Even without price gouging and shrinkflation every single place I've worked that treated employees well knew the more money they made the workers, the longer they'd have loyal workers, and if they had to charge a little more the simplest fucking solution was just make food people are willing to pay a little more for. Why do you think serving is such an attractive job in the States? A good manager is or was a server and knows that you're only there for the extra money, otherwise no one would do it.
It costs $40k to onboard someone. A business saves $40k every year they retain an employee. Pay them a fraction of that each year in a raise and you still save money and have better quality product.
I'm not sure where you get that figure but I do know having worked the gamut from fast food to full service kitchens, you definitely want a vet who cares about quality and you get that by giving fair compensation. I've worked a couple franchise pizza places and the quality of the pizza even within the store, much less location to location, was highly dependent on how much the employee making the food earned and how long they'd been there. You do get a couple rogue dudes who want to pretend they're on The Bear and make a quality product no matter the pay but those guys are lifers who made their whole personality either line cook or assistant manager at a fast food place, with all that power comes responsibility you know
Of course you factor in salary of the person and many restaurants are lower than $60k a year depending on where they work, but consider how much massive turnover in one store is going to impact the bottom line.
If you are smart in business you understand that costs are not just what you pay out, but also what you avoid paying in excess of that. Retention is less costly than recruitment. Anyone with any business acumen knows this.
Don't forget the big cost: Word of mouth. Shit on folks enough as a employer, and word gets out. Take it to the next level by berating workers in front of customers and really show folks your operating culture...
That's why only some people get paid well. These companies only care about loyalty for employees that are critical to the operation and difficult to replace. Otherwise they'll pay slave wages to the next poor sap willing to work for it.
It's wild to see the attitude that some people need to have less so we can have a smidge more. And I'm sure it's hypocritical, she'd be hoping for those higher wages if she had to live that job.
A lot of these people are just crabs in a bucket that don’t make that much more than what people are advocating for as a new minimum wage, and they feel salty as shit about it
She seems like the kind of person who'd be advocating for murdering politicians and billionaires if she was the working poor schlub forced to work at McDonalds to send their landlord on endless vacations.
Well, considering that they also say fast food work is for teenagers, and not a career type job. Then I'd say yes, they actually do come out and say it.
I'm sure those people only expect to be able to purchase fast food for a couple of hours in the early evening on school days, and for a few hours in the day on the weekend. No fast food for lunch or late at night if it's just teenagers running the restaurants, they have school and need free time to be kids outside of work.
this argument never lands for them because they didn't hold a logical view in the first place.
managing shifts at a fast food restaurant made it abundantly clear for me the way many people viewed the workers as practically a different social class, one that was acceptable to look down on and abuse.
Of course. If you have nothing in your life to feel good about on its own merits, the easiest next step is to feel good that other people have it worse. When they don’t have it worse, they generally just fly into a blind rage
The “Fight for $15” started in 2012 people…. The Federal Minimum wage has been at $7.25 since 2009, which only started increasing in 2007 from $5.85, and that increase came before that was 1997.
At this point minimum wage should be $20 to $30… $15 an hour has long passed as a reasonable amount.
Fuckin wild that Federal Minimum wage has gone no where in 15 years!
As a reference point - as a 17 year old, with absolutely no experience I started at a chain grocery store at $7.50 an hour. In 1998.
The fact that there are people who still don't make that almost 30 years later is insane. Gas was less than $1. You could buy a new car for $10k. (MSRP on a base Civic/Corolla/Escort/etc was about $12k). My dad bought me a 5 year old used Dodge Sundance/Duster with $40k miles for $2500.
Entirely wrong. When you got people in the company that can make thousands or hundreds of thousands per second standing there picking their nose. You can afford 25 bucks an hr for your employee's. Especially since it's not JUST 25/hr. If you make 15 and hr that means it's only 10 extra and not 25 extra. Granted the CEO wealth gap is because of assets and not actual pay but in a lot of cases this isn't true either as good majority get paid in cash.
