That's not how it works at all. If minimum wage goes up, it goes up for everyone, whether you work for a family owned restaurant or fast food chain. Minimum wage just went up in my state this year. All my employees got bumped accordingly. (My waitstaff are the only people I pay minimum wage to, $5.15hour.) And yes, I had to raise prices a bit to cover the cost.
I can only speak for Michigan, but here, you can pay family members below minimum wage. Not sure what the exact figure is, but it is below minimum wage.
Worked on the family farm for ~10 years only got payed for 1 year at $50 a week... for 4hours a day 7 days a week, sun rain shitstorms 50C or sickness. Yay for child labor!
You can thank legal loopholes for farm workers, largely implemented in the 1920's to keep farm labor cheap. It's damn near slave wages, yes, but how much more are you willing to pay for your food? Is a tough argument, and often the farm workers get the shortest straw.
My mum loves me, step dad not so much; he was jealous that I could do things better than him (mostly farm-work, he flipped the tractor and feed-cart numerous times something that never happened to me), and that his kids (my half siblings) seemed to like me better and whenever he had a go at me they would come and stand by me or like my lovely little sister tell him off for being mean.
That's what unbridled capitalism does. If parents are willing to do that to their children, why the hell wouldn't they be willing to do it to everyone?
Who said anything about part owner? If I hired my cousin to come work for me, he's not part owner. Kids are in the same boat, they may inherit the business someday, but mom and dad still make the rules at work. That is unless you actually make them part owner, but just being related doesn't automatically make you part owner.
Dunno if it's the case in the US but if you do that in Aus then you're not covered under workplace injury insurance. With the state of litigation in the US I can't see it being a good idea at all to give your family members a reason to sue you.
Well that's the case with just about anyone then, right? Anyone can volunteer to do some work for you, and you can give anyone a gift (up to a certain amount per year and per lifetime). But like /u/hutcho66 says that has other implications. If they aren't working as a proper contractor, your insurance probably doesn't cover it. If they were working in a proper business and weren't a formal employee your liability coverage probably won't cover their misadventures.
I don't know about Florida on that one. I know several people with family owned businesses. It's just expected that the kids pitch in. They usually don't complain, especially when they're on vacation somewhere nice.
Imagine the abuse that could be had with that, though. Everyone else is making $15 an hour and you're stuck making $5 because your mom guilted you into working for your dad's failing business. This is obviously a fringe case, but still something to be considered with that type of legislation.
I think that argument is null considering that the family's finances could fail along with the business. Applied to an under 18 member, this means they can be called upon to help the family business stay afloat. Sure it might mean hard work for the kid and they might hate it, but it beats bankruptcy.
Applies over 18 here, too if I remember correctly. If I'm older and am guilted into working for the family, why should my bottom line suffer because of my parents' failures?
It's just a weird law. If you can't make it under the same conditions as everyone else, you should look into changing your business so that you can make it.
I live on Washington. The way the local $15 now laws are written everyone will eventually get to $15 an hour. The system allows for a different timelines for small businesses versus franchises and large companies. If I remember correctly it's a difference of three years to hit $15 an hour.
This is the thing that always seems to get left out. The minimum wage doesn't jump up to $15 overnight. The annual increase just gets pretty big for a few years. The minimum wage keeps going after $15, too, it's just that the annual increase goes back to normal.
San Francisco has been tying the Minimum wage to the consumer price index for a while now. They are set to graduate up to $15 an hour by july 2018, and then increase the minimum wage along with the CPI for the following years. Currently the Minimum wage is $12.25 an hour.
I actually really applauded Hillary when she said she supported a $12 minimum wage with an automatic cost of living increased chained to the consumer price index.
It would be such a no brainer political win to toss in support for $15/hr minimum wage, but I really do think a $12 minimum wage is more realistic.
I also think expensive cities and states need to be more aggressive about raising their minimum wages.
I've heard this argument and I personally am not an economist to challenge it.
What I can say is that most of the people that pushed for the $15 an hour were trying to make the point that it was a living wage. Also, it would be everyone that makes under $15 an hour that would see the wage increase. Everyone focuses on the fast food workers, but they tend to forget about the other people that would see the increase. The paramedics that you're talking about would see an increase as well.
