Minimum Wages, Worker Contributions, and Skilled American Workers

[onthestrip]

It doesn't?

I guess I'm not understanding how might anyone claim to be able to define "small" for the thousands of small businesses that are going to be bearing the brunt of this increase.

My math may be rusty, but a jump from $7.65 to $9.00 is 17.6%. I'm not sure too many small businesses consider a government-mandated 17% jump in any expense "small."

17% increase on an already small number isnt really much of an increase.

And for all the times that the min wage has increased (23 times, is that right?) why dont I remeber 23 recessions or 23 mass layoffs? Maybe everyone just assumes that min wage jobs are for high schoolers or whatever but there are millions of people that might not be able to currently get a better job and have to settle for a min wage job. And like I said before, if these folks arent making enough to support themselves, we end up paying for it anyways with government assistance.

To the person that says everyone should wait to have a family until they have a great paying job...A) good luck with that ever happening and B) way to not live in reality.

[PennyQuilts]

Depends on the good/service. Supply and demand have some elasticity, and if you're in a market for essential goods, people are willing to eat more costs. Employee wages are even more elastic, they'll take mediocre employees as long as they don't cost them too many customers, to avoid paying them a living wage. These also tend to be the jobs that minimum wage is starting pay.

The jobs that pay minimum wage now aren't the type of jobs that get people real skills. Stocking shelves, answering phones, checking tickets, being a fry cook, those are the types of jobs that you get minimum wage, those places don't care if you've got 50 years of being the best hash slinger in west or if you're looking for your first job your freshman year of high school, and those skills aren't suitable anywhere else. Most better jobs don't care if you worked at Walmart or Burger King, they care hat you have a degree/skillset you didn't get at your other job/have the recommendation of someone within the company. Nowadays, just about everyone trains on site unless it's a skilled trade or something medical. And they really don't care about your high school job.

Does a good work ethic help? Absolutely. Is it going to be enough to get ahead in this day and age? No, it isn't. Not in the way our economy has evolved.

It also doesn't help that we've conditioned employers with decades of increasingly lower taxes that have made it absolutely impossible for them to fathom taking any hit themselves. We opened the floodgates for that type of business that couldn't care less about the lower level employees, and then want to act appalled when they do mistreat them (or if you're part of that world, you act appalled when employees complain about how you mistreat them).

I have to completely disagree with you regarding the skills you say aren't real skills. Those are absolutely bedrock and teach people what it is like to deal with the public, the importance of showing up on time, being efficient, learning the ends and outs of a business, understanding what is involved in running a business, etc. I'm an attorney and worked as an attorney for many years. For many of those years I was a sole practitioner so I know a little something about running a small business. But that is a profession. In recent years, I started a different business related to my quilting and it has a completely different skill set. I also help out a friend with a small business a couple of days a week and do all those things you just described - stocking shelves, handing the phones, etc. I have learned more about nonprofessional small businesses in the past six months than I ever had a clue about, before. The profit margin is slim for many of these small businesses and even shoplifting can wipe out a day's profits. My friend has to have 3 - 5 people in the shop on most days and she pays minimum wage - she absolutely couldn't afford to pay much more, nor could she keep the shop open with fewer clerks. It is easy, as a professional, to have our eyes glaze over when we see other small businesses. But I have such enormous respect for those small business people now that I've had the opportunity to see what they have to do to keep the door open. People who think they all have some sort of endless pot of money to pay their employees more are completely clueless.

[PennyQuilts]

The cost of living is up, Gas prices are up, why cant minimum wage go up?

There is absolutely no connection between minimum wage and the other things you listed.

[Hawk405359]

I have to completely disagree with you regarding the skills you say aren't real skills. Those are absolutely bedrock and teach people what it is like to deal with the public, the importance of showing up on time, being efficient, learning the ends and outs of a business, understanding what is involved in running a business, etc. I'm an attorney and worked as an attorney for many years. For many of those years I was a sole practitioner so I know a little something about running a small business. But that is a profession. In recent years, I started a different business related to my quilting and it has a completely different skill set. I also help out a friend with a small business a couple of days a week and do all those things you just described - stocking shelves, handing the phones, etc

You have hands and are capable of using them, or else you wouldn't be a quilter. So I'm betting you didn't really have to learn how to stock something. You might have to be told what goes where, but that's not exactly skilled labor. Realistically, you're not going to get a better job at a new shop because of your 10 years shelf-stocking experience. The minimum wage employees don't generally learn the ins and outs of businesses, that's what the owner and managers do. I'll give you dealing with the public, but being efficient and showing up aren't really about being a minimum wage employee either, you learn that on any job unless you're the offspring of a boss who doesn't care.

The point is that you're not going to take this skills and parlay them into a better job, because the vast majority of the jobs that require skills like that are for the inexperienced and they're not going to 10-year-stocker better pay and work based on that. To really get ahead and get better jobs requires other skills, skills that you either learn on that job or by getting a degree in that field or by apprenticing in a trade. The days of minimum wage jobs being a stepping stone are sort of over, they're just placeholders while people get skills to get better jobs, or to try to tide them over while they're looking for better work. The job market doesn't work the way OKCTalker described, and hasn't for a very long time.

