Posted on 01/03/2018 10:06:46 AM PST by TigerClaws
Regions Financial Corp. today announced it will increase its hourly minimum wage to $15 an hour by year's end, just one move in what it says is a series of targeted, long-term investments in response to last month's rewrite of the nation's tax laws.
That includes an increase in spending on capital spending and a contribution to the company's charitable foundation to benefit communities.
In a statement, Regions said the initiatives were made "in anticipation of the savings it will recognize as a result of federal tax reform intended to support economic growth."
"We understand that the growth of our company is based on the economic vitality of the communities where we do business, as well as the work from our team of talented associates who are committed to serving our customers every day," said Regions Chairman and CEO Grayson Hall.
Funny how companies are willing to voluntarily raise their minimum wage to $15/hr in response to “less government”, while those who were forced to raise it by “more goverment” mandates failed.
This really isn’t an “hourly minimum wage” it’s just a wage increase. As a result of Trump’s economic policies.
The government mandates also forced businesses to close as well. A lot of restaurants in cities such as Seattle closed their doors.
Yup. Regions could absorb the cost. Mom and Pop’s diner in Seattle couldn’t.
And doing this is a path to further international and national financial problems with no assistance to the poor. Probably more problems for them.
It will cause unemployment, gouged prices, less investment, and a greater amount of the paycheck going to the government and not staying in the hands of the earner.
And this isn’t a guess, in our current system. It is the only way it can go. Uncle sugar would have to re-write the tax system to protect everyone but themselves. (And you know they won’t do that).
So you get paid at a higher scale, get less hours to earn it because increased costs will dictate less pay, or if it over kills, less than you were getting, have jobs disappear because the employers can’t afford them either due to budget constraints or future needs, service on work performed is cut and time shortened.
Everyone screamed about the tax cuts the employers were getting, this just hammered that because this starts at the very bottom and will cause a retro increase in everything from wages to product costs all the way to the top.
rwood
This must stop. $15/hour MUST be government mandated, not voluntary or because of a business-focused government creating a good economy. It MUST be delivered by Dems, not CEOs. $20/hour is the new $15. Let’s see CEOs do that. /liberal-foot-stomping-sarc
I’d love to see them publish “employee cost” rather than simply “employee wage”. Say “We will pay each employee $20/hour minimum. Government taxes and regulations currently takes $5/hour pre-tax so employees will see $15/hour wage from that $20/hour we pay for their effort”.
Awesome! That's, like, TWO spending increases...
All that is wrong. These companies are just giving money to employees in wages that they otherwise would have given to the federal government as taxess. Think of it as profit-sharing.
Democrats get proven wrong once again.
Regions is the largest employer in the state of Alabama.
“hourly minimum wage”? In a bank? When I think of “minimum wage” I think of unskilled workers at say a McDonalds ... not bank tellers with responsibilities over large sums of monies.
Suffice it to say Regions will be paying its employees more.
15 is great, so 30 must be better. Actually, 60 is what it should be. No, 100! that’s what it should be. 100 per hour.
A$$holes. First of all, the government has no right to set a minimum or maximum hourly rate. Second, the rate soon becomes too little, as prices rise to absorb the extra money. Then they demand a raise, and prices rise, and they call for a raise,..... repeat until the Sun engulfs us in its warm embrace 5 billion years from now.
A study done in late June of this year, which a group of researchers at the University of Washington released, suggests that the minimum wage has had a far more negative effect on employment than even skeptics of minimum-wage increases originally thought.
The University of Washington authors held one significant advantage over other economists studying the issue: detailed data on hours and earnings for workers affected by the increase.
This data allowed the researchers to measure the effects of the minimum wage on workers in all industries rather than relying on restaurants as a stand-in, a common technique. It also allowed them to measure a change in hours worked, a potentially more complete indication of the effect of a minimum-wage increase than the employee head count that many studies use.
The University of Washington researchers found that the minimum-wage increase resulted in higher wages, but also a significant reduction in the working hours of low-wage earners. This was especially true of the more recent minimum-wage increase, from as high as $11 an hour to up to $13 an hour in 2016. In that case, wages rose about 3 percent, but the number of hours worked by those in low-wage jobs dropped about 9 percent — a sizable amount that led to a net loss of earnings on average. I live in Washington and have observed this.
Raising the minimum wage will not assist the lower waged employees. If you want to do that, then do not establish an entry level wage for your company employees looking for a future with the same level as your high school package wrappers.
Another effect of raising the low end wage is that at what point are you crossing over into the same level as your primary performers. If you owned the restaurant, would you pay the same level to the dishwasher you pay to the waitresses? Would you destroy your achievement advancement chain by paying the entry person the same money as the employee doing the same job better because they had been there longer and know what to do. You’re not going to just give the low level employee a higher wage than before, you’re going have to raise everyone’s money.
You are not the only company doing this. Other companies are in the same boat as you. So if they raise their prices, you’ll feel the effect in your bottom line. Yoiur prices will have to keep up. And the small businesses, the lifeblood of our world, will fail and close without enough backup so they lose employees and the business.
Sorry for the length, but there are many issues in this that haven’t been focused on that have a direct bearing on overall business for an area that does this. Years ago they would have called it the domino effect.
rwood
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