There is also a crime problem in Oakland that is causing some small businesses to close. Not necessarily crimes against the business, or even on the business’s premises, just unsafe streets around them.
Middle-class trades aren’t that abundant? If you are a carpenter, plumber, electrician, welder or mechanic you can almost write your own ticket around here. And IF (big if) you have decent problem-solving skills you can at least become a carpenter. Now, these are not physically easy jobs, but they pay well, are portable, and require at most vocational school or apprenticeship.
So, it turned out, nothing bad occured. CA actually increased the number of fast food workers, by about 20,000.- rather than mass layoffs. Yeah two pizza places laid off about 1000 drivers, but apparently hired them back again.
Prices went up, but due to price gouging and inflation.
So,the sky wasnt falling, and it all worked out.
I’m going to say the jury is still out on that one. I promised in a later post to come back in at the one year anniversary to eat my serving of crow or to say I told you so. I am watching the thread for updates even though I’m not really contributing at the moment.
Generally this is not true, because if that was no one would hire them as there would be no additional money to be made off of them. It is a compromise of how much less than the worth of their labor they are willing to accept which makes them hirable.
In many ways paying too little has priced them out of working. There is zero company loyalty, no incentive to do a decent job when being so dramatically underpaid, and in may cases resentful of being so underpaid, but also one can get any other dime a dozen minimum wage job so no reason to perform beyond the minimum, as that is what you are being paid for.
Article from yesterday’s LA Times:
Good article!
Don’t expect anything published then to quash the debate over California’s fast food labor policy. The evil of the minimum wage is a favorite chew toy in conservative politics.
But the bottom line is that workers in the California fast-food industry are better off today than they were six months ago. Who has a problem with that?
Umm, well, Republicans it appears.
This will be an interesting economic dynamic that could really realign the markets in certain sectors. You may see a lot of market share be decentralized which could be a very good thing in many ways.
People are paid for the amount of their power.
Unskilled workers should be flocking to California.
Influx of unskilled workers.
Exflux of people with money.
Net gain or loss?
Hmm, 20 dollars an hour is good, but the cost of living is high enough, that I don’t foresee the next gold rush. 'Sides if you work fast food/minium wage jobs chances are you can’t afford to move.
This isn’t The Grapes of Wrath. People aren’t gonna be picking up stakes and moving across country to work at In-N-Out.
$20/hr is just barely scraping by in LA. You’ll still be in poverty and possibly homeless unless you have roommates or want to commute a long way. Probably worse in SF. Nothing worth uprooting your life over and moving cross country for.
Yes, “un-skilled” workers can do all that shit, poverty, roommates, (possible the homeless working) right where they are for less $ and lower cost of living.
And if they are, GREAT! Do you feel like people shouldn’t be moving to economical opportunaties?
I see what you are saying, but if you can make $7.25 in Coeur d’Alene, ID where the cost of living isn’t that much different than elsewhere, why wouldn’t you look elsewhere?
If you’re in Couer d’Alene, you just drive over to Spokane for WA’s $16.28 minimum.
Or rather, that happens plus many of the places in Coeur d’Alene that typically offer minimum wage give $12 or $13 (making up for much of the rest through the benefit of a shorter drive) because they are forced to compete for labor
Why? Where would they live? Ca has a very high cost of housing. And there are only so many fast food jobs in big chains.
Yep.
Indeed. The days when you could walk into a new town with five bucks in your pocket and not speaking the language, get a room at a boarding house for 25 cents a night and free lunch with a 5-cent pint of beer, then get a job the very next day hauling fish from the dock to the market, are long gone.