California just passed a $15 minimum wage bill. Does that mean everyone's salary will go up?

Everybody below 15 bucks should find their wages rising to the minimum. Of course there will be numerous operations seeking to be excluded from the mandate, and there are certainly people lined up to drag the matter through the courts. So don’t spend your raise just yet.

I imagine it will have some seemingly random and unintended effects. Will be interested to see what happens. Some of the higher salaries will likely be frozen or even go down, perhaps even down to zero. The money must come from somewhere.

If this works out for the better hopefully it will have a ripple effect across the nation. I have a feeling this won’t be the case. I think it’s going to be somewhat neutral.

This raise will happen gradually, over several years, not all at once tomorrow.
People making over $15 an hour will not automatically receive raises, but could get raises if the employer wants.

How can salaries not adjust? I assume some people would give up their current jobs for whatever reason (more family time/work less/work in a preferred field, etc.) and companies would need to hire people. Won’t the college educated, experienced workers demand a higher wage?

@tinyfaery nope, they will be the ones who suffer most. These people are the low hanging fruit when it comes to balancing corporate budgets. If they don’t mess with salaries it will be with staffing levels. Either way the college educated lose. Kind of a wash if you asked me though. We place too much emphasis on that anyway. Money does not spontaneously generate when they raise the minimum wage.

Not everyone works for a big corporation. Workers can demand a wage. Do you live in California? LA? The bay area? Businesses bend over backwards to please their employees. They want smart, educated, dedicated people and that’s why companies like Apple and Google are incorporated in California.

@tinyfaery but they do have to manage money, it does not come out of thin air. Economics are the same for any employer. There will be consequences. We’ll see if the benefits outweigh the consequences though. I can already predict it will hurt the middle class and help the poor. Fine by me. Google is incorporated in Delaware and apple is in Ireland BTW

This isn’t going to happen for 6 more years anyway. SIX! Nothing to get excited about and nobody can live on $15 an hour now, let alone I another 6 years.
I find the whole thing to be a legislative joke.

@Coloma I agree, it is feel-good legislation. That said you actually can live on $15/hr here in Tn easily though.

Not automatically, no. Some people already making $25 an hour will still just make $25. Part of fighting for people on the lowest paid rung to make a livable wage is that those jobs have value. Part of fighting for higher minimum wages, and lower top salaries, is flattening the salary discrepancies altogether.

If you mean will people making $10 an hour automatically get raised to the new minimum as the law dictates? Yes.

Why do when minimum wage earners get an increase everyone thinks they should get one too?
How comw when the top get stupid fairytail increases the res of us don’t??

@SQUEEKY2: Everyone who makes less than $15 should be brought up to $15, or else they’d be making less than minimum wage, which would be illegal.

I agree @jca but it sounded to me the wage earners that make more than the minimum want an increase as well.

@SQUEEKY2: If the wage earners make less than 15 dollars an hour now, they should be increased to the new minimum, which will be 15 dollars an hour. So I think you are correct, the wage earners who make more than the minimum now will want an increase, and will be due an increase. Everyone making less than 15 dollars an hour will be brought up to 15 dollars an hour. What the time frame is for that, and what the legal arguments will be against it, and what businesses will be exempted, all a different story.

I agree that people making more than minimum wage are due an increase as well. Here in Boston, I was getting paid $10/hr in 2015 into 2016, when the minimum wage grew to $10. So basically, I ended up getting paid minimum wage after working there for almost a year—and the same rate as the people currently being trained. And honestly, I do a lot more than some of the workers who’ve been there longer than me. What it boils down to is that everyone working close to minimum wage should be getting paid more because what we get now is terrible. Blah blah blah more socialist speak.

One point to mention is the stimulus this has on the economy. People making minimum wage generally spend what they earn. This injects the money right back into the economy, so companies have better sales and can give non-minimum wage employees raises/hire more people.

