A study suggests that higher minimum wages hit poorer bosses’ pockets

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

is it fukk big business/start your own shyt, #supportlocal or fukk small biz only ones who should thrive is big business

with what jobs? yall conveniently love to talk in the theory of a perfect world and i have post in this thread sharing what's actually happening in a bay area city.

small businesses can't move afford to do business in emeryville right now, yet most the storefronts and restaurants are partitioned for small business plus the city is anti chain...so now you have storefronts sitting vacant, people out of jobs and nothing coming to replace it...sure sounds like blanket application of minimum wage hikes is working

With their existing jobs. The people that were working minimum wage for less than 40 hours a week will have to be retrained and re-enter the workforce with a more sustainable career path. Attempting to try and keep minimum wage jobs at their current rates as the cost of living increases is akin to expecting coal mines to stay open as the world shifts to cleaner energy. Either one results in the government footing the bill for the company.

The point is that if a business cannot pay their employees a livable wage, then they are failing as a business themselves. Just because some is desperate enough to be financially taken advantage of by an employer doesn't mean that it is right. It is similar to an employer exploiting undocumented immigrants and then complaining that they are actually looking out for undocumented immigrants and that the immigrants will be worse off if they weren't being exploited.

this one sounds like one of those online trolls...i swear every poster that came in right after election sounds the same

While your response makes no sense, i understand your point that regulations can create barriers to entry and the cost is something only a large business could absorb (in certain instances).

At the same time, i believe housing should be a human right.

this one might just be dumb

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

What about my point on exploited workers? Did you not read that far or not have a good response to it? Do you refuse to acknowledge that workers are being exploited by not being paid a livable wage?

I didn’t get into that given the various dynamics of what livable wage is. The city I’m referring to was paying $15/hr before the hike to $16.30, they have the highest min wage in the country. Even min wage in the bay is $13-15.xx depending on the city, Ca min wage is $12, so were these employees being exploited? Are these livable wages in CA? What’s livable wage vs minimum wage? Etc.

I don’t think minimum wage workers are being exploited, they have minimum wage jobs and are subject to the minimum wage in a given jurisdiction. If anything, the government is exploiting them by not raising minimums.

but There’s some strange notion that has bleeding hearts thinking being a McDonald’s cashier should be a $50k/yr job...gtfoh. People need to get their cooperative economics on if they can’t survive alone on min wage. this goes back to what people feel they’re entitled to vs. how to make their lives work.

I feel I’m entitled to a 5bd, 4.5 bath, 4200 sq ft house in the Oakland hills, but I don’t have the paper to afford that alone so I make my life work within its financial contstraints.

 

[Wild self]

I didn’t get into that given the various dynamics of what livable wage is. The city I’m referring to was paying $15/hr before the hike to $16.30, they have the highest min wage in the country. Even min wage in the bay is $13-15.xx depending on the city, Ca min wage is $12, so were these employees being exploited? Are these livable wages in CA? What’s livable wage vs minimum wage? Etc.

I don’t think minimum wage workers are being exploited, they have minimum wage jobs and are subject to the minimum wage in a given jurisdiction. If anything, the government is exploiting them by not raising minimums.

but There’s some strange notion that has bleeding hearts thinking being a McDonald’s cashier should be a $50k/yr job...gtfoh. People need to get their cooperative economics on if they can’t survive alone on min wage. this goes back to what people feel they’re entitled to vs. how to make their lives work.

I feel I’m entitled to a 5bd, 4.5 bath, 4200 sq ft house in the Oakland hills, but I don’t have the paper to afford that alone so I make my life work within its financial contstraints.

Well, ever since they outsourced all the jobs that actually PRODUCE and EXPORTED to the world from the 80s onwards, the service-based jobs are the only jobs left, and they better pay up or else America becomes a third world country. Once outsourcing came to the picture, no one can bargain that service jobs deserve minimum wage.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

This is what happens when someone posts an article behind a paywall - ain't no one in this whole thread responding to the article at all lol. Just spitting out their preconceived notions.

Seattle passed a $15 minimum wage law in 2014. Here's how it's turned out so far

Wow. Did no one read this either?

