely.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#94

Post by carbonguy »

luckylion wrote: post #43
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than it does now, but since wages are only a small part of the costs people would still be better off.

According to this [1] (first thing I was able to find, no clue how accurate): Another major cost for McDonald’s is payroll and employee benefits. These account for 36% of its company-operated restaurant expenses. I don't know in what world a third is "only a small part". The same article mentions According to PayScale, the average worker in the fast-food industry makes $8.50 per hour. Increase that to $44 and you end…

The article you link fails to mention that McDonald's also spent about 8.5 billion on stock buybacks and dividends in 2018, which would have been enough to give every one of their 210,000 employees an extra 40,000 dollars that year on top of what they already made that year. Not quite $44 an hour, but a hell of a lot better than minimum wage - and the company wouldn't need to spend a single extra cent or raise any prices in order to do it.

From the 2018 annual report: https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/gwscorp/nfl/inve...

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#95

Post by kristopolous »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #30
skywal_l wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the reports fine prints: "Estimates of the number of minimum wage workers in this report pertain only to workers who are paid hourly rates. Salaried workers and other workers who are not paid by the hour are excluded, even though some have earnings that, if converted to hourly rates, would be at or below the federal minimum wage. Consequently, the estimates presented in this report likely underestimate the actua…

FWIW, you can't be classified as salaried and exempt from FLSA if you're getting paid minimum wage and working 40 hours/week or less. The federal limit for salaried exempt is equivalent to like $17/hour, and many states tie it to a multiple of minimum wage (e.g. 2x minimum wage in California)

What about the "independent contractor" loophole?

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#96

Post by Aunche »

kevingadd wrote: post #78
holler wrote: post #9

ok but how much would a sandwich cost?

If you compare menu prices at fast food chains in areas with high minimum wages (i.e. Seattle's $15) vs areas with low minimum wages, (i.e. the US's federal ~$8) the cost of items is higher but not as high as you might think. You can see some comparison data here, or find other sources (I don't have any bookmarked to dig up, I last did the research on this a few months ago...) https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com…

That's just a wage increase from a single point in the supply chain. With a national minimum wage increase, all of the incremental wage incremental wage increases get passed to the consumer.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#97

Post by Guthur »

rStar wrote: post #86
Guthur wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? Gaps are not even remotely what we should be focussed on and are purely based on jealous or indirect aggression. Concentrate on living standards and opportunity that will help far more people than trying pull down a vanishingly small number of people.

billionaires are criminal by definition, and their existence proves the absence of a (econ 101 style) market in whatever industry they came from. we can only fix this problem through efficient regulation of monopolies.

I wouldn't even know where to start with that, I'm sorry but I must simply say it's utter gibberish.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#98

Post by rStar »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #33
lixtra wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think debt should be at least normalized by number of citizens. But still...

That makes sense, although sadly it brings the scaled minimum wage down to only around $140/hour

money isn’t real my dude, at least while we have that sweet sweet petrodollar scam going. see MMT.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#99

Post by CameronNemo »

Guthur wrote: post #75
smnrchrds wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? The wealth gap is increasing. Its increase is so huge we need examples like this to just comprehend how bad it's gotten.

And? Gaps are not even remotely what we should be focussed on and are purely based on jealous or indirect aggression. Concentrate on living standards and opportunity that will help far more people than trying pull down a vanishingly small number of people.

I agree that concentrating on living standards is a good idea, but I also think massive wealth and income inequality is a barrier to truly free society. I hope it continues to stay in focus alongside other issues.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#100

Post by bawolff »

anonytrary wrote: post #81

In the extreme case, what if the minimum wage was $500000000 dollars. That would not work, and it would create a society where everything is done under the table. Now, keep halving that value and ask at what point do people no longer feel required to do things under the table in order to make a basic living (sans criminals). It's not obvious what the right number is. On the other extreme, if the minimum wage was $0,…

I'm not sure what your point is? There's very little in human society where we know the precise right value objectively. We still make choices in the absence of perfect information.
Post reply on HN