Originally Posted by Guest

Yes, I think they should provide a living wage w/benefits rather depending on the government to supplement the small business owners employee's compensation. $18,000/yr full time w/no benefits just doesn't cur it.

I think it's a terrific idea, conceptually.

In reality, are YOU willing to pay $30 for a hamburger or sandwich, $100 for a pizza, $25 for a beer?

Originally Posted by Guest

Yes, I think they should provide a living wage w/benefits rather depending on the government to supplement the small business owners employee's compensation. $18,000/yr full time w/no benefits just doesn't cur it.

Your heart is correct but history tells us this is why we lost our world leading manufacturing base. We have priced ourselves out of world market. Americans don't even buy American products. Our fastest growing industy is healthcare and I'm not sure that produces wealth for country, moves it around I would guess.

Originally Posted by Guest

I think it's a terrific idea, conceptually.

In reality, are YOU willing to pay $30 for a hamburger or sandwich, $100 for a pizza, $25 for a beer?

It's strange that the country's largest employer, Wal-Mart, has figured out a way to increase the minimum wage without raising prices, so they say. Same with Target, Costco, Starbucks, and many other companies.

Originally Posted by Guest

It's strange that the country's largest employer, Wal-Mart, has figured out a way to increase the minimum wage without raising prices, so they say. Same with Target, Costco, Starbucks, and many other companies.

Strange indeed!

Back to reality... something obviously has to give; Profits at first, then stockholders grumble, then prices are raised to restore previous profitability. Then price elasticity enters into the equation. How many will purchase a 12-pack of diapers for $100? Not as many, so prices are reduced and "savings" found elsewhere. Ah, enter labor. Since we can't reduce hourly rate, we'll reduce head count to restore profitability. "Do more with less" suddenly becomes the new mantra.

There's no free ride...

(At least that's what my economics classes taught me.)

Originally Posted by Guest

Strange indeed!

Back to reality... something obviously has to give; Profits at first, then stockholders grumble, then prices are raised to restore previous profitability. Then price elasticity enters into the equation. How many will purchase a 12-pack of diapers for $100? Not as many, so prices are reduced and "savings" found elsewhere. Ah, enter labor. Since we can't reduce hourly rate, we'll reduce head count to restore profitability. "Do more with less" suddenly becomes the new mantra.

There's no free ride...

(At least that's what my economics classes taught me.)

One would expect that Wal-Mart has been in business long enough and been successful enough and have experts on their staff who might be able to figure this stuff out. The same goes with the other companies.

Originally Posted by Guest

One would expect that Wal-Mart has been in business long enough and been successful enough and have experts on their staff who might be able to figure this stuff out. The same goes with the other companies.

I'm trying to connect the dots you're dropping.

Are you suggesting that Wal Mart could have previously paid much higher wages without negatively impacting earnings, but chose not to? Why do you believe they chose not to?

Or... are you suggesting they could have previously raised all their prices and not impacted sales? If so, why didn't they do this previously and make so much more profit?

Originally Posted by Guest

I'm trying to connect the dots you're dropping.

Are you suggesting that Wal Mart could have previously paid much higher wages without negatively impacting earnings, but chose not to? Why do you believe they chose not to?

Or... are you suggesting they could have previously raised all their prices and not impacted sales? If so, why didn't they do this previously and make so much more profit?

Walmart raises pay well above minimum wage - Feb. 19, 2015

There are 387,000 results if you google Wal-Mart raising minimum wage. Take your pick of your favorite source and get the answers you seek. The same for other employers.

Originally Posted by Guest

Walmart raises pay well above minimum wage - Feb. 19, 2015

There are 387,000 results if you google Wal-Mart raising minimum wage. Take your pick of your favorite source and get the answers you seek. The same for other employers.

Thanks...I did as you suggested. WOW... sure sounds liking raising the minimum wage is going to be a HUGE DISASTER!

Some quotes from the article:


"However, fast-food restaurants operate on very small profit margins; they could only afford such wages by raising prices—significantly. Higher prices would, in turn, drive customers away, forcing even larger price increases to cover costs. Ultimately, the average fast-food restaurant would have to raise prices by nearly two-fifths. This would cause sales to drop by more than one-third, and profits to fall by more than three-quarters."

"Fast-food restaurants could not pay this additional amount out of their profits. The typical restaurant has a profit margin of just 3 percent before taxes.[4] That works out to approximately $27,000 a year[5]—less than the annual cost of hiring one full-time employee at $15 an hour.[6] In order to raise wages, fast-food restaurants must raise prices."


"Most studies find that a 1 percent increase in prices causes sales to fall by almost 1 percent. Larger price increases cause sales to fall by proportionally larger amounts."


"The higher labor costs would initially force fast-food restaurants to raise their prices by 15 percent, which would drive down sales by 14 percent. This would force restaurants to raise prices again, pushing sales down further. In equilibrium the average fast-food restaurant would have to raise prices 38 percent.[10] Prices would rise roughly twice as much as the initial increase in labor costs.[11] Total sales and hours worked would both fall by 36 percent. Fast-food restaurant owners would also have to accept a 77 percent reduction in profits in order to stay in business—leaving them with an average profit of just $6,100 a year per store. Otherwise they would have to raise prices to an extent that would drive away their customer base.
These changes would hurt consumers. Americans would face higher fast-food prices, putting a dent into the budgets of everyone who frequently eats fast food—primarily moderate-income consumers, not the wealthy, who do not regularly eat fast food."