Businesses like dikk’s have seen their costs go up. dikk’s pays above minimum wage, with some locations starting workers at $17 and $18 an hour, and most workers are students in their 20s. Benefits like 401(k) plans and health insurance are also available to workers regardless of the number of hours worked. But higher minimum wages citywide pressure employers to increase pay even if they are already above that threshold, in order to compete for talent.

Meanwhile, the Seattle law has been life changing for workers like Martin Johnson, who lobbied for higher pay with the advocacy group Working Washington. He works three minimum wage jobs — as a temporary cook on game days at the city’s stadiums, as a janitor at Costco on the overnight shift and as a handyman in his own small business. The raise brought with it more dignity for workers and boosted morale, he said.

“Instead of being paid $9 an hour, you’re getting $15 an hour to do the same work. You feel better about yourself — you feel appreciated,” Johnson, 54, said.

So increase in minimum wage is leading wages to go up across the board. Businesses are actually completing for talent and going ABOVE the minimum wage because labor talent matters to their business model. Hmmmm.....

One of the challenges of measuring Seattle’s experience with the minimum wage hike is that the city’s economy is in a period of robust growth. Since the wage increase began in 2015, Seattle/Tacoma’s job growth has slightly outpaced the state of Washington as a whole, at 12.9%. The city’s population has increased some 13% over 2015, according to the Washington state Office of Financial Management. Average hourly earnings were $39.38 in October, an increase of 14.5% from the same month in 2015.

Wait, so Seattle's job growth has been growing FASTER than the rest of Washington since they passed the law, and that's a "challenge" for evaluating the wage hike? Hmmm....

When the minimum wage increase in Seattle passed, Chad Mackay, CEO of Fire & Vine Hospitality, a Pacific Northwest hospitality group, he decided to reevaluate his business model.

“When we projected out the minimum wage increases, and the loss of a tip credit [which allows employers to count tips toward minimum wage], we realized we would be functionally bankrupt if you were to fast forward seven years in the future. We decided the business model was broken, and it’s time for us to change,” Mackay said.

Fire & Vine has long paid above minimum wage in the front and back of house due to demand for talent in the market and the company’s beliefs on professional pay. The company moved to a commission-based model, with a 20% service charge for diners. Servers are paid out an hourly wage and a 15% commission and can make $70 or more per hour in the Seattle market, up from some $45 an hour earlier. Guests can also leave extra tips for servers if desired. Those in the back of the house like dishwashers begin between $17 and $20 an hour — some 40% over where they were prior.

The wage increases haven’t hurt his business: He’s nearly doubled in size, with some 600 workers today with 12 locations under management, during a time when other restaurants have closed their doors.

But while some businesses have thrived, others have faced challenges in the face of Seattle’s changing economy.

Matthew Dillon, owner of Sitka & Spruce, says that he believes the minimum wage should be much higher than $15 an hour, which is why he also pays workers above that threshold. But when his lease came up, the James Beard Award-winning chef decided it was time to close his doors after more than a decade in business, serving the restaurant’s last dinner on New Year’s Eve. Passing off costs to consumers in an environment where his rent was $16,000 per month including taxes and fees, and where both food and labor costs are also on the rise, felt unsustainable. He has other businesses that are still up and running in the area.

“Wages are going up, the price of food is going up, [and] my property taxes that I have to pay the landlord are going up. My rent is going up for my staff, or staff that was here feels like, ‘Well I can’t be in the city anymore, so you have to find someone to replace me,’” he said. “That’s really hard. The cost of that, just working through that as a business owner, is going up.”

Wait, so their "negative" example is a guy having to close ONE of his multiple businesses in the area, and he talks about the rent and food costs going up as much as the wages?

Businesses close every day even in the best economies. Meanwhile, job growth in Seattle is increasing immensely. There is no honest person who can look at those results and say that's not a win for their $15/hour wage.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

housing wasn't a right even when we lived as pre-historic beings.

What kind of argument is that? Where is your evidence regarding what pre-historic beings felt about human rights or what their housing situation was, and why do you think that's relevant?

