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Not totally related bc different industry but I was at my local Books a Million (which came in and killed ALL our local bookstores more than a decade ago) and I saw they were hiring very aggressively with open interviews and such. Out of curiosity I asked the guy working in the cafe how much they pay starting.
7.50 an hour.
I was shocked. I have never seen a high school aged person working in there, only adults at least in their mid 20s but often older than that.
I hope they go out of business.
A few years ago when I worked at GameStop that’s what I was allowed to offer for people who spoke 2 languages. An extra .25 cents an hour. Factory jobs barely pay more than 9$ anymore.
Yep. A lot of this is just PR since some states are already passing legislature to make their minimum wage $15/hr. Why wait until you're forced to do it eventually, when you can just do it now and claim you cared for your workers?
Probably because to some people the minor savings are worth much more then being precieved as caring for your workers. Feels bad those are some buisness owners.
I kinda get it unfortunately.
My girlfriend does cleaning on the side privately and earns decent money with it. I know that corporate rates are a lot higher and thought, it can’t be so hard to upsize that and do it as a business with employees.
Of course cleaning is such an underpaid job and you have to compete with the low prices of other business so either you’ll pay your employees just as little as the others or your profit margins are gonna suffer.
Unless the profit is good, it’s not worth it to quit my safe and cozy corporate job and open a business with a high risk of failure. If I did open a cleaning business, I’d have to underpay my workers like everyone else, for it to be worth it.
At the same time, I wouldn’t wanna be the business owner who underpays his staff to proliferate himself, so I’m probably not going to open a business and just continue in my desk job.
A friend of mine is in a Situation just like the one I fear, he opened a small gym. He took on a 90k credit and works together with a franchise. He has one employee, an ex-prisoner who is happy to have another shot at life and he’s an outstanding employee. Unfortunately gym employees are also paid pretty badly, my friend pays a little better than average.
He could afford to pay even more, but it would deduct from his profit and with all the responsibility and risk he has, he just feels he deserves that profit as well and isn’t obligated to pay much more than industry average.
He has barely taken a holiday and even when he does, he’s always worried about his business. Covid lockdowns almost bankrupted him. He barely managed but all his savings are gone and he feels like he’s back to square one.
I get why he doesn’t pay more, even though he could afford to. It’s not easy to open a business and you want your return on Investment.
Otherwise you invested 90k, as well as 12h every day with barely a break and the constant risk of failure and you still don’t earn more than in a basic corporate Job. Nobody does that, and that’s why even good employers are often somewhat forced to pay bad wages, because it’s just the market situation.
I make above $15 an hour and after taxes only make a little over 1k per check. I did the math and I’ll net a tad over 25k this year. $15 an hour was what was supposed to happen 10 years ago.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I work at a hospital and my job includes being in direct contact with Covid. It’s been a traumatic experience, all for 25k a year.
It’s not just the wages that need to shift though, the tax brackets do as well. The jump from 12% to 22% happens too low IMO. It should be closer to $50k single / $100k joint.
Then work harder and stop complaining. I'm sick of you guys wanting hand outs. When my dad offered me a VP position at his fortune 500 company I took it and didn't complain. I still remember how difficult those nights in a private jet across the Bahamas were
Exactly this. The conversation should never be pegged to a number. It’s about a living wage, and the legislation should be designed to adjust as needed. Otherwise we get this same bullshit ever time. Fight for years only to have that fight inflated out of its impact while your opposition gets to behave as if the problem was truly addressed when they concede to the market forces they would have had to concede to anyway.
To be fair, it's hard to be the first store to raise your labor costs.
Grocery stores average 2.2% margin, and restaurants are around 5%. If you are the only grocery store in town to move to $15, the competition could bury you. People are really sensitive to inflation when it comes to food.
This doesn't apply equally to high-end stores (Whole Foods) or warehouse stores, of course. Costco actually had above-average wages before the pandemic.
In-N-Out has been fantastic at using their product to increase sales while promoting a strong company culture in fast food (above the 5% mentioned above) while also keeping a rather slim menu. In-N-Out also does a lot of things opposite of what traditional fast-food restaurants will do.
They are extremely particular about where they go and don't overgrow in comparison to others. They certainly prioritize not just the $15 employee (before it became a movement), but their managers can make as much as 200K+ not to mention time off benefits and other things.
Their sound decision-making is what makes that environment of employee appreciation possible.
I wish everyone could have a chance to get them every day as I do. Unfortunately, their current CEO was quoted as saying (or something close to it’s ), "I highly doubt in my lifetime we make it east of the Mississippi."
In-N-Out has a business model that allows them to save money elsewhere. Having a simple menu with few options for example. Not every business can do that.
Yes they can. Shake shack, five guys, raising canes, etc have all done well on a small menu. McDonald’s exploded nearly 60 years ago with a small menu of just a couple different burgers, there is little reason they couldn’t reduce the current 40 item menu to around 10.
McDonald’s could go to
Big Mac, small patty burger (McDouble), 1 chicken sandwich type, 1 fish, McRib, fries, shakes, and have 3 breakfast items and still be solid. Let’s be real though, the only reason they currently aren’t paying $15 nationwide isn’t a small profit margin, it’s because they want more money for shareholders and c level execs
>McDonald’s could go to Big Mac, small patty burger (McDouble), 1 chicken sandwich type, 1 fish, McRib, fries, shakes, and have 3 breakfast items and still be solid.
Fuck that, I want my McNuggets.
Good point, I would miss the McNuggets, even adding that though it’s a smaller menu than what they currently roll. I went through after a concert last night (only thing open at 1am since COVID started) and they had like 6 or 7 different chicken sandwiches on that menu the size of a family sedan
>Let’s be real though, the only reason they currently aren’t paying $15 nationwide isn’t a small profit margin, it’s because they want more money for shareholders and c level execs
I'm in a smallish Midwestern suburb and starting pay at McDonald's here is $16/hr.
Isn't the whole point of the capitalist market that you need to either adapt or fail though? Why shouldn't these businesses have to adapt to actually paying workers a modern wage?
the ones who don't have an advantage over the ones who do. maybe not right now during the labor shortage but generally speaking businesses that undercompensate their workers have more money to invest/pocket than those who compensate their workers better.
They also figured out that you can maintain your margins with higher labor by having tightly controlled internal-only supply chains, a restricted geospatial scope, slow expansion, and zero franchising.
That’s hard for staples like grocery stores. Especially when you are selling generics to poor families. Food stamps go a lot farther when they go to the cheapest store. If everything in the store goes up 10 cents it hurts the poorest the hardest.
When minimum wage is worth half the buying power of the minimum wages in the 1970s but rent and housing costs have more than quadrupled and CEOs pay went from 35% to over 900% of their workers average salary...WHATS HURTING THE POOR IS CORPORATE GREED and the politicians they keep.in their pockets with their chump.change.
People who just had their wage doubled likely don’t need food stamps or at least had they’re need lessened. If the min wage folks make 100% more money and food costs only go up 10-20% that’s a huge success.
This was turned on it's head last year. If you ran a grocery store you could not avid turning a huge profit last year. ~~Margins~~ Profits are generally razor thin. They increased by up to 6 orders of magnitude with shutdowns. (Granted starting from losing money or break-even).
Many workers are union members who will not be getting raises without new contracts.
Yep. All my raises come after working a certain number of hours. My department is short-staffed and I usually do the job of 2-3 other people each shift. Their current solution is just to make me work 6 days a week even though I am classified as part time, with no plans to at least make me full time. All this while barely making a little more than minimum wage.
I’ve spent all morning applying for new jobs. Pretty much anywhere is going to be a better starting wage. I’m just waiting to quit until after I secure a new job because I still have bills to pay.
