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Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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

#761

Post by ttoinou »

joh6nn wrote: post #601
ttoinou wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

provably false False because you take a "real world" example and twist it to fit your beliefs ? A good amount of the cost of what is produced comes from work. Hence the cost of inputs is also dependent on the cost of work (does the company you refer to contracts with suppliers ?) If you force work to be paid 1 million USD / month, what happens ?

I didn't twist it to fit my beliefs: i presented a scenario that is actually more expensive than what it would be in reality and showed how even that would not be a substantial increase in cost, even if it was paid for exclusively by increasing the price of products sold. A $1M/mo additional increase in supply costs would be less than .1% of their revenue. It just manages to be .1% at $10M/mo. Given that the $1.2B/yr…

But this company buys products from others company so ultimately an increase in wages will feed through almost all inputs, hence output. Your calculation is wrong

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

#762

Post by neonate »

propman wrote: post #715

Let’s say $11 was the previous avg wage for let’s say 300k employees (250k full and 100k part time avg). $4 increase is $8000 more a year. That’s $2.4B yearly transfer to workers which is honestly really really amazing, props to Bezos. $8000 means 15.3% in payroll taxes so this wage increase will result in $367.2M in additional payroll taxes. 12% federal income tax as well for that $8000 is $288M per year. So amazon…

Amazon is not paying that income tax. The workers are.

I'm happy with this story too, but that's going way too far.

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

#763

Post by realbarack »

kidsnow wrote: post #670
smilbandit wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

$200k-$500k is a massive range, and $500k is certainly not middle class. That's above the 95th percentile even in the San Jose area[0].

Just because you have to think about money sometimes doesn't make you middle class. Your neighbors having more money than you also doesn't make you middle class.

[0] https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/15/income-inequality-in-...

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

#764

Post by alangibson »

leesec wrote: post #42
School-Cotton wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Amazon actually pay any worse or have worse working conditions than any other unskilled warehouse job? If so, why didn’t the employees change jobs? If not, why is so much criticism directed at Amazon specifically, rather than at capitalism itself?

I don't know why you're down voted. People like to shame Amazon/Walmart for their wages and working conditions, but I guarantee they're doing a lot of the exact same things as other companies who are less criticized, Target, Meijer, etc.. Like he said, Amazon has it's issues but the employees were free to quit and work at other similar positions in similar companies.

> the employees were free to quit and work at other similar positions in similar companies

If you think that's true, you've never been an under-educated person living in a small town.

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

#765

Post by tmd83 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #744
slivym wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who says Amazon doesn’t pay taxes? Can we do away with this now please. Amazon paying the taxes it can't avoid doesn't act as an excuse for avoiding the taxes that they do avoid. In fact, excusing Amazon's tax avoidance with the income tax it's employees pay is even worse. It's still a problem. We still need to tackle it, and if this pay rise acts to dissuade people from real tax reform and real workers rights then…

> Amazon paying the taxes it can't avoid doesn't act as an excuse for avoiding the taxes that they do avoid. Blaming companies for doing something the law allows them to do is ridiculous. If you don't think they should be allowed to do that, why do you have a law that allows them to? Fix the law, e.g. by replacing corporate income tax with VAT, so they can't avoid it, and then they won't.

That's a toxic behavior not just in part of the amazon but as whole on the part of big businesses. And yes it's legal so we can't fault them except for sure collectively they lobby and influence the law making to make sure these loophole remains.

A lot of the laws are bought and sold for. That's not just true for US but for most of the world I think.

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

#766

Post by skybrian »

Smokey28 wrote: post #742
MrStonedOne wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point wasn't that paying employees more leads to sells. Its more of a remark about the overall world. Your employees are somebody's customers, your customers are somebody's employees, You are somebody's customer. If nobody in the world makes enough to be a consumer, nobody consumes, and thus you have no customers.

Exactly this. I've spent the last year or so studying Ford. His whole point was that if people didn't have the money to buy his product or time to use it (he reduced work hours as well) then your business will never survive. He wasn't banking on employee sales, he was looking at employees as a snapshot of a wider market. Great example is fast food as well. If you are offering the "lowest cost" food option, and provid…

For a profitable company where wages are a major expense, it seems like lower prices with higher wages can only be achieved with higher productivity. I think an economist would attribute this more to Ford's assembly line?

But sure, a high-productivity business can lead the way on wage increases. Other businesses might have to raise prices to keep up.