[Stew]

(Cynically) Because the average capability of an entry level employee hasn't gone up.

That is factually incorrect.

[PennyQuilts]

It isn't just about getting a better job working for someone else. The owner of the shop worked ten years at a similar shop learning the business. Before she went out on her own. Having helped out for awhile, I am stunned to find out how much I didn't know. Were I to decide to do something like this, I don't think I'd be successful - there is just so much involved. I had no idea. But small businesses are where most of our new jobs come from and they rely on entry level employees to keep their doors open. Running a small business involves skills that can be learned and working for a small business is probably the best way to be trained. It is a completely different way to make a living than being a skilled worker, professional or tradesman. Constantly equating it to skilled labor overlooks this.

[Mel]

We have a pretty good vocational school system in this state. Just need more encouragement for folks to take that path. They would probably need sport teams of some sort to get mentioned in the local media.

[Just the facts]

The cost of living is up, Gas prices are up, why cant minimum wage go up?

Can't argue with that logic. Let's gitter done.

[Hawk405359]

It isn't just about getting a better job working for someone else.

Yeah, that sort of was the entire point. The post I was responding to was about the notion of using skills gained in a minimum wage job to get better jobs in the future, not about running a small business, which is a different (and riskier and much more potentially expensive) matter entirely.

And this isn't me talking down to small business owners either, I respect them (although I would say that if your only work experience was as a minimum wage clerk at a small business, I don't think you're ready for running a successful one). Just that opening and running your own small business just wasn't part of the discussion, or the next logical step from "stocking shelves at Walmart".

[SoonerDave]

Can't argue with that logic. Let's gitter done.

Yes, you can, because the argument is completely absent any logic. Completely absent.

[Just the facts]

Yes, you can, because the argument is completely absent any logic. Completely absent.

You are going to argue with something that doesn't exist? Good luck.

[SoonerDave]

17% increase on an already small number isnt really much of an increase.

And for all the times that the min wage has increased (23 times, is that right?) why dont I remeber 23 recessions or 23 mass layoffs? Maybe everyone just assumes that min wage jobs are for high schoolers or whatever but there are millions of people that might not be able to currently get a better job and have to settle for a min wage job. And like I said before, if these folks arent making enough to support themselves, we end up paying for it anyways with government assistance.

To the person that says everyone should wait to have a family until they have a great paying job...A) good luck with that ever happening and B) way to not live in reality.

Okay, I plan to have your landlord or mortgage holder increase your rent or mortgage payment by 17%. Its not a big deal, because 17% is really small, and you've got plenty of money to cover that cost, right?

To unilaterally assert with a straight face that 17% is "small" forces me to infer that you have zero knowledge about managing costs at a personal or business level. If you can't comprehend the impact of a 17% increase in fixed costs, and understand that real businesses that need to turn a profit can't just magically create more money to fund the changes, then I don't know how to frame the discussion with you. That money comes from somewhere. And for most small businesses, labor is one of the biggest costs and first places to cut, no matter how "small" you think that is.

This overarching theme that just crushes me is that the advocates of raising the wage think small business revenue is all Monopoly money. It has to come from somewhere, not just borrowed from China as does our government. You either cut expenses or increase costs, and, as I said, the biggest portion of most business budgets is labor. It isn't about how "big businesses" incite "mass layoffs," its about how small businesses can't afford to keep everyone, lays off/cuts back hours to make up the difference. It never shows up as a "mass layoff," because its one or two employees spread over thousands of companies. Everyone loses.

Again, how on earth are you able to say that an increase is "small" or that current labor costs are "small" on behalf of any such business? Just because you say it is? That boggles the mind.

[OKCTalker]

That is factually incorrect.

Note: Stew is challenging my assertion that the skills of the average entry level employee haven't gone up, but without backing up his claim that they have. I don't want to go down the road of standardized test scores or American worker productivity compared to years past or other nations; although those arguments could probably be made, we'd get into a predictable and inconclusive debate about statistics and sources.

I don't see that young adults are better prepared for life than they were in years past. As a customer I don't find attentive employees when I'm buying something in a retail store, and these are the people who were rewarded with the job. As an employer I don't find them when I seek applicants through posts on Craigslist, where between a third and a half of the applicants either fail to provide a work history which I've specifically requested, or their replies are almost unintelligible through a combination of typos, poor grammar, failure to properly capitalize, or that they simply look like text messages from a 'tween. These people aren't ready for the workforce - at any price. I pay more than minimum wage, but I wouldn't take these people at any cost.

[Just the facts]

Soonerdave - you are spinning your wheels but you aren't getting any traction. Try this video and leave it at that. If they still don't understand it there is not much more you can do.

[SoonerDave]

Soonerdave - you are spinning your wheels but you aren't getting any traction. Try this video and leave it at that. If they still don't understand it there is not much more you can do.

Great vid. Thanks for posting.