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It just passed. First in New York City, with the rest of the state to follow.

This is a victory for the working class in America. It will work to drive up wages in other industries and it will be a slow climb but this is a substantial moment in American history.

Let's discuss the repercussions, consequences, and possible outcomes of this $15.00 an hour minimum wage for ALL fast food employees in New York State.

Also keep in mind that most of these workers only get part-time hours to begin with, averaging less than or about 20 hours a week. Also, these companies are going to further cut these hours, remove managers and downsize staff. They will work around it to make sure this isn't a victory.

By the way, I make 10 bucks an hour working in a hot, dirty, dangerous warehouse lifting 50+ lbs constantly throughout the day and I have no problem with a Burger King worker getting more per hour than me. I'm not about to go work in a damn fast-food joint. If the already high prices for so called "value" meals or "value/dollar" menus goes up, then my money goes elsewhere and I stop eating fast food altogether, however sparingly I already do.

EDIT: Unfortunately, it turns out, that companies don't have to comply until 2018 in NYC and 2021 most everywhere else.

Victory, or no?

How sad.

This post has been edited by Dynamic Threads on 23rd July 2015 02:02

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

First you are required to pay employees more raise, so you prices to compensate. You subsequently lose customers like D.T. who can not afford it because they are working harder jobs for less cash and need to resort to a second plan to fix a now even worse situation. You can not lower the wages so you fire employees because you must maintain budget. This overburdens remaining workers, meaning service quality goes down and leading to a possible strike. With no remaining options you finally go out of business. Unemployment go up and so do taxes to make up for the loss. Americans bizarrely grow even fatter because they're more motivated to eat junk food indoors than go out to eat, promoting a more sedentary lifestyle. Workers in other jobs go on strike because there are no affordable places serving food during lunch period. McRIOTS! CIVIL WAR II SKYNET! War o' 1812 II! W.W. III!!! SLLIIIPPEERRYYY SSSlloooooppe...

Honestly though, I never got the point of minimum wage. It sounds good in theory until the prices in the grocery stores and everything else follows suit to compensate. I think we might be better off without it, since then there would be less incentive to hire under-the-table employees, since prospective legitmate workers could at least opt to match prices, at least down to the point where taxes start making a substantial enough difference. Granted, I never cared to study much economics either...

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Role reversal at its finest.

This is something I'm somewhat informed about!

Because of this law, fast food workers in Upstate NY now make more than I do as an accounting specialist in a management position, who makes daily reporting for the CFO, CEO and COO of my company. Gotta love working for a non-profit, I suppose....


Granted, cost of living is way less where I live and just about any non-profit position will pay less than its for-profit counterpart, but still something to sink my teeth into. I can't say it bothers me, as A, as mentioned cost of living is much better here, and B, minimum wage jobs are the worst.

I get very annoyed at people with the attitude "They flip burgers, how hard can it be?" I've worked food service and retail, and can confirm that theyr'e not as easy and brainless as people think. I am way, way happier now in my current job than I was then. My back doesn't hurt, my anxiety issues are better, and it's generally a lower-stress environment. I don't have to clean up puke, shit, or blood from bathrooms or aisles and even have a janitor that takes out the trash. It takes a lot of emotional patience to deal with angry customers, to keep a good face on while being treated like a sub-human. It takes time management skills and a sense of urgency. It's generally a very hot, chaotic, and stressful environment and can be very draining to work on your feet in slip-resistant shoes. Your coworkers range from ex convicts to teens to retired older people. One person calling in means double the work at the drop of a hat. Depending on where you work, there can be a lot of legal liability on what you sell to who with serious consequences- ie, alcohol and tobacco, if you forget to card the wrong person you can't unsell alcohol to a minor (thinking gas station clerks/retail clerks), and you CAN get jail time, a ticket, and fired. Going home at midnight only to come back in at 6 AM because of scheduling was terrible and gave me issues getting a good sleeping schedule. Working holidays cut into family time. Honestly, these jobs are way worse than a lot of cushy office jobs, so I can't say they don't deserve it for the output they give, it's just that businesses aren't structured to support paying a high wage and keeping shareholders happy too.

In short, do they deserve it from a work done vs. quality of life standpoint? YES, that work is awful. Can the businesses afford it? That's the big question.

According to The Wal-Mart Effect (an interesting book if you have the time), Wal-Mart actually keeps such a low profit margin that a drastic change in salaries and wages like that could mean they have to cut down on labor. Self-Check, anyone? Most companies will prefer to keep being lean through automation over focusing on low employee turnover.
You could argue that Costco pays their employees nicely, usually around $20/hour, so why can't everyone?Their profit margins aren't comparable to Wal-Mart; whereas Wal-Mart keeps around 400,000 items of inventory, Costco usually only worries about 20,000-40,000. This saves them a LOT of money in shelf space and increases inventory turnover. They only focus on bare bones necessities and "treasures," as they're called, one-time lightning deals of high ticket items "for a limited time" which give a sense of urgency. Costco goes for differentiation, not cost leadership, and can't be compared as business strategies to Wal-Mart as easily as you might think. In short, a store like Costco will not be affected whereas Wal-Mart will greatly be affected in terms of employees on the floor at once. Minimum wage just got more competitive.



