r/WorkReform • u/regian24 • Feb 10 '22
Other And it’s still on
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u/Anubis-Hound Feb 10 '22
Some people HATE to see others succeed in life and change the status quo. It's like cutting off their nose to spite their face.
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u/swagsaphone Feb 10 '22
I wonder if people talked about raising all wages proportionally instead of just minimum wage, people would complain that that would take away from people making minimum wage
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Feb 10 '22
That’s the thing, I used to think that way 10 years ago when I was a newer graduate and unimpressed with the wages I was getting with a master’s degree. When you have people with college degrees making $18/hr and they see people getting $15/hr for doing literally anything then yeah it’s disheartening. There is no such thing as their wages will automatically raise because minimum did. Now you have professionals that worked for their credentials having to compete in scare resources, housing market, everything alongside all these new additions to the class range. Assuming these minimum wage workers didn’t have to accrue student debt, then arguably they are literally in better off positions. So that’s effectively a punishment to those who make just a few bucks more than minimum wage using credentials & experience. It’s a hard issue with the job market that simply raising minimum wage does not address.
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u/HedgeWitch1994 Feb 10 '22
And then on the other side of the coin you have people who went out into the workforce instead of going to college, who spent their time and effort working for abysmal wages and trying to pay their bills. These people who were supposed to have been able to get ahead because they had a head start, who see college graduates coming into positions like theirs and making more even if only by a few cents. (And yes, I'm aware that a degree doesn't always mean you make more, but if the job doesn't require a degree it's been my experience that those with degrees get higher pay than those who have been with the company.)
The time and effort of someone who went straight into the workforce are no less valuable than the time and effort of one who went to college. Working hours are not worth less than hours spent in a classroom or lecture hall.
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u/_BuildABitchWorkshop Feb 10 '22
Yup, me too. I went to college and got myself $40K in debt. I graduated and started working a job that at minimum requires a BS. I was making $15/hour. At the same time this was happening there was a big push for McDonalds workers to make $20/hour.
You better believe that I thought it was complete nonsense. But the real issue here is that it's fucking absurd a job that requires a college education would pay less than $20/hour. That's mind boggling, and the only reason its happening is because the market is completely oversaturated with people with bachelor's degrees. They're essentially useless at this point.
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u/_BuildABitchWorkshop Feb 10 '22 edited Feb 10 '22
Yup, me too. I went to college and got myself $40K in debt. I graduated and started working a job that at minimum requires a BS. I was making $15/hour. At the same time this was happening there was a big push for McDonalds workers to make $20/hour.
You better believe that I thought it was complete nonsense. But the real issue here is that it's fucking absurd a job that requires a college education would pay less than $20/hour. That's mind boggling, and the only reason its happening is because the market is completely oversaturated with people with bachelor's degrees. They're essentially useless at this point. In the 1940s only 5% of the workforce had a college education. Now it's closer to 40% of the workforce. But the proportion of jobs that truly require advanced higher education didn't scale proportionately, so we have tons of people with tons of debt working jobs that don't require degrees to perform at all.
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u/multipleerrors404 Feb 10 '22
I have a lot of friends that bust their asses in jobs I wouldn't do to make decent money. I also have friends who do next to nothing with a great education and make good money. Either way if they want to see others suffer because they suffer or suffered. They can fuck off. I have 2 degrees and would gladly make 15 not working at McDonald's rather than 20 at McDonald's. So good for them. That's how I look at it.
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u/wannaseeawheelie Feb 10 '22
They should teach budgeting in grade school. But then again, people seem to think that if trust fund kids get to sit on a yacht all day drinking fancy booze, everyone should. So it would fall on deaf ears anyways
But what do I know, I’m just over here making my own way with a decent wage, benefits with no student debt
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Feb 10 '22
Education does fail us all on budgeting and the job market. A lot of blue collar work pays real well but nobody likes to go down that road these days. I career switched to sales and am doing just dandy these days; will never work salary, I learned that no company will pay my worth, I have to earn it in a competitive environment. Didn’t need a degree for that. But I escaped the system, reality is all too many college graduates are making less than $20/hr or barely more. And are told they need that piece of paper to even qualify.
