Seattle’s Wage Mandate Kills Restaurants

It's me providing you with the facts, but it's not me who determined the facts. Who do you think set the federal minimum wage, and who do you think determined the cut off for food stamps for a single person would be $8.04/hour? The federal government determined these things. So you should probably trust me when I'm giving you facts determined and provided by the federal government. You might not like what I've got to say, but I've got a pretty spotless record here for factual posting.

But by all means, continue to deny the facts being repeatedly spoon fed to you

See my post above. I have in fact done a better job of proving what a living wage is than you have. You've gone from complaining about minimum wage and Walmart, to complaining that people need $15/hour or more to live. That is false. The federal government disagrees with you, and so do I.

My "idea of a childless society for the poor" is actually very reasonable and responsible, and it's also much more compassionate than suggesting poor people should have kids they can't afford, just to maintain our population. You make it sound like poor people are cattle or poor women are broodmares, and who cares about the children caught in the cycle of poverty, as long as poor people keep breeding....

Now, to address the increasing snark in your posts ---- that's the fastest way to end up on ignore. You're one of the few far lefties currently who is not on ignore. I'd suggest sticking to the topic and keeping emotions out of it, if you want to keep it that way. Besides, I rarely lose. Or "loose" as you put it

You say you "have jet to see the negative efect", but in your own post you mention 1) raising prices, 2) letting employees go, and 3) reducing hours. I'd say those are all negative effects

I agree with you. Especially the part I bolded. Minimum wage is for the people at the bottom with minimal skills. Gain skills, get paid more than minimum wage.

Arbitrarily raising the minimum wage is not the solution. If people want to earn more they need to make themselves worth more. Anyone who's been at the same job for years and is still making minimum wage is probably a piss poor employee.

Some areas of the country are too expensive to live on $7.25/hour without getting clever about maybe having a roommate, carpooling, etc. But a person can either choose to find clever solutions (like those I just mentioned) or they can move to more affordable areas. NYC is probably not a good place to try to have your own apartment and car and earn $7.25/hour. But there's also a lot of potential for work in NYC for someone who can power thru the lean years and increase their value so they're worth more than starting wages.

If someone wants to be paid more, they need to make themselves worth more.

Arbitrarily deciding to give people more money "because feelingz" just enables laziness and incompetence and reduces the motivation to better oneself and to make oneself worth more. Why in the hell would we want to do that??

 

We may want to reframe the discussion with some numbers.

There are a lot of assumptions that people on welfare purchase life’s little luxuries at the expensive of the taxpayer, like alcohol, cigarettes, or even illegal drugs. Although any program is abused and there are those who do what many assume welfare recipients will do, the average families on these assistance programs aren’t living the high life. At best, they are barely getting by in one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

• The average household that accepts some sort of welfare assistance puts, on average, 77% of their income toward necessities, which is 12% higher than families who do not receive welfare.
• 1 out of every 4 welfare recipients goes without a car, while only 3% of households who receive no benefits live the same lifestyle.
• 3 out of 4 households that receive welfare are renters, while the opposite is true for those who receive no support.
• The average family size that receives welfare benefits is 3.7, which is exactly the same as families who receive no benefits.This has occurred even though the average purchasing power of welfare benefits in 2014 has become less than welfare benefits that were received in 1996.The average family who receives welfare benefits and is required to live on them solely will make 50% of the poverty line, or less than $10,000. That’s not enough to rent a 2 bedroom apartment in most communities.For families on the SNAP program, the amount per meal of assistance that is received is less than $1.40.

This is a little old, but the ideas are the same.

 

And what is the measure for that? Lack of access at times because they didn't make it to Walmart that day?

 

We want to donut because it gets votes.

It's also not their money when it's their money they reduce the hours their employees work and reduce employees.

(Bernie)

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life. ... Hunger refers to a personal, physical sensation of discomfort, while food insecurity refers to a lack of available financial resources for food at the household level.

 

He did not resign. And them CEO's of the banks who were failing got their bonuses etc. What a joke this all is.