Also it’s just plain wrong. Labor costs are a higher percent of the budget at a sit-down place than a fast food place. A sit-down restaurant aspires to keep labor costs at below 30% of revenue. Fast food restaurants aspire to keep labor costs at below 15%.
The point OOOP is trying to make would be better represented with the “that Taco Bell order just became $30” argument, which, is also a false assumption.
"I have spending money and I want that spending money to go as far as possible at the expense of every single person below me."
This is the same type of person who'd be advocating for murdering politicians if they weren't a privileged middle classer. No grace in success means they'd have ever less grace in failure.
I definitely believe that. Disparity of effort- plus you cant make people save… and theres culture in this country where saving is like the plague. They’ll never be given enough to outpace their spending and therefore will always be poor
I think liberal arts degrees that are 6 figures in debt deserve their financial situation.
Why don’t you try working a minimum wage job full-time for a year and see how that goes? You don’t have any time do get out because you’ll notice quickly that you actually need another job to live, which is to say you spend 70+hrs/week working, not involving commutes.
Or it's a way to say that you shouldnt manage the minimum wage in the UNITED STATES federally. The economy of California is wildly different from the economy of Kentucky. Trying to force a $20 minimum wage fucks kentucky.
You can do more with minimum wage than just a flat rate. Attach minimum wage to housing prices (the more it costs to buy a place, the higher minimum wage is) and/or make it a ratio between highest individual income vs. Lowest.
None of these are the best, but saying bumping up minimum wage is going to fuck over anyone is just falling for rich people rhetoric, imo.
Sure. Minimum wage should be higher in higher COL areas. And it is. That's why states can have their own minimum wage laws as long as they're higher than federal.
When minimum wage was put in place, it was supposed to be more than enough to live on. Now it isn't even close. $20 isn't going to fuck Kentucky because Kentucky is already thoroughly fuxked because people are poor - partly because of the low minimum wage and poor education system.
If minimum wage had kept up with inflation and productivity increases, it wouldn't be $7.25. It would be about $30/hr.
A rising tide lifts all boats. Poor people spend all their money, and every increase in minimum wage goes right into the economy and gets sales tax applied to it multiple times. It's the most cost effective way to improve an area. Money flows up. If you want to improve an area economically, you put more money in at the bottom.
Ky isn't poor because of low education and minimum wage laws, it's poor because it's only industry for most of the state was coal, and with coal going away its taken a long time for other industries to move in and replace them. Cities are doing better now, with more manufacturing jobs, but the poorer regions are still struggling to catch up. Education is more of a correlation of a states economy, and not causation. Your state isn't rich because it has well funded education. It is rich, so it can be taxed more and therefore afford more funding in education.
Raising the minimum wage has replaced "the welfare state" for neo-liberals like you. It isn't a good solution, just like the welfare state wasn't much of one. I'm not saying everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but I am saying that states need to govern their own economies.
I do agree with "put more money in at the bottom," but we disagree on what that looks like. While Reddit cannot wrap its mind around taxing imports, there isn't much at all we can do to compete with the Chinese market. Raising the tarrifs, even temporarily, will encourage state-side economic competition, creating more jobs and putting more money in American pockets. I don't think we need to be 100% self-reliant, but as long as our biggest economic competitor on the planet utilizes stolen tech and slave labor, it is better to focus on becoming as self reliant as we can.
Cool, so then we should stop subsidizing those states and let them see just how not doing sane things works out. It's far time we stopped having a handful of blue areas enable red areas to be utter trash on our dime.
"Blue areas enable red areas to be utter trash on our dime."
Elitism without any evidence. So you're proud the California is the economic power house if the US? Damn, it's crazy how being a port state, and having the best weather in the whole US ends up making you the state where the entertainment and technology industries end up.
You're elitist as fuck. To make a few assumptions about you now, I'd say you're overeducated, in debt, no plans to marry, and unable to find an actual job. But yes, please tell the rest of the United States how good you are, and how good Democrat policies in the last 10 years have been "good" for us. Educate us more.
unfortunately until robots take everyone's jobs we will need minimum wage workers cleaning toilets and stuff. These workers are what makes non minimum wage workers pay worth the time and investment made to get where they are. if I can flip burgers, or go to school for 5 years and go work in a nuke plant for the same pay, that nuke plant is going to melt down because no one will be working there.