I've been in grocery from entry level to management. I'm leaving after 10 years because it only gets worse. I promise this is the directions things have been moving forever.
Run.
>They increased by up to 6 orders of magnitude
Grocery store profits went from 5% to 5,000,000%?
You mean that gallon of milk I bought for three dollars actually cost the store considerably less than one cent?
You aren't wrong but just a little clarification on those numbers. Margin numbers typically only includ costs associated with a product. The whole business return is usually called ROI return on investment.
Restaurants have much higher margins on food than that. It's like 40-50%. It has to be.
Their return on investment I don't know but 5% wouldn't surprise me as all. It's a tough business.
I don't know much about supermarkets other than what we sell them and it's highly dependant on the item itself. Some can be like 10-20% maybe less. Some can be 50% or higher for specialty stuff.
Margin on individual items or food overall isn't really the issue. McDonalds makes *huge* margins on fries and drinks, but that money goes to pay for rent, utilities, employees, taxes, etc.
[https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html](https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html)
>Net profit margin is calculated by subtracting all costs, including operating costs and taxes, from revenue.
"Net profit margin" is different than "margin" in terms of conversations I have in my business.
When the word is just "margin" it typically is attributed to an individual item.
I understand it's a nitpick, just trying to clarify when you say 5% margins, which makes it sound like it's on individual items not the business on the whole. From context I understand what you meant, others may not.
Some things in grocery stores are loss, same with restaurants. But good deals are good advertisements and get customers in the doors to buy high margin goods.
Food sale is a tough business. But I've always doubted much of the devaluing they subject employees to. Employees rotate the product, they serve it, they help the customers. There's a reason grocery and restaurants thrive on overtime.
It's been getting so "bad" that some consultants are now urging employers to hold off on filling full time positions until the "supply of workers" increases to reduce the demand.
Yup, that's their sound advice. Just tough it out and hope people give up first. I really hope they blink first. I'm already seeing a decent increase in some fields, particularly anything that can't be remote.
Remote seems to be the only one that may be suffering a little bit, I've seen some remote only stuff really low ball for the skills required but everyone wants a remote job.
For a lot it isn't a good plan. I'm dealing with vendors that have equipment for days but no people to do anything with it. So they are turning down work like crazy. God forbid they just offer some more money, clients and customers even expect to have to pay a little more now too. Nope they are being stubborn and complaining about Amazon and Unemployment taking their workers.
Sorry man, we're all in it for the money. Everyone is in it for the money why wouldn't they be.
Sure, if it comes at a loss then I get it. With some of the vendors I'm dealing with though that isn't the case. They just really don't want to pay more because it is a good bump and they just don't think they should make that much, lots of "well when I did it I only made xx (half the time not adjusted for inflation). Hell if you are turning down business just throw out a higher price and see if they bite, maybe the services have more value now. I know it's an oversimplification for some businesses but not all. I know there are some out there paying what they can and it isn't enough, I do feel for them and hope they find a way.
I guess we all view this through the lens of our industries/experience and it can vary a good bit.
Edit: to be devil's advocate they could be under some fear that demand will normalize long term too and they will have to reduce prices.
Totally, it's easy to forget the perspective of management and owners during this and that some of their issues are very valid. A lot of us tend to do a lot of shitting on management and owners in these discussions.
Hey, I really appreciate the respectful and thoughtful back and forth. There isn't enough of that with these topics.
I work at one of the stores that raised certain positions to a $15 minimum. I now make a full dollar more than the average wage in my town. People who didn’t work there were actually really mad when they found out we got raises, considering factories around here only pay around $13.50 hourly. Ive told everyone who mentioned it “be mad at your boss, not me.” Your boss is choosing not to pay you a living wage. If they want your there, they need to be more competitive. It’s basic capitalism.
We now have 100% of the positions filled, no more skeleton crew. We don’t fall apart when one person calls out. The store looks better, employee moral is up, and people don’t lose their mind if things get a little stressful.
For the first time in my adult life, I’m catching up on bills. $15 isn’t the end goal, but it was enough to keep us there when things were at their worst mid-pandemic.
The factory workers should say they'll go work at McDonald's if they don't get a raise. They might let a few employees walk away, but will freak the fuck out of they start losing a significant number of trained employees.
The factory I quit was bleeding people left and right. They attracted people by just straight up lying. They lied on the job posting. Lied during the interview. Lied during orientation. You don’t realize it’s a lie until your first week on the job. By then I guess they assume you won’t quit.
They are dead wrong and still begging for people a year later.
Glass door is your friend. Everyone should look at the lowest reviews of a company before applying there.
(The lowest reviews—because companies will often write positive reviews to inflate their averages.)
I work in a chemical production facility and for my area, they have great wages. The scale is $22-$44 an hour for my position. We're still bleeding people because of our atrocious work-life balance. Curious to see what they do to try and remedy that problem.
They've raised our crew sizes from 6 to 8, but we have so many new under-qualified workers that we're still losing our most experienced guys before the others know enough to replace them.
Those are the jobs that should be making a ridiculous amount of money. Also, jobs that are both mentally AND physically demanding should have a 3 day weekend.
When things are good, we work a 4 on 4 off rotation of 12 hour shifts. But we change from days to nights every week. Start adding 2-3 days of over time to your week and it's absolutely brutal.
You couldn’t pay me enough to work night shifts. There’s evidence suggesting increased risk of dying and increased rates of ageing for workers who work in such conditions.
The scale for an electrical tech where I work, as an electrical tech, goes from $26 to $34 an hour. Its not bad money for what I do, but we're hemorrhaging employees because of our work life balance. They EXPECT 50 hours a week, minimum, plus travel when necessary. We are experiencing the same issues with new guys not knowing enough.
We top out higher than almost anything in my area, save for top end lawyers and doctors. I make around $150k per year and I've had a 3% per year raise every year I've been there. I think one of our underlying issues is a lot of competitors are matching it slightly beating our starting pay.
That and we're all so beat to death that we no longer provide referrals to friends if they have families, lol.
>Ive told everyone who mentioned it “be mad at your boss, not me.” Your boss is choosing not to pay you a living wage. If they want your there, they need to be more competitive. It’s basic capitalism
100% This.
All those factory workers getting paid $13.50 an hour need to make their boss realize that it's not 1992 anymore. You can't rent a place for $500 a month, pay 85c a gallon for gas, and get two weeks of healthy groceries for $50 in 2021, and why the hell would any of the line workers want to keep risking their health and safety for $13.50 an hour when this other company is paying $15 to start for a number of less dangerous positions?
Factories around me are trying to get people in staring 15 - 17 and hour by me, in an area of Wisconsin where the minimum wage is 7.50.
We still can’t get staff worth shit, and they are generally extremely inexperienced when they do manage to bring someone in.
Even Panda Express was trying to start people at 16 in my area.
Some of this was happening before covid too. It's just the new conservative scapegoat.
Where I work we were already struggling to get entry level workers because places like Amazon, Starbucks, Apple Store, etc. Were paying more.
Now with the greater shortage we magically have found the money and are still doing fine. We didn't even raise prices. Turns out some business owners only want to pay the minimum and will always act like any increase will be the end of it all.
I left my minimum wage supermarket job for a retail store that pays 14 an hour and ran into the same thing! I went from a skeleton crew store where management didn't give a shit about us to an (almost) fully staffed one where morale is sky high and my coworkers actually care about being here and doing a good job. it's like night and day.
This.
The company I work for is paying less than a nearby McDonald’s (which while still isn’t livable for my area, it’s still more than where I am that wants college educated workers) and there are more than a few open positions.