 

you saying a living wage is buying a house, 2 cars and 2 college plans?
/facepalm

You go tell me how much aid a company like Walmart, making almost 10 billions in profit, should get in a capitalistic system that the US claims to have.

The government pulled them through the crisis with billions in aid. A crisis them managers are responsible for.

About 10 million people got kicked out of their houses, buddy. I'm not going to explain how that wasn't their choice.

All this nonsense doesn't explain how the gini factor of the US shows the distribution of wealth is totally unequal to all the other western countries. Managers simply refuse to pay a honest day wages for a honest day work. When the CEO of Visa and McDonald got no clue how an employ is able to live on their wages, than there is a fact that they are underpaying their employees.



Is paying them more than the job is worth "honest"?[/QUOTE]

 

The issue is competition. Seattle restaurants compete with suburban restaurants. The law simply picked sided in the competition.

 

The government is aiding companies with food stamps to underpay the employees, so more money is able to go to management, who already earn millions, and the stock owners, who aren't doing that shabby as well. And no company should be able to decide what the minimum wage is. You should read up on why on earth governments all over the globe have minimum wage laws before simply claiming what you're claiming... with nothing to back it up.

I already sourced that according to McDonald and Visa, it simply aint possible. It nice of you that you got a different opinion. But you know /care.

 

It is possible to live off 7.25 might not be fun but it is possible I've seen it first hand.

Please provide links of the government aiding these employees.

 

At no point did I claim the US government is not the institute who determines how high the minimum wage is.
I did prove that according to VISA and McDonald, you can not make a living wage on it.
And I find their opinion totally relevant and far more important than your opinion.

The federal government does not disagree with me. They are giving people food stamps when working at their minimum wages... proving it's not a living wage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
The birth rate in the US is 12.4/1000. The death rate is 8.2/1000.
In your idea the people not earning enough should not get children. 40% of the country earns less than 15 bucks.
40% of 12.4 = 7.4. At that birth rate.... the US population will simply die out. My point. You're not responding to it for a 2nd time.

Just cut the cost of management. There is a massive amount of money that is being earned in the US. I fail to see a problem in it.

 

You didn't source anything reliable.

 

And she's arguing against the federal government's own guidelines, she's dismissing federal government guidelines as my personal"opinion", and she's arbitrarily moving the goalposts back and forth between minimum wage and $15/hour. At some point you just have to walk away because it's like beating your head against a wall.

 

But here is the rub. Jobs that were once worthy of a living wage no longer are . For instance my aunt who never married worked in a locally owned dept store for her entire life. She was middle middle class and lived comfortably and bought her home. She was paid a salary but got a commission on her sales. She made a middle class wage at a walmart kind of job. She had a worthy job that is no longer worth a middle class wage because walmart our largest emplyer in our service sector based economy says their jobs are no longer worth living wages. And you see this across the board in America . Our younger members here never experienced that America So they can say these working poor folks need to be writers of computer code! And be worthy .

Jobs need to pay a living wage. And if any business cannot pay that wage they should close. For people work to survive . If that business that could not pay living wages would close and if the demand for their wares or services was there someone would fill that vacuum and open up and pay living wages If the demand was not there then we didn't as a society need that business anyways.

The common corporate business model today uses taxpayer funded welfare to allow them to pay working poor wages which allows them to max out profits. The dept store my aunt worked for did not max out their own income because they were moral enough to pay a living income to their employees. And that is how business owners operated back then. Working people were worth more because the owners would not exploit people that had to have jobs. To pay them so llittle that a person could not survive was unthinkable. That is no longer the case.

This neoliberal capitalism that came back when the dems helped the GOP dismantle the new deal is not sustainable . I don't want to see a violent class war nor have the eexploited turn to real deal socialism out of the desperation created by economic suffering.

 

Your aunt sold made In America goods

 

You tell me the left seems to think everyone has a right to all those things. When did this principle that everyone deserves a "living wage" for any job and under the Constitution the federal government is responsible to make sure they get it? That a business must pay someone more than the job is worth just to able to staff it?