Those facts being said, I don't think it'll be a good thing initially but it will be eventually. Costs will either go up or service will go down, or products will be worse quality to keep similar profit margins, and as the customer I don't want to see that. I definitely feel like minimum wage is not a working wage, and it's a good start to assessing a very present problem (side note! A HUGE proportion of Wal-Mart employees are on government welfare programs, which is where your and my tax dollar are going!). From my perspective, it's better to acknowledge the problem and TRY a solution that works.

Also, it's an interesting possibly partial solution or benefit to a problem I'm interested in seeing a solution to- the debt for America is about 17 trillion, and I've been wondering how we'd pay that off as it's higher than ever. Raising the minimum wage will increase payroll taxes by all minimum wage employees and their employers by at least 150%, which could add up if this does go nationwide.







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You're telling me that there's no hope.

I'm telling you you're wrong.

Yeah, you guys have hit a lot of how I feel about this pretty solidly. In the long term, it's a good thing, in my opinion. And I actually like the fact that it's gradual; there's a reason that minimum wage increases usually are, and that's to make it harder for the "job creators" to justify reducing jobs by saying that it's suddenly too expensive to do business. They'll do it anyway, but it just makes it more transparently an excuse.

In the short term, it's gonna be a little rough. The people paying these workers are going to complain, but it's worth noting that this law will not impact the smallest of small businesses in New York; the minimum threshold is that the restaurant have thirty or more locations. There will be a short term push to jack up prices and reduce workforce in response, as the business owners look to maintain their bottom line. Price increases will also be passed on to the folks least able to support them in the short term - the clientele of these restaurants undoubtably skews to lower and middle income folks.

Over the long term, what they say about rising tides seems to prove out in most cases. It's just that it takes a while to get that done, and in the meantime it's still tough to handle for the people this should benefit most.

I see an image like this one pop up in my Facebook feed every now and again. Coincidentally, the most recent time was the day before this thread was posted, so it was fresh in my mind. I don't know if those numbers are really accurate, but even if they're 80% accurate, it says to me that we know where the problem is and most of us just aren't in a position to do anything about it. All we can do is suck it up and do things like this law until enough momentum builds for real change.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

The problem starts with an unstated assumption:

Top level employees in executive and other senior management roles will never take a paycut. Every time a company has a blowout year, they get a pay increase. They benefit from the good times.

The common employee doesn't reap any of the benefits. So government forces the issue. Once they do, in comes the unstated assumption. Prices have to rise, labor has to be cut, because the bottom line must be maintained. It's bottom up, and never top down.

Therein lies your wage gap and your wealth gap. The "well of course the executives keep getting the same pay or more, plus all the other bigwigs keep getting paid the same or more".

Because we have a capitalist society in which the highest rung gets rewarded for taking more each year, things will never change. Because the top-level cannot be affected on a wide-scale, nothing will ever change. They "earned it".

10x more money? Sure, they earned it.
100x more money? Sure, they earned it.
1000x more money? Just wait til they ask. Once they take, there will be people there to say "Well yeah, they earned it".

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The clouds ran away, opened up the sky
And one by one I watched every constellation die
And there I was frozen, standing in my backyard
Face to face, eye to eye, staring at the last star
I should've known, walked all the way home
To find that she wasn't here, I'm still all alone

-Atmosphere "Always Coming Back Home to You"

Quote (Tonepoet @ 22nd July 2015 23:35)

First you are required to pay employees more raise, so you prices to compensate. You subsequently lose customers like D.T. who can not afford it because they are working harder jobs for less cash and need to resort to a second plan to fix a now even worse situation. You can not lower the wages so you fire employees because you must maintain budget. This overburdens remaining workers, meaning service quality goes down and leading to a possible strike. With no remaining options you finally go out of business. Unemployment go up and so do taxes to make up for the loss. Americans bizarrely grow even fatter because they're more motivated to eat junk food indoors than go out to eat, promoting a more sedentary lifestyle. Workers in other jobs go on strike because there are no affordable places serving food during lunch period.  McRIOTS! CIVIL WAR II SKYNET! War o' 1812 II! W.W. III!!! SLLIIIPPEERRYYY SSSlloooooppe...

Honestly though, I never got the point of minimum wage. It sounds good in theory until the prices in the grocery stores and everything else follows suit to compensate. I think we might be better off without it, since then there would be less incentive to hire under-the-table employees, since prospective legitmate workers could at least opt to match prices, at least down to the point where taxes start making a substantial enough difference. Granted, I never cared to study much economics either...

