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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

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Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#641

Post by rmorey »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #600
inetknght wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2 tanks a week? When I lived in Spring and commuted to the office at 610 North and I-45, it was 2 tanks a week for the 35 minute drive. That was 7 years ago. > 200 bucks a month for shit tier food? Ever heard of cooking? One week of food for one person: 2lb white rice, $1.5 1lb beans, $1.25 2lb ground meat, $10 1gal milk, $4 1lb sharp cheddar, $5 1 loaf bread, $3.5 total... $25. Times four weeks, you get $100. I ne…

$1400/mo for rent seems exorbitant, especially if you're working a minimum wage job.

The Rent Is Too Damn High

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#642

Post by shkkmo »

chii wrote: post #631
shkkmo wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the government should guarantee some minimum wage and top people who don't earn that. That would be horrible. The bottom of wages would drop to zero (since offering above zero but below the government guatantee would provide no benefit in highering.) This would drag down other low wages since the jump from paying zero to paying just over minmum would be a huge cost increase for a minor highering benefit. UBI…

> UBI is really the only functional alternative to a minimum wage. i dont think that's true. re-education and re-training into higher value work is a better investment. it's just that education of adults isn't funded well by society, and thus the debt load for that re-education is too expensive for the benefit. I would argue that society should have a funding system where if you re-trained (may be in some category of…

Education and training is solving a different issue, one that is orthogonal to the one solved by minimum wage or basic income.

I think making public colleges free (similar to germany) would be a massive benefit to our economy. But making all education free doesn't do anything to help remove the need for the minimum wage.

If you have an alternative to the minimum wage that isn't UBI, I would love to hear it.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#643

Post by itake »

deburo wrote: post #618
blihp wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 10% margin also often doesn't tell the whole story of how they make their money. Nearly since its inception, a substantial portion of McDonald's long term profit came from the appreciation of the real estate the stores were built on. Operating a business on it just made it cash flow positive during the holding period. So it was essentially a REIT that happened to operate a fast food chain. Even for many mom-and-pop…

>If they honestly can't afford to pay a living wage It's not logical to kill businesses by arbitrarily raising the minimum wage. Do you think the people they employ are better off not working at all? These people may not have a decent enough salary, but they get to work as opposed to staying at home and degenerate (mentally and physically). I always thought the better solution is to help them financially in other way…

> Do you think the people they employ are better off not working at all?

Maybe you didn't read the article. but in summary, because the businesses are not paying enough, the businesses have less employees.

Its not that the employees wont have jobs, but they will just have a higher paying job somewhere else.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#644

Post by tomcam »

lanstin wrote: post #585
sokoloff wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the question is what do you do when you find people who present with that situation: that they’re perfectly capable to hold down a job but only to create $10/hr of economic value by their labor. If you set the minimum wage at $15/hr and do nothing else, you have made that person worse off than today. Everyone around them now has more money, so everything is becoming more expensive. They now can’t find or keep…

Generally the math works the other way. I worked in a Wendy's for a while; I made minimum wage and most of the people made a little bit more. We cleared $30,000 a month profit for the owner ($100K revenue, $70K for expenses including all of our wages). If a company is so inept they can't generate a bit of value from people, then to be frank, as a society we can afford to be without them. Look at the minimum wage as a…

Pretty amazing! Way way better than any of my friends who have owned restaurants. Did that $30,000 profit include paying off the mortgage, various forms of insurance, legal fees, accounting fees, taxes, and so on?

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#645

Post by throwaway1492 »

jschveibinz wrote: post #2

This article unfortunately doesn't address the business side of the problem. Fast food restaurants, or place like "Dale's" mentioned in the article, make very little profit. It is most likely below 10%. Here is an estimate: https://www.restaurant365.com/blog/what-is-the-average-profi... . A 10% profit is very modest. That's not the story of the "fat cats getting rich on the back of the workers" that the article is al…

> But watch out for technology and automation...that is the part of the equation that has been "solving" the labor problem for some time now...

Brings to mind the growing prevalance of self serve kiosk for placing an order that so many fast food restaurants have now. Removing the need for the cashier all together. That and self checkout at a lot of big chain retail stores. I don't think the business concern is necessarily with making a profit, but making 1% more profit than not.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#646

Post by ruined »

mannerheim wrote: post #627
cbozeman wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please, define what is a poverty wage, it is important. The ability to afford adequate housing, food, and clothing. I'm not saying we should mandate people can afford a 1500 sq. ft. home, ribeye steaks every evening, and Ralph Lauren Polo threads, but how about at least a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment; nutritious, nourishing food; Walmart clothing at a minimum. > What is the change of the model in case of the…

Do workers who receive tips want it to go away? The friends I've known who worked jobs with tips seemed to think they would be paid less if tips were replaced with wage increases on the employer end; my understanding is that they made a significant amount of money in tips. Obviously this varies by individual, job, and establishment, though. There some restaurants that tried to go no-tipping, but I think it didn't wor…

everyone i know who has worked tipped and untipped service models preferred the untipped model for stability and the reduced interference of sadistic/irate/careless customers. in fact these people have been pretty instrumental in wider implementation as they have moved on to other work environments and advocated for that change. this is in a state that doesn’t count tips toward minimum wage.

