Raising minimum wage -- $15/hr fast food emplyees

Raising the minimum wage will not create more jobs which is what we really need. It will decrease the number of jobs available because I'd wager a guess that many businesses couldn't realistically double the income of most of their workforce without having to cut a significant number of jobs.

Jimbo working at McDonald's flipping burgers is also going to have to learn how to make fries, a shake, work the register, take inventory, etc because people there for a singular purpose will have a net negative value on the company versus someone who can do multiple jobs.

 

Spot on, exactly, which would cause them to eventually go in a loss.

 

This is already in effect for NY.

 

Economically speaking, this creates a price floor I believe. You cannot pay below a certain amount. This creates a shortage of jobs.
Imagine I'm a factory. The amount of work you can produce is worth say $10/hr. If I have to pay you $15 an hour, it doesn't make sense for me to pay you. (or stay in business i guess)
Also, think about these minimum wage jobs and it's target. Yes some of them go to people who desperately need them, but a they also go to teenagers who are looking for job experience, a little extra cash for leisure etc. Frankly, I was thinking about getting a job a few days ago not for the money, but I was going to apply for an internship soon and I thought a job would look good on a resume.

 

I see your last point but a lot of people DO just need the job for money

 

I'm fine with minimum wage never changing, I worked minimum wage for 3 months and it made me realize I need a real job and now I make about ~110K a year at the age of 21.

 

Anybody that has taken a macroeconomics class knows that raising the minimum wage would do little good. A binding price floor on wages creates less demand for unskilled labor which means unemployment goes up because the supply of unskilled labor is greater than the demand. Basically, there would be a greater surplus of unskilled labor.

 

Raising the Minimum wage litterally unemploys poor people, anyone who disagrees has yet to take a 2nd year or higher economics class. The only people that get hurt by raising the min wage and the Poorest of the poor, and it creates long term unemployment. To argue against that is to argue against some of the worlds foremost Economists. So lets move on to something else.

 

The fact that poor people and the lower class want this to be enforced just showcases the reason why they're poor. They simply don't understand economics in any sense of the word. And the whole $15/hr for fast food employees.. my god. Yes working in the fast food industry sucks in general as do a large portion of its customers which is why those people should work their tails off to become skilled in an actual profession that requires some thought and intellect. That would be more productive for our society and more rewarding for those people as well. A lot of them seem to have the mindset that they can't make it out of the minimum wage job hell hole, which is sad but not true. Regardless, raising minimum wage is definitely not going to be what solves their problem.

 

My opinions:

15/minimum wage is probably the worst idea I've ever heard of.

Spoiler: Issue #1 - Cost of Living

All the liberals say "the cost of living won't increase!"

But have a look at this. I live in missouri, we pay $1.95/gallon of gas, average around $300 - $700/month in rent. Personally pay $400/month on a 3 bedroom 2.5 bathroom house that was $79,000. We have a $7.50 minimum wage.

Now, let's look at California. $4.21/gallon of gas, average of OVER $2000 PER MONTH RENT ON A 2 BEDROOM APARTMENT!!! Average price of a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house is OVER 500 THOUSAND dollars. They have a GIANT $10.00 minimum wage...

In a world where things weren't so corrupt, it'd work... But the sad truth is, if wages are increased by $1.00, the cost of living will go up a fair amount MORE than $1.00 and everyone, including minimum wage workers, are worse off than they were before.

Spoiler: Issue #2 - Fairness

People will ask "How is it fair you can afford to survive, and I cannot?"... Well, I'll clear that up pretty clearly... Is it more fair that you make 15/hour at 18 years old and he only makes 20 at 25 years old, after 3 years of college and training OR is it more fair for you to be poor after choosing not to persue skills/higher education.

"But I can't afford to go to college!"... Read this next part very closely, because if you find youself saying what I just put in that quote, I'm saying this DIRECTLY TO YOU - I get PAID to go to college! A pell grant has zero requirements. It goes by your wages, your bills, etc. The pell grant system goes by how much you have left over after cost of living it does NOT go by your total income... And however much money they give you, whatever you don't use YOU GET TO KEEP!!! I get around $300 - $400 per semester in pell grant returns. You can't exactly go to hardvard with a pell grant... But it will more than cover the price of nearly every community college in America.

