It's a simple matter of economics. Wages increase which means Cost of Goods increases...the business has a choice to either pass the costs on to the customer or eat it (cutting into profitability). If the costs are passed onto the customer then the customer may stop buying the goods. If the business eats the costs then it may not be profitable to stay in business and retain the workers, therefore either the business folds or replaces the workers (e.g. automation, etc). Both are losing propositions at a certain level and you've started to see it with some businesses pulling out of California and other businesses raising their prices (as you mentioned).
@GhostCredit wrote:Hey guys, I live in California and idk if you've heard but the fast food workers are now getting paid $20/h from $16, that's a big increase but with that going up, I also saw an increase in groceries and gas, maybe even electricity, water, trash, etc. but I live at home so I don't worry about much. I just wanted to know how come everything increases? It's that good for the fast food workers? I just don't get it, cause there's people that are tech workers, health workers, police, high salary career jobs, nba/nfl, etc. they're making more money than a average min. wage workers. does that affect them as well? Why do people always blame on the min. wage workers? they need to live too. how else do they increase their income? they could get a 2nd job but that's not living then... it's confusing. where do they go from here?
now you're seeing the system isn't quite working how you think it should, interesting -huh-
super complex issue, but two pretty distinct view points about the issue:
viewpoint 1: gov't shouldn't intervene in the labor market, why punish hard working business owners who are employing people and helping the local economy, people should pick themselves up by the bootstraps and work for a living wage themselves.
if people fail, it's on them
gov't intervening in minimum wage (is claimed to cause) businesses to not be profitable and causes businesses to go out of business and leave the state/country which doesn't help anybody.
viewpoint 2: gov't should intervene in the labor market with minimum wage laws etc. so people can eat food and be able to afford rent with a minimum wage job at 35-40 hours/week.
businesses can adjust or go out of business.
go find what you can rent for $20/hr in CA and how much your expenses would be if you weren't able to live at home and come to the viewpoint you think most aligns with your beliefs
These minimum wage fast food jobs are stepping stone jobs. They are not meant to be careers. A 25% wage increase for this apparently randomly selected sector. Astounding.
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@FicoMike0 wrote:
You bring along a long sleeve shirt if straw is on the agenda. Straw is lighter than hay, but it's sharp! Eat your arms up.
As someone who spent a summer bailing hay, among other farm things when I was 15 in 1983, I got 2 things out of it.
1) It made me realize I REALLY needed to increase my value in the labor market before joining the workforce for real!
2) I got wicked strong!💪
Its tough, because a lot of minimum wage workers don't have enough value in the labor market to jusify higher wages, but there are also a lot that do have more value, but are getting screwed because they don't have many options available in their area, and moving has a whole host of its own expenses and risks.
So many issues with high minimum wages.
For starters, owners can hire more skilled workers which actually hurts the ones that it was supposed to help.
Of course, owners may hire less workers because of the overall budgets.
Increases overall costs which raises prices.
Now you know why you have to check yourself out at WalMart.
Whats next? Cooking your own fries?
America is a free market and it should be treated that way.