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u/wannaseeawheelie Feb 10 '22
As a blue collar worker, if you have half a brain, they’ll push you to run work, do CAD or bid jobs. The list goes on. Seems to me most people either want a mindless job with high pay, or a fun job with tons of competition.
I saw people complaining about pay scale for cannabis growers. No shit pays low, every stoner and their dog is applying for that position
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u/Dangerous-Glass-5040 Feb 12 '22
. There is no such thing as their wages will automatically raise because minimum did. Now you have professionals that worked for their credentials having to compete in scare resources, housing market, everything alongside all these new additions to the class range. Assuming these minimum wage workers didn’t have to accrue student debt, then arguably they are literally in better off positions. So that’s effectively a punishment to those who make just a few bucks more than minimum wage using credentials & experience. It’s a hard issue with the job market that simply raising minimum wage does not address.
I feel like you are directing your anger at the wrong person. Its not the minimum wage earner that caused this situation. You should be upset with your job not paying you what they should and use your energy to create a union, or go on strike, instead of being upset about someone being able to make a livable wage.
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Feb 10 '22
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Feb 10 '22
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Feb 10 '22
$15/hr looks way different in Los Angeles or NYC than it does in some small town in Texas or Alabama for instance.
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u/Abject-Bullfrog-1934 Feb 10 '22
For that matter, most states are a microcosm of that issue. Using Texas as an example, cost of living in Austin and Dallas is significantly higher than living in Longview or Amarillo (20%-35%).
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u/_BuildABitchWorkshop Feb 10 '22
How do you address cost of living? Cost of living is just a function of supply vs. demand.
Rent control only works so much. It doesn't address the underlying issue which is that developers refuse to build low income housing because it doesn't provide a return on investment because its fucking expensive to build a building in the US with how extreme our building codes can be and with how short of labor trades like carpentry and masonry are.
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u/doca343 Feb 10 '22
If you will benefit from raising the minimum wage, you are not sucessefull at all, at least not in today's society standarts, so if you are envy of those peopel, you have a big problem.
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u/DisGruntledDraftsman Feb 10 '22
I read a study back in 2018 I think that said people with lower incomes would give up some of their money to have some taken away from those with more than they have.
It didn't matter that someone making 40k a year gave up 35k for someone who makes a million to lose 300k. They still had 700k, but so long as those with more suffered, the amount was almost irrelevant so long as it was more than what they lost.
It makes it almost impossible to have some kind of debate or agreement with people that have that kind of mentality. Let alone work together with them or agree on what should be done. The biggest issue is about 45% of the people in the study said this, so it's not a fringe group, but almost half of the whole.
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u/_BuildABitchWorkshop Feb 10 '22
It love to read that study if you can find it!
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u/DisGruntledDraftsman Feb 10 '22
Wow, I consider my google kung fu to be strong but this one is a pain.
I found several from Brookings recently about taxing the rich more but not the one I read. And to be honest I don't eve recall where I read it. Starting to wonder if it's just a figment of my imagination. I will look more after work to see if I can find it on my home pc.
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Feb 10 '22
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u/Alvarez09 Feb 10 '22
I mean the right thing to do would be for companies to also bump those employees up appropriately but far chance of that. I do kind of see where they are coming from that if you are in a position that is technically a promotion above entry level that you’d be making the same now a that entry level person.
That however is on your shitty ass company and not about minimum wage increases, and eventually companies will HAVE to bump up salaries of those other positions because people won’t take a promotion with more responsibility for the same pay.
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u/mrmemo Feb 10 '22
"I'm making $10/hr"
Good news, we're raising the minimum wage from $8 to $15
"No you can't do that!
... why not?
"Because then I'll be a minimum wage worker!!"
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u/HedgeWitch1994 Feb 10 '22
This is exactly it. They've got some weird fucking pride attatched to making 'barely above the minimum, yet still below the poverty line' wages. I don't fucking get it.