the largest harm of the tipping model is in states that do count tips towards minimum wage. the wage paid by employer may be under $3/h and the employee mostly survives off tips. this means that tips are only subsidizing the employer, because an increase in tips is matched by a deduction in the wage paid by the employer, to a limit.

there are some rare instances, mostly luxury dining, where tips can far outpace typical restaurant wages. in this context the employer can afford to massively increase wages. there have been arguments made that these tips pay for the quality of service, but there is no reason this incentive and expectation can’t come from the employer directly, and it would remove the uncertainty of irresponsible customers failing to tip.

in all contexts, switching from tips to a real wage has many benefits to the employee when wages are adjusted properly, no detriments to the customer, and only harms businesses that are currently exploitative and doing harm.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#647

Post by dcolkitt »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #613
dcolkitt wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% is way to high an effective tax rate at that income. Below median earners pay effectively zero taxes with the EITC and standard deductible. $400 is way too high for a car payment. You can get a great used compact for $10k. With decent credit that’ll run you $150/month. $100 is way too high for home Internet. I pay $40/month for 100 mbps, which is more than enough for five decides to stream simultaneously. $1400 i…

Federal income tax, state income tax and local property and sales tax. Social Security and Medicare taxes. I agree 30% is too high an estimate for below median incomes, but its closer 9-15%, according to this: https://thecollegeinvestor.com/34072/effective-tax-rates/ And if you include health insurance--which in other countries is provided for and paid for with taxes--then it goes up. A lot.

> And if you include health insurance-

OP explicitly broke out health insurance as a separate line item.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#648

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #514
zizee wrote: post #382

Honest question: why do discussions about minimum wage in the U.S. never propose having teenagers having a different minimum to adults? In australia we have a $12.50/hr minimum for 15 year olds. It climbs in increments until about $25/hr. This system allows teenagers to get a foot in the door for low-skilled jobs, and allows adults to get paid a livable wage. The result is that a lot of fast food jobs are performed b…

> Honest question: why do discussions about minimum wage in the U.S. never propose having teenagers having a different minimum to adults? Because its effect would be a transfer of jobs from working class adults to middle class kids.

> Because its effect would be a transfer of jobs from working class adults to middle class kids.

Then corps would have to rewrite the application algorithms that serially discriminate against 1st time job applicants.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#649

Post by laurencerowe »

jschveibinz wrote: post #2

This article unfortunately doesn't address the business side of the problem. Fast food restaurants, or place like "Dale's" mentioned in the article, make very little profit. It is most likely below 10%. Here is an estimate: https://www.restaurant365.com/blog/what-is-the-average-profi... . A 10% profit is very modest. That's not the story of the "fat cats getting rich on the back of the workers" that the article is al…

> But they will, they will go down the street--until everyone's prices go up and there is nowhere else to go.

This is why higher minimum wages are so important. They force all businesses (not just the ethical ones) to increase prices to point that workers receive a living wage.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#650

Post by hellbannedguy »

kukx wrote: post #476
rbg246 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitions and I believe another commenter in this thread has defined it very solidly about poverty. There will always be service sector jobs, this is the argument luddites were having in 1815 (I don't want to get into this as it is distracting from my main point). We should be ensuring that anyone putting in 40 hours a week should be able to support a family. The wealth is there to be able to create this…

What does it mean to support a family? Is getting them sheltered, clothed and well fed good enough? I think it is way easier to achieve today than in almost any other time in a human history, even for the low earners. Restaurants are a part of the service sector. A service job does not imply that it is attractive. And they differ in requirements. The well paid ones get more and more complicated and hence, proportiona…

Wow---you need to look around.

Finding shelter is exponential Harder now than any time in my memory.

We have a homelessness problem that it unpresidented. I would bet more people are now than anytime in history. (Pioneers could camp when they were tired. Cavemen weren't ticketed for sleeping under a ledge.)

Hell--30 years ago certain states were still offering homesteads. There's not an inch of land in the USA that live for free. (BLM land requires you to move every two weeks. Only some BLM land us open to camping.)

Try taking a nap in your closest park, or open field. You will get poked by a angry cop. You will understand loitering/trespass laws innately.

People, especially in service jobs, are living on top of each other. Why was the Corona virus so prevelant in the hispanic communities?

As to your previous statement, "We all can't be Coders." I have personally know three older Programmers. Two died because they aged out of the industry, and became homeless. The other is currently being harassed in Richardson Bay by Sausalito cops, and the coast guard, over a dispute of the seaworthiness of his sailboat.

One was Jim Fox. A huge contributor to Word Star. He ended up in San Rafael wearing a fuzzy Penguin outfit begging. He died a few years ago.

You might be one of those Service applicants in a decade?

(I'm not going to debate this guy. My biggest worry post Covid is the huge increase in homelessness we are going to see. The government needs to open up any excess federal, state, and local to to free camping. We need to put up tent cities. I feel it's going to get very ugly.)

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