Minimum Wage Hike in U.S.

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King Crimson":e7ee4 said:
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Sure - all the 7-11, Dell Taco, Burger King, Mc Donalds, Wendy's,...workers will have a few more bucks, and continue to be stuck in a dead-end job. I guess if they stayed there for 5 years and become a manager, they might go up to $10/hr.

Yippy!

And one out of every 5 will be fired.
 
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shredhead666":e223c said:
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And one out of every 5 will be fired.

Yep, it's the nature of the minimum wage beast.

Funny though. There's a 7-11 at the corner of my block. I've lived in this neighborhood for more than 6 years now. Two of the guys there are in their late thirties and look like typical bar flies - they've been there longer than I’ve lived in that community, and they're still clerks.
 
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MitchSchaft":896fd said:
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because it's bogus.

650 economists including five Nobel Laureates sign a paper saying a minimum wage hike to 7.25 won't cause any of the problems critics cite and you think it's bogus? That article has thirty-five sources, one of them from the current chief of the Fed. If all these people can't convince you, then what will?
 
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TWPietz37":76a9a said:
Sean, there is a lot of cost involved in running a business that you are completely ignoring. Take a microeconomics class and it might open your eyes to how little the typical small business owner makes in the end. After taxes, fixed costs of simply running a business (especially retail) etc., it's not like most small business owners are sitting on a fat stack of cash.

To everyone else in the thread, do you think there should be a minimum wage at all? If so, what should it be and what should determine what it is?

Tyler

Tyler, I know. There's all sorts of electric, phone bills, gas, heating...all of it. I'm saying that by losing just one more dollar an hour, for example, it would not make a massive dif from where I'm standing.

I think my example was bad - the owner of my biz has 4 stores, and between all of them we make probably about $4-5k per day. Subtracting half of that, that's $2000 a day (and these are low estimates - next week there will be a sale and we'll probably make 8k a day for each one of them). One more dollar per the 12 or so employees that work each day would add up, but it would hardly be disastrous.

BTW, I'm not asking for a raise - I'm at $9 CAD/8.25 USish now and I don't have bills to pay aside from tuition and just spending $. I'm lucky in that regard. But just for fun, I did a budget on my salary and it was unspectacular at best, plus I have noone else to support - AND I'm making more than three bucks more an hour than the US minimum. It was eye-opening.
 
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stop already with the trying to figure out what your boss is making. Your severe lack of understanding about the overhead of running a business is painfully obvious everytime you post. Aren't you in college? Do they have any classes that teach business concepts?

So after your bosses overhead of $2000 a day, he makes an additional $2000 on top of that? He makes a 100% profit? LOL That is freaking hilarious! If you could make a 100% profit owning a shoe store, there would be no other types of businesses anywhere. Imagine malls full of shoe stores only. With all the owners making a 100% profit. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

A typical profit for a successful business is about 15-20%. Deal with it.
 
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MitchSchaft":77466 said:
No. Get rid of minimum wage, affirmative action, and all the other BS programs.

this is pretty much my thoughts exactly

what ever happened to honest to god merit and skill getting someone a job and getting paid correctly for it.

it's been said before but- minimum wage is for drop outs, students and illegal immigrants. and i guarantee that the same people are the ones sucking the system for all the money from other "helpful programs" (read: welfare, communist medical coverage and student loans that will never be paid back).
let's not give them even more money to waste and screw us over.
 
Where did I ever say that was profit? I just said that $2000 a day was what he had to work with after the merchandise was paid for. No shit he doesn't make $2000 a day, but I would guess he's not doing too badly since I know what the rents are in each of the areas and I've seen the bills that come through the office.

Like I said, the problem doesn't lie at my employer, he pays everyone more than $5.15 US an hour.
 
$4000 of merchandise costs him way more than $2000. That would still be a profit on merchandise of 100%. That's insane in a business that competitive.
 
Trust me, it doesn't. It probably costs less, on most things.

Example - we sell baby Converse All-Stars for $25. He pays $8 per. We sell an Italian boot that goes for $399. We bought it for $100. Most are around 110%-120% markup. Not all of it sells at once, of course, so he's left with a lot of stuff that didn't pay for itself, but we usually get rid of it with sales that definitely cut the margins down to 50-75%.

Granted, he buys a lot at a time, and we have generally a well-to-do client base who will spend $100 bucks on their kids' shoes easy and will buy stuff for themselves.
 
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Variable":fa950 said:
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650 economists including five Nobel Laureates sign a paper saying a minimum wage hike to 7.25 won't cause any of the problems critics cite and you think it's bogus? That article has thirty-five sources, one of them from the current chief of the Fed. If all these people can't convince you, then what will?

how many people were given the chance to sign said paper, was there an opposing paper to be signed by people who disagreed?

just saying 650 economists signed a piece of paper doesn't really offer much of a frame of reference...i can't verify that it is, but that looks very much like partial data provided in an attempt to prove a certain point

with enough effort i could probably get 650 guitarists to sign a document saying that a peavey 5150 is the best jazz amp ever built...that doesn't mean they're speaking for all the guitarists who didn't sign the document and think otherwise
 
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Bob Savage":e4eac said:
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There are all kinds of complex arguments against it, but for the most part, I agree with you. You've got to be willing to GO GET IT. I was making $13 or so an hour in 1983 doing freaking construction work. Then again, I didn't just sit idle waiting for somebody to increase the minimum wage, I went for it and then I busted my ass to be one of the two top installers when I got there.

