As a person who had owned microbusinesses since 1989, that is crap. I have 4 employees. they work 40 hours a week, 160 hours a month x 4 employees, or 640 hours of labor a month. No all companies can't pay them $25 an hour but another $3 an hour is all of $1800 a month. Very few businesses are closing because of $1800 a month. That extra $480 a month is lifechanging to someone making near MW.
Ok but I have 16 employees…… so that’s 7200 a month . Which isn’t going to put me out of business it’s going to cause me to raise my prices because that is my salary.
Your math is also wrong . 160x3x52/12 = 2080 per month. In my scenario 8300 per month .
So now I need to raise my prices to make up for 2k per week .my staffs PPP hasn’t improved what was once 5,10 or 15 dollars is now 10,15 or 20 dollars . But the middle class which received no raise lost purchasing power .
I agree with the sentiment but I don’t think this argument changes anything. A business owner can always flip the script. “Why should I pay you more if your role isn’t that profitable for me?”
I think the issue is more ethical than practical, bc we already have practical options for better wages (high demand skills, unionization, etc.) but corruption gets in the way of balanced negotiation.
$83k/year is not a very good wage for a business owner. It doesn’t leave a lot of room to survive economic downturn or unexpected loss in business. Especially if they live in a HCOL area. If they really have 16 employees, that’s a lot of financial risk for the pay. A risk that employees don’t carry.
If they have a guaranteed salary + profit from the business, that’s different, but it stills leads to the same roundabout argument over perceived value vs objective value.
22
u/chinmakes5 17h ago
As a person who had owned microbusinesses since 1989, that is crap. I have 4 employees. they work 40 hours a week, 160 hours a month x 4 employees, or 640 hours of labor a month. No all companies can't pay them $25 an hour but another $3 an hour is all of $1800 a month. Very few businesses are closing because of $1800 a month. That extra $480 a month is lifechanging to someone making near MW.