Dem Rep: 'We Don't Want' Small Businesses That Can't Pay $15/Hour Minimum Wage

Poor people can give up going out to eat. Between gas prices, electric prices, and now food prices, democrats are going to make it impossible for poor people to not slide closer to or in abject poverty.

 

So offer less and see what kind of CEO you attract. Your rate of pay is in direct proportion to how difficult it is to replace you.

 

This is probably one more reason record numbers of American citizens are surrendering their citizenship and moving to countries with better employee minimum wages and guaranteed benefits and guaranteed health care.

 

Only a shortage of jobs in sweatshops.

You could cut the minimum wage to $0. And then have businesses that hire people for a dollar a day, three meals and a place to sleep. Sure, it would be kinda like slavery... but just imagine all the jobs that would create.

I agree the Rep mentioned in the OP in that businesses that can't pay $15/hr should shut down.

 

We should encourage this!

"Want free healthcare? It's all available in the off world colonies..."

 

Yes, but you're missing my point.

Let's say that price discovery determines that a job as a basic laborer is worth $11/hr. Let's say that Small Business XYZ employs six of these basic laborers at that rate. Let's say that the current minimum wage is set at $7.25/hr. Notice how those basic laborers are still earning $11/hr even though there's a minimum wage law in place that has it set at $7.25/hr? Why is such a law necessary when Small Business XYZ is already naturally paying their basic laborers MORE than that due to price discovery? All that this law (price control) is accomplishing is completely eliminating any job that is worth less than $7.25/hr.

Now, let's say that Madison WI gets the bright idea to raise their minimum wage to $15/hr. Now, the minimum wage is ABOVE the price discovery point. Small Business XYZ is now being forced by a fascist government to make some very difficult decisions. They could afford to pay their basic laborers $11/hr, but they cannot afford to pay them $15/hr as the fascist government is mandating. I could go through a plethora of examples of decisions that this company might now have to make, but let's just say that this particular company decides that it can get by with only four basic laborers rather than six. (IOW, those four basic laborers are now picking up the slack between them in order to keep up with the same amount of work that the six of them used to do).

So, Small Business XYZ has decided to react to the increased minimum wage by keeping four of their six basic laborers, and paying them the $15/hr minimum wage, and they released the other two basic laborers from their workforce (paying them $0/hr). In this instance, four laborers are now making more money than they used to ($15/hr instead of $11/hr, but they now have an increased workload and increased stress to keep up with it). The other two laborers are now making less money than they used to ($0/hr instead of $11/hr). They are now in poverty and are mooching off of the rest of society instead of being able to provide for themselves.


Let's say that another company, Small Business ABC, is also located in Madison WI... Let's say that they also had six basic laborers and paid them $10/hr. Let's say that, instead of deciding to keep four basic laborers and let two of them go, as Small Business XYZ did, they instead decide to eliminate the position altogether and to transfer that workload over to their ten intermediate laborers who were already getting paid $16/hr. In this case, the ten intermediate laborers are now taking on additional work and stress to keep up with demand, and the six basic laborers who were making $10/hr are now making $0/hr... They are now in poverty and are mooching off of the rest of society instead of being able to provide for themselves.

Let's even insert a third example, Small Business EFG. Let's say that they have six basic laborers and are paying them $12/hr. Let's say that Madison decides to increase their minimum wage to $15/hr. Instead of going the route that the other two businesses did, Small Business EFG decides to keep on all six basic laborers. However, since they cannot afford to pay them all $15/hr for a full 40hr work week, they have now made all six positions into "30hr/wk" positions. This means that those employees, who WERE grossing $960/payroll, are now only grossing $900/payroll (and now have to get their workload done in 30hrs instead of 40hrs).

These sorts of shortages are what a minimum wage law (and any other price control for that matter) causes. Such a law doesn't help the "poor people" that it is claiming to help. It only hurts them because their job is no longer available, or their hours have been reduced, or etc... They can't compete with the rest of the workforce, as it is more knowledgeable and more experienced and etc... Such people then become dependent on others rather than being able to provide for themselves. Minimum wage laws (or ANY price controls for that matter) ARE NOT A GOOD THING.

 

Yes, they do. You are in denial of economics.

 

It IS a States issue, per the federal constitution. Unfortunately, the SODC (Socialist Oligarchy of the District of Columbia) no longer recognizes the document. Neither does the SOTC nor the SOTNY.

 

Experience says you're wrong.

 

No, I know what I am talking about.

 

No, it would be a shortage of jobs everywhere (anyone who employs people who are worth less than $15/hr, anyway...)

 

Any business that can't pay its workers at least $15/hr is a sweatshop.

 

So basically any restaurant then? Any lower level library job? Any DVD rental place? and on and on? Alrighty then...

 

... and plantations that use slave labor. Right!

BTW... DVD rental place???? Huh? Is there such a thing? Or what century do you live in?

 

Some small businesses are SO small that even the OWNERS are probably not clearing 15 bucks an hour after overhead costs and paying employees. Picture a tiny hot dog stand or something like that. They got some young folks working for them that are looking to pick up a couple extra bucks. This is now totally destroyed and now their customers will have to buy their hotdogs at walmart (who i'm sure will get tons of "relief" funds)
This minimum wage idea is bad, very bad. I'm all for increasing it but it really should be done at a more local level and according to cost of living (thats COMMON SENSE folks, not rocket science)

 

Yes, there is such a thing. Such places still exist.

 

One day people will learn that the dollar is not the value it represents.

Until that day, people will think that changing the scale of the instrument we use to measure value will have some long term effect on the value being measured.

Money is token of value. Changing the token, has no effect on the factors that contribute to the value the token represents.

You don't get taller by adding lines to a ruler.
You don't get skinnier by adding lines to your bathroom scale.

 

So, if a business that has a net profit margin of about 10%, with unskilled labor as it's primary source of labor, and wages go up from the going rate of $9.00 to $15 dollars an hour, what happens to the COGs? What happens to the Net Profit if the sale price of he product is not adjusted to compensate for the additional cost COGs? What happens to the people who have already earned the increase in their wages by merit? How long does the MW increase benefit those that receive it without additional production?

Are you familiar with who actually earns only MW, what percentage of the workforce or it's demographics?

 

Or adding or subtracting an hour on the 'daylight clock'.

 

If I am willing to sit on a chair and greet people for 5 dollars an hour, and an employer wants to pay me 5 dollars an hour to sit on a chair to greet people, why should that agreement be illegal?

 

It might not be a case of 'success'. But, rather, how well run. Are the employees valued or is it a revolving door?

 

if republican had been smart, they would have tied the min wage hike to the corp tax cuts

as well as adding strings that they only applied to those that did not outsource the majority of their workers overseas

the right doesn't care about the working class

 

The minimum wage for people unable to produce more than $15 an hour of value is zero when the minimum legal wage is $15 dollars an hour. Employers are buying labor, not people. Your proposition makes it illegal for someone to produce less than $15 dollars an hour worth of labor. What's the justification for this? Do you believe that no one could possibly have a reason to agree to produce less than $15 dollars of labor per hour?

According to payscale, the average cook at a soup kitchen earns $13 an hour. Should that be illegal? Or is it better to put more resources toward people who need food?
A teacher's assistant at Head Start makes $10 per hour. Better to pay them $15 and drop some kids?

 

Mittens $10/hour MW would probably pass handedly if the democrats didn't think that nothing is better than something.

 

The economy is a large pool with a hole in the bottom filled by a garden hose. The democrats want to turn off the hose, increase the size of the hole in the bottom, and hand out larger cups to the people in the shallow end. They think that if people can carry more water from one end of the pool to the other things will get better.