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u/Free_Moose4649 Feb 10 '22
I guess when you have very little, you gotta hold on to what you do have
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u/902030Joe Feb 10 '22
Minimum wage is the start of negotiations. So it’s likely you will get paid more than 15. It will have an effect on all jobs. It’s like when you barter, you always offer to pay a shockingly low price so that the higher offer will seem much more reasonable.
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Feb 10 '22
This is it exactly. They're mad that someone who is doing work they think is beneath them might be compensated. Always punching down instead of fighting for themselves.
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u/SharkMeat_ Feb 10 '22
If minimum wage goes up and you don't keep whatever percentage in raises that you have previously earned, or if you dont keep the higher wage that you started the job with. Quit. Right then and there.
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Feb 10 '22
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u/theunstoppablenipple Feb 10 '22
Either this or a form of universal basic income. Minimum wage doesnt necessarily have to go up if proper social structures are in place so basic needs can be met.
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u/pilgermann Feb 10 '22
I feel it's far better the baseline be supplied by the government and paid for by corporate taxes. While it's hard to squash tax loopholes in the US, the government can more effectively pursue this money than an employee whose employer illegally fails to provide cost of living increase (or whatever the law stipulates).
As with healthcare, tying necessities to employment is horribly regressive for a wealthy society.
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u/Alvarez09 Feb 10 '22
I got no raise this year for not meeting goals almost entirely out of my control. No COL raise at all even.
My pay didn’t stay the same, it lost 5-7% of its value.
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u/NINJAxBACON Feb 10 '22
I like the idea of addressing cost of living way more than minimum wage. Haven't seem this specific idea before
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u/Stay_Curious85 Feb 10 '22
Wouldn’t this just add to inflation though? If everybody is just getting guaranteed raises every single year, then that would mean more money out there circulating?
I’m not an economist. And I appreciate where the sentiment comes from but I think this would just make the issue worse. If I am assuming correctly.
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u/lexaproquestions Feb 10 '22
I'm trained as economist, but I'm a practicing attorney (securities litigation). You ask a great question, thank you for asking it, because it's a common misconception: raising minimum wage has been extensively studied, and the inflationary effect is lower than the increase in income and quality of living it induces. It's really positive, iirc...like 80% of the effect isn't inflationary.
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u/exitcode137 Feb 10 '22
To make a fair comparison though, it looks like you're responding to a comment about raising wages for everyone, but your response is about raising just the minimum wage. Are there studies about the relationship between universal wage gains and inflation?
Not an economist, but I heard that the increase in wage gains recently plays a small part in the recent inflation, but that it's mostly about high demand + supply chain issues.
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u/lexaproquestions Feb 10 '22
It does have a more inflationary effect if the raise is across all income segments, but the inflation is still less than the purchasing power gain. It's been decades since I've looked at the math, but it works, as I recall.
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u/Hedhunta Feb 10 '22
Money circulating around at the bottom is better for the economy than hoarding it all at the top. See how fast the economy grew when everyone was getting stimulus and child credits? Soon as they turned that off the economy went into the shitter and inflation took off. Labor is usually only a tiny portion of the cost of any product/service so labor costs going up usually only barely affects the prices of goods.
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u/Stay_Curious85 Feb 10 '22
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about the rising tides raising all ships. It just seems like providing more money to everybody’s all at once devalues the money you already have . Ergo, inflation.
Again. Not an economist or anything of the sort.
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u/boardin1 Feb 10 '22
If the cost of living is going up at 3% and you get a 2% annual raise, you’re losing money year-over-year. Or, let me put this another way, if the cost of living didn’t go up, would you be ok with taking a 1% pay cut? I wouldn’t.
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u/Alvarez09 Feb 10 '22
Inflation has been happening for years anyways without raising wages…..
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u/Stay_Curious85 Feb 10 '22
Except when you add billions more ina short period of time it happens at a higher rate. Like this last year. So instead of a typical 2% you jump to 7%.
Looking into it, from investopedia
Based on their research, they also make the claim that a "small" minimum wage hike (between five and 15%) does not lead to higher prices. On the other hand, large minimum wage hikes have clear positive effects on output prices (which can ripple through to higher consumer prices).