So if I wasn an employer, this is how I'd look at it -
You never took college classes though. If you have money, you can go to college... If you don't have money, you get paid to go to college... So you are either too lazy, too dumb or just don't care enough to try for a better future, and that's not the type of attitude I want at my company... I'm sure McDonalds would at least consider you though...


This part was a bit longer and more of a rant than a researched issue, so I do apologize, but I'm going to go a little bit further...

My mother has worked in a factory for 20 years. After 20 years she is now up to $17.50/hour. She works her ass off 8 - 12 hours a day, covered in sweat. She's had to get a nerve operation, which made her have to file for bankruptcy in 2010 (nerve damage due to her job)....

And it puts me into a complete fucking rage just to consider there are such assholes out there that actually believe they deserve to earn $2.50 less than my mother when they fuck up my fast food orders 3/5 times I eat fast food... If you can't count hamburgers, you don't deserve $7.50/hour let the fuck alone double that... So actually, "fair" would you be losing money per hour every time you forget that three is MORE than two... Or maybe, the company should give refunds and refunds coming from your fuck-up should come out of your paycheck? That's fair... Fair is NOT some fast food, 18 year old hopped up on xanex getting paid almost as much as someone who does "real" work.

Spoiler: Issue #3 - Other Wages

I talked a little bit about this in the last section, mentioning my mother only makes $2.50/hour more than what these people want minimum wage to be after 20 years of 10 - 25 cent raises per year. I also mentioned it talking about people spending years in school just to make slightly over that 15/hour.

But this is more about another issue... That issue?

"Other wages will rise as well".

Bull fucking shit.

Maybe people claiming that around every turn (I see it daily on social media) has never worked the kind of work my family has... My grandfather, my mother and myself have all worked in factories, in fact, I worked at one of the same factories my grand father worked at long, long ago.

My starting pay at that factory? $12/hour 10 - 12 hours a day 5 - 7 days a week. I came home every single day with fucking battle wounds... Hands/arms covered in cuts and bruises. So exhausted I could barely stay awake for dinner. About 75% of the time we worked 12 hours days, 6 days a week. Maybe I'm the lazy one and the liberals aren't... But for me, do you know what 12 hour work days mean? It means 0 life. It means doing 10 mph over the speed limit just to get home, eat, and go straught to bed so I can get enough sleep to get up and work tomorrow". If ANYTHING deserves 15+/hour, it's that kind of work, NOT fast food/grocery stores/etc.

If I was still working there today and minimum wage was at 15/hour, I'd be making 15/hour... Not 20/hour... Businesses in this country are greedy, and if they're forced to pay you more than they're currently paying you, unless you're a leadman/supervisor, you're not going to get more than they're forced to give.

End of story.

Spoiler: Issue #4 - Less Jobs

This is one of the biggest issues for me. 15/hour means less jobs, and I'll simplfy my explanation on why it means less jobs with a fun example. Walmart!

You yourself will come to this same conclusion if you sit it on just ONE class of business & trading at a college.

For this example, I'm going to use hypotheticals. Hypothetically, let's just say walmart employs exactly 1,000,000 employees in the USA. For this example, we'll also hypothetically say walmart pays minimum wage (they actually pay about 10/hour where I live, but it's just simpler to explain this way.)

Now just take a moment and imagine how 80 - 90% of all extremely wealthy people are.

Okay, here we go!

Walmart is forced to pay 1,000,000 people 15/hour instead of 7.50/hour. The Walton's aren't very happy... But they'll pay that 15/hour for a few more months... maybe even a few more years... But they'll be watching closely, analyzing, looking for some way to make up for that profit they're losing by paying employees more... And as soon as they see it... The VERY MOMENT that they realize, half the people could do the same amount of work...

So what does a good business person do? (By good, I mean good at business, not a generally good person, because most business people in america are not generally good people. Remember that)

They say to themselves "I'm paying these people double what I used to... But half the people can do the same work... My profits would be the same as they used to be if I got rid of half of these assholes"

So now, that's 500k people without a job, because I can gaurntee it... The Walton's aren't gonna lose a single fuckin penny for you, me or anyone else.

Of course, there are other ways they could go about it... Like raising prices... $3/gallon of milk at 7.50/hour? Well, now you're lookin at $6+/gallon of milk, and is probably the path they would take to keep their profits... But the fact that EVERY place in the USA, could probably function just as well with less workers should be a scary thing when talking about paying people more money...

