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House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

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Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#21

Post by PatentlyDC123 »

rightbyte wrote: post #15
rjf72 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bloomberg ran a nice piece on what it's like to own a McDonald's franchise here [1]. The raw numbers sound nice - $2.7 million gross, $1.8 million in gross profit. But after your various expenses come into play, the honeymoon ends - you end up taking home about $150k for a mountain of work that's required to keep a franchise running in good shape. You're buying a job. The reason this matters is because those numbers…

If the minimum wage increased fast food joints would, as you note, just have to raise their prices. There is McDonalds in Norway and Switzerland too. I find it quite disturbing that McDonalds prices are about the same in SF as else where. There is no way that is working out for the employees. If people want to live there they would have to be prepared to pay not just for their own housing ... Of course, some business…

I agree you have a point regarding geographical fluctuations, but perhaps prices in SF might be limited somewhat by the franchise agreement?

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#22

Post by [deleted] »

luxuryballs wrote: post #3

Effectively banning/exporting any jobs that aren’t productive enough to be worth paying as much. Price fixing always creates shortages and is an inefficient way of allocating resources. Less people will be hired, businesses will go under. Stupid idea and should be a constitutional violation, you should have the right to work for whatever wage you want.

[deleted]

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#23

Post by rightbyte »

gwright wrote: post #18
rightbyte wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the minimum wage increased fast food joints would, as you note, just have to raise their prices. There is McDonalds in Norway and Switzerland too. I find it quite disturbing that McDonalds prices are about the same in SF as else where. There is no way that is working out for the employees. If people want to live there they would have to be prepared to pay not just for their own housing ... Of course, some business…

> Of course, some businesses would not be profitable at raised prices. It is hard to tell from your comment, but you see that as a problem, right? I agree that some people will benefit from an increased federal minimum wage, but I don't understand how the negative aspects can be dismissed: * some people will be unemployable at $15/hour * some business models will be unworkable at $15/hour * some people will lose jobs…

Ye, it's a problem if businesses fail. For both the owners and the formerly employed employees. And I think the concerns you present are valid.

Where I live now (Denmark) there are not even any minimum wage. So having one is probably not really important. Any large coorparation that would pay "too low" would be blocked by unions. Small companies can pay whatever.

In practice a minimum wage is like a really crappy government worker union. It's some protection against usary but the worst usary is not legal businesses anyway.

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#24

Post by rightbyte »

PatentlyDC123 wrote: post #21
rightbyte wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the minimum wage increased fast food joints would, as you note, just have to raise their prices. There is McDonalds in Norway and Switzerland too. I find it quite disturbing that McDonalds prices are about the same in SF as else where. There is no way that is working out for the employees. If people want to live there they would have to be prepared to pay not just for their own housing ... Of course, some business…

I agree you have a point regarding geographical fluctuations, but perhaps prices in SF might be limited somewhat by the franchise agreement?

Probably. I usually only go to McDonalds at airports becouse they have the same price there as at some murky downtown parkinglot.

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#25

Post by NotSammyHagar »

desdiv wrote: post #14
mac01021 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can still work for less as a contractor, if they want, right?

Whether someone is an employee vs a contractor solely depends on the "economic reality" of their job. Neither the employer nor the employee can choose to have it classified as a contractor relationship if it isn't actually one. For example, if Subway determines how, where, and when I make the sandwiches, and provides all the equipment and materials, then I am a de facto employee. Even if both Subway and myself volunt…

I disagree completely that employees and employers can't choose whether they are contractors. It's almost always better for companies to hire contractors, that's why they work really hard to structure it that way (see uber). Employees are more mixed in their preferences, but in my long career as a dev I've seen that being an employee is better than being a contractor.

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#26

Post by tonyedgecombe »

luxuryballs wrote: post #3

Effectively banning/exporting any jobs that aren’t productive enough to be worth paying as much. Price fixing always creates shortages and is an inefficient way of allocating resources. Less people will be hired, businesses will go under. Stupid idea and should be a constitutional violation, you should have the right to work for whatever wage you want.

Those arguments were bandied about when the minimum wage was introduced in the UK. They turned out to be false.

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#27

Post by NotSammyHagar »

Liron wrote: post #5
luxuryballs wrote: post #3

Effectively banning/exporting any jobs that aren’t productive enough to be worth paying as much. Price fixing always creates shortages and is an inefficient way of allocating resources. Less people will be hired, businesses will go under. Stupid idea and should be a constitutional violation, you should have the right to work for whatever wage you want.

Right, plus there are plenty of Americans who want to work for say $13/hr if the job is a rewarding one. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 is arguably low enough to raise somewhat because why not, but $15/hr is clearly high relative to the current supply/demand equilibrium.

Another reason to increase the minimum wage is to reduce the number of workers who get such low wages that we give them welfare on top of their low wages so they can survive. We already have the situation that Walmart was kind of shamed into paying higher wages; huge amounts of their employees had their wages "subsidized" because their employees were on welfare! This isn't good for anyone. [1] 2014: walmart employees get 6.2 billion in public assistance. [2] 2018 thousands of amazon employees get welfare. Article 2 says paying a living wage (a higher minimum wage) could save 150 billion in government benefits. [3] 2015 Americans pay 153 billion in public assistance for low wage jobs at McD and Walmart. Underlying research in [4].

1. 2014 https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-... 2. 2018 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/24/thousands...

3. 2015 https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/15/... 4. http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-high-public-cost-of-low-...

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#28

Post by NotSammyHagar »

joey_bob wrote: post #17

How might a $15 minimum wage might affect the current (engineering) internship system? Almost every non-software engineer I know earned $15, or marginally more, during undergraduate for internships related to their field. If minimum wage jobs are price-competitive with an internship, what is the impact? Will large employers of engineers raise internship pay? Will they continue to hire as many interns?

$15/hour would be unlikely to have any impact on engineering internship wages, it's far too low. $15/hr is $31k per annum. 20 years ago we paid interns a pro rated wage higher than that! Today we pay our interns a pro-rated wage over 80k at the startup where I work. Are there any engineering interns paid such low wages in the western world? Double or trip $15 and you might have some impact.

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#29

Post by NotSammyHagar »

rjf72 wrote: post #12
rayiner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purchasing power angle makes no sense. Purchasing power will only be diminished if you increase the total money supply. Minimum wage won’t do that.

Bloomberg ran a nice piece on what it's like to own a McDonald's franchise here [1]. The raw numbers sound nice - $2.7 million gross, $1.8 million in gross profit. But after your various expenses come into play, the honeymoon ends - you end up taking home about $150k for a mountain of work that's required to keep a franchise running in good shape. You're buying a job. The reason this matters is because those numbers…

Raise prices then. Wages are usually said to be a lesser part of the cost of a restaurant. Raise prices 10%. The gross goes up $270k, give yourself 20k more, give your employees 250k more. They get a 50% raise, that will make people want to work for you. My hamburger costs $3.30 instead of $3.

In Seattle the restaurant industry said it was going to be all doom and gloom when they raised wages incrementally to $15/hour. Restaurants open and close all the time. There were a few that claimed they closed because of wages. Plenty of other restaurants succeed just fine, some put a small specific charge on the bill for this living wage instead of just raising prices. It didn't make much difference.

Re: House passes bill to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour

#30

Post by toomuchtodo »

harryh wrote: post #10

It's important to note that there is a ~0% chance that this will pass the Senate or that the current President would sign it. This is best discussed as politics and not policy.

Correct. It will apply substantial political pressure on Mitch McConnell, as everyone who would see a benefit (anyone making under $15/hr) is unable to if he won't bring it up for a vote.
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