Sure, that's the econ 101 textbook line, but economics is a complex and highly imprecise field, and empiricism doesn't really bear out the belief that higher wages necessarily drive higher prices in direct proportion. The minimum wage in Australia is AUD$17.29, or USD$12.62. And yet the Economist's Big Mac index indicates that the current price of a McDonald's Big Mac is USD$3.92 in Australia versus USD$4.79 in the U.S.

This post has been edited by The_Pink_Nu1 on 1st August 2015 03:22

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SPEKKIO: "GRRR...That was most embarrassing!"

I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised by the positive reactions and support of this. Glad to know there are like-minded people who find the wage disparity to be absolutely disgusting.

To further the topic, has anyone heard of the CEO in Seattle who raised all of his employee's minimum wages to $70,000 a year, including dropping his down from $1,000,000 per? Gravity payments (what a horrid company to begin with: Make money off of people's debts, YAY!) is the name of the company and apparently, the CEO, Dan Price, has had to rent out his home, is having financial issues and the company itself is struggling.

I'd like to make a few points here.

First off, several customers backed off from doing business with him, citing higher fees or some other bullocks.

Next, several other employees quit when freshmen employees and inexperienced co-workers got a significant bump UP to the 70,000 minimum, complaining that they didn't get a proper wage-hike, and causing several to quit altogether because they didn't want to be "equal" to the other workers, who felt the new and inexperienced workers hadn't earned their wages while they had.

Third, the CEO, Dan Price, is a 31-year old male.

Right off the bat, I want to question his motives in hindsight. Is he just naive? Bad business advice? Arrogant? What kind of a moron thinks he can just cut his 7 figure salary down to 5 figures, by more than 90% (amirite on that number? he makes less than 1/10th of what he used to) and STILL keep his expensive house, lifestyle and habits? Did he just not think it through?

He basically lowered himself from upper-middle class to lower-middle class and if I know petty bourgeois, it wouldn't have sat well with his peers, friends or his family. So on top of economic pressure, he placed tremendous social pressure on himself that he may not have foreseen.

Now, I know a lot of companies would have backed out simply because politically, they don't agree with equal wages, even in a predominantly left-wing part of the country. Class is still class, and the upper and especially middle classes cling to their delusional social structures like a cat on a ledge, desperately trying to claw their way to higher ground by any means necessary most of the time. I see no other real motivation besides the obvious one in that these businesses are run by men who know their shit a little better than some 30-year old dude. They foresaw the ramifications, not just political, but financial. They were, by all means, taking a business risk in his company by maintaining their business with him. By refusing to invest in the relationship further, they backed out, knowing he would hit financial troubles himself and in a snowball effect, so would his company.

But what bothers me most are the people who quit because they basically didn't want someone, or several peoples, making as much a them who they saw as below them in every single way. The people who felt they DESERVED more than the next guy while doing the same job, simply because they feel their 'experience' should have yielded them an equal pay increase. Now, I understand paying your dues and earning your keep, but again, I say this:

I work in a hot, dirty, dangerous warehouse/factory since high school. Aside from earning just shy of a 2-year college degree, I cannot negotiate higher wages, my experience gets me nowhere, and nepotism rules the workforce, whether you are working-class, middle-class, upper-class or elite. And I hate that. But I have absolutely no problem with a "fucking burger-flipper", as people keep saying, making $15 bucks an hour by 2018/2021 while I currently only make $10.50 an hour. And the job I have right now, is in a warehouse for Johnson Rose restaurant supplies and the particular warehouse I work at is being closed down before the winter because of a buy-out and relocation. And I only just got the job, through a TEMP AGENCY. And it is the highest hourly wage I have ever had in my life. And I am 30 years old.

I don't have a problem with the guy next to me. I have a problem with the entire system of our society/world.

I want to kill my idols and watch society burn.

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

This is bad as whether you all know it or not the federal government will still be paying for these workers to be hired and employers will still get a sweet tax credit.

You might have noticed two things well going to fast food or your grocery store.

• The worker is disabled
• The worker looks like a mad convict

All would be true. No longer are these entry level position low skilled positions for high school workers for high school workers but rather as a means of employing felons and disabled workers.

Once felons get out of prison the Federal and most state governments give tax incentives as well as sometimes paying for that convict to work at where. So what happens is McDonalds and such will hire these folks as they are free labor.

Now these workers can't survive on min wage and most do not like high school wages these are the brunt of the forces rallying for higher wages right now. In a way these companies don't care because bottom line the federal and state governments are still paying for these workers to work there.

If anything if you cut the cord on the federal and state funds and tax credits to these programs McDonald's would fire them in a heart beat for some high school kids.

Disabled Workers

What many people do not know many disabled people work in below minimum wage workshops which is legal but sadly disability advocates are trying to move them into real jobs because they believe these disabled workers feel more independent. So if you have some bagged drooling in your bag or screaming at you because you bought to many things he had to bag that's because he or she is most likely a tax credit hire

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His Divine Shadow

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