Just imagine how hard it'd be to find a job if McDonalds, Walmart, Burger King, Taco Bell, EVERY SINGLE FRANCHISE that pays less than 15/hour now, laid off as many people as it would take to not lose any profit from a nationwide payraise... In reality, Walmart employs over 1.4million people in the USA... Over 3.7million people work in fast food in the USA...

So let's once again hypothetically say that 15/hour is double all those peoples salaries so half of the people get laid off... At 18, not being paid enough to live comfortably and retire at 50 will be the least of your worries, because that'd be over 2.5million people more than there is currently searching for jobs...

IF that were to happen, like I said, from what I've studied, I personally believe raising prices of products is more likely than huge lay-offs, but IF the lay-offs were to happen, this country would collapse in on itself, the USA dollar bill wouldn't be worth 1/100 of a UK pound.

Spoiler: Issue #5 - Higher minimum wages work well in other countries

It does work well in other countries... And if you think that means it'll work well in the USA, you need to go to the piratebay and download Michael Moore's new movie... Can't recall the name, just google it, but you'll see for yourself exactly why it does work there but could NEVER work here. The USA is corrupt and the businesses own the government. And if it weren't for that corruption, 15/hour minimum wage would be an amazing thing... But facts are facts and that kind of thing just cannot work in the USA.

Conclusion -
15/hour minimum wages equals:

-Higher living costs
-Harder lives and more unfairness for people who actually work hard and have skills
-Possible economic destruction
-Our Government is Evil

 

Low end fast food jobs were never meant for someone to retire on. 15 an hour for a job any 16 year old can get is absurd. Why should fast food make 15 an hour fucking up my order 3/5 times, when I make 12 an hour dealing with mortgages, personal bank accounts, and social security numbers...?

 

Minimum wages as a whole are stupid. If you don't want terrible pay, study for a job that pays well or find a way to make your own living. Trying to improve blatantly terrible jobs is like decking out a Saturn.

 

EXACTLY. Starting pay has nothing to do with how hard you work. It's about what you know, your skill set. I make 12 dollars an hour dealing with social security numbers, routing and account numbers, debit card numbers. I deal with probably 50 sets of this info per day. Why should somebody that can listen to a beep to get burgers off the grill make more than me?

I've worked at McDonald's when I was young, along with 3 other franchises.

 

I don't support any form of minimum wage, especially not $15/Hour. It should be up to the employers to decide how much they should pay their employees, and if the employees don't like the payment, they don't get the job, and that company that won't pay their employees what they want won't have any employees then.

 

With a higher minimum wage, then wouldn't prices just increase nearby?
I don't agree with a minimum wage.

 

Finally I can eat a full meal.

 

That's not so easy to say lol.. You can't just put it like that, yes it requires much less skill than other jobs, but don't discredit how hard working these people are. There are people who work like dogs in Fast Food companies. You're just looking at it from an outside perspective, try and put yourself in their shoes.

 

I'm an IT Specialist by trade in the military. I've spent the time studying for and obtaining industry recognized certifications, I've sacrificed much in my life, and I've gone out of my way to ensure I learn the trade.

Flipping burgers, deep-frying potatoes, or taking orders at a cash-register takes NO skill at all. Any fucking moron can do these things at least SOMEWHAT competently.

There's no outside perspective to this. If you want to earn than more minimum wage, learn a fucking trade, learn a fucking skill. Stop being a fucking waste of life and do something with your life.

 

I mean it doesn't really take skill, but you're denying it takes hard work and effort and time..? and they should be paid dirt for their work? Let's be real here.

 

There's a difference between "hard work" and "skill"

ANYONE can do "hard work"

It takes time and effort to work a skill.

A high-school dropout can "work hard" at a burger flipping joint.

It takes someone of intellect to learn and master, or at the very least, become proficient at a skill.

Working fast food is NOT worthy of $15/hour, ESPECIALLY considering EMT's, and other vital jobs in our economy don't even earn that much, or barely earn that much.

The argument that someone working fast food should earn anywhere near $15, $13, or even $10/hour is an absolute fallacy, and anyone who honestly believes that this type of work is worthy of any more than minimum wage should hang themselves immediately, because they're worthless to our current system.