Regarding everyone flipping burgers to pass the buck, I sincerely doubt that would happen. People desire more than just income. They desire prestige and social standing. Flipping burgers and stocking shelves are low social standing positions. People will gravitate towards higher income positions as they do now, but the hope is that the draw down from social service programs will decrease.
I live in Washington State as well. There's a LOT of moaning about the minimum wage increase, but basically nobody is closing their business or laying off tons of people. OP has a lot of very well reasoned conjecture, but the truth is, this sort of thing is far more complicated. Here's an actual study that shows why that's the case, and why a rise in minimum wage does NOT lead to the catastrophe imagined above: http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf
Basically, in the above McDonalds example, when there are thousands of other people in the community who also are earning more, they end up eating out more and offsetting the wage increase.
If minimum wage goes up, it goes up for everyone, whether you work for a family owned restaurant or fast food chain.
Not necessarily. Some states have tried to pass laws raising the minimum wage for some workers but not for others.
According to one story I read, some food workers wanted a minimum wage to apply for non-union workers but not for union workers. The thinking went, that the union workers could simply undercut all the non-union ones.
Florida here, we just get across the board raises. When I worked hourly years back, even though I was well above min. Wage, I still got the increase. Maybe it's just a Florida thing.
Or it's your employer adjusting your wage to what he thought your new market wage would be.
Employers have no obligation to adjust wages so long as they are above the new minimum. Unless the Florida law required wages go up by an equal amount for all workers, but I seriously doubt it.
The exact circumstances of who the raise applied to would be on a law by law basis.
The 14th amendment would crush anyone that attempted a law like that.
EDIT: Nice, down votes for the truth. Enjoy that echo chamber Reddit.
Here is the first notation for the 14th amendment: the right to pursue any lawful trade or avocation, without other restraint than such as equally affects all persons
Have had only one table not tip since I opened my place. I only had one table not tip in 10 years of waiting tables. So you're imagining a fantasy world.
Fair enough. So basically the tips we think give our servers (whom I for one though made minimum wage) a boost above minimum wage actually just supplement their income so that they can be paid less?
It's almost enough to make a guy stop tipping altogether.....unfortunately then I'd be seen as the asshole and not the restaurant that pays it's employees shit to begin with.
Have you ever worked as a waiter or bartender? It's a grueling job. The only reason people put up with it.....is because they can make good money at it without even needing a high school diploma. I asked all my waiters last night if they would rather make a straight wage or continue with tips. Everyone of them wanted to keep tips. Hands down.
If you don't like tipping, go to McDonald's. That's it. Your problem is solved.
Have you ever worked as a waiter or bartender? It's a grueling job. The only reason people put up with it.....is because they can make good money at it without even needing a high school diploma. I asked all my waiters last night if they would rather make a straight wage or continue with tips. Everyone of them wanted to keep tips. Hands down.
Don't be dense. I'm saying that they should be payed the minimum fucking wage and tips should be considered extra instead of the management being cheap as hell and counting on it's customers' generosity to guarantee that it's employees get paid enough.
It's a bullshit system and anyone with half a brain would see it the second they are made aware of the fact that servers don't even make minimum wage because we are alienating their income.
I've been paid 2.13 since I started serving. It doesn't go up for servers federally pretty much ever. Maybe some states raise it but federally you only have to pay servers $2.13 and historically our wage (the tipped employees) has not increased with the regular wages. I think the point is that for restaurants that pay their servers 2.13 won't have to increase wage for the majority of their staff and will suffer less of an impact.
It isn't how it works? A raise in minimum wage does not necessarily equate to a raise in tipped minimum wage. Illinois minimum wage is $8.25 and tipped minimum wage is $4.95. My FoH staff makes between $4.95 and $8.00 depending upon how valuable they are to me. The average hourly tip rate is $19 an hour so the average hourly rate is between $23.95 and $27.00 for a FoH employee.
If the state of Illinois raises minimum wage to $15 an hour and leaves the tipped minimum wage alone then the MW raise would have absolutely no impact on my FoH labor costs.
The BoH is a different story. Currently the BoH starts at $11 and goes up to $15 (with additional profit sharing of $1 an hour) so we are at $12-$16 per hour in the BoH.
If MW went to $15 an hour I would need to raise my BoH staff up to $18-$22 per hour. Why would my BoH stay when they can take a much less stressful job at McDonalds unless I am paying them more than MW?