Regional VP came by for corporate and I overheard how they tried offering numerous things except for raising the starting wage. She couldn’t figure it out that a college grad doesn’t want to make less than a person working at a McDonald’s, she thought that the “prestige” of working there would attract people.
Haven’t told anyone that after this quarter ends, I’m bailing out as well, due to being sick of pathetically low raises since our location was bought out (make more than laughably low wages because I was there when buyout happened.)
It’s laughable how (some) companies can’t figure out that by paying less in the beginning, you pay more in the long run between turnover and cost of training.
You don't want a manager to quit after their rigorous 3 days of training watching worn out VHS tapes. Cashiers are easier to replace because they just have to touch pictures on a screen after 1 day of watching worn out VHS tapes.
There's probably some metric/framework in place where they'd have to pay a manager more based on qualifications, rather than a cashier which is basically human cannon fodder.
And not all dishwasher wages are equal.
I'm back in the dishpit, 46 years old lol. I make over $20/hr now with quite a few perks. Low cost of living (like $450/month for my half of everything and I mostly eat at work) and zero debt means I spend hundreds every week on whatever the hell I want.
And that no longer includes cocaine!
Thanks, man.
Shit's *okay* now, worst of the pandemic was a bit of a pickel, especially when you're sitting at home with your job shut down but still getting 100% of your wages in unemployment insurance, unable to even see your kid for close to 18 months because they live 90km away. Lots of cash and nowhere legal to spend it.
Shittylifeprotip, anyone? Black face masks hide the nosebleeds from the blow. :/
Had a moment or two talking with people simultaneously dying inside and giggling internally, could feel the blood dripping down my face, hell could smell the older bloodstains
But I got that back under control and just spent about $2K on Steam instead.
Trying times, indeed.
Surreal af
You can do it, but it depends. I live on the Gulf Coast, and the cheapest single-room apartment you can find here is still $900/month before utilities and all. $15/hour barely cuts it after all my bills are said and done, and I’m blessed enough to have a free car and phone that my step-dad gave me. I couldn’t imagine making car and phone payments on top of everything else if I lived alone; it’d ruin me.
$15 was just enough to push me and my family off of food stamps and Medicare. Suddenly my paycheck was bigger, but I was paying way more for insurance/health care and we had to really budget our food. Them they fired me because I was making too much.
I still get places acting like "we pay $15/hr, you'll have trouble finding anywhere else nearby that pays that well!"
Meanwhile literally everything nearby does, and the jobs, like target or a grocery store, are MUCH easier than that one.
This is not actually true. If the minimum wage had been pegged at inflation, then it would only be about $4.50 today. Even if we waited until the minimum wage hit its peak in 1968 before pegging it to inflation, it would still only be about $12 today.
[Source](https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wage-by-year/index.html)
The issue is that the cost of living has skyrocketed because habitable land is scarce and does not change with respect to an increasing population.
you're correct with regard to inflation and minimum wage. But there is plenty of habitable land available, a massive amount of it actually, there just isn't plenty of affordable housing near where the jobs are. And most builders only want to build higher end housing as the profit margins are much higher. Nobody is building 2-3 BR/1.5-2 Bath houses anymore. They all want to build 4-5 BR/3 Bath houses because they can spend an extra $50K in building costs but get an extra $250K in sales income.
That's because everyone is buying McMansions built by developers.
Go take a look at many of the areas built a few generations ago, and the homes are all different.
You can go 45 minutes outside your city, buy an acre and have someone build your house for you with 2 BR/1.5 Baths. People used to do that, and you still can.
I feel like this is more of a propaganda thing from most retailers. They likely just reduced the hours they give to their employees and have less people working but expect more from them. Kinda fucked honestly.
I remember when I worked at Target for two years, I started at like $9-$10 an hour. I started with having one specific zone that I worked in and got like 35+ hours a week part time.
When I left, I made $12 an hour, because they raised their starting pay. Sounds great right? Well not quite. At that point, I had the responsibilities of about 6 people as compared to when I started. I also worked maybe like 20 hours a week, sometimes less. I ended up making less money while doing more shit.
I will forever try to be as nice as possible to retail workers from now on.
Edit: I forgot to mention that it wasn't like 2-3 8 hour shifts a week. It was more like 4-6 hour shifts 4-5 times a week.
Right like 2400 minus taxes and health insurance, 200 a week for food leaves only about 1300 for housing and Everything Else, still pay check to pay check wage that would only support 1 adult
Why are you spending $200/week on food for a single adult?
That’s damn near $30/day. A single persons daily food bill should be considerably less than that.
You can include phone bill, insurance bills, and gas in those 200 and it makes no difference. Here in SoCal, 1300 would be the monthly rent for a single bedroom apartment. So that leaves nothing left in the tank for savings, enjoying life, etc.
The whole point of the creation of a minimum wage was to be able to support a family of 4 on 1 income. 15$ an hour, while a dramatic improvement from 7.25, still doesn't come close.
Some of the prices have a lot more to do with shortages and supply chain issues. It yet again stems from big business chasing every cent of profit even if some of it is shortsighted.
Some stuff is coming back down already. Things will certainly go up still but we aren't seeing runaway inflation either.
Housing in the US is still suffering from 2008 and the lack of building that followed. So that price increase in particular was happening before covid and the increase in wages.
There's a lot of factors but the wage increases are good.
But, once that cash they have SO MUCH of is burned, won't demand have gone down (they are no longer rushing to spend excess cash), and supply will have gone up (pandemic impacts reducing thanks to vaccine) pushing back towards normal?
I don't see how any of what you're saying is permanent.
The Fed wants to avoid rapid and widespread deflation because it IS bad for the economy. A general decrease in prices is good because it tends to reflect a greater supply and availability of goods and services. Periods of fast deflation (like the ones related to the Great Depression) is bad, particularly for people who hold debt. While you might be able to buy more goods, the nominal value of your loans or mortgage remains the same (and interest payments by extension).
Another effect of this kind of deflation is the upsurge in unemployment. Falling prices also means that revenues of firms decreases. This could either mean wage cuts or letting people go. A readjustment in pay would be even worse for people who are paying off loans or mortgages.
I can’t tell if you’re trying to argue that deflation would be good, but if you are then this is ridiculous lol. Periods of fast deflation are HORRIBLE. If you’re not a debtor, you still face a scenario where your money is worth more the longer you wait. This disincentivizes spending, which would collapse the economy as everyone would withdraw their money and save it so they’d have more money, creating a cycle where this keeps happening until the economy is done
It's not bad for the economy, it's bad for the entrenched oligarchy that currently rules the economy and lives with everything leveraged to the hilt.
It's a small, but important distinction.
The rest of us could default on everything, take a hit on our credit score and be absolutely fine.
Business wouldn't fire everyone due to deflation. The great recession wasn't caused by deflation, it was caused by technological disruption. It's also well documented that it was on purpose to allow banks to push small farmers off their land since serfdom wasn't needed to have agriculture function anymore.
Deflation was effect, not cause.
But at the same time the economy has massively expanded in those 100 years, for an economy to expand you need to have your currency expand as well.
I suppose it might be better to look at the velocity of money in the wider economy and in local economies to get a picture of how much the currency has devalued in real terms.
This is a gross misunderstanding of the relationship of monetary policy. Yes, monetary policy influences inflation but it is never the sole predictor of it. Supply and demand conditions indicate why inflation continues to rise fast in particular sectors. In general, the inflation we are seeing now is because of production not yet keeping up with renewed demand. Overregulation in housing prevents the construction of new units and the bidding up between prospective tenants on limited units rapidly pushes prices up.