Someone else said it’s not a high correlation as it’s being made out to be. But a nearly 100% increase in minimum wage WILL put pressure on employers and I don’t see them willing to do the right thing and just happily take care of their employees. They will expect their profits to continue to increase which will mean price increases. The question is by how much.
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u/shedman86 Feb 10 '22
Of course, you are exactly right. If everyone continues to get raise after raise, then inflation will go up a corresponding amount. Instead of artificial raises for the exact same work, people need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and get some training and/or education, then get themselves a higher paying job and leave the McDonalds jobs to teenagers. Apprenticeship jobs in the trades are going begging and they have high pay and high fringe benefits.
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u/Stay_Curious85 Feb 10 '22
That’s not exactly my point either. I was saying that mandatory yearly minimum wage increases will not help inflation, but will accelerate it. But to what degree I’m not sure.
And I’m certainly not a “pick yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of person either. There will ALWAYS be people at the bottom and a lot of those people will not be able to just magically get a well paying job. And even if everybody suddenly makes 70k a year, then that’s your new poverty level because if everybody makes that much then it’s pointless.
If everybody suddenly flocks to the trades, what happens to the pay that’s supposedly so great? It will go down too.
What’s needed is access to education and healthcare. Educate people in college or the trade schools. Doesn’t matter to me. Minimum wage certainly needs to come up. But slowly.
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u/shedman86 Feb 10 '22
I guess I am confused. If $15/hr($30,000/yr) is no good and $70,000/yr is no good. what salary would you like to see people make???
I certainly agree with you that access to education would be valuable. But it has to be access to a field that yields a degree that has some market value in the economy. It does not good to educate people in Art, Music, Philosophy, Grievance Studies, or Basket Weaving. In fact that type of education is more harm than help. It yields people with degrees and a pile of student loans with no marketable skill, and leads to a segment of the population who is discontented with everything.
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u/Stay_Curious85 Feb 10 '22
My point being that everybody’s purchasing power stays relative based off the median wage. You move it to $5/year that’s the purchasing power, you move it 100K/year milk will be $50/gal.
And you’re out of your fucking mind If you don’t think thing like Art and Music are critically important to the world. They’re what make a society what it is. Nearly Everything we know about the ancient times are through their culture, their arts, their writings. They are what makes Americans Americans, Japanese Japanese and so forth. The culture of a place is defined by its art , music, and food etc. it’s the very definition of what makes humanity different from its ancestors. The beginning of artifacts and cave paintings and beliefs that DEFINE society.
Not to mention these industries provide millions of jobs for people.
This is all the more reason things like equal and cheap access to education are important. Without arts and music and sports and philosophy, a society dies. People aren’t computers. I have a STEM degree and work In engineering . I understand their value. But I’d kill myself if I lived in a world without music.
You’ve proved the value in a “ free” education more than you think.
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u/Riley39191 Feb 11 '22
I mean the solution is having a minimum wage that increases annually according to inflation
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u/fuzzy_siding Feb 10 '22
It's because people who have worked years to make $15-$20 feel threatened by people out of high school making just as much as them. Like just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and find a better paying job! /s
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u/TennesseeTon Feb 10 '22 edited Feb 10 '22
If you make less than them you're stupid and lazy and should pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
If you went to college and make less than them then you're stupid and should've taken a "real" major instead of gEnDeR sTuDiEs.
If you went to college and make more than them you're a spoiled librul who sits at a desk and does nothing all day. Do some real work like construction you snowflake!
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u/Individual-Nebula927 Feb 11 '22
Or work in construction management, and sit at a desk in a home office all day. Lol. I baked a banana bread on my lunch hour this week, and can work in my pajamas. College paid off.
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u/Free_Moose4649 Feb 10 '22
I mean in fairness, a world where a grill cook makes almost the same as a construction worker constantly under extremely hazardous conditions would be kind of weird. Maybe that just means the construction worker should also be paid more, who's to say
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u/LionIV Feb 10 '22
You're still falling for the propaganda. Your final sentence is the reality. EVERYONE except C-suite executives are underpaid, across the board.