Regardless of how prehistoric man debated property rights, it was clearly considered a basic right in the Old Testament a good 3,000 years ago. All of Israel was given land according to the size of their tribe and that land was split among all the families according to their size. Numbers 25:52-56:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: To these the land shall be apportioned for inheritance according to the number of names. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance; every tribe shall be given its inheritance according to its enrollment. But the land shall be apportioned by lot; according to the names of their ancestral tribes they shall inherit. Their inheritance shall be apportioned according to lot between the larger and the smaller

And that wasn't a one-time deal - the land was intended to be split among everyone for perpetuity. Leviticus 25:10-17

And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not cheat one another. When you buy from your neighbor, you shall pay only for the number of years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop years. If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

Every 50 years, all land reverted back to the family no matter what your parents/grandparents had done. So even if they went broke, went into debt, sold off the land, no matter what, the family ALWAYS got the land back. (All debts were forgiven and all slaves were freed every 50 years too, it was always a new start for everyone so no one would be burdened for too long by the situation of their ancestors.)


And the prophets absolutely condemned people who accumulated land and houses for their own sake at the expense of others. Isaiah 5:8-9:

Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land! The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: ”Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.”

Also Micah 2:1-3:

Woe to those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields, and seize them: houses, and take them away: they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance. Therefore thus says the Lord: ”Now, I am devising against this family an evil from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be an evil time.”

this is an awful answer. half the country is employed by small businesses, so dismissing them by saying if you can't pay $xx, you deserve to go under, is both bad for business and bad for employees. those jobs aren't being replaced.

But we've argued this before, small businesses are generally helped by higher wages, not hurt by them, which is why multiple studies have shown that MOST small businesses want wages to go up.

The part of the OP that I can read says that the businesses most hurt were the whose workforce was the highest % minimum wage workers. That typically describes big business, not small business.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

What kind of argument is that? Where is your evidence regarding what pre-historic beings felt about human rights or what their housing situation was, and why do you think that's relevant?

Regardless of how prehistoric man debated property rights, it was clearly considered a basic right in the Old Testament a good 3,000 years ago. All of Israel was given land according to the size of their tribe and that land was split among all the families according to their size. Numbers 25:52-56:





And that wasn't a one-time deal - the land was intended to be split among everyone for perpetuity. Leviticus 25:10-17


Every 50 years, all land reverted back to the family no matter what your parents/grandparents had done. So even if they went broke, went into debt, sold off the land, no matter what, the family ALWAYS got the land back. (All debts were forgiven and all slaves were freed every 50 years too, it was always a new start for everyone so no one would be burdened for too long by the situation of their ancestors.)


And the prophets absolutely condemned people who accumulated land and houses for their own sake at the expense of others. Isaiah 5:8-9:

Also Micah 2:1-3:




But we've argued this before, small businesses are generally helped by higher wages, not hurt by them, which is why multiple studies have shown that MOST small businesses want wages to go up.

The part of the OP that I can read says that the businesses most hurt were the whose workforce was the highest % minimum wage workers. That typically describes big business, not small business.

You’re quoting fables...miss me with that

And restaurants and mom and pop retail are small business and they usually pay min wage to the bulk of their employees, that’s the sector I’m speaking of, not small professional businesses.

Y’all can quote studies all you want, I’m relating a real life issues that’s going on in the town I live a 5 minute walk to the border of...

 

[Serious]

yes, but this upholds white supremacy even more. 90% of people of color business owners have to pay their employees minimum wage bc they have less access to capital.

Steep rises to the minimum wage, keeps black ppl out of being entreprenuers even more. It needs to be a slower increase if the ultimate plan is to double it

It's true, but also it's a double edged sword.

Like there's black nonprofits, I've would have to worked for but the pay was too low, only slightly above minimum wage.

In theory, you have to pay for talent.

This alone is a reason why a lot black organizations can't recruit the right or correct talent. But then as black people we're also the first to call out the incompetency of black ran businesses for the lack of or horrible customer service.

