In Alberta we had a min wage increse from 6.00 to 7.00. I raised my prices and yes the employees at 7 wanted 8 so I gave it to them
:x
I can’t believe how cheap you guys are!!!
You’re all driving around in new Mercedes, living in your hilltop mansions, and you want to FORCE the very poorest people to take chump change for pay. Why, if it weren’t for our wonderful politicians, you guys would only pay $.28 per hour.
How DARE you!
Frankly, I believe the min wage should be a LIVING wage, perhaps $15 per hour, or maybe $20 per hour (or maybe $40 per hour) so that NOBODY would EVER be poor again.
If we had a $40 per hour wage, college students wouldn’t need loans or grants anymore, nobody would every go bankrupt ('cause they’d be making enough), and the deficits would be erased by all the new income tax revenue generated.
I am an ECONOMICS GENIUS!!!
My Payroll taxes would jump, Workmans Comp premium would skyrocket, and i would have to close the doors, although i’m all for paying a good wage for someone who shows up on time and works their butt off. We don’t make the money you think we do.
I think he was being just a tad sarcastic. Besides, it’s just money… we can always print more :).
In our state we have to pay more than min wage to attract and keep decent help. We start at $8 and go up to $12 depending upon the person. Now the drivers do get min. We’ll calculate the cost increase to the driver’s hours and add an appropriate amount to the price of our food.
The market should dictate wages, not politicians. Politicians want the votes of the uneducated and pander to their economic ignorance.
AMEN!
My previous response ($40/hr wage) was dripping with sarcasm (kudos to those who realized it 
)
This pandering notion is one reason I will, from now on, NEVER vote for a liberal. The undiluted intellectual dishonesty of their positions on such matters is disgusting to this former econ student.
All their ideas prey on people’s greed & envy.
Yeah pay someone who answers phones and takes orders $15/hour. Yeah that would work. Jack @$$
You’re all driving around in new Mercedes, living in your hilltop mansions, and you want to FORCE the very poorest people to take chump change for pay. Why, if it weren’t for our wonderful politicians, you guys would only pay $.28 per hour.
Okay, Damnit! Where did you guys put my mansion?!! I didn’t know we were supposed to get one of those!! And where’s my Mercedes?!! I’ll happily trade in my 1998 Ford F-150 with 146,000 miles. Just e-mail me and let me know where the secret entrepreneurs club is so I can go pick the color. -J_r0kk
Didn’t Domino’s give you a mansion for your 10 year anniversary with the company?
I think it is soooo funny how people think that by raising the minimum wage they will actually be raising the quality of life and giving people a living wage!!! Don’t they realize that as soon as the wage goes up so does every single thing these people will be buying with their new riches! Right back to square one, and they will soon be complaining that they don’t make enough to pay their bills again! Of course they will have a cell phone full of the latest costly ring tones, loaded cable tv package, dsl or cable internet, mp3 player full of costly downloads, smoke, drink, buy $5 coffee, playstation iii, and a car nicer than their apartment, but they wonder why they can’t pay the gas bill! What happened to living within your means, saving your money, working hard to get ahead and earn more, going to school to educate yourself so you are a more valuable employee? Nah, much easier to spend, spend, gripe, spend, and gripe a little bit more!
I couldn’t agree with you more, PIZZAMAGOO! I hear people complaining that they don’t make enough and that they need more money because they have to make their car payment, but at the same time they smoke, go to the tanning salon, have manicured fingernails, highlights in their hair, and pay big bucks for concert tickets. Never makes sense to me! I agree you should live within your means–get rid of some of the luxury items–or else stop complaining!!!
you can get staff at $8? Must be nice! I have 14 year old kids saying they won’t work unless they get double digits.
Didn’t Domino’s give you a mansion for your 10 year anniversary with the company?
No Mike, they just gave me this stupid watch that keeps the worst time of any watch I’ve ever owned… with a corny Domino’s logo right on the face. -J_r0kk
LOL ! If you sell that watch on ebay you’ll be able to afford that mansion.
If I have a driver that makes 5.15 an hour now, when minimum wage increases can I switch him to a ‘tipped’ employee ? There’s no way I can afford to pay my drivers 7.25 to drive.
Depends. A few of the states looking at minimum increases are also looking to get rid of the ‘tipped’ employee exemption.