To answer your question about how much would be a fair increase, I definitely don’t think a linear increase would be fair, though that’s what companies would aim for because it’s the lowest amount increase that makes sense to people.

If people currently make more than $15 an hour, they’re not automatically going to get a raise. Legally, the minimum will be 15 an hour. If you currently make 16 an hour, your employer will not be violating any laws if they keep your wage at 16 dollars an hour.

The point of a minimum wage increase is to assure that people working their ass off for underpaid professions are able to pay their bills.

No one is inherently entitled to make X-percent more than someone making minimum wage. However, you’re more than welcome to renegotiate your salary as you see fit, or go be a cashier at IKEA if that’s more suited to you.

California’s capacity for kicking itself while already down never ceases to stun me.

“No one is inherently entitled to make X-percent more than someone making minimum wage.”
@Seek Inherently? No. That makes no sense. But do you think that different jobs deserve better pay? Do you think that one should get raises for working longer at a company?

The money, in my opinion, should come from the executives’ paychecks, but it’s difficult and questionable to make legal such an act. I view the minimum wage increase as being something that should be. I view its non-existence as something lacking. I don’t think it should make up for the system of raises we already have. The idea of getting more for working for a company longer should still hold.

Of course it should. That’s not the argument I’m making. I’m arguing against people making $15.05 currently complaining that when minimum wage goes up to $15.00 from $7.25 or $10.00 they won’t automatically get a $5—$8 raise so they’re still the same-percent “better” than someone who has been slaving away for nothing until that point.

Someone else finally getting enough doesn’t take anything away from what you already have. If you are an insert profession here and you think that getting paid the same as a “burger flipper” or shelf-stocker or child-care worker or secretary is beneath your position, or that no one would do your job if they could get paid the same for doing those other things, you’re more than free to quit your job and do one of those “easier” jobs. With my blessing.

^ Define “enough” please.

@SecondHandStoke In my opinion: Enough constitutes the necessary amount of money for a person to maintain a safe home, safe transportation, nutritious food, and basic healthcare for an average family (I use a family of four as a baseline), without relying on government assistance to acheive those ends.

If you’re giving a third of your week to an employer, that is the least they owe you.

@Seek I think it depends on where the money comes from when the wage hikes happen. What was enough before the hikes may not be shortly after. If the prices of consumer goods and services are just adjusted up and the wages of those making little more than minimum wage already stay stagnant or even go down all that has happened is the standard of living for everyone is reduced. It’ll hurt the not as poor but will help the very poor a little. Also another thing that will probably happen is we’ll see less jobs available across the board. In the end I do think it will help the people on the bottom rung. The people on the top rung won’t give it up so the rest of us one or two rungs up from the bottom will end up taking a step down.

@Seek

In all seriousness, please define “safe” in regards to a home and transportation.

You are attempting to assign a hard (yet arbitrary) number to things that are relative.

@ARE_you_kidding_me – Prices are rising anyway, and wages are not following suit. Arguing that prices will rise if wages rise is a red herring. Jobs will continue to disappear until people are making enough money to be able to buy products.

Well, @SecondHandStoke – The house I’m currently living in is an electrical fire waiting to happen, doesn’t have potable water, and the landlord currently has the entire backyard dug up exposing the overflowing septic system to the open air, because he refuses to hire a professional to fix anything.

I would love to be able to afford to move to a place that didn’t have those problems.

I don’t think it is. I think it’s a valid and direct consequence of wage hikes. I do think it should be done, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think it’ll make everything peachy. There are going to be some unintended consequences. I think it’s going to have a equalizing effect between the middle class and working poor. This is one way the middle class disappears. Does not bother me for that to happen to be honest. I think someone putting in a fair week of hard work deserves a living wage. I’m not so sure that simply raising minimum wage is going to get us there though.

@Seek I don’t know how draconian the renting laws are in FL but that sounds like an almost intolerable living situation. Sorry to hear it, pardon my french but your landlord is fucking asshole. Hopefully there is a way to force him do do something reasonable about it.

