You mean minimum wage hikes come out of *our* pockets?

But $15 is absurd.

Absolutely. But when poorer or working class workers get a raise from $7 to $10, or from $9.50 to $12 as you're noting, there's a much higher velocity of money with working class folks than there is with higher income folks.

Meaning when a working class person gets a bump from $9.50 to $12, that money gets spent almost immediately, mostly in the communities in which they live. Which helps offset some of the concerns we're talking about here with unemployment and higher costs to consumers. When higher income folks get a raise, it tends to go to savings or get invested, which doesn't directly help the communities in which they live.

There are winners and losers, for sure. But overall minimum wage hikes are not damaging - you can go back and look at unemployment statistics and inflation rates shortly following each minimum wage hike in the past, no significant damage shows in the data. That really is the end all be all to this discussion - if you can't show that unemployment or inflation was impacted by minimum wage hikes, then you have no argument. It's all there on the Bureau of Labor and Statistics' website, have at it.

The bottom line is the minimum wage is there for a reason, to enable a person to get by with the most basic of necessities. The minimum wage has historically been worth anything between $6 and $11, in today's dollars. The current wage is on the low end. It needs to be brought up so that these folks don't have to be subsidized by the government in the form of food assistance.
Agreed. My discussion is more toward the $15-17 group. My company already basically has a 9.50 min wage even though its still legally in the 7s.

Sent from my S6 Edge

Absolutely. But when poorer or working class workers get a raise from $7 to $10, or from $9.50 to $12 as you're noting, there's a much higher velocity of money with working class folks than there is with higher income folks.

Meaning when a working class person gets a bump from $9.50 to $12, that money gets spent almost immediately, mostly in the communities in which they live. Which helps offset some of the concerns we're talking about here with unemployment and higher costs to consumers. When higher income folks get a raise, it tends to go to savings or get invested, which doesn't directly help the communities in which they live.

There are winners and losers, for sure. But overall minimum wage hikes are not damaging - you can go back and look at unemployment statistics and inflation rates shortly following each minimum wage hike in the past, no significant damage shows in the data. That really is the end all be all to this discussion - if you can't show that unemployment or inflation was impacted by minimum wage hikes, then you have no argument. It's all there on the Bureau of Labor and Statistics' website, have at it.

The bottom line is the minimum wage is there for a reason, to enable a person to get by with the most basic of necessities. The minimum wage has historically been worth anything between $6 and $11, in today's dollars. The current wage is on the low end. It needs to be brought up so that these folks don't have to be subsidized by the government in the form of food assistance.

This imo is the strongest argument for the a bump in the minimum wage...I made a similar argument a couple years ago. It feeds the tax base and a lot of times big companies (McDonalds, Walmart, etc) get that money back in retail sales. Consumer economy folks

well, even when i was in high school, McD's here was paying $9 when minimum was $6, cause that was just the going rate to get employees in fairfax/springfield.

ben and jerry's pays $20/hr to their employees (because the owner doesn't feel that the 383:1 ratio between the lowest/highest earners in some companies is morally right). of course, they have supermarket sales to subsidize their storefronts.

smaller companies would probably have a harder time just due to basing their businesses on current labor costs and generally being lower margin (since they don't get scale economies).

I don't know that i have a real point or opinion on it honestly. fast food is already at $8/meal around here, and that's a pretty bad value, so i avoid it. i think that's the only real place where it affects me personally. obviously a big wage bump would also cause inflation on some scale too, but that's harder to judge.

Bottom line for me, it's pathetic that folks should have to work 40 hours + and still have to rely on food stamps and rent assistance. When you're a global corp paying shit wages, they should be forced to pay livable wages, and healthcare for all needs to be addressed too but I don't want to get things too far off track here.

Uh oh, you brought up healthcare, I'm in healthcare. We're officially off track, your fault!

No seriously, not to derail, but just want to say something that everyone might find interesting from a moral dilemma standpoint. Where I work we have an amazing HIV clinic, we're in a very poor section of Philadelphia where you would naturally find more HIV patients. Our physician who runs it is outstanding.

We also are part owners in a Medical Assistance HMO in this same neck of the woods, and plenty of the patients see our HIV physician routinely. Well the members of our Medical Assistance HMO are racking up incredible costs on HIV medications, even people who are in the Medicare product are doing so. It's killing us financially, the drugs are so expensive.

So we asked the physician why are we doing so poorly on the Medicare patients. She said HIV treatments have advanced to the point where now these people are living. In the 80s they'd all be dead, but now they live into their 60s, 70s, 80s because of the advances in treatment.

So the treatment is working, causing them to live longer, and require more treatment for more years because they remain alive.

That is exactly what healthcare is supposed to accomplish. But it also illustrates why healthcare has gotten so expensive. We as an industry can do more to limit cost growth, but it's going to keep getting more expensive because of things like this.

Want to extend cancer survival rates from 3 year to 5 years? Those extra two years of life come with an awful lot of drug treatments.