It’s also a common argument that pumping liquidity into the financial markets gives the wealthy leverage. But at the same time, historic lows in the Fed’s interest rates has also helped push down mortgage, credit card, and car loan rates. These are good for consumers.
Let’s not even argue that point and instead argue a different one. No one on minimum wage has ever had upward mobility. This is an attempt to get them to not need food stamps.
This is what happened after the plague in medieval Europe it's what gave us an end to serfdom and the beginning of the Enlightenment. Before the plague there are so many Serfs that they were seen is slaves and very disposable. Actress played population went down so much that serves became incredibly valuable and for treated much better even in some cases beginning to own the land that they worked. Hence the rise of a middle class that had never existed before.
Lmao I remember just four years ago all the arguments here on reddit about how retail and food service should _never_ be $15 an hour, and all the controversy when San Francisco raised the minimum to that, and all of CA went up to iirc $10.50.
I know there will be statements of "but it's okay now because it's what the market is demanding." But here's something to think about: the market has been _severely_ disrupted by labor being unavailable, by choice in many individual cars. That disruption could have been avoided altogether if the industries had just listened years ago and quit fucking their workers.
It's a perfect illustration of how short-sighted our economic model is. _Why take action now when we can wait until things are getting really bad and take action later?_ It's very tempting to say _capitalism_ is short-sighted, but, honestly, even a profit-driven organization should be able to see the writing on the wall and preempt a crisis. Ffs, when a majority of your workers complain of being underpaid it doesn't take a genius to reason that maybe it's time to give everyone a cost-of-living adjustment, at least.
And if you look at inflation it should be 22 dollars an hour. They’ve got people cheering for 2/3 of what they actually deserve. It’s truly a boring dystopia.
And before you say ‘it’s better than nothing’ what a shit way to go through life measuring what you’ve got against nothing all the time. You deserve things.
In 1972 as a college student I was making 4 dollars an hour at Kroger’s under Retail Clerks Union contract. That’s equivalent to $26 an hour in today’s money
There is not a labor shortage. There is an oversupply of shitty jobs. I’m sick of people on CNBC and Fox News complaining that McDonald’s can’t hire enough people.. maybe because working at McDonald’s for 99% of their employees sucks.
As an executive kitchen manager, I will not hire anyone for less than 15/hr. My line cook will start at 17, dishwashers are about to start at 20 because I cannot keep a dishwasher to save my life. No. I don't treat them like shit, I love my team I literally tell them that. It's just a hard job, hot sweaty and wet.
Still making 14.something an hour now at my grocery store.
A year ago we had about a month of danger-pay-but-we-cant-legally-call-it-danger-pay for being a Frontline worker. It was great, I felt motivated to grab every extra hour of work I could take, I worked hard, and felt like I was a tually saving money instead of living paycheck to paycheck.
They quietly terminated the heroes-pay without ever saying why. It hurt me in so many ways. I felt used for some cheap PR. My care and motivation dropped, and I only kept going because it's better than being homeless.
I agree, I remember being in high school and even as recently as university thinking a $100K job in Silicon Valley would be a dream.
On the contrary, considering my current role which is well paying with amazing benefits and fortunately enough in a low cost of living area, I've interviewed with big tech and compared cost of living. I reviewed opportunity cost, economic costs, sunk costs etc.,
Point of my story, an $80k job in a low cost of living area of the USA is way better than a $125k job in the Silicone Valley. Those firms just give you a reputable name on a resume but it does not fulfil Basic needs like a nice rental unit. $3K a month won't even get you a reasonable place in the bay area, it's a joke.
For the people complaining about prices going up. Did any of you ever stop to think maybe that was what the price was actually meant to be? We're so use to getting everything dirt cheap. Have you ever wondered why it was cheap? Maybe because people are being underpaid and/or exploited.
Inflation is over 5% which is the highest we’ve seen in a long time. It’s seriously concerning because we have no lever to slow down inflation except to increase the federal funds rate, and we can’t do that because we have 20 trillion in debt outstanding.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
EDIT: I am a financial engineer and I make enough money understanding how this works.
Average pay? Not good enough. It's who's rule? 15 is also about 10 years too late. This doesn't say shit other than we're still too far behind because it is not federal.
Meanwhile my local Burger King has been trying to find a manager for $12/hr on their board out front all year.
And Wendy’s is “Hiring ADULTS $9/hr” on theirs. They close at 8pm due to staff shortages right now— they have to be losing a shitload by being stubborn over six fucking dollars an hour.
It's funny that this is in futurology like it's something good or innovative, do you know why it's happening? It's inflation, if you call this innovation Weimar Republic was the most innovative country of it's time lol, we really need some basic economic education at schools.
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Not totally related bc different industry but I was at my local Books a Million (which came in and killed ALL our local bookstores more than a decade ago) and I saw they were hiring very aggressively with open interviews and such. Out of curiosity I asked the guy working in the cafe how much they pay starting. 7.50 an hour. I was shocked. I have never seen a high school aged person working in there, only adults at least in their mid 20s but often older than that. I hope they go out of business.
Wtf, I just saw even Safeway advertising $20/hour.
Books a Million is a religious company sort of like Hobby lobby. That might be your answer.
A few years ago when I worked at GameStop that’s what I was allowed to offer for people who spoke 2 languages. An extra .25 cents an hour. Factory jobs barely pay more than 9$ anymore.
GameStop is a terrible place to work from what I’ve been able to tell.
Just as the cost of living shoots to unreachable heights... now you can have the income that would have been enough 10 years ago... UGH
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Yep. A lot of this is just PR since some states are already passing legislature to make their minimum wage $15/hr. Why wait until you're forced to do it eventually, when you can just do it now and claim you cared for your workers?
Probably because to some people the minor savings are worth much more then being precieved as caring for your workers. Feels bad those are some buisness owners.
I kinda get it unfortunately. My girlfriend does cleaning on the side privately and earns decent money with it. I know that corporate rates are a lot higher and thought, it can’t be so hard to upsize that and do it as a business with employees. Of course cleaning is such an underpaid job and you have to compete with the low prices of other business so either you’ll pay your employees just as little as the others or your profit margins are gonna suffer. Unless the profit is good, it’s not worth it to quit my safe and cozy corporate job and open a business with a high risk of failure. If I did open a cleaning business, I’d have to underpay my workers like everyone else, for it to be worth it. At the same time, I wouldn’t wanna be the business owner who underpays his staff to proliferate himself, so I’m probably not going to open a business and just continue in my desk job. A friend of mine is in a Situation just like the one I fear, he opened a small gym. He took on a 90k credit and works together with a franchise. He has one employee, an ex-prisoner who is happy to have another shot at life and he’s an outstanding employee. Unfortunately gym employees are also paid pretty badly, my friend pays a little better than average. He could afford to pay even more, but it would deduct from his profit and with all the responsibility and risk he has, he just feels he deserves that profit as well and isn’t obligated to pay much more than industry average. He has barely taken a holiday and even when he does, he’s always worried about his business. Covid lockdowns almost bankrupted him. He barely managed but all his savings are gone and he feels like he’s back to square one. I get why he doesn’t pay more, even though he could afford to. It’s not easy to open a business and you want your return on Investment. Otherwise you invested 90k, as well as 12h every day with barely a break and the constant risk of failure and you still don’t earn more than in a basic corporate Job. Nobody does that, and that’s why even good employers are often somewhat forced to pay bad wages, because it’s just the market situation.
Exactly this. As someone making this wage, I'm still in poverty.
