Where's My $15 Minimum Wage Job??

[Anonymous 6]

http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/26/minim … with-that/

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For decades, the McDonald’s cashier has been the prototypical minimum-wage employee. Time for a new prototype, folks, since within a few months customers at nearly all the chain’s 14,000 branches will be ordering on their cell phones. Given the alternative (waiting in line), “you want fries with that?” is headed for catchphrase heaven.

Now, McDonald’s insists that innovations like mobile ordering and soon-to-be-installed kiosks do not represent “labor replacement” but rather “customer service.”
As cities and states raise minimum wages to as much as $15 an hour, companies that rely on unskilled labor are cutting labor costs. Of course they are, though those like McDonalds with low-income customers will never tell you why. But businesses don’t spend a dollar when they can spend 50 cents. Employees who contribute less than their pay don’t stay employees for long.

The well-intentioned but facile conservative argument that higher minimum wages raise unemployment isn’t working. Liberals smugly respond with studies showing no correlation, and we counter with contrary research. Instead, let’s show how their general-employment studies obscure the devastating effects of wage floors on the job prospects of workers at the bottom.

In the short run, many middle and lower-middle class workers admittedly benefit from “living wage” laws. It’s hard for a company to find technology that will replace a middle manager, for example, so they will – at first – adjust to the higher wages. In 2017, machines can (mostly) do only mechanical jobs, like taking fast food orders.

And I don’t resent the people who want living-wage laws to boost the income of Americans on the cusp of the American Dream. This country was built on middle-class aspirations, and if a voter or politician prioritizes a (likely temporary) boost up the ladder for those who are already on it, I respect that.

But I have other priorities. Higher minimum wages are devastating for the Americans already suffering most, because they struggle to contribute even the worth of the old minimum wage. I’m talking about:

•single mothers with difficult schedules;
•inner-city residents without transportation;
•people who did not complete high school;
•adults with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses;
•gay and transgender teen runaways;
•recovering addicts;
•recently incarcerated people; and
•homeless people without a reliable address or phone number.

Even sympathetic employers will find it hard to justify hiring such people at current wages, since many of them have limited skills or can be hard to rely on. But they would be appealing candidates for low-end jobs with commensurate wages.

And that’s the biggest tragedy of the minimum wage. When there’s an open job, someone in one of the categories above may not have the education, or experience, or references to push her resume to the top of the pile. But she can beat the competition on price – if the government didn’t forbid her to do so.

So the victims of the minimum wage don’t have the dignity of a day’s work. They rely on public assistance. They may turn to the underground economy (drugs, prostitution, fraud).

Now, if you listen to many liberals, minimum wage laws are all about puppies and candy corn; everyone wins except corporate fat cats. It doesn’t work that way. Raising the minimum wage favors those in the middle over those at the bottom – and if that’s what you want, OK. But when I try to decide which Americans to boost, I’m going with the poorest ones.

And guess what? Admitting that minimum wages help workers in the middle but hurt the ones who need the most help is also good politics. When liberals accuse conservatives of expecting working families to survive on $X a month, we can pivot the conversation to the practical result of their policies – that other families will have to survive on $0 a month. Let the liberals be the ones looking heartless this time.

Our economy is in transition, and I cannot predict where the low-end jobs of tomorrow will be. I do know this, though. If “living wage” laws mean there won’t even be any low-end jobs, the millions of Americans victimized by wishful-thinking do-goodery will grow even more desperate. Some may have a hard time feeding their families at all.

Minimum wage is for that high school kid trying to get his first car, a first job and step in the direction to getting a higher paying job, and for college kids between semesters.

Not for grown folks with 5 kids!!

Thoughts??

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Its almost funny in a sick way because not only is it not going to have the effect liberals want it to…but its going to have the opposite effect. If a restaurant can save a few bucks by replacing a couple employees with technology, its not going to lower its prices, its just going to pad its profit margin. In the end its going to be the franchisee or corporate, whoever owns the place, that is going to be cashing in on a higher minimum wage. Hell if anything they might use a higher minimum wage to justify hiking prices even if technology can more than offset the extra wages to remaining employees.

What I did always wonder about a lot of places that pay minimum, or near minimum wage that I realized when I was younger and working these jobs, is most of the employees who make that type of money are either highschool/college kids who just intend to be there for a few years max, or are overpaid because they are useless pieces of s~~~. On occasion you’ll get an awesome worker who doesn’t fit into either of those categories…but the thing is the companies don’t pay him anymore. He’ll make the 10 bucks an hour all the s~~~ty workers make. I just find it odd you don’t find more places that make the pay scale for stocking shelves maybe 9-20 dollars an hour…start every off low, keep the s~~~ bags low, and give your good workers incentive to stay. In the end it seems like they would make up the money because they are shuffling through less lazy s~~~bags that aren’t working anyhow and probably call in and steal a lot more than someone who gets compensated for his efforts and will be a more loyal employee. In the end they could probably actually have less employees if they did this too as the 4 walmart employees hanging around bulls~~~ting not doing anything all making 10 dollars an hour get less accomplished than 1 guy making 20 bucks an hour who takes pride in his work and busts ass.