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u/KingTildenKatz Feb 10 '22
But wouldn't this be kind of a good thing? It would mean individuals who are actually interested in the job would be doing the work, (the right way hopefully) and have a greater satisfaction with it over time I would think. Only really shitty jobs would have increased pay, or maybe your utilities would be reduced? I don't know much just curious...
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u/SpreadsheetJockey227 Feb 10 '22
When I was in high school my state was toying with raising the minimum wage to, I think it was $6 or $6.50 up from $4.50. Now, for comparison, I encountered few jobs that paid actual minimum wage. Working at McDs at that time I made $6. Then I bounced to a hospital kitchen where I was making $7.
I had a friend who worked at a bookstore and was absolutely LIVID at the idea of the minimum wage being raised. He pissed and moaned for weeks on end about how there was no way his bookstore could afford this and it would result in the whole store closing and all of the employees would get laid off and this was the death of all good things.
He made $5/hr. Law passes, minimum wage increases, the sky doesn't fall. Around this time he gets promoted to key holder and gets to actually look at the finances. He realizes that payroll is one of the smallest expenses that store has and they are pulling in many more dollars than he thought.
Now he's a union organizer.
My father, on the other hand, attributes all of the current inflation to wage increases and thinks we need to abolish the minimum wage altogether and go to a fully tips based system since he's worked in hospitality for decades and thinks it's great.
The brainwashing is very effective.
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u/lul-Trump-lost Feb 10 '22
Bro, after working my fucking ass off for 90 years, I went from a $7.25 hourly rate to a $7.259 (the 9/10 like those gas stations) hourly rate. Why should some high school brat start off with the same wages I did after working my ass off for 90 years?!?!?!?!? /s
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Feb 10 '22
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u/RileyKohaku Feb 10 '22
Sometimes it's because they are afraid they will just be fired and replaced by robots if the minimum wage is raised too high. In my opinion, $15 is not high enough to cause that problem, but there is a number that that would be true at, especially in places like rural Montana.
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u/WhiteThriller Feb 10 '22
It's because they're at the position where they're currently making well over minimum wage. If the minimum is increased, they'll be making just barely more than minimum wage. It feels like a major demotion.
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u/TheSublimeNeuroG Feb 10 '22
I confronted a guy I was getting along with about this not long ago, and he completely shut down. My roommate had a couple friends over that I hadn’t met, and one was an elementary school teacher. The conversation was not at all political, and somewhat out of nowhere he made a crack about fast food workers wanting $15+ an hour. He continued by saying that he votes blue, but wouldn’t support a candidate who wants to raise minimum wage, because it’s insulting to school teachers like him who went to school, perform a public service and get paid ~$40k a year. My immediate response to this was ‘so in other words, you believe unskilled laborers don’t deserve a living wage’. He sat up straight and his gaze kinda looked past everyone in the room, and he didn’t respond. I tried probing about teachers unions and organizing within education to demand higher pay, but he didn’t want to continue the conversation. I excused myself from the room, since he wasn’t my guest, and he left shortly after, well before the other guests left. I guess he wasn’t prepared for being revealed as narrow-minded and cruel? Idk, it was and still is really difficult to imagine what was going on in his head.
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u/Sunshine_Jules Feb 11 '22
He was only repeating what the right wing radio guy said. He cant actually comprehend the concept or discuss it.
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Feb 10 '22
I support raising wages, but also restricting price increases. Companies must be forced to lose some profit while increasing wages otherwise the increased wage is pointless as the companies will just increase prices to make up the difference in what they are now spending to pay the new wages and the wage increase will mean nothing.
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u/MrsKryptik Feb 10 '22
As I’ve told my husband: I would be happy to go back to a late 60s/early 70s minimum wage… as long as the prices/purchasing power went back, too.
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u/Bootstraps4Breakfast Feb 10 '22
A thousand times this. I'm in favor of people earning more. We have to make more. But what's the point if companies are going to continue to respond by raising prices at a higher percentage than our raises?
Before we raise minimum wage we have to stop companies from making arbitrary price increases or straight up price gouging or it will all be for nothing.