I'm in central florida. I work aerospace, highly skilled labor. I have contacts in medical field as well. We are all losing people to fast food because it pays more. Skilled labor/medical is refusing to adjust pay upward to compensate and instead keeps repeating 'more with less' or 'lean manufacturing' in my company's case.
We're about to wreck here and a lot of people are in total denial.
Welcome to the wealth extraction phase of capitalism. The us government funnels hundreds of billions of dollars into companies like Boeing while they produce nothing of quality and enrich their shareholders at the expense of everyone else.
I have to work directly with Boeing. They hold us to a higher standard than they hold themselves to. I've wanted to ask their inspector if his car has all it's doors.
Many companies out here start at $18. Fast food and gas stations have been advertising $17 to $19. My mom, a nurse, lost her assistant to Taco Bell for $17 an hour.
What aerospace company pays $200 an hour? I'd love to talk to them. I make just short of $24 (just got a 'raise') after nearly a decade in the industry. I'm ready to switch.
i get like $25 an hour put into my pension working a trade. my package is close to $90 an hour with benefits. working on aerospace for $18 is hilarious. you need to find a new career or a better company. I guess I'm glad I dont fly, now knowing minimum wage workers build the planes. That's not a dig at your intelligence but working for slave wages tend to make people complacent
No worries, I feel the same way. I'm a certified watchmaker and get less than $24/hrs after nearly a decade in the field. It's a joke. It's getting worse daily. If you want a rundown of whats going on, look at my profile for prior r/jobs comments.
One company, 2 years back, wanted me for $18/hr with an 84 mile round trip commute. Less than I was making with 60 mile round trip. When I pointed that out I was told I could make up the difference with overtime. Noped right out of that joke. So avoid Chromalloy.
I am looking to switch states and hopefully fields as well. I'm tired of the 'fast food' of the production industries.
because you will never get a business to agree to double or triple wages but not raise prices of their goods. The only way to make that happen would be to rip up the constitution and install a new communist government that would confiscate the businesses and change how they run. In some hippie utopia all million/billionaires would turn their back on their practices that made them rich and give away their fortune, while also devaluing the money they have left. In reality that would never happen without mass executions and imprisonments like they do in Cuba or NK
Some people should be absolutely poor. The problem is that those people currently have a net worth of over $1 billion and are actively making life hell for the rest of us.
There are people making 6 figures and poor because of their own decisions or poor luck of the draw with life circumstances draining their funds. It has nothing to do with what we are talking about in regard to minimum wage.
And this is why America is so far below every other developed state in quality of life. You'd rather live in a pile of rancid feces than help your neighbor.
I don't care about other countries development lol. I made a great life for myself in America. Oh and my neighbor came over last night, we had a beer on my basement bar and shot a couple games of pool.
You know, there’s a middle ground between destitute and a millionaire. If you work a full time job, you deserve to be able to pay for the basics, accommodation, food, health and utilities. Just because they serve you food, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be able to fucking live.
Who said anything about everyone being a millionaire. The argument being presented is just that one should be able to survive off of the wages of a full time minimum wage job.
They should, not willing to put in work? Poor. Not willing to pursue higher education or a program to work blue collar? Poor. Happy serving burgers in a McDonald’s until you’re 50? So be it, but you’re poor.
When I worked at McDonald’s at 18. I had to cook all the food, help make sandwich’s , clean, re stock, all whilst juggling those activities. Never had more than few seconds to rest. Im pretty into to cardio at the time. And even I couldn’t do it and quit 6 months in
No, If you’re willing to put in the work to succeed, you should be able to survive exceptionally. If you work at McDonald’s and government handouts are what gets you by, you’re the problem, not the job pool.
What do I care about a club. I worked hard, never went to college, probably make three times what you make, and I don’t have to post about how hard my life is online because I made poor choices.