What aid is Walmart getting and how much profit should they make?

Which they paid back ahead of schedule and with interest. Tell me why a total financial collapse would have been better. And yes you pay talented people top dollar to get you through such economic crisis which for a large part the government itself was responsible.

Because they made so lousy decisions in the housing boom. I didn't get kicked out my of my house. And when I built my house it was coming out of the huge Carter fiasco and interest rates were 14% and inflation running 21%. I managed it. And in the late 1990's when my wife and I went looking because kids had moved out I told her no, that the prices were WAY too high and they will fall and perhaps drastically in a major correction. We would lose at least half our equity, see we built equity. She didn't like it but I held my ground. Lots of our friends who mortgaged their primary residents to get money to flip houses or bought houses with little if any down. Guess what they lost lots but I didn't lose anything. In fact as prices fell so did my insurance and taxes which had ballooned up. I now own the house outright.

I can't think of another western country that has been as successful as the United States economically or produced a higher standard of living for the numbers we have. What is an honest day wage and what is an honest day of work? Quaint sayings don't make economy theory or fact. The lower level workers are doing BETTER than their managers as far as wages right now. Wages are rising because of market forces. Yet you want government to stick it's head into it an muck up as they always do.

It's bad business and when the business goes out of business is that good for the employee? What is honest is when the employee and the employer agree to a wage for the job, if one disagrees with the number they are free to pull out it. For over 60 years I have negotiated my pay and benefits with the person wanting to hire me. The LAST thing I wanted was government involved in it. The two times I was in a union they held down my wage and advancement.

 

The bolded is the key. She worked on commission, so she was in sales and a revenue generator. And I don't mean sales behind a check out stand. I have a long time friend who work for Parisians first then it became Dillard's and he made a very good living working in the mens formal section making a commission. I have been on commissions for most of my life. But LOTS of people are not willing to take that risk and they don't get the reward. Why should the person stocking the shelf make the same as the person generating sales and revenue?

And the money is just there is it? And what happens when all those businesses close and all those people are out of work? What happens when the available labor force grows and available jobs shrink?

It is government that decides to pay welfare to people not the companies. And if a company can just do as you say just pay everyone poor wages then why doesn't every company pay every employee minimum wage?

Seems to be doing pretty good to me. Wages are rising, we have a glut of good paying jobs, want one them make yourself qualified for one and show you are a good employee who will work for the success of the company.

 

Do you even know why management is paid higher and the higher up in management the higher that is? Do you even know what a CEO does what they are responsible for first and foremost?

 

It'll look like Detroit in a few years.

 

Precisely correct. It is bad policy.

This is why there should be NO minimum wage at all. Minimum wage is nothing but a price control, and price controls ALWAYS create shortages such as you are describing in this post. These types of policies only harm the people that they are attempting to help. This is what happens under Democrat control. This is why I vote straight Republican.

 

Or just do away with the job killing shortage creating minimum wage laws instead??

 

I made minimum wage one time in my life and then only for the 90 day new hire probation. That was 1972 and it was $3.15/he. No it wasn't a "living wage" and I didn't expect it to be and in fact it took more raises before I was making a "living wage" and had roommates or shared duplexes until I was able to afford that on ny own and now about to retire with a very nice nest egg and in the 90th percentile.

 

Not what we're talking about. These were restaurants that were doing just fine beforehand

 

...by cutting back staff/hours/benefits/etc... by increasing prices...

Minimum Wage laws are price controls. Price controls ALWAYS create shortages.

 

Those types of jobs are not careers, nor are they meant to be. If you aren't paid enough, then acquire a skill or two... Learn a trade... Make yourself worth more.

Due to the shortages created as a result of their implementation of price controls.

Unconstitutional. The USA is not a fascist oligarchy.

Also, define "enough". Define "a living". This is completely subjective language.

Unconstitutional. The USA is not a fascist oligarchy.

Acquire a skill or two... learn a trade... make yourself worth more.