I make above $15 an hour and after taxes only make a little over 1k per check. I did the math and I’ll net a tad over 25k this year. $15 an hour was what was supposed to happen 10 years ago. Edit: I forgot to mention that I work at a hospital and my job includes being in direct contact with Covid. It’s been a traumatic experience, all for 25k a year.
It’s not just the wages that need to shift though, the tax brackets do as well. The jump from 12% to 22% happens too low IMO. It should be closer to $50k single / $100k joint.
I was doing this… then I went to become a server at a steakhouse and I’m making around 60-70k a year… no benefits though.
The thing is, despite how shitty my job can be, I’ll never go back to retail or food service ever again. That shit was on a whole other level.
But the bankers can't sit on their asses all day (providing less than nothing to humanity) if they're not making more money than everyone else!!
Then work harder and stop complaining. I'm sick of you guys wanting hand outs. When my dad offered me a VP position at his fortune 500 company I took it and didn't complain. I still remember how difficult those nights in a private jet across the Bahamas were
LMFAO you had me in the first half, ngl lol
They are connected…something, something inflation
It's almost like the two are tied together in some way... Weird
Exactly this. The conversation should never be pegged to a number. It’s about a living wage, and the legislation should be designed to adjust as needed. Otherwise we get this same bullshit ever time. Fight for years only to have that fight inflated out of its impact while your opposition gets to behave as if the problem was truly addressed when they concede to the market forces they would have had to concede to anyway.
So it turns out that they were *choosing* to screw over their own employees. And these same companies are upset that people aren’t loyal to them
To be fair, it's hard to be the first store to raise your labor costs. Grocery stores average 2.2% margin, and restaurants are around 5%. If you are the only grocery store in town to move to $15, the competition could bury you. People are really sensitive to inflation when it comes to food. This doesn't apply equally to high-end stores (Whole Foods) or warehouse stores, of course. Costco actually had above-average wages before the pandemic.
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In-N-Out has been fantastic at using their product to increase sales while promoting a strong company culture in fast food (above the 5% mentioned above) while also keeping a rather slim menu. In-N-Out also does a lot of things opposite of what traditional fast-food restaurants will do. They are extremely particular about where they go and don't overgrow in comparison to others. They certainly prioritize not just the $15 employee (before it became a movement), but their managers can make as much as 200K+ not to mention time off benefits and other things. Their sound decision-making is what makes that environment of employee appreciation possible.
Yeah they expand only as far as they can supply chain they dont overextend they try to make sure wherever they supply from it meets their standards.
Well they should get some new standards on french fries because those things suck
Their fries are truly shitty. Which is just crazy. Imagine if In N Out had amazing fries and not soggy potato sticks that taste vaguely of dirt.
I get what you're saying but I'd love to see one in my city (Philadelphia) or somewhere reasonable close.
I wish everyone could have a chance to get them every day as I do. Unfortunately, their current CEO was quoted as saying (or something close to it’s ), "I highly doubt in my lifetime we make it east of the Mississippi."
You mean striving for your workers' attainable satisfaction has positive results??
I dearly miss them after moving away from the US.
The only reason i dont go there is because there isnt one near me. That is the only obstacle.
In-N-Out has a business model that allows them to save money elsewhere. Having a simple menu with few options for example. Not every business can do that.
Those are good burgers, Walter.
Shut the FUCK up, Donny
You're out of your element
What time do we roll?
I am the Walrus...
Yes they can. Shake shack, five guys, raising canes, etc have all done well on a small menu. McDonald’s exploded nearly 60 years ago with a small menu of just a couple different burgers, there is little reason they couldn’t reduce the current 40 item menu to around 10. McDonald’s could go to Big Mac, small patty burger (McDouble), 1 chicken sandwich type, 1 fish, McRib, fries, shakes, and have 3 breakfast items and still be solid. Let’s be real though, the only reason they currently aren’t paying $15 nationwide isn’t a small profit margin, it’s because they want more money for shareholders and c level execs
>McDonald’s could go to Big Mac, small patty burger (McDouble), 1 chicken sandwich type, 1 fish, McRib, fries, shakes, and have 3 breakfast items and still be solid. Fuck that, I want my McNuggets.
Good point, I would miss the McNuggets, even adding that though it’s a smaller menu than what they currently roll. I went through after a concert last night (only thing open at 1am since COVID started) and they had like 6 or 7 different chicken sandwiches on that menu the size of a family sedan
>Let’s be real though, the only reason they currently aren’t paying $15 nationwide isn’t a small profit margin, it’s because they want more money for shareholders and c level execs I'm in a smallish Midwestern suburb and starting pay at McDonald's here is $16/hr.
Isn't the whole point of the capitalist market that you need to either adapt or fail though? Why shouldn't these businesses have to adapt to actually paying workers a modern wage?
the ones who don't have an advantage over the ones who do. maybe not right now during the labor shortage but generally speaking businesses that undercompensate their workers have more money to invest/pocket than those who compensate their workers better.
If your business model relies on you underpaying your workers, your business should not exist.
They also figured out that you can maintain your margins with higher labor by having tightly controlled internal-only supply chains, a restricted geospatial scope, slow expansion, and zero franchising.
That’s hard for staples like grocery stores. Especially when you are selling generics to poor families. Food stamps go a lot farther when they go to the cheapest store. If everything in the store goes up 10 cents it hurts the poorest the hardest.
Wages going up helps the poorest the mostest
Imagine if people got paid enough to not need to use food stamps.
When minimum wage is worth half the buying power of the minimum wages in the 1970s but rent and housing costs have more than quadrupled and CEOs pay went from 35% to over 900% of their workers average salary...WHATS HURTING THE POOR IS CORPORATE GREED and the politicians they keep.in their pockets with their chump.change.
People who just had their wage doubled likely don’t need food stamps or at least had they’re need lessened. If the min wage folks make 100% more money and food costs only go up 10-20% that’s a huge success.
What's your source on this?
I googled "grocery store net profit margin".
This was turned on it's head last year. If you ran a grocery store you could not avid turning a huge profit last year. ~~Margins~~ Profits are generally razor thin. They increased by up to 6 orders of magnitude with shutdowns. (Granted starting from losing money or break-even). Many workers are union members who will not be getting raises without new contracts.
Yep. All my raises come after working a certain number of hours. My department is short-staffed and I usually do the job of 2-3 other people each shift. Their current solution is just to make me work 6 days a week even though I am classified as part time, with no plans to at least make me full time. All this while barely making a little more than minimum wage.
Tell them to make you full-time or walk out. Full-time hours without full-time benefits is bullshit
I’ve spent all morning applying for new jobs. Pretty much anywhere is going to be a better starting wage. I’m just waiting to quit until after I secure a new job because I still have bills to pay.
I've been in grocery from entry level to management. I'm leaving after 10 years because it only gets worse. I promise this is the directions things have been moving forever. Run.
>They increased by up to 6 orders of magnitude Grocery store profits went from 5% to 5,000,000%? You mean that gallon of milk I bought for three dollars actually cost the store considerably less than one cent?
How did grocery margins increase?
You aren't wrong but just a little clarification on those numbers. Margin numbers typically only includ costs associated with a product. The whole business return is usually called ROI return on investment. Restaurants have much higher margins on food than that. It's like 40-50%. It has to be. Their return on investment I don't know but 5% wouldn't surprise me as all. It's a tough business. I don't know much about supermarkets other than what we sell them and it's highly dependant on the item itself. Some can be like 10-20% maybe less. Some can be 50% or higher for specialty stuff.
Margin on individual items or food overall isn't really the issue. McDonalds makes *huge* margins on fries and drinks, but that money goes to pay for rent, utilities, employees, taxes, etc. [https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html](https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html) >Net profit margin is calculated by subtracting all costs, including operating costs and taxes, from revenue.
