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The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

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Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#51

Post by randomdata »

bsagdiyev wrote: post #17
teekert wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking how little we pay the people that spend so much time with our kids.

It’s a big problem. When we moved to NC my girlfriend started working at my son’s school (preschool). The $17/hr she gets is considered the top end of the pay range for her job… $17/hr! She’s got a college degree!

> She’s got a college degree!

Is that significant? The preschool I send my child to's child care provider has a boat. Neither factor into my purchasing decision.

Everyone is going to have hobbies of some sort outside of work. How much I will pay isn't going to change depending on what hobbies they have chosen.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#52

Post by Workaccount2 »

jimmaswell wrote: post #20
Workaccount2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you also need to take money out of the top to counteract this. A wage crush is ideal, not a wage raise.

What do you mean by wage crush? I can't find any definition.

It's a term I use myself. It's pushing down on higher wages while pushing up on lower wages in effort to concentrate people into middle class.

This would also mean that many people who are not even remotely close to "the billionaire class" would get pushed down, so it's not really popular with high-earning coastal liberals, and probably many people here.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#53

Post by ipaddr »

mdorazio wrote: post #24
stavros wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that the company can't absorb the raises.

As an example, average restaurant profit margins are between 2% and 6%. They cannot absorb labor rate increases without raising prices or going bankrupt. Margins tend to be similarly low for many other industries as well. Tech is a massive outlier in its ability to absorb large wage increases.

They go backrupt landlord rents space at lower value cycle repeats. Place does well rent goes up. Wages are a small part of a larger process.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#54

Post by nemo44x »

mmcgaha wrote: post #31
teekert wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking how little we pay the people that spend so much time with our kids.

So we all have choices to make, and some people choose to become teachers. Now there are a lot of reasons that people make that choice, but I am sure that money is not one of them. So what happens once they get there that makes them decide they are underpaid? Maybe the problem isn't the money but how they are treated by parents and administration.

They work fewer hours than most people, which is another attractive part. On average about 35 hours a week when the school year is in session and then of course nearly no time at all in June, July, and August.

They also get weeks of breaks during the school year around Christmas and in the spring.

Being a teacher won't get you rich but it's a pretty sweet job for people that don't want to work much/do the corporate ladder thing, only work when their own kids are at school (big benefit!), and want generally good benefits, etc.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#55

Post by wonderwonder »

Nothing much in this article is groundbreaking, when large employers raise wages, smaller employers of people with similar skillsets are forced to raise wages as well. What is very interesting was the fact that unemployment in the region is only affected by .4 to 1.3 percent. This is not the doomsday scenario pushed by people claiming that raising minimum wage would result in large scale elimination of existing jobs as businesses are forced to fire people just to survive the parasitic employees demanding a living wage.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#56

Post by jjoonathan »

cortesoft wrote: post #49
spamizbad wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really shows the power land owners have to capture upside.

Isn't it more about the inelasticity of housing supply? When demand goes up, prices go up?

Just who do you think relentlessly votes, lobbies, and politicks to ensure that housing supply is inelastic? The tooth fairy?

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#57

Post by erhk »

pitaj wrote: post #45
ethanbond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the most critical consequence: rent. Rent goes up. Landlords get richer, minimum wage earners go back to poverty. Pretty obvious cycle. High paying employer moves somewhere? Rent goes up. Normal employer pays more? Rent goes up.

Rent goes up because of supply and demand. If a rich person moves into an area with a housing shortage, they will displace poor renters and rent will go up. But the problem is the housing shortage, a consequence of many years of terrible housing policy.

If you follow housing policy you might find wealthy benefactors

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#58

Post by dimitrios1 »

ethanbond wrote: post #27
shockeychap wrote: post #15

I found this to be many words with little information. It largely boils down to "when Amazon increases wages, other employers follow suit, to varying extents." There was almost nothing about the myriad of other effects, including things like inflation, effects on already higher wage earners, effects on automation, and more. They touched on the increase in unemployment from competitors, but that was it.

Or the most critical consequence: rent. Rent goes up. Landlords get richer, minimum wage earners go back to poverty. Pretty obvious cycle. High paying employer moves somewhere? Rent goes up. Normal employer pays more? Rent goes up.

America is 3,531,905.403 square miles large, and the majority of us choose to live in under 100,000 of it. Maybe that too also contributes to these issues. You may fashion yourself to be virtuous enough to not charge more when you so easily can, but we shouldn't assume everyone will be.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#59

Post by BurningFrog »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #10

When people get paid more, the prices of everything go up, including other people's wages. Inflation is often a self-reinforcing cycle.

This is the "common sense" view of inflation. It was disproven by Milton Friedman and others over 50 years ago.

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

In 2021, "the quantity of money" is a much harder concept to measure than it was, but the basic insight stands.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#60

Post by iso1631 »

leroman wrote: post #34
xyzzy4747 wrote: post #10

When people get paid more, the prices of everything go up, including other people's wages. Inflation is often a self-reinforcing cycle.

According to a fact you just came up with? Don’t believe it works this way, most money goes to the top earners, raising lower wages should not have that big of an effect as a result.

Rent is a massive portion of the majority of

When two income households became the norm, rather than having more disposable money, the money went into housing costs. Those who owned housing (land) before two-income was normal made out like bandits, but families that didn't are now working 100 hours a week rather than 50 hours a week for the same post-housing income.

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