Its not about what they want. Its about what they can be viable with. If they raise their prices too high, they'll lose market share


Target is not making reduced profits. They're getting more customers because their prices are right.


If Mejier's prices themselves out of the market, you think Target will immediately move to emulate them with high prices?

That's assuming they havent already cut it down to a bare minimum (which most have)

I believe this exact thread came up and you said something along the lines of "I have some thoughts on this but I don't have time to post. I'll share them later." The thread grew about 20 pages that day and you never got around to it.

I agree with you on the raising of the minimum wage but the market needs a kick every now and then in order to do what is right.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

This is going to happen either way. Automation is already put in as soon as possible. A lot of fast food drive thru's already have you talking to someone from a foreign country to make the order. Workers are already worked to the limit and their breaks are timed down to the second.

Most minimum wage workers are already managed down to the least possible amount needed. If McDonalds could get rid of another employee per shift, they would already have done so.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You guys seem very focused on retail jobs. There are just as many manufacturing jobs in the US, not counting transportation or agriculture, etc.

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You know me like that.

A few years ago that was true. I'd say it's less true today.

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You know me like that.

The company my dad works for made record profits in the last fiscal year.

Their response was to eliminate profit sharing and layoff 10% of their workforce.

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I make less than 15. Less than 14. Less than 13. It's why I have to work two jobs and why I disappear for long stretches on this board. What do you mean, what?

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

What? Where is this happening?

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What the hell brought this up..... again?

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Elections have consequences.

Minimum Wage Hikes Do Not Cause Inflation
January 18, 2013 by Jeannette Wicks-Lim
At the start of 2013, ten states raised their minimum wage rates: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. These ten states did so because each has a law requiring that it maintain the purchasing power of the state wage floor with an annual inflation adjustment, also called a “cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)” or “inflation-indexing.”

This flurry of activity sparked, yet again, a political fight over the merits of this century-old labor standard. One issue that comes up is whether minimum wage hikes will trigger inflation, i.e., cause an overall rise in prices.

Take, for example, John Fleming, spokesman of the Florida Retail Federation. Reflecting on the 12-cent (1.6%) Florida minimum wage hike from $7.67 to $7.79 about to take effect on the New Year, he worried that in order to adjust to the higher minimum wage, businesses would be forced to mark up prices, “And then you get to this inflationary spiral where higher prices lead to higher cost of living.”

This fear of inflation from the minimum wage is not based on any reasonable description of how these minimum wage hikes will likely impact businesses, or the economy more generally. The potential impact of minimum wage hikes on the overall price level is simply too small to have any appreciable impact on inflation.

One way to assess the threat of inflation posed by a minimum wage hike is to estimate directly how much it could raise businesses’ costs. This would give us a sense of what the potential impact of a minimum wage hike would be on prices, assuming businesses would pass these costs onto their consumers. Of course, there are other ways firms can adjust, aside from raising prices. For example, employers may experience some labor-cost savings as their higher wages lower turnover rates and motivate greater worker productivity. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that firms pass the entire cost increase from a minimum wage hike to consumers.

Past research on how business costs rise with minimum wage hikes indicates that a 10-percent minimum wage hike can be expected to produce a cost increase for the average business of less than one-tenth of one percent of their sales revenue. This cost figure includes three components. First, mandated raises: the raises employers must give their workers to meet the new wage floor. Second, “ripple-effect” raises: the raises employers give some workers to put their pay rates a bit above the new minimum in order to preserve the same wage hierarchy before and after minimum wage hike. And third, the higher payroll taxes employers must pay on their now-larger wage bill. If the average businesses wanted to completely cover the cost increase from a 10-percent minimum wage hike through higher prices, they would need to raise their prices by less than 0.1 percent.[1] A price increase of this size amounts to marking up a $100 price tag to $100.10.

COLA increases are much, much smaller than 10 percent. The average rate of annual inflation, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers, averaged 2.6 percent over the last two decades (1991-2011). The average business therefore could easily cover the cost increase from a typical COLA by raising prices less than 0.03 percent.[2] This amounts a price tag of $100 going up by less than three pennies. Price increases this small would have a negligible impact on a 2.6 percent average inflation rate.

This basic conclusion is supported by a 2008 study that reviewed the economic studies on the impact of minimum wage hikes on prices and inflation.[3] The estimates from these studies cover a relatively wide range, suggesting that a 10-percent increase in the minimum causes overall prices to rise somewhere between 0.2 percent and 2.16 percent, with most estimates falling below 0.4 percent. These estimates are larger, but in the range of how much businesses’ costs increase as discussed above. Even the higher estimate of a 0.4 percent rise in price level with a 10 percent minimum wage hike suggests that a typical COLA adjustment to the minimum wage rate would only push up the price level by 0.1 percent.[4] Recall that this amounts to adding just one dime to a $100 price tag.

The bottom line: these minimum wage hikes pose no inflationary threat. The potential contribution of the minimum wage COLAs to inflation would be to raise the rate of inflation by less than 0.1 percent. This would raise, for example, the average annual inflation rate of 2.6 percent to 2.7 percent—a change so small that the rate is effectively unchanged in any meaningful way. In fact, this potential impact on inflation is smaller than the margin of error for the Department of Labor’s estimate of inflation.[5]

[1] For example, see PERI minimum wage impact studies for Arizona, and Florida.

[2] (0.1%/10%) x 2.6% = 0.026%

[3] “A Survey of the Effects of Minimum Wages on Prices,” by Sara Lemos, Journal of Economic Surveys 22(1): 187–212, 2008.

