Seattle Approves $15/Hour Min Wage

I saw a pic in the papers the other day of a bunch of McDonalds workers holding placards in the street protesting at their low wages.
Dissatisfied food workers are definitely not a good idea because they might spit in the soup out of spite.. Wink

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@Real Music,

We agree on annual adjustments for inflation. In so doing, there is no real need for these boosts that (in the case of Seattle) are obviously not intended to address an increasing cost of living.

The intent in Seattle is to advance a Progressive agenda focused on income inequality. It's difficult to see how this effort will not result in increased prices for everyone (including minimum wage earners) and fewer jobs or diminished benefits.

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@hawkeye10,

That's a reasonable percentage, but if you require me to pay for crappy service, it won't work more than once. The sad part of that is that the crappy server will never know why I didn't come back.

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@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

Where's the skill in the labor? What makes their work so special that they should get more money? Flipping burgers and dunking fries is not any sort of skill.

A person working in a fast-food place has to be on his or her feet for a long time, toiling over a grill or fried-food equipment, and facing other undesirable conditions. The worker should be treated with dignity and respect, which the increase in pay will afford. Further. the worker will not get rich on $15 an hour, but will have enough support himself and a small family.

My understanding is that the price of the food sold will not have to increase that much to cover the increased wages. Moreover, the spending by the recipients will be 100 %, which will spur the economy in a healthy way. Cutting the pay and benefits of he plutocratic owners and officers would significantly fund the increased wages.

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Until recently, Wal-Mart was advising employees to seek safety-net assistance from the government to supplement their low wages. Thus, Wal-Mart was using the government to fund part of compensation.

If a firm cannot pay decent wages, it should close up shop.

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@Advocate,

Quote:

If a firm cannot pay decent wages, it should close up shop.

That will help the job market.

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Among other things:
You may expect mature workers now earning $10-$13 per hour to quit their jobs in Edmonds, Bellevue, and Federal Way to displace low performing workers in Seattle. How many, no one can say for sure. But it will raise unemployment in the city.
Labor unions will use the minimum as leverage in contract demands, not only in Seattle, but also in the above mentioned cities.
Mid city businesses who raise prices will lose sales to similar businesses in adjacent areas.
The extra money has to come from somewhere. We will see who bends first. 2 years, someone said . . .

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@roger,

roger wrote:

That's a reasonable percentage, but if you require me to pay for crappy service, it won't work more than once. The sad part of that is that the crappy server will never know why I didn't come back.

I'll take it a step further. If I eat in a restaurant that tacks on any % for a gratuity for all parties of any size, it will be the last time I eat there regardless of the level of service.

The ostensible point of tipping is to reward good service and punish bad, however with rare exception, most people still tip the bad waiter or waitress, albeit with perhaps a slight reduction in their normal rate. We all accept that wait staff aren't paid enough in salary and feel compelled to augment their compensation with tips. However to have a place totally take the opportunity to tip based on service out of my hands, and the tips out of the pockets of the wait-staff, will be too much for me.

The custom of tipping is a good deal for the owner of the place, but not so much for the patrons.

If, in my town, restaurants were forced to pay wait-staff at least $15.00 an hour, I would stop tipping. Let the restaurant owner make up for the hiked wages in hiked prices. If the food and service are good, I'll continue to come. It would probably mean a number of restaurants would go out of business and there would be an economic down-turn for the town, but sometimes that's what needed to get idiots out of office.

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Most of us agree that $15/hour min wage is probably too much. But, there still should be a basic min living wage. Does anyone know what that amount should be? $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10, $11, $12, $13, $14, or $15/hour. I truly don't know what a true living wage should be, because I've been making way more than the min wage over the last 20 plus years. One last thing. We taxpayers do subsidize lower wage earners in the way of food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid, etc. If big corporations, like McD's, retails, etc. won't pay a real living wage, the taxpayers will have to pay the bill. Ask yourself this, would you (the taxpayer) want to subsidize low wage earners, or would you PREFER big corporations to pay it in the form of a real living wage? Before you answer that question, remember that you (the taxpayer) have been subsidizing big corporations for years. Big corporations have been receiving their own version of welfare from the government for years. I don't know how many billions of dollars the government has given big corporations. That's on top of the billions big corporations are already making. By the way, this corporate welfare generally is given with NO STRINGS ATTACHED.

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@Real Music,

All the extra help low wage earners get is ignored in the argument of how bad off they are. A more honest argument would be to say that this is bad policy because government should Not be subsidizing industry. The problem is that ship sailed long ago, government is deeply involved in subsidizing industry, so why pick on subsidizing wages? Is anyone talking about ending tax breaks for instance? How about infrastructure when somebody wants to build something? If I want to build a house in olympia I need to pay about $10k to support that, including parks and schools....business get a free ride.

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@hawkeye10,

We are in agreement in regard to subsidizing big corporations. The government who represent us taxpayers, should not be subsidizing big business unless we the taxpayer get something in return. If any big business are receiving millions and billions of dollars of free money from the government, that business better be paying its workers a living wage. If they are not paying there workers a living wage, that business needs to give back those millions and billions of free money back to the government.

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@Real Music,

Another thing, this government including both D's and R's has no credibility on the subject of low paid americans, as it has actively participated in driving down the compensation of workers. All segments of the government have been actively pursuing contracting out work rather than having government workers do it, with almost all of the savings coming from paying the workers less, sometimes a lot less. Where as we once would have had a maintenance worker taking care of the grounds at city hall getting paid $30K plus and with a full board of benefits now the work is getting done by mexicans making $12 an hour with zero benefits. Higher end work gets done this way as well, the traffic lights in my city are no longer serviced by the city except in emergency, the work is contracted out. I happen to know that in these cases the contract workers get paid around $20 a hour, but they get zero benefits, and they only get paid on days that there is work.

