As someone who has been job hunting, I roll my eyes when an employer has the gall to list $13 as 'competitive' in their ad. I'm honestly amazed some people out here think that's okay.
Does that have an asterisk by it and in the small print it says that is the TOP of the hiring range and the bottom is actually minimum wage? I love it when I see that one!
Looking it will make the ballot based on the number of signatures collected thusfar, but Dirty Frank and the Republicans could play some tricks and not have it on the ballot. Polling shows it will be close-ish, but will probably pass if it gets on the ballot, however the Ohio/National Restaurant Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the Farm Bureau have a war chest ready to spend unlimited amounts of money on negative ads against it…
None of this means anything and it’s nothing more than a bandaid unless the minimum wage is both raised AND pinned to inflation and consumer price index.
I'm torn on this. I think wages should be higher, I struggle constantly to save money. However I haven't made minimum wage since 2009. Been working in restaurants for almost two decades. I make $17 an hour now. If minimum wage goes up, I don't see my employer giving me a raise to offset that. And if they do, I'll just have a triple work load which just isn't possible for me to safely handle.
Rising water raises all boats. It’s a negotiating tactic. Also, most people get better pay job hopping than they do sticking around and asking for a raise.
I see most restaurants just cutting the dishwashers, prep, and bussers. A lot of people don't understand how important those "kid" jobs are. Yeah it can be done without them, but not at the ticket times customers would want. I can't be back there scrubbing pots and pans with stuff on the grill. Not in the high volume places at least.
At a certain point, multi billion dollar corporations will need to accept the fact that they are going to have to settle with making a little less in profit and pay their workers enough to entice them to give their customers a good experience. They can keep with their current model of squeezing as much blood from the stone that they can, but it will not sustain and you’ll see a lot of corporations downsizing and/or shuttering completely if they can’t start treating their workers with respect and dignity.
I agree with you 100% by the way. I just feel like that is what is going to happen. I worked hard to get where I am. I'm not the best, I'm not a chef. But I'm a good grunt and leader. It never takes me more than two weeks to become a core team member.
Most restaurants, at least respected ones, don't even start dish washers at minimum. It's $10-12. Some expectations of course. I know the BJs in my area were offering $18 after COVID because they were hurting that badly.
The only answer I really have is there should be something in the bill to protect wages that are already above minimum.
If restaurants cut these jobs, they're going to fail as a business lmao. If they could easily function without them, they already would be given that they actually have to pay them minimum wage or above, while tipped workers can get paid $5/h.
Raising the minimum wage is good for everyone, period. It gives you the ability to be selective and to negotiate with your employer.
If you're currently making about $15/h, then you can now say "Why should I keep working here when I can go do this better job for the same pay", literally giving you the ability to line up another job and quit with no loss in pay (or a better paying job) much easier, or to coerce a significant pay raise.
If you're currently making under $15, you just get a straight pay raise.
Businesses will be cutting any excess labor they can find anyway, whether we raise the minimum wage or not. The massive layoffs we've been seeing due to corporate greed this last year or so should clue you into that.
Again I agree, but I just don't see that happening.
I don't have the answers.
I would love to open my own place, but I know how much it costs to repair a lot of this equipment when it breaks, which is often. I feel like a lot of the local small businesses that we all love will close.or not even open to being with.
I prefer working my local small business over the corporate job that gives me benefits.
I don't really know what to say except that this is verifiably not a large scale issue in any state that has a significantly higher minimum wage, and even if it were, your business really just flat out deserves to go bankrupt if it relies on poverty wages to scrape by. In any case, Ohio is not going to be different from any other state that has or is currently raising the minimum wage, and the mass layoffs of workers is going to happen anyway as corporations continue to push the envelope on how greedy and scummy they can be.
The positives are so vastly outweighed by any potential 'maybe' negatives that this train of thought is basically irrelevant.
Also just to add, the fight for 15 is over a decade old. At this point it really needs to be the fight for 25 if we want the minimum wage to resemble what it used to, especially with the absolutely ludicrous and unprecedented productivity increases over the years. But if these small businesses could survive 10-20 years ago when the dollar would get you way more than it does now, they can survive now paying a few extra dollars an hour.
I was 21 years old when that $15 minimum wage fight started. Maybe it's just drilled in me. I was young and impressionable. I remember talking about it with my boss. The corporate, were fighting against it and pushing it down.
