Cite, please? When my friend did it, he was 18, right out of HS. His coworkers were mostly retirees.
you misunderstood. this is their career. that alone entitles them to somewhere near triple a wage than what they would otherwise command. :rolleyes:
Payroll costs in a chain restaurant are less than 30% of sales, if McDonald’s and Olive Garden doubled their pay rates a Big Mac would cost $6.00 and the Primavera $20. If this is the cost of supplying 8 million people with a wage that allows them to meet their basic needs and possibly go out for a Big Mac on the rare celebratory occasion, then that is a reasonable price to pay and one I’d gladly put up.
I thought you were done with me, dickhead.
Of course, that’s not remotely what I said, but if it makes you feel good to jerk off with it, feel free.
Meanwhile, inflation will just completely eat up those wage gains…
You say that like an Austrian Economist. How much effect would a living wage have on inflation?
That’s good of you, but that’s not the issue; your fellow citizens have to be willing to choose the $6 Big Mac over the $2 Whopper at the same rate they do now.
If they don’t, all you’ve done is put McD’s out of business.
If you compel an industry-wide price change, all you’ve done is hurt McD’s and BK out of business, so they hire less people, because fast food is now so expensive.
If you compel an all wages to go up everywhere in eery business, all you’ve done is make everything everywhere more expensive for everyone, including people working the fry-grill … and putting millions more out of work as more and more businesses move to other states or countries.
Labor costs are only a small component of retail pricing. Do you think that paying a living wage to all workers in the wealthiest country in the world would force every 7-11 and Arby’s to move? To where, Canada, Belgium, Libya?
restaurants aren’t retail.
i mean, shit, restaurants (with service) need special minimum-wage exemptions in order to stay in business. what do you think would happen to food prices at those places if they had to pay double or triple minimum wage?
I already did the calculation, if they had to double their labor costs across the board a Big Mac would cost $6 instead of $3.73 and the Primavera $20 instead of $12.50.
so you’re contradicting yourself?
you’re asking why businesses would fold if they had to charge double their prices and the majority of their customers were making the same?
There was no question asked in my post. I reject the notion that paying sustainable wages would bring about the wholesale destruction of the restaurant industry. I did ask earlier, though you didn’t answer, what the effect of paying a living wage would have on inflation.
it was answered. if you just wholesale increase everyone’s pay by a multiplier, prices will catch up.
let’s put it this way: say everyone, starting tomorrow, gets a 0 added to their paycheck. do you think you’ll suddenly be 10 times richer, or do you think that suddenly everything will also cost 10 times as much?
My original figure was to triple the cost of labor across the board. Doubling the labor costs would make the Big Mac $4.85 and the Primavera $16.50.
I didn’t really even believe your assertion on the price, anyways.
What you are trying to say would be correct if wages were the only component of pricing, they are not. Where do you get the notion that there is a 1:1 relationship of labor cost to inflation?
Of course not; and 7-11 has already dropped from 3 staffers to two because of labor costs.
I would expect to see places like the Olive Garden move from having the waitress bring you salad and breadsticks to making a serve-yourself salad/drinks bar (and hiring fewer staff). I’d expect my grocery store to switch from 8 cashiers and 4 self-check lines to the reverse. I’d expect the small butcher shop near my house to struggle more and more to compete with the more-automated grocery store. I’d expect organically and sustainably farmed stuff to be more and more expensive relative to mass-produced food. I’d expect the call center my friend works at to move overseas.
It’s not a matter of ALL jobs moving. But some sure will; they already do. How many people are you willing to put out of work?
Labor cost in a chain restaurant is below 30%
A Big Mac in the United States is $3.73.
30% of $3.73 is $1.119
Double that figure is 2.238
Subtract 1.119 from 3.73 then add 2.238
Doubling the cost of labor yields a retail price of $4.849
Would you like to borrow a calculator?
the money to pay the workers is either going to come from the business’ profit, or the customers. which do you think?
How many people are you willing to have working full time that cannot provide for their basic needs? Half of all households seem about right to you?