Minimum wage

Minimum wage is increasing for all states on Tuesday. If your state is one that has not issued a mandated minimum wage increase, federal minimum wage of $5.85/hr. goes into effect on Tuesday. Just a reminder.

-J_r0kk

oregon is already at $7.80!!! and I believe we’re going up again next year.

Someone please help me understand the benefits of raising the minimum wage. As I see it, they raise minimum wage, which in turn forces business owners to raise their prices and cut employees hours. Those making more than the minimum now have to pay higher prices which puts a crunch on them as well.
The only people that benefit is the government who then gets more money from the taxes collected on those newly raised prices. Am I missing something or is that pretty much how it works ?

The minimum wage issue is a “feel good” legislation that makes politicians feel good (and many of their constituents). The government will make more money in taxes but not a whole lot. Social Security will benefit from this raise a little. In reality if a person is making 5.15 and goes to 5.85, how much will that really help? Quite frankly, how many of you can get a good worker for 5.15/hr? I would think that most people pay more than that to most workers. I even pay my high school kids more than that or I wouldn’t be able to get them. I think the big concern is in states where the minimum wage goes up every Jan 1. That could be a problem down the road. Ohio will be over 7.00 next year and I’m sure some other states are worse than us.

The delema that I see is if the minimum wage goes up those who were making $2 over minimum are no longer at $2 over so they want a raise to maintain their position. The minimum wage thing is a big snowball that will pull us all in. We are going to $8 in September

already 7.15 here in new york

The unmentioned huge winners are Organized Labor Contracts . . . unions. their wages are very often tied to the Federal Minimum wages. Think teamsters, longshoreman, UPS drivers, etc. You just think that minimum wage earners will boost pricing of goods . . . wait until they get put on a truck to go somewhere.

Minimum Wage discussions and decisions are seldom truly about minimum wage earners.

The guys I really feel sorry for are the “barely making a profit pizzeria owners” that provide delivery service. Since delivery is offered, this pizzeria owner must keep extra employees on the schedule and always has more hours to account for vs. pizzeria owners with no delivery service. Here’s a scenario:

Bob’s pizza

Monthly sales…$20,000
monthly labor % (without salary)…20%
monthly labor $ (avg. hourly pay = $5.40)…$4,000
total monthly hours…741
monthly profit…$1,000

You take these same hours spent and increase your pay by just 45 cents to meet the minimum wage:

monthly labor $ (avg. hourly pay = $5.85)…$4334.85

Now all of a sudden, this pizzeria that earns a modest $1,000 per month now only earns $665.15 per month. This is a profit decrease of 33.49%. One thing I didn’t include in this scenario are payroll taxes. With payroll taxes added in the profits are decreased even more. Cash flow-wise, these taxes already kick my butt every month. Now they’ll be even higher and will kick harder, so I’m sure the pizzeria in this scenario will feel it as well.

I understand people need to get paid to make a living, but c’mon. 90% of my employees are either teenagers or people using pizza delivery as a second form of income. If they want more money, all they’ve got to do is deliver one more pizza an hour and poof… they’ve got a raise. I’m sure this is the case in most stores.

Pizza prices have remained relatively stable over the past 20 years. However, wages have increased almost 75%. Go figure.

-J_r0kk

no doubt… when we first opened in 1995 min wage was 3.35 and it is now 7.15 price of a large pie in 1995 was 7.99 and is now 9.29.

with not only labor going up, but cheese is way up and climbing, gas, flour, and don’t even get me started on insurances, …pizza prices are going to have to go up substantially in the near future for all of us.

of course that may have some negative impact on sales at first because who can afford a $ 30.00 pizza?

good luck to all of us!

wonder if the guy in mi is still gonna sell 2.99 larges?

LMAO

The Sullivans in Moreland, GA every week like clockwork buy my $28 pizza that is total 29.96 with tax. Their son-in-law gets one every other week or so. Sure, it ain’t everyone, but you asked who :slight_smile:

I think Nick hit the most important factor in rising min wages. Which politicians push hardest for min wage increases? And the majority, if not all, of the contibutions by labor unions go where? Its payback time. The extra taxes generated are simply iciing on the cake. Just like the cost of gas. Just look at the amount of taxes per gallon taken by state and Federal governments. Politicians want money period. Money translates to power and their continued positions in office. Universal health care means more power for government. Show me something that the government has ever run efficiently. Why do so many Canadians, English, etc. come here for medical care? We have become apathetic in this country. We fall for the something for nothing junk our politicians throw out there thinking that somebody else is paying for it.
Reminds me again of the quote by a long ago newspaper publisher…“The problem with government is that all the good minds have gone to business leaving the running of government to fools”.

That is an excellent quote. Take Social Security for example. For all the taxes that you pay to that system you get less than a 1% increase for your investment. What fool would invest privately into anything if the ROI was less than 1%. But the government won’t relinquish that control of Social Security so that people can invest some of the money that they have to pay to get a better ROI.

I also agree that min. wage increase is a feel good for the politicians. The vast majority of min. wage earners are teenagers and second job people. As stated above even teenagers are usually paid more than min. wage. However when you take away the option to pay min. wage it has a huge impact on small business owners. Which means higher prices, more taxes, which in turns just means that people aren’t really earning anymore than they were in the beginning. If you believe anything else then you are just fooling yourself.

AAAHHH, much better. Nothing better than venting a little steam.

Minimum wage is irrelevant to us. Our cooks make $10-$12, drivers are tipped and therefor exempt. (We pay them $6 anyway which is below our minimum here of $6.85 but they declare tips that put them above the minimum.