In 1983 I was in Kindergarten learning the ABC's with the Letter People, and we got a new shipment of computers - a Commodore 128! Never got to use them, but they arrived!
 
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cloudnine":3b394 said:
Trust me, it doesn't. It probably costs less, on most things.

Example - we sell baby Converse All-Stars for $25. He pays $8 per. We sell an Italian boot that goes for $399. We bought it for $100. Most are around 110%-120% markup. Not all of it sells at once, of course, so he's left with a lot of stuff that didn't pay for itself, but we usually get rid of it with sales that definitely cut the margins down to 50-75%.

Granted, he buys a lot at a time, and we have generally a well-to-do client base who will spend $100 bucks on their kids' shoes easy and will buy stuff for themselves.

Even if he is grossing twice what he paid for it, I'd bet dollars to donuts that his actual economic profit is substantially lower than what you're calculating. After all is said and done, I think the average actual profit to gross ratio (in the US) is something around 5 cents on every dollar. Of course there is a chance your boss is profiting a good deal more than the average but I'll assure you he isn't profiting anywhere near to the extent that you think he is. I'm not trying to insult you or anything by saying all this, but I think you should take a look at the profit these types of businesses typically generate before you make assumptions.

Tyler
 
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cobrahead1030":e5a3a said:
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how many people were given the chance to sign said paper, was there an opposing paper to be signed by people who disagreed?

just saying 650 economists signed a piece of paper doesn't really offer much of a frame of reference...i can't verify that it is, but that looks very much like partial data provided in an attempt to prove a certain point

with enough effort i could probably get 650 guitarists to sign a document saying that a peavey 5150 is the best jazz amp ever built...that doesn't mean they're speaking for all the guitarists who didn't sign the document and think otherwise

Here's a news article on said paper:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15227667/

They're certainly not all the economists in the world. But they do include five Nobel Prize winning economists. It's not like Nobel Prizes are handed out to people who don't know what they're talking about. And it's not like these guys aren't putting their necks on the line by publishing said paper. A lot of these economists probably work in a private sector that wouldn't be happy to see them endorsing a raise in wages that'll affect their bottom line.
 
it's an interesting article, but it doesn't really explain why they don't predict the minimum wage increase would have the feared negative effects...or what business owners could do to make up for their additional cost

i also can't help but wonder how much (if any) major points are being excluded from this document...the few things they pointed out could well be taken out of context

i haven't seen the document myself, so i have no clue
 
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cobrahead1030":cb3b7 said:
it's an interesting article, but it doesn't really explain why they don't predict the minimum wage increase would have the feared negative effects...or what business owners could do to make up for their additional cost

i also can't help but wonder how much (if any) major points are being excluded from this document...the few things they pointed out could well be taken out of context

i haven't seen the document myself, so i have no clue

I've been looking for the actual paper online myself, but I need to sleep now :( I'll post it if I find it. It's gotta be somewhere da Internets.
 
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cloudnine":aeea1 said:
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I bet you most workers make their bosses at least 3x what they make per hour, minimum.


That's why they are the owners, and the workers are the workers...
Nothing wrong with that. I owned a business for 13 years, and I'll be damned if my workers made more than they are worth.
There is a big cost in business called OVERHEAD....
Rent/lease, insurances, utilities, materials, tools, etc etc etc...and none of it is free.
Bottom line is that some people will always have to work for others, and make the bosses rich. That is their job.
But to be honest, being an owner is not all fun and games. In a successful business, the owners work twice as hard as the workers...
That is the main reason I closed shop....
Steve
 
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SteveVHT":430cd said:
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That's why they are the owners, and the workers are the workers...
Nothing wrong with that. I owned a business for 13 years, and I'll be damned if my workers made more than they are worth.
There is a big cost in business called OVERHEAD....
Rent/lease, insurances, utilities, materials, tools, etc etc etc...and none of it is free.
Bottom line is that some people will always have to work for others, and make the bosses rich. That is their job.
But to be honest, being an owner is not all fun and games. In a successful business, the owners work twice as hard as the workers...
That is the main reason I closed shop....
Steve

Mmmmmmmmmm...

Truth
 
It would probably be an exercise in futility, but Chubtone, why don't you show cloudnine a list of the business expenses, taxes, various insurance requirements, maintenance and other fees. I don't run a business but I come from a family with a long history of entrepreneurs and have had discussions about this with my father particularly when I was contemplating taking over the business, and it's quite striking how much overhead there really is for a small business owner.
 
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