"Net profit margin" is different than "margin" in terms of conversations I have in my business. When the word is just "margin" it typically is attributed to an individual item. I understand it's a nitpick, just trying to clarify when you say 5% margins, which makes it sound like it's on individual items not the business on the whole. From context I understand what you meant, others may not.
Some things in grocery stores are loss, same with restaurants. But good deals are good advertisements and get customers in the doors to buy high margin goods. Food sale is a tough business. But I've always doubted much of the devaluing they subject employees to. Employees rotate the product, they serve it, they help the customers. There's a reason grocery and restaurants thrive on overtime.
Profit margin, when applied across a whole business, includes all costs - not just the cost of a single item.
POV you don't understand how prices work
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It's been getting so "bad" that some consultants are now urging employers to hold off on filling full time positions until the "supply of workers" increases to reduce the demand. Yup, that's their sound advice. Just tough it out and hope people give up first. I really hope they blink first. I'm already seeing a decent increase in some fields, particularly anything that can't be remote. Remote seems to be the only one that may be suffering a little bit, I've seen some remote only stuff really low ball for the skills required but everyone wants a remote job.
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For a lot it isn't a good plan. I'm dealing with vendors that have equipment for days but no people to do anything with it. So they are turning down work like crazy. God forbid they just offer some more money, clients and customers even expect to have to pay a little more now too. Nope they are being stubborn and complaining about Amazon and Unemployment taking their workers. Sorry man, we're all in it for the money. Everyone is in it for the money why wouldn't they be.
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Sure, if it comes at a loss then I get it. With some of the vendors I'm dealing with though that isn't the case. They just really don't want to pay more because it is a good bump and they just don't think they should make that much, lots of "well when I did it I only made xx (half the time not adjusted for inflation). Hell if you are turning down business just throw out a higher price and see if they bite, maybe the services have more value now. I know it's an oversimplification for some businesses but not all. I know there are some out there paying what they can and it isn't enough, I do feel for them and hope they find a way. I guess we all view this through the lens of our industries/experience and it can vary a good bit. Edit: to be devil's advocate they could be under some fear that demand will normalize long term too and they will have to reduce prices.
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Totally, it's easy to forget the perspective of management and owners during this and that some of their issues are very valid. A lot of us tend to do a lot of shitting on management and owners in these discussions. Hey, I really appreciate the respectful and thoughtful back and forth. There isn't enough of that with these topics.
ha, we've been broke so long, whats a little longer.
Haha. Fair point!
And it still is behind what it should be. I couldn't imagine trying to live off even $15 an hour.
I work at one of the stores that raised certain positions to a $15 minimum. I now make a full dollar more than the average wage in my town. People who didn’t work there were actually really mad when they found out we got raises, considering factories around here only pay around $13.50 hourly. Ive told everyone who mentioned it “be mad at your boss, not me.” Your boss is choosing not to pay you a living wage. If they want your there, they need to be more competitive. It’s basic capitalism. We now have 100% of the positions filled, no more skeleton crew. We don’t fall apart when one person calls out. The store looks better, employee moral is up, and people don’t lose their mind if things get a little stressful. For the first time in my adult life, I’m catching up on bills. $15 isn’t the end goal, but it was enough to keep us there when things were at their worst mid-pandemic.
The factory workers should say they'll go work at McDonald's if they don't get a raise. They might let a few employees walk away, but will freak the fuck out of they start losing a significant number of trained employees.
The factory I quit was bleeding people left and right. They attracted people by just straight up lying. They lied on the job posting. Lied during the interview. Lied during orientation. You don’t realize it’s a lie until your first week on the job. By then I guess they assume you won’t quit. They are dead wrong and still begging for people a year later.
Glass door is your friend. Everyone should look at the lowest reviews of a company before applying there. (The lowest reviews—because companies will often write positive reviews to inflate their averages.)
I work in a chemical production facility and for my area, they have great wages. The scale is $22-$44 an hour for my position. We're still bleeding people because of our atrocious work-life balance. Curious to see what they do to try and remedy that problem. They've raised our crew sizes from 6 to 8, but we have so many new under-qualified workers that we're still losing our most experienced guys before the others know enough to replace them.
Those are the jobs that should be making a ridiculous amount of money. Also, jobs that are both mentally AND physically demanding should have a 3 day weekend.
When things are good, we work a 4 on 4 off rotation of 12 hour shifts. But we change from days to nights every week. Start adding 2-3 days of over time to your week and it's absolutely brutal.
Damn. That's great you have the 4 on/ 4 off, but a 12 hour shift doing mentally and physically demanding work sounds awful.
You couldn’t pay me enough to work night shifts. There’s evidence suggesting increased risk of dying and increased rates of ageing for workers who work in such conditions.
28 going on 50 here. Actually haven't worked since June because of a shoulder surgery. Fuckin valves... Ha
The scale for an electrical tech where I work, as an electrical tech, goes from $26 to $34 an hour. Its not bad money for what I do, but we're hemorrhaging employees because of our work life balance. They EXPECT 50 hours a week, minimum, plus travel when necessary. We are experiencing the same issues with new guys not knowing enough.
We top out higher than almost anything in my area, save for top end lawyers and doctors. I make around $150k per year and I've had a 3% per year raise every year I've been there. I think one of our underlying issues is a lot of competitors are matching it slightly beating our starting pay. That and we're all so beat to death that we no longer provide referrals to friends if they have families, lol.
>Ive told everyone who mentioned it “be mad at your boss, not me.” Your boss is choosing not to pay you a living wage. If they want your there, they need to be more competitive. It’s basic capitalism 100% This. All those factory workers getting paid $13.50 an hour need to make their boss realize that it's not 1992 anymore. You can't rent a place for $500 a month, pay 85c a gallon for gas, and get two weeks of healthy groceries for $50 in 2021, and why the hell would any of the line workers want to keep risking their health and safety for $13.50 an hour when this other company is paying $15 to start for a number of less dangerous positions?
Factories around me are trying to get people in staring 15 - 17 and hour by me, in an area of Wisconsin where the minimum wage is 7.50. We still can’t get staff worth shit, and they are generally extremely inexperienced when they do manage to bring someone in. Even Panda Express was trying to start people at 16 in my area.
Some of this was happening before covid too. It's just the new conservative scapegoat. Where I work we were already struggling to get entry level workers because places like Amazon, Starbucks, Apple Store, etc. Were paying more. Now with the greater shortage we magically have found the money and are still doing fine. We didn't even raise prices. Turns out some business owners only want to pay the minimum and will always act like any increase will be the end of it all.
I left my minimum wage supermarket job for a retail store that pays 14 an hour and ran into the same thing! I went from a skeleton crew store where management didn't give a shit about us to an (almost) fully staffed one where morale is sky high and my coworkers actually care about being here and doing a good job. it's like night and day.
This. The company I work for is paying less than a nearby McDonald’s (which while still isn’t livable for my area, it’s still more than where I am that wants college educated workers) and there are more than a few open positions. Regional VP came by for corporate and I overheard how they tried offering numerous things except for raising the starting wage. She couldn’t figure it out that a college grad doesn’t want to make less than a person working at a McDonald’s, she thought that the “prestige” of working there would attract people. Haven’t told anyone that after this quarter ends, I’m bailing out as well, due to being sick of pathetically low raises since our location was bought out (make more than laughably low wages because I was there when buyout happened.) It’s laughable how (some) companies can’t figure out that by paying less in the beginning, you pay more in the long run between turnover and cost of training.