@Seek

Not to make light of your situation but that doesn’t really answer my question.

While living in NYC I lived in a terrible building in a posey section of the Upper West Side. This 1885 gem was leaning so bad the water wouldn’t fully drain from the tub.

Management was atrocious, fixed things with used or defective parts, or wouldn’t show up at all.

After years of trying to reason with management professional to professional it was finally time to get out.

It sounds like you should do the same. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.

The only thing to do is call Code Enforcement. If I do, they will condemn the house. I used to work in that department.

If that happens, we have nowhere to go. We cannot afford 3 months’ rent, at an increased rate, as a move-in fee.

(Rock) Me (hard place).

I am not considerably worse off than anyone else living in about a mile radius of my place.

To get back on topic: There are plenty of people who are making the decision of “food or medicine”, and deserve to not have to make that choice.

That is why the minimum wage needs to be raised, and why I don’t particularly care about what people who already make more than what the increased rate will be think about that.

I would just like to say that Burger King is not a easy job.

If you are making under 15 dollars an hour than, you will get an increase. For those who are making 15 dollars and hour and may have more difficult jobs than food service, they probably won’t see an increase till their bosses see them leave for an easier job where they can make the same 15 dollars an hour.
But there are ways around this for many businesses. Waitresses, bus boys, will probably still only get a small pay and depend on tips for income. Jobs that have apprenticeships can still probably pay below minimum wage.

Do you really think so?

@johnpowell

So burger flipping isn’t an “easy” job.

Since no one else ITT has addressed what really makes jobs different, I will.

It’s not about so called ease. It’s about responsibility and especially, the scope of the effects of an employees decisions.

For example, if I drop a beef patty on the floor of the kitchen, the consequences are essentially negligible.

However, if I am at the helm of a major corporation and I take a risk (witch CEOs are hired to do) and I err the result could be a plummeting in stock. Shareholders could lose fortunes. Thousands of employees could lose their livelihood.

This, and only this, is the true reason for differences in compensation.

The Idea that raises for entry level positions should be taken from executives salaries is absurd in the extreme.

@SecondHandStoke there is also supply and demand. If anyone can do a job then naturally it drives the wage down. If it takes special skill, training and knowledge only a few have it will drive the wage up. Some jobs frankly take certain personality traits many people don’t have. High stress jobs really deserve a higher wage. Flipping burgers is not high stress, mentally anyway…you don’t take it home with you. I worked fast food in high school and it was physically and emotionally demanding to a degree. I would say it was a hard job that needed to pay more. I was making four dollars and thirty-five cents an hour.

If your $15.05/hr employee would rather give up that extra $0.05 to take a “lower stress” job, why not let them, and open the door for someone stuck in one of those jobs that actually wants the responsibility?

Wow, finally one place in the states that has a minimum wage higher than where I live.

Some people’s salary will go up. Some will stay the same. Some people may lose their jobs because small businesses can’t afford the increase. It may trigger inflation which would negate the salary, but it might not. Overall economic benefit uncertain. Positive economic benefit for those who keep their jobs and get the pay increase, assuming that inflation does not get worse.

@Seek I doubt there is much difference in responsibility for a nickel. I took a small pay cut for less hours and reduced stress. Happens all the time.

Great.

I will say that I have never worked somewhere that paid me $15 per hour. My most recent office job paid $12, and I was regularly responsible for shipping and receiving orders of silver and gold bullion worth tens of thousands of dollars.

If that job and flipping burgers at McDonald’s both went to $15, I would not touch McDonald’s with a ten foot pole.

I can’t say I blame you I would not touch Mc D’s either.

@Seek I see. I was only thinking about people doing the same exact job. I’m bothered that I’ve been working here for a year and I’m only getting 25 cents more than the people who are starting off now. In this situation I do think I’m entitled to more money than someone else. It feels selfish, but it has to do with how the whole system is set up. I don’t see it as much as me being greedy, but more about me feeling as thought I’m being taken advantage of.