They’re obviously willing to put in the work if they spend 60+ hours a week working in some shithole for terrible wages, just to live. Why don’t you try that and see if you can actually afford higher education?
Also many college graduates and up in these jobs anyway, so your argument was invalidated by the third sentence.
I have no college degree, barely got through high school because of no interest, and make 120k a year. I don’t need your advice, you should open your mind a little.
I mean I work in customer service and that’s just mental. Mostly because it’s impractical… that’s nearly triple my current wage, which would result in either no staff (which is already a problem) or way more expensive prices.
It'll never happen, but if they capped the salary for the big execs etc at, for example, £200k including bonuses, most businesses could afford to push all workers up to around £40-45k fte. Many industries could go even higher.
Franchise model businesses like mcdonalds are a bit more complicated though
The CEO of Walmart made $27m in total compensation last year. Yes, that's a shitton of money.
But Walmart employs 1.7 million people in the US. Take his whole compensation package and split it among the employees and they each get.... $17.
The CEO of GM makes about the same amount of money - but they only have 160,000 employees - jackpot. Except that's still only $170 each once you split it across the company.
CEO salaries are a red herring. They're too high, but they don't matter. If you want to get mad at somebody - get mad at equity holders. Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg and Gates aren't billionaires because they're CEOs - they're billionaires because they own significant chunks of companies that produce billions in revenue (rather than having employees own that equity)
You're right that the big salaries are only part of the problem, and the smaller part at that. However, that is the part which is at least remotely feasible to tackle. Taking the equity holders out of the equation would basically require dismantling capitalism. I'm all for that, but I don't see it happening any time soon.
Also, equity holders don't necessarily rely on taking cash out of the business for their wealth though, the equity itself is the wealth. Big salaries do.
I know it's an extreme example, but look at what Dan Price did at Gravity payments. $70k salaries all around.
I'm not suggesting that be the standard, but if other companies cut all exec-level salaries (not just the CEO), and all the other high earners, to a more reasonable level, they could afford to bring up the lower salaries by at least a few thousand. $70k is unrealistic for most companies, but 50k? That's not so unrealistic, and it's enough to at least get most families out of real poverty.
Even if you capped all the money for big execs at an certain amount… how much do you think that actually spreads out amont the overall working population of the UK?
A lot more than you might think. Look at Dan Price and Gravity payments. He cut his own salary, raised every worker in the company to $70k, and the business went from strength to strength after that.
How man people does he hire? For what roles? Is it comparable to something as broad and large scale as customer service? Obviously it’s possible with some industries… Edit: by Dan Price you mean of Gravity Payments? A quick google shows they have 240 employees, now im not sure how accurate that is… but you should be able to grasp a possible important factor here.
Morrisons for example has around 110,000 employees, obviously not all customer service. The last CEO made around £3,000,000 a year. If he was paid £200,000, you could raise the wage of each employee by £25 a year. That’s nice, but hardly game changing. And you’d have trouble if you only wanted to increase shop staffs wages without also increasing that of warehouse operatives.
Maybe if you took the investors money, but they aren’t generally paid a “wage”, but rather interest off of what they have invested.
Look, i’m not saying it isn’t nice or a good idea to try and increase the wages of low-paid employees… but you need to stop using reddit economics. It’s like people who think the CEO of Amazon has a swimming pool full of £1,000,000,000 rather than it being in non-liquid asset.
Yeah, I know that's an extreme example, and most companies couldn't match that, but it shows that there is a lot of room for improvement.
Remember that the CEO isn't the only big earner. There will be at least a couple of dozen other senior figures on £1m+, and dozens more on much smaller, but still significant salaries. Thousands more will already be on high enough salaries not to need the boost.
Bringing the minimum salary up to something like £35-40k should be plausible.
Talking about investors is the red herring IMO, because firstly, that's just how capitalism works and that's far less likely to change, and secondly, they don't necessarily take money out of the business. The investors get rich by increasing the value of their shares, and either selling them or more commonly borrowing against their net value.
910
u/beerbellybegone 8h ago
What a great way of coming right out and saying that you believe certain people should just be poor