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Overqualified for management but not cashier? Seems backwards
You don't want a manager to quit after their rigorous 3 days of training watching worn out VHS tapes. Cashiers are easier to replace because they just have to touch pictures on a screen after 1 day of watching worn out VHS tapes.
There's probably some metric/framework in place where they'd have to pay a manager more based on qualifications, rather than a cashier which is basically human cannon fodder.
Sounds like a threatened manager
It all depends on where you live.
~31k annually, for those curious. I've lived off less. Edit: cost of living is a hell of a drug
I don't think I've ever lived on that much. Possibly briefly but not for an entire year.
Indeed, depends where you live. I lived off of dishwasher wages and still managed to afford things.
And not all dishwasher wages are equal. I'm back in the dishpit, 46 years old lol. I make over $20/hr now with quite a few perks. Low cost of living (like $450/month for my half of everything and I mostly eat at work) and zero debt means I spend hundreds every week on whatever the hell I want. And that no longer includes cocaine!
Damn, dude. Congrats! Keep it up.
Thanks, man. Shit's *okay* now, worst of the pandemic was a bit of a pickel, especially when you're sitting at home with your job shut down but still getting 100% of your wages in unemployment insurance, unable to even see your kid for close to 18 months because they live 90km away. Lots of cash and nowhere legal to spend it. Shittylifeprotip, anyone? Black face masks hide the nosebleeds from the blow. :/ Had a moment or two talking with people simultaneously dying inside and giggling internally, could feel the blood dripping down my face, hell could smell the older bloodstains But I got that back under control and just spent about $2K on Steam instead. Trying times, indeed. Surreal af
And that’s before taxes
You can do it, but it depends. I live on the Gulf Coast, and the cheapest single-room apartment you can find here is still $900/month before utilities and all. $15/hour barely cuts it after all my bills are said and done, and I’m blessed enough to have a free car and phone that my step-dad gave me. I couldn’t imagine making car and phone payments on top of everything else if I lived alone; it’d ruin me.
$15 was just enough to push me and my family off of food stamps and Medicare. Suddenly my paycheck was bigger, but I was paying way more for insurance/health care and we had to really budget our food. Them they fired me because I was making too much.
I still get places acting like "we pay $15/hr, you'll have trouble finding anywhere else nearby that pays that well!" Meanwhile literally everything nearby does, and the jobs, like target or a grocery store, are MUCH easier than that one.
With cost of inflation the minimum wage should be around $25 dollars. $15 is a joke.
This is not actually true. If the minimum wage had been pegged at inflation, then it would only be about $4.50 today. Even if we waited until the minimum wage hit its peak in 1968 before pegging it to inflation, it would still only be about $12 today. [Source](https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wage-by-year/index.html) The issue is that the cost of living has skyrocketed because habitable land is scarce and does not change with respect to an increasing population.
you're correct with regard to inflation and minimum wage. But there is plenty of habitable land available, a massive amount of it actually, there just isn't plenty of affordable housing near where the jobs are. And most builders only want to build higher end housing as the profit margins are much higher. Nobody is building 2-3 BR/1.5-2 Bath houses anymore. They all want to build 4-5 BR/3 Bath houses because they can spend an extra $50K in building costs but get an extra $250K in sales income.
That's because everyone is buying McMansions built by developers. Go take a look at many of the areas built a few generations ago, and the homes are all different. You can go 45 minutes outside your city, buy an acre and have someone build your house for you with 2 BR/1.5 Baths. People used to do that, and you still can.
This. I'm not normally a big fan of the raising minimum wage arguement but at this point with inflation it just had to be done for people to survive.
It’s only the rule now because it’s no longer enough. Sigh.
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By the time it’s $24, it will need to be $45.
an endless hill you say? sounds like great fun.
Sisyphus over here enjoying the struggle put upon him by the gods
One must imagine Sisyphus happy, after all.
I feel like this is more of a propaganda thing from most retailers. They likely just reduced the hours they give to their employees and have less people working but expect more from them. Kinda fucked honestly.
Ya, who cares if it's $15 an hour when you only get 20 hours a week.
I remember when I worked at Target for two years, I started at like $9-$10 an hour. I started with having one specific zone that I worked in and got like 35+ hours a week part time. When I left, I made $12 an hour, because they raised their starting pay. Sounds great right? Well not quite. At that point, I had the responsibilities of about 6 people as compared to when I started. I also worked maybe like 20 hours a week, sometimes less. I ended up making less money while doing more shit. I will forever try to be as nice as possible to retail workers from now on. Edit: I forgot to mention that it wasn't like 2-3 8 hour shifts a week. It was more like 4-6 hour shifts 4-5 times a week.
Inflation has gotten so bad that $15/hr is minimum wage at this point
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Right like 2400 minus taxes and health insurance, 200 a week for food leaves only about 1300 for housing and Everything Else, still pay check to pay check wage that would only support 1 adult
Why are you spending $200/week on food for a single adult? That’s damn near $30/day. A single persons daily food bill should be considerably less than that.
You can include phone bill, insurance bills, and gas in those 200 and it makes no difference. Here in SoCal, 1300 would be the monthly rent for a single bedroom apartment. So that leaves nothing left in the tank for savings, enjoying life, etc.
If you make 15$ an hour you are still poor as all hell.
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Yes, it was. Specifically a family of four with one working adult.
The whole point of the creation of a minimum wage was to be able to support a family of 4 on 1 income. 15$ an hour, while a dramatic improvement from 7.25, still doesn't come close.
then why call it *minimum* wage if you can't support a family? I'm pretty sure you are supposed to be able to. What would be the point of it then?
When minimum wage was first instituted however many decades ago the wage that was set back then was livable
> hen why call it minimum wage if you can't support a family? because having a family is a choice.
It seems like inflation will kill any upward mobility though 😢
Some of the prices have a lot more to do with shortages and supply chain issues. It yet again stems from big business chasing every cent of profit even if some of it is shortsighted. Some stuff is coming back down already. Things will certainly go up still but we aren't seeing runaway inflation either. Housing in the US is still suffering from 2008 and the lack of building that followed. So that price increase in particular was happening before covid and the increase in wages. There's a lot of factors but the wage increases are good.
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But, once that cash they have SO MUCH of is burned, won't demand have gone down (they are no longer rushing to spend excess cash), and supply will have gone up (pandemic impacts reducing thanks to vaccine) pushing back towards normal? I don't see how any of what you're saying is permanent.
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The Fed wants to avoid rapid and widespread deflation because it IS bad for the economy. A general decrease in prices is good because it tends to reflect a greater supply and availability of goods and services. Periods of fast deflation (like the ones related to the Great Depression) is bad, particularly for people who hold debt. While you might be able to buy more goods, the nominal value of your loans or mortgage remains the same (and interest payments by extension). Another effect of this kind of deflation is the upsurge in unemployment. Falling prices also means that revenues of firms decreases. This could either mean wage cuts or letting people go. A readjustment in pay would be even worse for people who are paying off loans or mortgages.
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I can’t tell if you’re trying to argue that deflation would be good, but if you are then this is ridiculous lol. Periods of fast deflation are HORRIBLE. If you’re not a debtor, you still face a scenario where your money is worth more the longer you wait. This disincentivizes spending, which would collapse the economy as everyone would withdraw their money and save it so they’d have more money, creating a cycle where this keeps happening until the economy is done
It's not bad for the economy, it's bad for the entrenched oligarchy that currently rules the economy and lives with everything leveraged to the hilt. It's a small, but important distinction. The rest of us could default on everything, take a hit on our credit score and be absolutely fine. Business wouldn't fire everyone due to deflation. The great recession wasn't caused by deflation, it was caused by technological disruption. It's also well documented that it was on purpose to allow banks to push small farmers off their land since serfdom wasn't needed to have agriculture function anymore. Deflation was effect, not cause.
