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.
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