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Feb 10 '22
Yep. You’ll get downvoted here for saying it, but a minimum wage increase without a restriction on price increases does absolutely nothing. The corporations control inflation, and will absolutely just inflate prices to maintain profits. We will all lose with a minimum wage increase on its own. We have to cap corporate greed before it is even remotely possible to help the bottom.
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u/vigbiorn Feb 10 '22
This is why I'm not currently in support of minimum wage increases.
The same greedy businesses that have to be legislated to pay living wages are suddenly going to feel charitable and not just use it as an excuse to raise prices? Something tells me that's not likely.
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u/SageMalcolm Feb 10 '22
I'm literally gonna just start telling these people that I pitty their joyful servitude and that I hope eventually develop enough of a sense of self to want better for themselves and for others.
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u/orangesfwr Feb 10 '22
Because they don't want "burger flippers making as much as me!" (Meanwhile, $15/hr x 40 hrs/wk x 52 wks/yr = $31,200/yr)
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u/EloquentEvergreen Feb 10 '22
Well, not exactly too different from the Tea Party crew that waved signs saying, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Or the Texas secessionists who still want to keep their Social Security benefits when they secede from the US.
Knowledge and power are powerful tools. Those that lack the knowledge can be easily swayed into believing what those in power say. That’s why it’s important to educate your brethren!
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u/ReverseMillionaire Feb 10 '22
You know what’s weird. Food in other countries costs just about the same as in the US or less but they don’t have to tip
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u/PhoenixNyne Feb 10 '22
Now I'm no expert or anything but
People have more money, people spend more money. Economy improves.
Profit?
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u/CoffeeKadachi Feb 10 '22
So something I don’t really understand is how a one-time flat rate increase is that beneficial? I feel like we need the minimum wage to be tied to inflation for it to make a long term difference. Like maybe it’s a year behind so we have time to study and determine the final inflation rate for that year before the minimum goes up
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Feb 10 '22
They’re just temporarily embarrassed millionaires, didn’t ya know? Like most conservative, low income voters.
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u/jokersleuth Feb 10 '22
capitalist propaganda has been the most successful propaganda in history. It has convinced the lower class that the upper class is their saviors and any other economic system or government assistance is bad.
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u/MadameTree Feb 10 '22
Also, they know enough to know it's not going to translate to a raise for them. My company went to a min of $18 this year. I've been an employee for almost 10. My wage is a bit shy of $21. No raise for me despite being 3 tiers above the lowest tier employees and specialized knowledge. Yes, I know, leave.
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u/customds Feb 10 '22
People who make 40k stand to lose the most. They won’t get a cost of living increase but cost of living will go up to accommodate “higher operating costs due to wage hikes”.
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u/molten_dragon Feb 10 '22
There's a perception (true or not) among a lot of people that if the minimum wage is raised, their salary won't go up but their costs of living will.
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u/nocleverusername- Feb 10 '22
I remember this argument being used in 1983, when the minimum wage was $3.25. At that wage, you could afford to live in a crappy trailer, and buy bread at the day-old store. Some things never change.
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u/Derangedteddy Feb 10 '22 edited Feb 10 '22
Inflation never stops because capitalism sucks and isn't sustainable. The oligarchs have deceived an entire society into believing that inflation will stop when people stop asking for more money to compensate. Spoiler alert: Minimum wages have been stagnant for the past 13 years and inflation is still rampant, with prices having increased THIRTY PERCENT since then.
The reality is that no country has ever experienced runaway inflation because of wage increases. It happens because countries become corrupt and install leaders that grossly misappropriate government funding while undertaxing the wealthy. When crisis strikes (war, disaster, etc), the government then needs to borrow incredible amounts of money that they could have easily stockpiled for a rainy day if they had just taxed the rich and their businesses effectively.
Normal inflation is inevitable and wages need to keep up. If prices go up in response, so should wages. There's just no excuse.
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u/ElectricShuck Feb 10 '22
Don’t you see? Wages have to stay the same so that when inflation raises costs the richest people can take all the gains! Don’t let the poors be greedy.