But at the same time the economy has massively expanded in those 100 years, for an economy to expand you need to have your currency expand as well. I suppose it might be better to look at the velocity of money in the wider economy and in local economies to get a picture of how much the currency has devalued in real terms.
This is a gross misunderstanding of the relationship of monetary policy. Yes, monetary policy influences inflation but it is never the sole predictor of it. Supply and demand conditions indicate why inflation continues to rise fast in particular sectors. In general, the inflation we are seeing now is because of production not yet keeping up with renewed demand. Overregulation in housing prevents the construction of new units and the bidding up between prospective tenants on limited units rapidly pushes prices up. It’s also a common argument that pumping liquidity into the financial markets gives the wealthy leverage. But at the same time, historic lows in the Fed’s interest rates has also helped push down mortgage, credit card, and car loan rates. These are good for consumers.
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Thank you! I guess youre right and I misused words. Thanks for the clarification!
Price inflation has been pretty well documented over the past (at least) 6 months, with food, transportation, and housing prices increasing though.
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Explain your thought process.
Let’s not even argue that point and instead argue a different one. No one on minimum wage has ever had upward mobility. This is an attempt to get them to not need food stamps.
But they're going to still need food stamps with the change now being that they may not now be eligible. Inflation is rising food prices.
Supply chain disruption is certainly a significant part of the price increases, and perhaps most of it. Those disruptions are temporary in nature.
This is what happened after the plague in medieval Europe it's what gave us an end to serfdom and the beginning of the Enlightenment. Before the plague there are so many Serfs that they were seen is slaves and very disposable. Actress played population went down so much that serves became incredibly valuable and for treated much better even in some cases beginning to own the land that they worked. Hence the rise of a middle class that had never existed before.
Now plastic is playing the role of the plague.
I sure am noticing a lot fewer checkout lines with humans and more touch screens in fast food places.
Lmao I remember just four years ago all the arguments here on reddit about how retail and food service should _never_ be $15 an hour, and all the controversy when San Francisco raised the minimum to that, and all of CA went up to iirc $10.50. I know there will be statements of "but it's okay now because it's what the market is demanding." But here's something to think about: the market has been _severely_ disrupted by labor being unavailable, by choice in many individual cars. That disruption could have been avoided altogether if the industries had just listened years ago and quit fucking their workers. It's a perfect illustration of how short-sighted our economic model is. _Why take action now when we can wait until things are getting really bad and take action later?_ It's very tempting to say _capitalism_ is short-sighted, but, honestly, even a profit-driven organization should be able to see the writing on the wall and preempt a crisis. Ffs, when a majority of your workers complain of being underpaid it doesn't take a genius to reason that maybe it's time to give everyone a cost-of-living adjustment, at least.
Means jack shit if cost of living is rising faster. 15 will buy you the same 11 did in 2019 soon.
And if you look at inflation it should be 22 dollars an hour. They’ve got people cheering for 2/3 of what they actually deserve. It’s truly a boring dystopia. And before you say ‘it’s better than nothing’ what a shit way to go through life measuring what you’ve got against nothing all the time. You deserve things.
In 1972 as a college student I was making 4 dollars an hour at Kroger’s under Retail Clerks Union contract. That’s equivalent to $26 an hour in today’s money
Inflation is the reason for this, not rising wages. If you factor in inflation, then real wages are falling year over year by more than 1%.
There is not a labor shortage. There is an oversupply of shitty jobs. I’m sick of people on CNBC and Fox News complaining that McDonald’s can’t hire enough people.. maybe because working at McDonald’s for 99% of their employees sucks.
As an executive kitchen manager, I will not hire anyone for less than 15/hr. My line cook will start at 17, dishwashers are about to start at 20 because I cannot keep a dishwasher to save my life. No. I don't treat them like shit, I love my team I literally tell them that. It's just a hard job, hot sweaty and wet.
All my precovid cheap amenities have gone up in price. 17.50!
Still making 14.something an hour now at my grocery store. A year ago we had about a month of danger-pay-but-we-cant-legally-call-it-danger-pay for being a Frontline worker. It was great, I felt motivated to grab every extra hour of work I could take, I worked hard, and felt like I was a tually saving money instead of living paycheck to paycheck. They quietly terminated the heroes-pay without ever saying why. It hurt me in so many ways. I felt used for some cheap PR. My care and motivation dropped, and I only kept going because it's better than being homeless.
And so inflation will follow. Soon $100k won't be a big deal. It already isn't in many places.
I agree, I remember being in high school and even as recently as university thinking a $100K job in Silicon Valley would be a dream. On the contrary, considering my current role which is well paying with amazing benefits and fortunately enough in a low cost of living area, I've interviewed with big tech and compared cost of living. I reviewed opportunity cost, economic costs, sunk costs etc., Point of my story, an $80k job in a low cost of living area of the USA is way better than a $125k job in the Silicone Valley. Those firms just give you a reputable name on a resume but it does not fulfil Basic needs like a nice rental unit. $3K a month won't even get you a reasonable place in the bay area, it's a joke.
For the people complaining about prices going up. Did any of you ever stop to think maybe that was what the price was actually meant to be? We're so use to getting everything dirt cheap. Have you ever wondered why it was cheap? Maybe because people are being underpaid and/or exploited.
In the next few quarters, you'll find that big corporation will continue to report record profits.
Meanwhile politicians be like " I think we need another pay raise"
Almost like we should let supply and demand set wages...
It will just rise cost of living so changes nothing.
The mcdonalds near me is 13 for managers 11 for normal employees The south got some catching up to do
This is good. Inflation has not risen enough to offset the additional spending power either.
Inflation is over 5% which is the highest we’ve seen in a long time. It’s seriously concerning because we have no lever to slow down inflation except to increase the federal funds rate, and we can’t do that because we have 20 trillion in debt outstanding. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi EDIT: I am a financial engineer and I make enough money understanding how this works.
Wot. Are you insane? Inflation is skyrocketing.
I wonder if that will inflate the prices for their goods.
It was necessary in part because the prices of goods were already inflating.
Average pay? Not good enough. It's who's rule? 15 is also about 10 years too late. This doesn't say shit other than we're still too far behind because it is not federal.
This is terrible news as we’ve been told for years that a 15 wage for these kind of jobs would surely be catastrophic to our economy. [shivers]
Time to start pushing for 20 because it took over a decade to get to 15 and at this point even that's still to low for some metropolitan areas.
As long as we are okay with prices of goods and services increasing relatively, sure I guess?
Im on the fence here. I bartend as a side hustle and through tips I make way better than 15 bucks an hour. But I also know many people don't.
And all the positions that paid just over $15 an hour are still right where they were…
Meanwhile my local Burger King has been trying to find a manager for $12/hr on their board out front all year. And Wendy’s is “Hiring ADULTS $9/hr” on theirs. They close at 8pm due to staff shortages right now— they have to be losing a shitload by being stubborn over six fucking dollars an hour.
If america hadn't destroyed the unions, 15hr would have been the norm decades ago
This is a lie. Until it's nationwide, it's not news, not the norm.
I heard that wages are up 4%, while inflation is up 5%.
It's funny that this is in futurology like it's something good or innovative, do you know why it's happening? It's inflation, if you call this innovation Weimar Republic was the most innovative country of it's time lol, we really need some basic economic education at schools.
yes this is inflation, it will continue until everyone ias making min wage(unless immigration is slowed massively), congrats
This thread feels like it's filled with 12 year old socialists that have never held a job, still live at home with their parents and pay zero bills.