I work as a driver for a small indie shop and there doesn’t seem to be a readily apparent solution to the problems.
One thing that jumps out right away is that the sales volume needs to be high for it to be profitable, and I need to take more than 3 deliveries per hour average for it to work out well. Most nights my sales don’t top $200 for my 7 hour shift, and in the end the cost of just MY labor usually is around 35% of MY sales. On days when it is really slow I’ve seen that as high as 60%. My tip average is a whopping 23% of my sales at this store. The customers are happy and loyal. My pay and delivery fees work out to an average of $7.33 per hour ($6.50 on the clock going up to 7.05 in Jan.) With tips the average is a solid $12.75 per hour with low days no lower than $10 p/h and good days no better than $16.
Last week I worked 34.33 hrs, sold $834.70 worth of food, made $411.15 total, or $11.98 p/h before expenses and taxes. 18% tips for the week means I took home 49% of my sales total.
I doubt my employer did as well as I off of our arrangement. Here’s the problem. Rent and bills took $170. My CS took $130 more. Gas and maintenance took $90. I have about $20 left to eat. Now what?
At $12 an hour I’m the best paid dishwasher in town. And I give them my best. I still have to work a second job, hustle, scrape, bum and beg to get over. I can’t very well ask them for more money, but I’ll be grateful for the .55 raise right after christmas. That’s another $18 in my pocket, or double the cheeseburgers.
It’s a good thing I don’t smoke, drink, or get out much. Sometimes I have to choose between the $10 bag of cat food, and the $2 bag, ya know?
If it weren’t for that lousy, liberal, self-defeating, inflationary law, who knows where I’d be?
Riding the bus to a factory or the shipyard probably. Pays about the same.
The solution for me is to go into business for myself because I think I can do it more efficiently and productively than the other guy. In the end, I think that will be the winning ticket.
Payroll is merely the cost of doing business, it costs what it costs. It’s how well you manage your assets, including human ones, that will determine the profitability.
Where I work I can easily handle twice the volume they give me. Unfortunately my job detail involves doing dishes and mopping, not running advertising campaigns. What a waste. If I were twice as busy, I’d be making twice as much per night in tips. Always have before. But what do I know, I’m just a driver…
Lone*Star
The tip tax credit exemption has got to die a quick death now that the pendelum has swung in Congress again. May it never return.
Sure there are cocktail waitresses out there bringing home $300 a night in tips who could care less about the $2.13 ($3.13 here), but then there are the waitresses working third shift down at the Awful Waffle that do good to pull $30 a night. You spend 5 days on your feet and get a $90 check you would be infuriated. I tell them all the time to spend 12 minutes per hour doing some kind of cleaning, cooking or production work and write as many hours down production as they can. And the company pays it to them. They don’t dare not. This, by the way,is why you CANNOT pay drivers sub-minimum wage, whether tipped or not. You forget the 20% rule. Drivers are engaged in other duties than serving customers (production work) every hour of the day. If they are driving, they are operating a vehicle, not serving a customer. Serving takes about 60 seconds. The rest of the time is spent cooking, cleaning answering phones, doing dishes, sweekping, mopping, etc. ad infinitum. and thus the tipped employee is entitled to the full wage.
This kind of thing is what has given Dominos their recent rash of labor problems.
You can’t pay sub-minimum on the one hand, and complain about the quality of the labor on the other. You get not what you pay for, but what you can afford.
Lonestar,
You need to get a job at a busier place…the only reason you are dishwashing, etc is there isn’t enough business. What about the drivers out there making over $20/ hour. My guys have been averaging $5 per run…do they really need an increase with that sort of pay?
Minimum wage raised to 6.85 and is subject to inflation every year. We charge $1 delivery fee and give the $1 to the driver. We’ll now be charging a $1.50 fee and keeping .50 per run. Papa John and Pizza Hut is already charing 1.50 in my area. It’ll give us .50 more per run, plus we’ll be changing out coupons to one topping insteady of two.
Great advice Joe, thanks. I know that there are shops that have that kind of teamwork clicking for them, are busy and well managed…I’ve worked in a few. I also know from experience that this is not the rule, but rather the exception.
I think I’ll stay where I’m at for awhile, the people are really good to work for, and the pay is above par. Being good to work for goes a long way in my book. And I’m smart enough to hustle enough sidework to make ends meet.