I'd like to read more about Ford's effect on wages outside Detroit. This "creator of the middle class" sounds like it might be exaggerated?

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

#767

Post by GCA10 »

propman wrote: post #715

Let’s say $11 was the previous avg wage for let’s say 300k employees (250k full and 100k part time avg). $4 increase is $8000 more a year. That’s $2.4B yearly transfer to workers which is honestly really really amazing, props to Bezos. $8000 means 15.3% in payroll taxes so this wage increase will result in $367.2M in additional payroll taxes. 12% federal income tax as well for that $8000 is $288M per year. So amazon…

I like the idea of roughing out the overall cost, but lets see if we can get the numbers a bit more precise. Looking up pay rates on Indeed, here's what Amazon currently is offering: Florence KY, warehouse fulfillment associate: $12.80/hour Las Vegas NV, $12+/hour; Ashland VA: $12.50; Florida: $11.30 estimate; Joliet IL: $13.10; Irvine CA: $13.35; Lancaster NY: $12.25; Wilmer TX: $12.85

Let's call it $12.50 for average starting pay across the United States. That would be $5,000 more/worker, or a $1.5 billion yearly transfer. Still a big number, but not quite as big.

Also, experienced workers likely are making a little more. Let's assume that half the workforce is new or high turnover that's still very close to starting pay. And let's assume that the other half is getting paid $1/hour more on the basis of seniority or slight bumps up in job descriptions/responsibilities, etc. In that case, the average yearly pay increase drops to $4,000, or a $1.2 billion total.

It's still a big number, but not quite as dramatic as the first pass might suggest.

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

#768

Post by krrrh »

hannasanarion wrote: post #596
ttoinou wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is 1) there is no common definition of what is acceptable, globally it depends on our current living standard hence ultimately the society's level of development 2) on an individual level some would not make the same choices as you so it is ridiculous for you to make judgments on behalf of others 3) if we had implemented those kind of laws earlier, either everybody was forbidden of improving its conditio…

>if we had implemented those kind of laws earlier, either everybody was forbidden of improving its conditions and freely shop for employers, there would have been enormous inflation (see Venezuela), 99% sure Venezuela's inflation problems come more from the fact that the president-dictator takes monetary policy advice from a ghost-parrot, and not as much from implementing occupational safety standards that have been…

It’s instructive to wonder why Venezuelan rulers felt forced to print money so wantonly. Ie. why did what should be a prosperous country given their natural advantages need to devalue their currency so massively, where did their debts, ruined oil industry, and fiscal irresponsibility come from?

The answer is at least in part that the state attempted to deliver benefits to the poor not directly and honestly through taxing and redistribution, but through wage & price controls, and outright nationalization. Direct massive manipulation of the market. Obviously implementing occupational safety standards, or collecting resource extraction royalties at a rate similar to Canada wouldn’t have had this effect, neither would have a modest increase in the minimum wage that reflected natural wage growth. However there is something to GPs point; the history of labor laws in developed countries haven’t only altered the conditions a competitive labor market must operate in, but also reflect changes that have already been achieved through the competitive market. The laws against child labor, for instance, were only possible once a critical mass of the population had already pulled their children out of the labor market as productivity and living standards increased and made this possible (and don’t forget that unpaid child labour was rampant in agricultural families, and to this day remains largely exempt from legal censure in developed nations).

As productivity reaches higher levels, labor has been able to demand a greater share of the surplus through competitive labor markets and eventually agitate to institute that in laws, but it’s always been an interplay between these two effects. The massive unprecedentedly rapid reduction in absolute poverty in China where millions have left the brutality of rural poverty to work in factories that many of us in more developed nations would consider inhumane has seen this played out in an incredibly compressed timeline, and I’m certain that there are very few people living in a Chinese special economic zone who would trade places with a resident of Caracas in 2018.

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

#770

Post by prolikewh0a »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #721
smilbandit wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> and thus grew the middle class. The middle class is something we truly need to focus on growing again. But that's the problem with things like this. We keep focusing on the top and the bottom but not the middle. So we pass laws purporting to tax the rich (but really anyone with a full time job) and then the rich hire accountants and only the middle class pays. Then we clamor for a higher minimum wage, but the middl…

>What we need isn't just to get the people at $10 to $15, it's to get the people at $20 to $35 or $50.

Exactly. $10-$15/hr is absolute bare minimum to SURVIVE now unless you live in an extremely rural area. $15/hr is coming too late.

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