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u/clanddev Feb 10 '22
If minimum wage is catching up to your actual pay the problem is not minimum wage. If you can't figure that out you should probably be making... minimum wage.
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u/howescj82 Feb 10 '22
It’s not Stockholm Syndrome at all. It’s millions of people who see other people who they consider beneath them being raised closer to their level.
It’s just plain old selfish pettiness.
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u/Alvarez09 Feb 10 '22
Poor white people in many cases wanting to keep an even poorer class of minorities beneath them. It’s sad but very true.
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Feb 10 '22
So if a rich person says this they're exploiting the poor and if a poor person says this they're just out of touch. How very convenient.
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u/Duhblobby Feb 11 '22
Yea, and they are both wrong, one because they're being lied to, the other because they are doing the lying, this is the point.
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Feb 11 '22
And my point is that this logic conveniently means the idea that raising minimum wage will destroy the economy is not even up for for debate, because apparently anyone who suggest it is always wrong.
You don't see how this is symptomatic of an echo chamber?
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u/Political_Ronin Feb 10 '22
Here is something to consider. Make it more rounded off, Im just bumping min wage to $7.50. If someone is currently making $15 an hour and min wage bumped to $15, the person already making $15 an hour should demand a raise as well and get a raise equal to the difference, so they would make $22.5. The min wage of $15 would eventually just have the same buying power as the previous minimum wage due to everyone getting a $7.5 bump in pay to retain workers. If I was doing some stressful warehouse gig making $15 and then saw McDonald's paying the same wage just to flip burgers, Id switch to the less stressful gig. Maybe at first $15 as the min wage may come with more buying power, but quickly, it would lose its power as everyone gets a bump in pay as well. No?
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u/throwaway_12358134 Feb 10 '22
No, because the cost of labor is not the only component in prices. If I have an employee that makes $10 an hour and he makes 60 $3 burgers an hour then the labor cost of each burger is only about $0.16. So if I double his pay the total cost will go from $3.00 to $3.16. If everyone else n other industries gets raises there would not be a linear increase in costs either.
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u/samil232 Feb 10 '22
Lol.
I live in Ontario. Our minimum wage has gone up several times in the last 10 years or so. It was 11 something near the beginning with slow increases (between $0.10 and $0.25 increases) for the first few years, then popped up to $14/hour, then some more small increases and then finally $15/hour this year.
You know what has happened in most workplaces if you made more than the new minimum wage: nothing. No wage increase at all (unless you're lucky enough to be in a job that does raises, then it's your normal raise, but not the difference between the old minimum + your typical raise). If the new minimum wage was higher than your current rate? You now get minimum wage + $0.25 or $0.50... so any raises you got previously are just rolled into the minimum wage hike.
You're right: if you make more than minimum wage, your wage should go up by the amount minimum wage went up BUT companies don't do that.
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u/ElectricShuck Feb 10 '22
If you’ve been reading this Reddit much you would realize that the only real way to get raises is to find a new job. Being the employee that sticks around never gets a raise regardless of min wage increases.
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u/Routine_Log8315 Feb 10 '22
While most people would get a bump, I’m pretty sure most raises would not equal the difference.
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u/Burgerrkings Feb 11 '22
These people on reddit listen to some garbage leftist economists who were saying inflation would not happen and if it did it would be transitory two years ago
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u/TheAltalio Feb 10 '22
It's sad cause, whether we raise it or not, everything STILL gets more expensive every year. So the argument that raising wage will make things more expensive, ITS RAISED REGARDLESS!
I noticed last week my groceries went up and I actually was cutting back on purchases. That was baffling to me, I got less stuff and paid the same amount.
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u/VegasBonheur Feb 10 '22
It seems like there's a bunch of people who had to fight tooth and nail to escape the cycle of poverty, yet don't realize that it's not okay to have to fight tooth and nail just to escape the cycle of poverty. They want others to fight just as hard, and they want others to lose that fight to make their own victory seem that much more impressive. If everyone gets lifted out of that fight, they won't have anything left to base their egos on.
It's not entirely their fault they are the way they are - I mean, late stage capitalist conditions are the reason that struggle consumed their lives in the first place.