@dxs: I’m not sure what your salary is, but some places only might give 25 cents per hour raise after a year. (I’m thankful I don’t have a job like that because I’d probably not stick around long).

@jca That’d suck, but I bet it happens.

If CA is like NY, yes… but not in time for you to buy a new Telsa anytime soon.

Make that Tesla. Damn, I keep getting the car mixed up with the scientist!

For example, if I drop a beef patty on the floor of the kitchen, the consequences are essentially negligible.

Work at Burger King and you will find that is not the case. Food costs are taken very seriously.

At the theater we had people fired for their till being over five dollars off.

Just the idea that there is even such a wage as 15$ an hour in a western, first world country blows,my my mind. I can’t begin to imagine what someone does with 15$ an hour, how does one even….mind boggling

^^They live with other people if they are making it without government help. Or, teens living at home can do it too. I’m in favor of raising our minimum, but not to $15. I think that’s high for a minimum.

@JLeslie not for California. Probably still not a living wage there.

Or they work 2 and 3 jobs. I’m currently on vacay at a resort, and I always strike up conversations with the people that work here. One woman is 30, has a one year old, lives in a two family house with her brother, her mom and her brother’s family, and she works 3 jobs -two full time jobs and one seasonal job.

And if you don’t have family to rely on to watch your kid, you’re just fucked.

I think this country is getting to the business end of “we can’t keep going serving each other coffee” Service industry jobs never paid well and likely never really will but what do we do when that is mostly all there is left? We can’t fix this with higher taxes and wage hikes people.

Another well intentioned but poorly thought out law. As a small business in Ca, I am already looking at how to reduce the staffing to make this work. I simply can not tolerate a 50% increase in salary costs. Frankly I don’t have enough money in my pocket to cover it. Further the value of my business will deteriorate based on the lower profit margins and the workload will increase. Small businesses have been fleeing Ca for years now and this will only accelerate the move. This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into (Oliver Hardy).

@ARE_you_kidding_me In my answer that you responded to I didn’t talk about a living wage I talked about a minimum wage. Maybe in California the $15 is justified and reasonable, or at least in some cities in Cali anyway. I’m all for flattening the salaries. I also want the minimum raised (federal) because I think it is ridiculously low. But, I’m not sure the bag boy at the supermarket needs to make $15. I’m just disgusted by the very high salaries on the other end. I’m not just talking about $10millon CEO. There are plenty of people earning $500k, or even $250k, who if they all made a little less staff and middle management could make a little more. Let alone profit could be a little less too. I’m talking large businesses not companies like @jaxk where his profit is part of his income basically.

These very high salaries cause almost everything to go up. Property prices, iPhones, airline prices, cars, healthcare, everything. The ability for the market to pay higher prices, makes the prices higher for everyone. Add in America will lend all sorts of money on credit, and our economy is precarious. It’s a bad thing in my opinion. It creates bubbles that burst.

Maybe the law will or should have an exemption for workers under 18.

@JLeslie I agree with you. Some jobs just are not designed to be self sustaining and people are increasingly working two or three of them to do just that. It’s not a good sign for us and making those jobs be “living wage” will only eliminate many of them and drive prices up. I do think that there are jobs that need to be living wage jobs though, especially ones that kids under 18 don’t qualify for. I am also frustrated and disgusted by the top executive salaries.

No.