[ResParticipant 542]

I’ve been ordering my McDonalds through UberEats lately. Minimum wage for sure, both on the part of the McDonalds employees and the Uber driver (who may not even make minimum wage when you consider the drivers expenses). I don’t see how a quarter pounder can cost $6.10 when you’re paying a “whopper flopper” (Dave Ramsey terminology) $15/hr. Minimum wage isn’t based on the idea of feeding a family. It should be based on being able to pay rent for a 1 bedroom or studio apartment in a city with reasonable cost of living. Children cost money and families should expect that. It’s a business decision, but NO ONE is educated in that manner. People assume that family is above money. Let me tell you, it costs money to have a child born at a hospital, and to get the administrative paperwork filed. If you can’t afford it, don’t have children. People don’t think rationally. That is the problem. That is the selling point of MGTOW: men (people) coming to the conclusion that not thinking is the problem.

Minimum wage shouldn’t even be an issue. If you want to raise a family, there are plenty of jobs that pay enough to support a family. Invest in an education. Get an associates or bachelors degree, it’s not that hard and not that much commitment. There are plenty of decent jobs that will pay adequate amounts and provide benefits to support your lifestyle. You do not need a minimum wage job to take on such an endeavor. If you want a higher wage, find a better job and work for it like the rest of us do. Life isn’t easy, but it’s not that hard either. If all you want to do is flip burgers then you succumb to the market rate for a burger flipper: you work for nearly free because your job simply isn’t worth that much. Lots of people want McDonalds because it’s cheap and easy and quick, but that’s all you get. If you want a better job and a better life, work for it, don’t complain to the government for a $15/hr minimum wage instead.

That’s my $.02.

Mr. Boats: "'Avoid the reeking herd! Shun the polluted flock! Live like that stoic bird, the eagle of the rock!' You know what that means, son?" -American Splendor

[bstoffParticipant 4867]

Great perspective, Venom.
Like everyone has always said before: Min wage is for beginners like teens and maybe ex-cons, etc. They all have upward mobility and are able to move up in pay if they warrant the pay increase.
Like Res said, If you’re a piece of s~~~ non-worker, you will likely remain at the bottom of the pay scale, unless you start demonstrating that you’re efforts are worth more.
The caveat to merit-based pay is most employers are subject to laws that force them to pay more to those who don’t deserve it.
Of course there are also those bosses who are just cheap pricks who don’t give raises to those who deserve it. The only option for the good workers is to leave and go someplace where their efforts are appreciated.
This has been the norm for decades, though. Nothing has changed with this except for the BS new “living” wage some dumbass invented.

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

The REAL minimum wage is $0… which is exactly how much money you should be making if your entire argument about your economic worth is “I’m going to do the least valuable thing possible with the least amount of care, consideration and ambition I can get away with and I expect to be able to live just as well as someone working ten times harder than me.”

You can earn $15 an hour when the thing you’re doing is worth $45 an hour to the company. And if you don’t like it, start your own flipping hamburger business.

[WPLParticipant 2390]

Back in high school, I worked as an “electro-mechanical assembler”: a highly-skilled job. Most of my time was spent stuffing and soldering printed circuit boards to MIL- and IPC- specifications and fabricating wiring harnesses. These were high-reliability assemblies for medical devices. The work was easy for me because electronics had been my hobby since I was about 8 years old — so I saved the company a good deal of training time and money because I didn’t have to be shown how to tell the difference between a resistor, a capacitor, a diode, etc. Didn’t have to be taught what components are polarized, how to read the values of parts and compare to a bill-of-materials, or how to judge a good solder joint from a bad one. How much did I earn? $10.25/hr (no overtime authorized). Even adjusting for the weaker dollar of today, that’s BARELY $15/hr in today’s currency. For exacting, skilled work.

Well, it didn’t take me long to decide that a.) the pay was a joke and, b.) the work was boring. So, I went to college and I EARNED a degree in electrical engineering. Nothing was GIVEN to me. Now, I’m worth well over minimum wage — because of skills, experience, discipline, patience, etc. Not because of Big Daddy Government. Motivation has to come from within, and it certainly isn’t ignited by Government making it easy to coast along.

[ResidentEvil7Participant 9554]

Damn, I wish I had an electronics job when I was in high school, because I love electronic technology. To make $10.25 during high school is considered good, considering high school kids makes less than that cashiering, bagging groceries, or cleaning up messes.

https://themanszone.webs.com/

[PrincekieParticipant 1042]

McDonalds. Been lucky to have worked for them twice in my life. Once in my teens in the mid 90s. The second time in the 2010s in my thirties. When I went for a brief break to the Netherlands in 2015, I nearly went to work for them a third time, albeit in a different country.

The difference in technology and the actual job was pretty startling. Things have really moved on. Less labour intensive, automatic machine ordering, two people running things at the busiest times.

I remember speaking to an Area Manager about how the future looked at McDonalds back in the 90s. He replied that McDonalds was investing billions in technology, and that if they could replace everyone with robots they would. Twenty years on, I can see that he wasn’t full of bs.

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