 

[JLova]

At the same time, i believe housing should be a human right.

what kind of housing? I get a chuckle anytime someone says this. A roof over your head with electricity and running water? Sure, that should be a human right but that’s the governments responsibility.

But the people talking this shyt still want all the luxuries and don’t realize that costs money.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

You’re quoting fables...miss me with that

And restaurants and mom and pop retail are small business and they usually pay min wage to the bulk of their employees, that’s the sector I’m speaking of, not small professional businesses.

Y’all can quote studies all you want, I’m relating a real life issues that’s going on in the town I live a 5 minute walk to the border of...

Don't be disingenuous. Why would people 3000 years ago write down "fables" insisting that everyone had the right to a landed home if they didn't have some sort of sense that everyone should have the right to a landed home?

Why would multiple prophets of the age condemn people for accumulating land and homes at the expense of others if they didn't think there was something wrong with accumulating land and homes at the expense of others?

You claimed these sentiments didn't exist in prehistory (using no evidence whatsoever for your claim) and expected us to think that was relevant. I proved to you that these sentiments DID exist in ancient history. So if you thought your claim had relevance, why are you ignoring what I've shown you to be true?

 

[Mook]

still unsettled is the question of where that extra money comes from.


How can you read an article that has this sentence?

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

Don't be disingenuous. Why would people 3000 years ago write down "fables" insisting that everyone had the right to a landed home if they didn't have some sort of sense that everyone should have the right to a landed home?

Why would multiple prophets of the age condemn people for accumulating land and homes at the expense of others if they didn't think there was something wrong with accumulating land and homes at the expense of others?

You claimed these sentiments didn't exist in prehistory (using no evidence whatsoever for your claim) and expected us to think that was relevant. I proved to you that these sentiments DID exist in ancient history. So if you thought your claim had relevance, why are you ignoring what I've shown you to be true?

I didnt say the sentiment didn’t exist, I said it’s not a right and everything we know about ancient civilizations to these times proves that. I’m not going to get into an argument about the Bible and whose perspective it reflected nor the accuracy of it. That said, the earliest civilizations (Egypt, Assyria, Mesopotamia, etc) we have relatively accurate information on, housing was available due to an exchange of something/providing value to your society. At the lowest rung were peasants/farmers, they had homes and food because they produced for the whole society. 5000 years of civilization has been based on that. Of course as more stratification happened, especially adverse events, those that spur a lot of the biblical writings, you had those who prosthelytized more egalitarian societies, especially those with less who stood to gain from spreading these ideas. That said, society didn’t change, housing wasn’t a right, at least not housing smack in the middle of their towns.

futhermore people can freely find and establish shelter in the wilderness like so many others have done through time and still do...so that’s their “right”

 

[Cynic]

This is obvious. Small companies do not have the capital to pay for these wages.

 

[No1]

people underestimate how thin of margins folks are operating on, especially restaurants. rent, supplies, insurance, utilities eat up a lot...CA has, at least in my lifetime, always paid full state/locale min wage to these workers so margins have had to take that into consideration.

in emeryville, min wage is $16.30/hr, they shot down an exception for small businesses to only pay $15/hr...they have so much commercial space sitting idle because coming into new spots is prohibitively expensive as most spots are made for small to mid size businesses and they can't pay the rents + wages, and this area of the bay is notoriously anti-chain - the people who could pay it. it's actually the perfect real live proof for conservative talking points...residents are also mad as hell about all the closures and vacant spaces

That’s just mismanagement. New York minimum wage laws hit in phases and accounts for what part of the state you’re in and the size of your business. It’s really not that complicated. In NYC employers of 10 or less pay 13.50 and hour instead of 15.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

This is obvious. Small companies do not have the capital to pay for these wages.

Then why do most small businesses pay higher wages and support higher minimum wage?

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

That’s just mismanagement. New York minimum wage laws hit in phases and accounts for what part of the state you’re in and the size of your business. It’s really not that complicated. In NYC employers of 10 or less pay 13.50 and hour instead of 15.

exactly...good for NY for taking a measured approach, ca is definitely more reactionary and that's all i'm arguing against, stop taking a blanket approach to everything.