"Labor Substitution

Such an increase in prices and decrease in profits would devastate fast-food restaurants. Many owners would find that taking on the risk of operating a restaurant—and potentially losing money—is not worth profit margins of less than 1 percent. Many fast-food restaurants would respond by restructuring dramatically in order to use less labor.
Fast-food restaurants could reduce labor costs by (a) substituting entry-level workers for more skilled and more productive workers and (b) replacing human workers with machines. Fast-food jobs involve many routine tasks that are particularly susceptible to automation. For example, McDonald’s recently announced plans to adopt iPhone ordering and paying—making the jobs of many cashiers redundant.[12] Inventors in California have created an automatic hamburger-cooking machine that cooks 360 hamburgers in an hour without human intervention.[13] Artificially increasing fast-food wages would significantly hasten the adoption of such technology—flat out eliminating many positions in the fast-food industry."


Conclusion

Raising the minimum wage in the fast-food industry to $15 an hour would hurt consumers and workers. Without major operational changes, fast-food restaurants would have to raise prices by 38 percent while seeing their profits fall by 77 percent. This would cause many restaurants to close and many others to make extensive use of labor-saving technology—eliminating many of the entry-level jobs that inexperienced workers need to get ahead.


How Higher Minimum Wage for Fast-Food Workers Can Affect Prices

What has just been presented will only be understood by those who have a working knowledge of an income statement.

For every pay increase to have no effect on the profitability of the business there will have to be a dollar for dollar increase in revenues which ONLY results in increased prices to the consumer.

The Heritage Foundation is not one I would have selected, but according to them Wal-Mart, etc will soon be out of business. Either way they lose. If they don't raise the minimum wage, nobody will work there and if they do, they'll price themselves right out of business.

Originally Posted by Guest

The Heritage Foundation is not one I would have selected

Why not? Because they live in reality-land and not economic fantasyland where all of the liberals live?

If you've got all the answers to these vexing economic questions it would be criminal to withhold them from humanity.

Tell you what...I'll spread some fairy dust on our economic trail of understanding ahead and then we pay everyone a super-duper...and I mean super-dee-licious living wage and all the hungry people buy all their stuff for less.

Why was that so hard? You mean republicans!

Originally Posted by Guest

I think it's a terrific idea, conceptually.

In reality, are YOU willing to pay $30 for a hamburger or sandwich, $100 for a pizza, $25 for a beer?

Would you spend $5.60 for a Big Mac if it would help the working poor?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/bu...ants.html?_r=0

Its your patriotic duty to pay taxes or at least that's what was promulgated at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. To which I respond "baloney".

Am I unpatriotic? No. I am a realists and it is evident that the Sheriffs of Nottingham under the guise of multiple Prince Johns are hustling villagers all around the country.

I had years of preparing budgets and there are clever ways of hiding money even when it is accompanied with a written rationale. I point this out because politicians and lobbyist are masters of deception when it comes to budgets.

the reality is that the so called budget being proposed is so overloaded with water over the years that if politicians didn't raise it a cent they still have plenty money to work with for years. So why do they claim without funds government cannot operate?

Simple they mis-spend, abuse, and fraud the system. They mark funds for one thing and use it for another. They spend taxpayers money apparently believing it grows on trees.

Worse yet they have no checks and balances nor measurements of performance to determine if the program is working. They institute programs that go on for infinity without ryhme or reason

The only way to cut taxes is to cut spending and the most effective way to cut spending is to shrink government. The Dept of Energy & Education have yielded us nothing but interference. The EPA is so political that its possible are nonsensical. The IRS is outlaw...I could go on but to what avail

Unpopular is the state of public unions which have the potential to bankrupt a number of states beginning with Illinois and is a tremendous burden as respects federal workers. In the private sector corporations went to cash base retirement plans because they saw the writing on the wall. they demanded more participation/contribution from workers. Not so when public unions because they yield votes and so the taxpayer who does not have the right to negotiate a public unions contract is stuck with the costs.
Its just plain maddening

Add to that the cutouts made for favorites such as the NFL, etc who make billions but are tax-exempt

So again I do not believe it is my patriotic duty to pay taxes to irresponsible people who will waste my money and build bridges to nowhere so they can get re-elected. and just think politicians are now considering adding a VAT which in many European countries surpassing 21%

citizens once revolted because of taxation without representation and whether you believe it or not its as true now as it was then

The above post obviously proves Global Warming. That post shows the sap is running early this year!

Originally Posted by Guest

Would you spend $5.60 for a Big Mac if it would help the working poor?[/url]

What happened to the past help when the minimum wage went from $1.50 over the years to $10.00???

Very, very simple. Increased wages = increased cost to suppliers = increased prices to consumers = need for more increased wages to compensate for the new increased prices = increased cost to suppliers = increased prices to consumers = need more increased wages.

GET IT?