@jca I am on the fence about that. There are countries that have that set up. I’m not sure if it would well or not? I do think it’s important adults are employed. More important than a 16 year old. If a company can get away with paying less to a teen, they will favor hiring a teen. Plus, then it allows for teens to be underpaid in jobs that maybe they shouldn’t be. A job is worth a certain amount of money no matter what the age of the person doing the job.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Working two and three jobs is just awful to me if it’s adding up to 45+hours. I don’t want anyone to have to do that. When I worked in retail just after college just working a sales job I made about $15 an hour. It was commission, but that’s about what it worked out to. The lowest paid in sales in the store was probably $9 and the highest $30 an hour. Most sales people in the store earned $10—$15. I’d guess 200 out of the over 300 employees earned in that $10—$15 range. When I moved to NC many people in the store worked two jobs and they made much less. Many more people made just $8.00—$9.00. I thought it was awful. Now I think that is more and more the norm. Even in the store I used to work in that paid the higher amounts, now I think that store pays less in general to staff. It was already changing just before I left. They were changing pay structures that benefitted the bottom line.

@JLeslie: Two things that would make hiring mostly teens very difficult are that most kids under 18 would be in school during the hours of around 8 to 3, so the job would need to put adults on staff during those hours. Also, having teens with working papers and limited hours they can legally work would mean more scheduling difficulties for the job.

@jca Good points. I still feel unsure. I’m feel I haven’t thought through all of all the ramifications. On it’s surface it seems like a possibility.

Not necessarily. I was making more money here in Canada a few years ago when minimum wage was lower. When it was $10.25 I was making $12–14/hr for a while. Now that it’s $11.25 it seems that everyone is making $11.25 and no one is willing to pay more. I don’t know who pays $12–20 these days. Maybe no one. People do make more though but they’re on salary.

No. The pay for everyone adjusts to counter any gains.

@Phobos_Is_Gay Unfortunately, I see that happening around here more as well. It seems the minimum wage is going to turn into a “standard pay” as the amount increases. Though not ideal, I’d rather have this then people getting $8/hr.

You need a constant “cost of living ” increase for a minimum wage increase to matter.

Ooh, ooh, I know, why don’t we make the minimum wage the maximum wage? That would take care of that pesky income inequality issue. Of course it would make sense to exempt the government employees. We don’t want no dummies working for the government. Naturally however you would need to be a card carrying member of the ruling party to get a government job. We may need to put in some heavy price controls to make sure those corporations aren’t making big profits. But after that we could be just like Russia. We’ll have a goddamned paradise here.

@Jaxk Why do conservatives (I use that loosely, because I know you don’t just follow the conservatives mindlessly on every issue) always jump to everyone making the same wage when people talk about flattening wages a little. I don’t know any democrats who are saying teachers, doctors, cashiers, and restaurant managers should all make the same money.

@Jaxk For the record, my comment was a response to @Phobos_Is_Gay‘s comment. So I hope it was understood that I meant only people getting paid at the bottom end of the spectrum are going to get the same, minimum pay. This doesn’t apply to people well above that rate or on a salary.

Well, I thought Socialism was the democratic dream. Of course even socialism requires everyone to work. You know the old ‘From everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their needs’. Most of the democrats I’ve heard don’t really want that as they are comfortable with ‘to everyone according to their needs’ regardless of whether they work. Since everyone has the same needs, they must get the same salary/benefits. Socialism at it’s finest where everyone whether CEO or janitor, makes the same money. Am I misreading this? Of course if everyone makes the same, it does make it difficult to recruit people to scrap the tanks at the sewage disposal plant but that’s where the police state comes in.

@Jaxk Out of curiosity, what kind of business do you run and how many employees do you have? (Feel free to ignore or refuse to answer the question if you are uncomfortable).

I don’t know of any Democrats who think that wastewater treatment plant operators should make the same pay as a CEO.

@Jaxk Of course the small businessman is getting screwed. But the fault ultimately isn’t with socialism, government overregulation or rises in the minimum wage. Even if those appear to be the causes, the bigger picture is being missed. I’m trying hard to get past these issues as conservative and liberal, because I think that is the distraction that keeps us fighting over diminishing scraps while ignoring the obvious truth. It’s time to stop it. Those in the middle allied with the chamber of commerce, and the people working for us backing the democratic party. WE’RE ALL GETTING SCREWED. The thing to consider NOW is the winners, and exactly how and why they are winners while the rest of us get eaten alive. As a “liberal”, I will tell you that the democratic party fails its constituency miserably. I’m compelled to back the democrats simply because the republicans are so transparently against the interests of the unrich, as well as downright idiotic when it comes to social issues. Instead of berating a minimum wage of $15 an hour in California, I want to look really hard at why paying my employees such a salary threatens to put me out of business in a town where the minimum fine for an expired parking meter is $68.