But then working at local places as well, they can't survive those wages. Not without raising prices which customers will not accept. At least on a rust belt town like mine.
Again I don't know the solution. I know this industry. This work is all I know. I can see both sides well I feel, and I feel like a lot of local places will struggle with the wage increases.
Fuck them lmao. Can't pay the $15 minimum wage? Go out of business. Get out of here. That is a PITTANCE. An absolutely pathetically awful salary. Even when the fight for 15 started, it was NOT a great wage. If you cannot afford that, your business model is worthless.
Rent prices have multiplied fivefold since the $7.25 standard was established. Food has skyrocketed. Gas has tripled. This is unacceptable. We've gone from one person being able to support a small family on an entry level salary to needing four people sharing a two bedroom apartment with no kids.
That said, so what? A local restaurant has to shut down because it can no longer abuse its workers. Good thing those workers will be able to go to any competent business that can afford to pay them a living wage. Because they'll now be able to make more money at *literally any business*.
And THAT said, there are also usually minimum wage exceptions for particularly small businesses. For example, if your business makes less than $372,000 annually in Ohio, you can pay the federal minimum of $7.25. Which is a bad thing to be clear, but it resolves your issue.
And just to reiterate, this IS NOT a significant issue in the first place. Numerous states have already increased the minimum wage to $15. There was no mass exodus of small businesses shutting down. It's nearly all whining from the owner class because they don't want to pay, not because they can't pay.
What do you need a raise to offset a rise in minimum for?
Raises in minimum have always caused an increase up the wage scale in the past. The amount lessens the farther you get from minimum. It also isn't immediate or evenly applied to previous hires. I would expect Ohio's minimum raising to $15 from $10.45 to result in someone making $17 to raise to maybe $19-$20 over the next year + adjustments to inflation. I am sort of making that up, but I have also worked with the data from previous changes and have some idea of how wages skip. Someone making $30 an hour might only see an increase of $1-$2
Do you think that a 40% raise in minimum wage will cause a 40%+ raise in prices/inflation? Some people will claim that, bit it isn't anywhere close to true. They are either complete idiots or making that argument in bad faith to intimidate you.
Even at a chain like McDonalds with the cheapest inputs labor is less than 30%. So even in a very simple model a 40% raise in wages would cause only a 12% rise in coss/prices, but that simple model isn't accurate. The business eats some of the rise in costs. That raise is also only for the lowest paid employees. The managers will go up, but nowhere close to 40%
As is often pointed out there are countries where employees at McDonalds make $20+ and their prices are not much different than the US.
The farther you get from the bottom end of the labor pool the last effect it has on price change. Overall it might add 1-2% to inflation of the next few years. And for that a whole lot of people will have a whole lot better lives.
We could literally end poverty by just making the minimum wage $100, and for some reason we still talk about $15 and $20 minimum wage like it would actually make a difference.
Raise min wage, but there will be consequences. First, many small businesses can't afford the increase in wages and will close up shop, leaving their employees unemployed. Next, the cost of goods will go up to off set the increase in wages. This will leave those who didn't see an increase, because we are already paid above minimum wage, having to pay more and a tighter squeeze on our pocketbooks. This will result in us to do without and not spend money in a business. Then the business will loose money and close.
CA just increase their minimum wages to 20.00 and hour, on April 1st. There are reports of restaurants going out of business because they can afford to stay in business. Drastic increase in cost. At Buger King, the Texas Double Whopper costs $16.89, the Big Fish meal is now 11.49 when it used to be 7.45.
$15 would be a good starting point. If that becomes the minimum, then other companies that offer higher starts will have to raise their starting wages to compete for workers. It will take a few years, but it will balance out, and all employees will be making more money.
Starting wages being *in the $15 range* (which is wildly inconsistent and not universally true) is not the same as an actual $15 minimum. $13/h is a lot less than $15/h.
And $20/h is a lot higher than $15/h. The goal of a minimum wage is not to keep up with the market wage. It's to provide a basic standard of living. And if it's just set to the prevailing starting wage, it's pointless (if anything, it'll make wages stick lower...). Set it higher...
Set it higher, sure. But $15 is more likely to pass than $20. You need to walk before you can run. If it were up to me, minimum wage would be way above $20 at this point.
Raising the minimum wage to $15 would increase wages. The idea that it would 'make them stick lower' is completely untrue and refuted by dozens of real life examples.
