Stolen from FB but worth thinking about if you are one of the many who think we should not raise the minimum wage.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.They don’t have an emoji for bravo! One of the best rebuttals I have read to the “let them starve if they can’t find a job as good as mine” crowd. It is the exact reason people buy cheap goods produced in China rather than those made by decent paid workers in the USA. When you look at the millions paid to CEO’s and compare it to $8 or less an hour paid to the people sweating it out in the worst conditions (again to save money), they could get a pretty good raise and the CEO might have to sell one of his yachts to cover it. Love the Roosevelt quote! Industry moguls I am sure hated him.
Barnie2years
Level 8
Mar 6, 2019
2
My SO and I are small business owners. The economy in our province has tanked so badly, many people are out of jobs and are barely managing to stay above water. There is no help from either the provincial or the federal government. Our minimum wage has just gone up to $15/hr. All small businesses (most of the businesses in my rural area) are struggling as it is. We would love to give people jobs (because so many people are jobless) but we are struggling too. Our business depends on people going away on vacations or long term out of town jobs but fewer people are doing either of those. We have to keep our costs down. We can't afford to pay someone $15 per hour just to do basic things. We have had to turn down people looking for work and my SO and I have worked everyday since we opened last year.
If we were a giant corporation with CEOs earning 6 or 7 figures, yeah I can see paying high wages. If the economy is booming, I'd want to pay employees much more than the minimum wage. I've seen prices going up in stores and restaurants partly due to the minimum wage increase. So in the end, we the consumers are paying more for everyday goods and services because we earn more.
graceylou
Level 8
Mar 6, 2019
0
If workers don't have income to spend on goods and services, you won't have any customers. I live in Florida where the minimun wage is 7.25/hr and we are experiencing all the same problems you are experiencing. I can assure you it isnt a 15/minimum wage driving small businesses under here and I see them going out every day.
@OpposingOpposum The issue isn’t the minimum wage. With the higher costs of everything people need higher income. It’s our economy that is the main problem. It’s a vicious circle of course. If people don’t make money they can’t spend money and if they can’t spend money people can’t make money. I would love to employ and pay someone a good wage but I might not be able to pay my bills. I guess minimum wage doesn’t matter much to unemployed people. They aren’t making any wage. Bigger businesses with lots of capital are paying the higher minimum wage but they also raise their prices of goods and services.
@OpposingOpposum And the people who lost their jobs mostly aren’t the ones making minimum wage anyway. So many people in this province were making 6 figures.
@graceylou but that is the point - I can't speak for other countries but here in the US most big businesses do not pay nor do they want to pay a higher wage. The money goes to the CEOs & stockholders not the workers, not to mention, many of those same companies are getting tax breaks & subsidies from our government yet many of their employees are on welfare.
Think of it this way - minimum wage is raised (most goods in other countries are actually less than in the US - ie. McDonald's burgers) so the people working in those places have more accessible money to spend on, let's say, vacations (ie. your business). You have more business, you can pay more & hire more people.
@Heidi68 exactly and the wealthy HOARD money. They do not spend most of their income on goods and services. They stash it in banks where it only does them and their bankers any good. More and more money is being sequestered away from the active economy in this way and we are all scrambling for less and less money each year
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@OpposingOpposum IKR! And I honestly do not understand why so many regular Joe's/ Jill's defend the companies...
Any employer or company who say they cannot afford to pay a proper living wage to their workforce have no right to be in business. It’s sad that almost 90 years later, we are still having this argument, which Roosevelt articulated in 1933 and 1938!
Marionville
Level 10
Mar 6, 2019
4
Living wages are a real concern now. Management is making out sized compensation and the bottom rung is going backwards. I recently read where American companies have brought back as much as 17% of manufacturing that was being done in China due to tariff concerns but most of that manufacturing is now automated, so no real job growth. I'm a small business owner in the energy storage business. We pay $15 + and those jobs can't be automated. If you are doing something repetitive or that can be completed in a lower wage country a higher minimum wage may not be sustainable. Many renewable industry jobs can not be automated and are the fastest growing industry nation wide. Solar panel installation job growth is increasing twice as fast as the second fastest job title.
rogueflyer
Level 8
Mar 6, 2019
3
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