This socialist certainly thinks the wastewater treatment plant operator should make enough money to encourage him to keep his job and do it well (because I certainly don’t want to do it), and be able to use that pay to shelter, feed, clothe, and educate his children.

@Seek: Definitely.

@Rarebear – Its a Gas station/convenience store. I oscillate between 5 and 6 employees.

@stanleybmanly – If you think the overragulation and minimum wage aren’t killing me, you’re horribly naive.

@Seek – If you look at the guys working the waste water treatment plants, you’ll find they are paid quite well. That’s because we have a capitalist system. Socialism doesn’t work that way.

The minimum wage being discussed is a departure from paying what the job is worth. If you want to change the system so that the job value has no bearing on the salary, you are moving towards socialism and you have to take the good with the bad. If you think this will reduce the number of people on government subsidies, it won’t. If you think it will get even with the big corporations, it won’t. Minimum wage jobs were never intended to be a career. The unemployment rate for teens is 25% and double that for minorities. We should be focusing on ways to create better jobs instead of focusing on making unskilled jobs pay better. If we can create an environment that pushes jobs overseas, we can create an environment that lures them back.

I find it slightly amusing when people talk about socialism. A minimum wage isn’t socialism. It’s a basic right of every worker. If you didn’t have a minimum wage then you’d have a revolution and if you had a revolution you might end up with socialism.

A wage is not a right.

Then it’s also not the right of the employer to have his workers doing their jobs. They have the right to stop working and tell him to f&^% off.

It is a right in Germany. “Since a legal minimum wage law is a derogation of the constitutional right of a collective tariff autonomy, it is discussed whether and to what extent the minimum wage is consistent with the constitution.”

“ No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
— President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933,

@Phobos_Is_Gay “Then it’s also not the right of the employer to have his workers doing their jobs”

Exactly, now you have it. There is no “right” here. There is only an economic agreement between two parties to exchange goods (or money) for services.

Is it the “right” of @Jaxk gas station employees to have minimum wage? What if he has to fire a worker to give the other worker this minimum wage? What right does the fired worker have? None.

That’s the point. Wages are a commodity like anything else. If there is a tight labor market, then competition for workers go up and wages go up. If there is a loose labor market the opposite happens. You can regulate wages if you wish, but if @Jaxk can’t afford to pay his workers, then he closes his business and everybody loses.

@Jaxk: In the governmental agency that I work in, guys in wastewater treatment plants make “below average” or “average” out of the total salaries of all the employees. It’s not such an easy job, they have to know the various systems (tanks, flow, intake, etc.) and they need licences and certificates in order to maintain their employment. Plus they work 24/7 which adds a bit to their incomes. They’re not poor but they’re far from rich.

@dxs – I’m not sure what you’re looking for. It sounds like you’re doing OK even though it may not be easy. Hell, I couldn’t go to college until my late forties. Working full time and going to college at night. I worked as a bus boy/dishwasher when I was a junior in HS and worked full time on the graveyard shift when I was a senior in HS. My brother spent almost 20 years working full time and going to school at night to get his doctorate. Frankly what you’re describing sounds like the good life to me.

