My Apartments Above Retail Stores Proposal

Brian Griffin | 07/30.2109 | Brian Griffin

[Brian Griffin]

Many retail employees are having a hard time making ends meet. Leftists have proposed raising wages to $15/hour, and sometimes have done so, but such wages are unrealistically expensive for most retail employers.

If retail stores had restricted occupancy apartments above their selling floor, retail employees could live in these and not need to pay for a car and liability insurance. Residential restricted occupancy is sometimes found in English agricultural regions to keep housing affordable for people working in agriculture.

Retail store residency would have additional benefits of reducing road congestion and CO2 emissions, increasing employee reliability, the amount of employee free time and the number of people able to live in an metropolitan area without overcrowding its roads.

Employees might get paid $4/hour plus usage of the apartment plus $.01/hour for each square foot of their apartment less than 600.

In some cases there might be sliding wall system in an apartment to make for either one large bedroom or two small bedrooms.

To fund adequate Social Security benefits for the employee, an added $1/hour FICA tax might be levied on the employee.

The apartment might be valued at $700/month for income taxation, welfare and health insurance subsidy purposes.

There might be a 10-day grace period to live in the apartment after quitting or getting fired from a job. There might also be a waiting period of up to 10 days to move into such an apartment.

Whether or not specific apartments are employer furnished and their exact size would be left to employment market forces.

Employees not needing or currently getting an employer apartment would simply work for the usual wages and benefits.

Excess retail store apartments might made available to nearby restaurants and their employees on a similar basis.

[Fast Moving Angel]

In 15 years the downtown has gone from single-story buildings like the horse and tack place, the plumbing supply place and the diner to 8-story condos with fancy retail on the ground floor. With little to no parking.

They're doing the same thing in a lot of places, from southern California to West Palm Beach, FL. Pretty soon no single-family homes will be able to be built at all.

[trisham]

Thanks, Rurudyne!

[Redcitizen]

Reading the rest of the replies up to post 122, most everyone said the same thing. I prefer a lot of elbow room.

[Larry Lucido]

Where would you like your apartment?