[4] (0.4%/10%) x 2.6% = 0.1%





[5] For 2011, the margin of error for the national estimate of inflation, as measured by the CPI-U was +/- 0.14%.




http://backtofullemployment.org/2013/01/18/minimum-wage-hikes-do-not-cause-inflation/

McDonald's was doing it for a while. I'm not sure it was a foreign country, though. I thought it was in Colorado.

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You know me like that.

Haven't most corporations reduce their workforce dramatically since 2008 and still raised prices? I'm not sure how much more cutting will be done but I generally agree with you. If I owned a grocery store I wouldn't want to pay a kid $15 to bag some groceries or grab some carts.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Almost every new McDonalds


Havent you ever noticed the Rosy voice changes from the intro to the second line


Its like

Upbeat women's voice: Hello, Welcome to Mcdonalds, would you like to try a bacon wrap today?

You: No, just 7 apple pies

Gravely man's voice: Pull thru bro

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/19/who-makes-minimum-wage/http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm

It's dominated by food service, retail, and hospitality workers. It looks like about 75% of all minimum wage workers come from those industries.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I ran into that situation at a parking garage too. The gate wasn't working and the guy I was talking to was in India or something.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

RPB, that models a 10% increase.

Isn't the proposal for an over 200% increase? Model that....



Motherfucker.

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You know me like that.

There's a parking lot in the south loop next to Bally's that steals people's cards pretty regularly. I havent gone since the day after mine nearly got stuck and I saw another dude screaming at someone in a call center on the other side of the world.

What's the breakdown for those making under $15/hour?

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You know me like that.

True. It actually seems to currently still be a domestic job though as we learned with call centers that may not last for long.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You seem to think that these corporations are running at 100% efficiency. I don't know about you guys, but I don't typically leave a fast food restaurant with the feeling that i witnessed a flawless business model in action.
Changes are made when they're cost effective. Doubling the minimum wage opens the door to massive changes and it's not a huge leap to guess reduced staff is step one.

I'm pretty confident I've experienced this. More than a few times.

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Look no further than this message board if you want to know how efficient most workplaces are. Maybe we need 5 or 6 hour days.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Read the stories of how much micromanagement they already do. In fact, just go to McDonalds and watch how much of it is almost completely automated right now.
It's always going to be cheaper to not have an employee than have them even at the current minimum wage. If they could provide equal service by doing it they would.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yes I have, but I thought that was just a generic recorded greeting. I never presumed I was actually talking to that person, or that the person I was talking to is in a different building, let alone a different country. I pull thru McD's a lot (4-5 times a month) in the mornings for coffee and a $1 mcmuffin, and I don't notice this at all.

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Here's one with the numbers being thrown around

Little late in the game for me to say this, but Im in the raise it to 10 dollars to start and get it to 15 in three years. Its still drastic.




What Really Happens When You Raise The Minimum Wage
BY BRYCE COVERT POSTED ON FEBRUARY 18, 2014 AT 2:46 PM UPDATED: FEBRUARY 18, 2014 AT 3:00 PM
K
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new report on Tuesday on the impacts of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and $9 an hour. It found that a $10.10 minimum wage, implemented by 2016, would mean higher earnings for 16.5 million workers, resulting in $31 billion more in higher earnings. It would also lift nearly 1 million people out of poverty.
But it also found that an increase would reduce jobs slightly. “Once fully implemented in the second half of 2016, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3 percent,” it projects. That figure takes into account what it says would be a decrease in jobs for low-wage workers as well as an increase of “a few tens of thousands of jobs” for others thanks to higher demand. “Once the increases and decreases in income for all workers are taken into account, overall real income would rise by $2 billion,” it says. The vast majority of people impacted, over 95 percent, will be impacted positively.
It attributes the job losses to employers increasing prices to deal with the higher wage, which would lower demand and therefore their need for more workers, as well as to some employers substituting machines or technology for workers due to the higher cost of wages.
But businesses may respond to a higher minimum wage in other ways. In a paper for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, John Schmitt argues that they can benefit from improved efficiency and lower turnover. A higher wage may lead employers to push employees to work harder, which can be preferable to cutting hours or workers. In fact, the majority of fast food restaurants in Georgia and Alabama said they would respond to a minimum wage increase with higher performance standards. A higher wage can also make it easier to recruit and retain workers, which can improve the bottom line. Dealing with turnover can be costly: replacing someone can cost as much as 20 percent of her salary.
Other studies have found that while some job losses may occur, there can still be an economic net gain thanks to the fact that so many workers will have more money to spend. A $10.10 minimum wage would mean a direct raise for 16.7 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, who would then have more money in their pockets to spend on goods and services, boosting the economy. It also found that a gradual increase to $10.10 by 2016 would increase wages by $35 billion, which would boost GDP growth by about $22 billion.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that even when potential job losses are taken into account, an increase in the minimum wage to $9, as President Obama proposed in his 2013 State of the Union, would increase household spending by $28 billion, or 0.2 percent of GDP. That extra spending stimulates the economy, which can lead to more job growth.
There is also real world evidence that minimum wage increases don’t hurt jobs. David Madland and Keith Miller analyzed minimum wage increases at the state level over two decades and “found no clear evidence that the minimum-wage increases affect aggregate job creation when unemployment rates are high.” After looking at the increases during times 7 percent unemployment or more, the rate actually declined 52 percent of the time and in a few cases remained unchanged. The authors also point to five other studies that did the same state-level analysis while controlling for other factors that could impact employment and similarly found “no discernable effect on employment levels.”

You're welcome.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If they're already not clicking on all cylinders how is reducing staff going to help that?



BTW, the real answer is these jobs will be eliminated by computers like most jobs are

We havent even started the LINK card debate either... It should be modeled after and ran just like the WIC program. Boom. I just saved you another 10 pages.

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