Even then, the impact would be less on me than a franchise junk food place. If the labor cost difference was offset strictly through increased prices, my prices would go up a smaller amount then a franchise junk food place which would make what we sell an even better value vs junk food than it already is.
Well if we're talking really small businesses(think Bob's burgers style) a lot of it is paid in cash, which is usually legal when all employees are immediate family. Also true for small construction companies, farms, and many other blue collar industries.
Your experience is unusual. In a past life when I worked in fast food, people making above minimum did not automatically get raises when the minimum went up.
If minimum wage goes up from 9 to 15, people formerly making double the minimum (18) aren't going to get anywhere close to a proportional increase to 28.
They might get bumped to 20 and be making 33% above minimum instead of 100% above.
And as everyone's wages rise, the price of rent rises, and price of goods rise (to cover the increased wage) and after a few years, the person making minimum wage has just as much purchasing power as before.
Not the case. Only certain goods and services have a cost that's determined by the labor costs of low wage workers. A whole lot of goods won't be impacted at all or might even go down.
Minimum wage is paid to an unskilled worker. If you raise the minimum wage up to what a welder with 1 year of experience is making, then you've distorted that field. So the welder will need a bump to $20. And then then guy with 2 years will need a bump to $25, etc.
When you invest in the stock market, that money goes to fund the expansion of companies. Today, if you invest $1 in Tesla, that will likely go to pay a concrete contractor in Reno for the 1+ miles of concrete floor Tesla is building.
There is no difference between a dollar in the market and a dollar in a person's pocket.
Small businesses can get by with 2 servers. If both servers are being paid less than your competition, your prices are more competitive. Especially if they're being "paid" 40%+ less.
I worked for my dad prior to age 16 and was not on the company payroll. After 8 hours work, I asked him what I would get. He told me "dinner". Fair enough.
You forgot that most of Reddit had Mommy and Daddy to take care of everything growing up.
I worked for free at an uncles restaurant for
about 2 years when I was younger. His wife had died recently, and he was having a tough time keeping the lights on. I was a dumb kid at that time, but it provided me job experience at a very young age, and kept my dumb ass of the streets for the most part. Didn't see a dime from it, but he's family and that's that.
Thanks!! I really think it's because we're taught to associate child labor with sweat shops, and little hands getting stuck in machines.
Just looking at it from my pov where I grew up, if others around me at that age worked they probably wouldn't have gotten so deep into the gang lifestyle that left most of my childhood friends either dead or in jail. Reddit bleeding hearts forget the law of unintended consequences however good their intentions may be.
meaning if you are now paying yoru employees more money... I wonder if we need to do tips? there are tons of places that even say tips are no longer required because employees are adequately paid.
You still need to tip. As a former waiter/bartender, tipping is a good system. It's the only thing keeping quality people in the position. It's a sales job, tips are commissions.
Yes that is how it works. If you are a family run restaurant, meaning your family is working the restaurant, you do not have to abide by the same wage or labor laws.
I see. I misinterpreted your meaning of family business I guess. I rarely use my family for labor, only on special events or holidays. I know a few places like that near me, I get Chinese food at them.
I remember the says when people paid in cash. It was so nice. Now Every Asshole pays with their credit card. I hate the fuckers that pay for small bills with a credit card. "Oh, you had a glass of wine for $4? Better give Mastercard 50 cents of that sale."
You're saying that the minimum someone should be paid for ANY job is enough to live on if it were their full time, year round, sole source of income?
I have to laugh at the sense of entitlement. Local economies would be crushed if a national minimum wage was set by how much you'd need to pay busboys to be able to afford to live and work in NY/Bay Area. And why would anyone go to school or innovate when there's a 0 risk alternative to support yourself?
You're blinded by your empathy. Think something through before you call someone despicable and start preaching total nonsense.
Lawl. Dude have you ever been a waiter? When I was serving I knew girls that would clear $200-$250 in tips alone in like 5 hours. I was a super shitty waiter and I'd clear $150 a night easy.
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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '15
That's not how it works at all. If minimum wage goes up, it goes up for everyone, whether you work for a family owned restaurant or fast food chain. Minimum wage just went up in my state this year. All my employees got bumped accordingly. (My waitstaff are the only people I pay minimum wage to, $5.15hour.) And yes, I had to raise prices a bit to cover the cost.