All this is to say, we all need to understand that the cost is going up and up and up. It will affect all of us. To expect that we don't have to bear some of the cost burden as individuals is unrealistic.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fast-food-workers-becoming-obsolete-182914617.html

fast-food-workers-becoming-obsolete

While the choice will be up to the franchisees, many will likely embrace the option as a way to save on labor costs. Wendy's President and CFO, Todd Penegor, acknowledged recent pressure on the labor market in a recent earnings call.

"We've been able to create some efficiencies on labor across the restaurant ... like customer self-order kiosks, mobile order, and mobile pay," Penegor said. Kiosks could possibly "mitigate any of the inflation" seen on the wage front for Wendy's, and could for other chains as well.

As the fight for a higher minimum wage continues, some argue that higher labor costs will force fast-food companies to cut staff.

Andy Puzder, the CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, is convinced. "If you're making labor more expensive, and automation less expensive — this is not rocket science," Puzder told Business Insider's Kate Taylor.


raise the minimum wage to unreasonable amount, then you get less jobs, less people work. don't complain



This is a bunch of bullshit spouted by corporate greedy assholes that want to enhance the stock of yet more rich people. They are sucking the tax payers dry by supplementing their salaries via the welfare program, all the while, they hoard off-shore cash stashes and line pockets of rich stock owners.


Automation is only used as an excuse for the demand for high wages. Here is the cold hard truth. Technology is eventually going to replace ANY and ALL positions that can be disposed of via a terminal/robot. We saw this in the auto industry, and many other manufacturing jobs where technology advanced production. Hell, you even see the food ordering terminals now in Wa-Wa or Sheetz stations. It's inevitable that McDonalds, BK, Wendy's, etc follow this trend and it has absolutely nothing to do whether that employee is asking for 15/hr or not. That job is going to be replaced sooner or later.



Let me show you something. If minimum wage had kept up with corporate profits, the minimum wage would probably be sitting at around $21/hr. Let that sink in.

Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 If It Kept Pace With Increases In Productivity: Study (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/minimum-wage-productivity_n_2680639.html)


Middle class and poor people are being straight fucked by corporate greed and the oligarchs that rule this country.


More information on corporate profits compared to employee compensation.

Corporate Profit Margins vs. Wages in One Disturbing Chart | naked capitalism (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/corporate-profit-margins-vs-wages-in-one-disturbing-chart.html)

That is exactly what healthcare is supposed to accomplish. But it also illustrates why healthcare has gotten so expensive. We as an industry can do more to limit cost growth, but it's going to keep getting more expensive because of things like this.

Want to extend cancer survival rates from 3 year to 5 years? Those extra two years of life come with an awful lot of drug treatments.


We don't face any more different problems than those of Canada or any other socialized health care country. Guess what? They pay a mere fraction of what we do. We spend more than 2-1/2 times what the average is.

Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries | PBS NewsHour (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/)


However, when you rank the systems, we don't come out on top. IN fact, when compared to the other socialized healthcare countries, we ranked dead last.

Forbes Welcome (http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/#697904b31b96)

We don't face any more different problems than those of Canada or any other socialized health care country. Guess what? They pay a mere fraction of what we do. We spend more than 2-1/2 times what the average is.

Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries | PBS NewsHour (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/)


However, when you rank the systems, we don't come out on top. IN fact, when compared to the other socialized healthcare countries, we ranked dead last.

Forbes Welcome (http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/#697904b31b96)

All true. Many many reasons for our higher costs, the biggest being that we have higher salary structures here in the US than in most developed nations. Lots of others too, some of which stem from our goofy third party reimbursement system.

But... So what? Are you suggesting that if we went to a single payer system we would bring costs down to the same levels as Canada? Because if that's what you're saying then you're grossly oversimplifying. That could reduce the costs attributable to administrative roles in healthcare, that's about it.

We have higher rates of obesity here than in any other nation, so we end up with more heart problems and more diabetes than does Canada and Japan. That care will need to be provided, regardless of payer system. We're always going to be more expensive because of our diet and culture. As long as we remain a nation of fatties we will have higher healthcare costs.

well for healthcare to go down, there need to be some changes that i don't see happening.

- price transparency, which is a big problem, but also doesn't save any money by itself unless we go from deductable plans to
- coinsurance, even if it's only 10%, means that people won't choose a $500,000 procedure when a $50,000 procedure will do.
- much more emphasis on preventative/proactive care. ie, get your yearly (or how ever often) cancer screening = you're covered for cancer related issues. at least in cases where being proactive is a big cost savings. giving away floss and toothpaste is much cheaper overall vs filling cavities and making crowns.
- independent medical cost boards like MD has that set reasonable rates and aren't influenced by lobbying (MD has some of the lowest medical costs in the US)
Has Maryland found a solution to the U.S. healthcare cost crisis? (http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/has-maryland-found-a-solution-to-the-u-s-healthcare-cost-crisis.html)

of course, the problems are that there are cross interests. the population wants to keep costs down, but hospitals make more money off surgeries than screenings, and drug companies MUCH rather get you on a product that requires long term daily use vs a one shot cure. changing things dramatically also involves a lot of effort.

still, bluecross is giving people $100/year (after costs) to get physicals done. it's not much, but it's something.