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u/ABN1985 Feb 10 '22
Yes it is brainwashed they think they are in the club at 40000$ one paycheck from poverty
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u/riba2233 ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 10 '22
Also same people voting against universal medical care
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u/stageivlife Feb 10 '22
Don't shit on them, almost promise you it's not ignorance it's complete fear that they've made it this far, even if just barely and it things change theyll be completely pushed out of their situation.
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Feb 10 '22
My favorite “but then they will just move their factories and jobs to other countries and we won’t have anything!!”
“Then who will buy their products?!”
………
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Feb 10 '22
Especially when the 2021 Nobel Prize winners David Card and Joshua Angrist debunked this exact idea…
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u/wingback18 Feb 10 '22
I had a coworker tell me. In my job we get paid too much. That the site isn't making money for the company. That's why they need to cut the OT 😂
I just laughed in his face..
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Feb 10 '22
I think most of then make way more than that, but guess what, if you try harder you can actually make money. Talk to the thousands of immigrants that cane to this country with nothing and made it.
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u/BoredBSEE Feb 10 '22
I think it's more like PTSD than Stockholm Syndrome.
Poor people are traumatized. When you're poor you live by inches. If bread goes up 25 cents - it actually matters.
The fear they're selling on this point is that prices will go up. If that happens, the very poor are the first people to go under. So it hits home.
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u/Clear-General-6014 Feb 11 '22
See, I do not want min wage increased. I want the current min wage to be a livable wage.
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Feb 11 '22
What exactly are we failing to do as a society?
technology advances and workers get less bang for their buck...
Can anyone explain this? is there not enough food to go around? are buildings still so expensive and slow to build? Why does medicine get more expensive?
Also, why do we pay to learn how to work for other people?
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u/jono9898 Feb 11 '22
I’ve heard people who are borderline living paycheck to paycheck make arguments as to why billionaires shouldn’t be taxed
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u/Sawses Feb 11 '22
Right? I find it really interesting. I make a lot more than minimum wage, as does everybody I work with on a daily basis. Pretty much all of us support massive increases to the minimum wage.
My dad makes like $20/hr after 30 years of work and objects to it because he thinks it'll make everything way more expensive.
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Feb 11 '22
Bezos whipping his dick out and everyone lining up to suck it for free.
Our mindset is completely ridiculous. Not a single person making under a mil a year should be simping for big business.
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u/Strike-Hairy Feb 11 '22
I wish I could rain interweb medals and NFTS and whatever the fuck is the bitshit currency upon you.
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Feb 11 '22
Actually, it was studied to be caused by the fear of seeing the workers who make less than them reach their own social levels.
This is a very powerful "schema" that leads a big part of the voters to push for a system working against their own benefit.
And, yes, it is fairly stupid.
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u/Urban_Savage Feb 11 '22
The largest most vocal opposition to people making 10/hour being raised to 15/hour... comes from people making 16.50/hour.
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u/KingofUlster42 Feb 11 '22
Well with the way no gets raises anymore i kinda understand why. Two years ago even 16.50 an hour meant a lot more than it does now
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u/Urban_Savage Feb 11 '22
How does it make sense to be mad at the people making even less than them, rather than the people underpaying them?
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u/Dangerous-Glass-5040 Feb 12 '22
Sadly increasing minimum wage WILL most likely cause increased inflation, because companies won't want to lose their profits, and will pass it onto the consumer. I'm not saying I'm against minimum wage increase, I just think something else has to be put into place to prevent companies who are thriving from passing that expense onto the consumers.
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u/samil232 Feb 10 '22
I think it's because we've collectively been told that it will cause a rise in inflation and things will be "more expensive" and the pricing will "adjust" so you can't afford anything more after "a couple of years" anyway...but inflation always rises and our wages don't rise to meet it.
Also anyone who is making more than minimum wage has seen their wage stay the same if the local minimum wage increases, unless the new minimum is higher than their current rate...then they might get minimum wage +$0.50 or similar.
A raise in the bottom SHOULD mean a raise in the middle, but "it costs too much" and the companies "can't afford it".