From what I have seen in your country as well as mine these big increases to minimum wage are not an overnight type thing Monday $7.50 Tuesday $15 they are to go up in increments ,over a period of time, so it does give employers time to adjust.
Yes some will react and there will be lay offs but remaining employees will have to put in overtime to keep the same productivity the company wants.
NOW how is the company doing by paying tired employees time and a half or double time to make up for the short fall of employees????
Boy you really showed them didn’t you??
The right keep screaming for smaller sized Government WELL STOP MAKING THE LOWER END WORKER DEPEND ON THE GOVERNMENT SO MUCH AND YOU MIGHT JUST GET WHAT YOU WANT!
And this BULLSHIT lie the right keep screaming when there is a shortage of workers the wage will increase. The employer will just hire foreign workers to fill the gap seen that a lot with the transport industry, mining, and hospitality sectors.
The mining and hospitality industry has gotten into a bit of trouble up here for doing it but THEY ARE STILL DOING IT.

Now for a little story a friend of mine has a son in law with the D.O.T and he pulled a trucker over a little while ago that had a full license but had only been in the country for 2 days,how is that possible?

Now for another point while I won’t disagree these increases might hurt the small business owner at first, they will adjust, and if you do get a smaller government out of it taxes will go down,the minimum wage earner will have more money to live on thus improving the economy and we all win,RIGHT?

@SQUEEKY2 – All theory and no practice. Fewer employees doesn’t necessarily mean more overtime. It merely means fewer cashiers working the register. Less time spent sweeping and mopping and more double duty for those still working. Yes maybe the line grows a bit during busy hours and maybe the product doesn’t get the same attention to facing it but not significantly.

As for foreign workers, how does increasing the minimum wage solve that? And those pushing the wage increase are certainly not pushing for lower taxes, they are in fact pushing for higher taxes. This is not expanding the economy but rather forcing it to contract. We all lose, right?

The $15/hr employee isn’t the target of those tax increases.

@Seek – Of course not. It’s the small business owner that they want to hit with higher wages and higher taxes. It seems like stifling the engine of growth is the plan.

Even though most businesses will be affected, I believe the real goal of the new minimum wage laws was corporations that make huge profits and pay crap wages, for example, fast food places like McDonalds and stores like Walmart.

@Jaxk Hiring foreign workers keep the wages low, by proving there is no demand for these low end jobs, one employer up here was found guilty of making his foreign workers give back their overtime wages .
Take foreign workers out of the picture all together and what do you know there is a bit of a worker shortage for these jobs and as the right scream then wages would have to go up to get people to fill these positions.

Can I ask why do you have a business at all?
I can guess the simple answer would be it is the fact you like being the boss, and calling the shots and the best way you know how to make money to earn a living, right?
Except for being the boss and calling the shots do you not think most low end workers are there for the same reason their boss is?
TO earn a living and make money??
I sure as hell don’t go to work because I am bored and want something to do, I have a hobby I go to work to make MONEY and earn a living.
If you can’t earn a living from going to work then what is the damn point of going to work???

@SQUEEKY2 – It is the right that is trying to eliminate the foreign influx. The left merely wants to make them all citizens. they also want to force the wages up through legislation rather then normal escalation. If you want to make more money you can either get the skills needed to earn more or you can press legislation to make unskilled labor pay more. You all have chosen the latter which adds nothing to the economy.

@jca says that the real goal was to go after the large corporations like McDonalds and Walmart. That really misses the mark. McDonalds doesn’t pay those minimum wage jobs, the Franchise owner does, the small business owner. As for Walmart, they’ve already said they were raising wages. Most large corporations don’t pay minimum wage, they offer careers at substantially higher wages because their employees must be skilled.

The people I hire are typically in their late teens or early 20s. Usually living at home and working for spending money. It’s good for them and it’s good for me. In the 10 years I’ve been in business, I’ve not hired anyone trying to raise a family and only a couple of people that were retired needing supplemental income. The jobs I offer are an entry point to the workforce not a career. Once they have some work experience they move on. If those jobs are eliminated, so is the entry point to the workforce. everybody loses.

I will grant you that I wouldn’t own the business if it didn’t provide my income. Once you take that away, I have no reason to continue to to run it or employ those unskilled workers.