Have you ever heard of a move to save government money being rejected because the workers would suffer? I have not. I have heard people complain about it in session in front of city council during public comment time, but this argument never carries the day.

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@hawkeye10,

You are so correct. There some legislators state and federal who's mission in life is to contract out (ie. Privatized) almost all aspects of government. Examples include that some legislators in the US House of Representative are trying their hardest to dismantle the US Postal Service and privative it with non government workers. I'm not sure, but I remember there was a time that TSA was going to be staff by non government employees to do airport security. If my memory is correct I believed they fail to achieve that agenda. Currently there are some prisons that are completely privatized with non-government employees. It's clear that private companies owning and running their privately own prison is big money. Don't forget that there are legislators and lobbyists who are trying to privative the safety net of social security so that they can steer more money into risky Wallstreet investments which ultimately will be more advantageous to Wallstreet greed. No one said government was perfect. Yes government does have its problems. But, at least we know that government in theory serves the American people. Private non-government companies only serve its shareholders, which usually means they will ultimately screw the American people. With that being my two choices I choose the government.

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Among other things:
You may expect mature workers now earning $10-$13 per hour to quit their jobs in Edmonds, Bellevue, and Federal Way to displace low performing workers in Seattle. How many, no one can say for sure. But it will raise unemployment in the city.
Labor unions will use the minimum as leverage in contract demands, not only in Seattle, but also in the above mentioned cities.
Mid city businesses who raise prices will lose sales to similar businesses in adjacent areas.
The extra money has to come from somewhere. We will see who bends first. 2 years, someone said . . .

These are the warnings we get every time an increase in the min wage is considered. And every time, there are next to no adverse consequences. When will that sink in with you conservatives.

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@Advocate,

neologist wrote:

Among other things:
You may expect mature workers now earning $10-$13 per hour to quit their jobs in Edmonds, Bellevue, and Federal Way to displace low performing workers in Seattle. How many, no one can say for sure. But it will raise unemployment in the city.
Labor unions will use the minimum as leverage in contract demands, not only in Seattle, but also in the above mentioned cities.
Mid city businesses who raise prices will lose sales to similar businesses in adjacent areas.
The extra money has to come from somewhere. We will see who bends first. 2 years, someone said . . .

Advocate wrote:

These are the warnings we get every time an increase in the min wage is considered. And every time, there are next to no adverse consequences. When will that sink in with you conservatives.

Carole and I have a few young acquaintances who can't wait to cross the line. A 5 minute drive for a $4 raise.

Paper vs plastic bags are another example. I favor the paper bags, BTW. But in areas near the line, paper bags are given free. Further into the paper zone, you have to pay for the bags.

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@Real Music,

There is a role for government when there is a critical function that private industry will not, or cannot, reasonably perform. For instance, the private sector will not provide mail delivery to every home in the country at a reasonable price. Thus, we have the post office, which does a damn good job at very low prices. During WWII, the government engaged in ship building and other manufacturing, which private industry could not reasonably perform.

I remember when DC's transit company was in private hands, and was routinely looted and poorly run. Since the public transportation was critical to the area, congress, including the Republicans there, agreed that the government must take control. Service after that has been excellent.

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@Advocate,

I think you may have misunderstood my views. I am pro government. I was giving real actual examples why private entities should stay out of government services. I was only providing examples that demonstrate that there are people out there trying to dismantle the government and replace the government with private for profit. Which would be the worst most horrible thing that could happen to this country. I would be horrified if those anti-government people were tasked with regulating drinking water safety, food and drug safety, air safety, fire and police protection, mail delivery service, etc, etc, etc. It would be a total disaster if wallstreet, banking, insurance industry, utility companies, oil companies, coal companies, and gas companies were left alone to regulate themselves. They would have no one telling them that they can't dump poison chemicals wherever they wanted. They would have no one telling them that they can't engage in inside wallstreet trading. It would be scary if private police and fire fighters serve only who they wanted, maybe a monthly fee for their services. You might think this sounds crazy, but there are lobbyists and LEGISLATORS aggressively trying to dismantle, weaken, and abolish government. As long as we have sane people fighting against that agenda, we can prevent much of this insane agenda from occurring. I want a strong Consumer Protection Agency. I want a strong Environmental Protection Agency. I want a strong Food and Drug Administration. I want a strong US Postal Service. I can continue to list all kinds of reasons we need government. But, I think I made my point.

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@Real Music,

Great post! I agree with you 100 percent.

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A large number of companies are investing heavily in table side computers (IPads based mostly) claiming that they dont intend to cut labor, but you know they will. In the near future you will be able to seat yourself at an empty table, order, the drink person and the kitchen will bring out your food, then you pay yourself on the IPad, and leave. They should be able to cut 70% of the front of the house staff I think, even more if they set up do it yourself drink stations. We will just need a few people to table touch, provide a face to talk to as they try to talk you into more drinks and dessert, and to discourage dine and dash. After you leave they clear the table. When you do away with waitresses you do away with most of the hostess job, as it no longer matters where you sit. And no one needs a hard copy of the menu anymore either.

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@hawkeye10,

What are the companies that are investing heavily in this equipment/set up?

BTW, when it comes to restaurants with wait staff and tipping, I don't see them affected by an increased min wage. The employees are probably already getting more than the the proposed min wage between what they get from both wages and tips.

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Seattle Approves $15/Hour Min Wage

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