I had a neighbor who worked his way up through the ranks at Walmart, from stockboy to regional manager, from minimum wage to mid six figures.
Mike Rowe Bump
I’ve enjoy his writing the more I find them.
Rather than try to define what "average" may or may not be, let's just say that we are trapped in an economic quandary because of health care COSTS ... not the care itself
I'm no business wizard, but I can chew gum and walk at the same time ... and if the insurance companies have a history of getting $45 for a bandaid ... maybe THAT'S (A) point to start looking
But back to the living wage controversy .... As I analyze the costs of housing and food, mobilization and a few et cetera's ... it seems $20 an hour is a barely break even amount and NO ONE is going to pay a kid 20 bucks an hour to flip burgers
I thionk the problem is in how We as a nation are THINKING about what we NEED to live
I'm not so naive to suggest we go back to some stone age lifestyle ... but I AM suggesting we look at what the government has been doing to us ... analyze the low (if any) profit margin most small businesses have (with a myriad of headaches .. and even punishments) ... and SEE that "they" have actually reduced us TO that quasi stone age life style while we struggle to keep up the pace
America needs psychotherapy, not more money
Our problem(s) devolve from poor thinking habits
We USED TO BE the greatest on the Earth ... obumbles is only putting the icing on a flat cake
I can say it in one sentence: A minimum wage is a textbook example of the economic facet of fascism.
In a world with free markets, there is no such thing as a government mandated minimum wage.
But the reason the government wants to increase the minimum wage is to continue to monetize the debt. QE only increased stock prices. Raise wages and you will incrase all consumer good prices, effectively creating more price inflation, thereby “growing” the economy and reducing the debt.
In the Bush era, fast food was ridiculed by Democrats as McJobs.
In the era of Baraq, fast food is expected to be the middle class aspirational career with a govt imposed salary level.
The current CEO and president of Walmart started in the warehouse
The same as it does now; the Golden Arches will automate nearly every aspect of the business, and fire all those whose work is not worth twenty 2015-inflation-level dollars.
I’m not buying it. Minimum wage had nothing to do with automation. They automation was going to happen anyway, the minimum wage had nothing to do with it. But I repeat myself. Adjusted for inflation Mike was making more than $7.25/hr, he was making 9.31/hr.
Labor costs around 35% so the $1.40 / mac.
Now we are hypothetically raising minimum wage to $20.00/hr this is give or take around a 3 fold increase.
So labor 3 x $1.40 = $4.20 / mac + other costs $2.60 = $6.80 / mac.
Answer: $6.80(about).
Most people are in favor of a high minimum wage....as long as they are the ones benefitting from it instead of the ones paying the consequences. People on fixed incomes are going to get destroyed,sooner or later.
“From the business owners I’ve talked to, it seems clear that companies are responding to rising labor costs by embracing automation faster than ever.”
I wouldn’t put it past the government to pass laws either forbidding businesses from using automation without an “essential need”, or requiring a certain amount of human employees.
"The federal minimum wage is $7.25 and hour."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Regardless what FDR’s activist justices wanted everybody to believe about the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers, note that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate minimum wage. This is evidenced by the following Supreme Court clarification that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate commerce.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
So-called federal minimum wage is an example how corrupt federal politicians are exploiting low-information voters imo, promising such voters national higher minumum wage in order to get elected or keep their jobs as lawmakers, regardless that the feds actually have no constitutional authority to regulate minimum wage.
The Mexican minimum wage is something like 70 cents, right?
PS I looked into the Freedom Socialist Party and their demand for a universal, $20 an hour living wage. Interesting. You’re right – they’re serious. But not long after they announced their position, they made the interesting decision to advertise for a web designer….at $13 an hour. Make of that what you will.
If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know...
Mike really, really, really nails it.
When I was getting ready to graduate from high school my mother was babysitting for a couple. He was a regional manager at Walmart (1976). He tried to convince me to come to work for him and the store instead of going to college.
My parents would have none of it even though I was soon to be 18 and was going to pay for it myself. I went to the Univ of Ark instead.
DOH! Wish I had taken him up on the offer.