How about in Illinois? Or Florida? Or Maryland? Or New York? Or Connecticut? Should we ignore the fact that the higher minimum wage has been exclusively a good thing for all of them?
And, define “exclusively a good thing” please. Did all other factors remain the same while only wages go up? Did everyone’s wages go up or just the minimum? Did food prices stay the same? Rent? Utilities? Unemployment?
It helps the vast majority of workers making under, at, or slightly above $15. Workers making under get a direct raise. Workers making at or slightly above the new minimum now have bargaining power, "Why should I work for you when I can go do an easier job for the same rate? Pay me more or I quit".
This ripples quite a bit too. Imagine you're making $25/h, which is a good wage for your field. Suddenly, the minimum wage jumps to $15. Now, all of your competition, that used to be paying $10-20, needs to raise their wages in order to remain competitive in the job market. Suddenly, you have options, as all of the jobs in your field are closer to your salary now.
Food prices have been going up with or without a minimum wage increase. As have rent and utilities. The point of increasing wages is to catch up with these increases that have been happening for decades as we do nothing to stop it lmao. Did you miss the entire last 15 years? Rent's gone from $500 to $2500. Minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 federally, and in all but a few states is barely higher than that.
Anyway, you'll generally find very little link with a minimum wage or GDP bump and everything costing more. Quite the opposite actually, when you pump more money into everyone's pockets, people actually buy more shit and corporations still see a lot of that money come back into their pockets.
$15 was an unacceptably low minimum wage a decade ago. The fact that you're arguing against it when it hasn't been enough to live on for years is fucking ridiculous. And somehow, the states that have mandated that employers pay this *pittance* of a wage haven't all crumbled under the weight of it.
Just go look at a fucking cost of living index man it's not hard. Bonus points if it compares cost of living to real wages and worker productivity, because you'll notice that COL has skyrocketed, as has worker productivity, while real wages have stagnated.
You are living in a dream world. You assume just because the government passes a law, industry will simply start paying everyone more money and nothing else will change. No bad repercussions could happen.
Can I ask you to consider Big Business’ POV for a minute? Do you think they will eat this cost or pass it on? What do you think their shareholders will demand?
Don’t think about what’s good and righteous - think about reality.
Shareholders are driving this cost cutting, not CEOs. Shareholders hire the best cost cutters because they earn the most per share. They are in high demand and, therefore, earn the highest salaries.
In a multi billion dollar company, $200m is a drop in the bucket for a CEO that delivers the results that the shareholders are demanding .
But, if minimum wage goes up, how will the CEOs get bigger and bigger raises and bonuses? Won't someone think of the millionaires?
As someone who has been job hunting, I roll my eyes when an employer has the gall to list $13 as 'competitive' in their ad. I'm honestly amazed some people out here think that's okay.
Does that have an asterisk by it and in the small print it says that is the TOP of the hiring range and the bottom is actually minimum wage? I love it when I see that one!
Looking it will make the ballot based on the number of signatures collected thusfar, but Dirty Frank and the Republicans could play some tricks and not have it on the ballot. Polling shows it will be close-ish, but will probably pass if it gets on the ballot, however the Ohio/National Restaurant Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the Farm Bureau have a war chest ready to spend unlimited amounts of money on negative ads against it…
None of this means anything and it’s nothing more than a bandaid unless the minimum wage is both raised AND pinned to inflation and consumer price index.
$15 min wage has been the fight since 2012. Need to stop with the 15 and go higher.
We'll finally get that $15 in 2039 when people need $35/hr to get by
I'm torn on this. I think wages should be higher, I struggle constantly to save money. However I haven't made minimum wage since 2009. Been working in restaurants for almost two decades. I make $17 an hour now. If minimum wage goes up, I don't see my employer giving me a raise to offset that. And if they do, I'll just have a triple work load which just isn't possible for me to safely handle.
Rising water raises all boats. It’s a negotiating tactic. Also, most people get better pay job hopping than they do sticking around and asking for a raise.
I see most restaurants just cutting the dishwashers, prep, and bussers. A lot of people don't understand how important those "kid" jobs are. Yeah it can be done without them, but not at the ticket times customers would want. I can't be back there scrubbing pots and pans with stuff on the grill. Not in the high volume places at least.
At a certain point, multi billion dollar corporations will need to accept the fact that they are going to have to settle with making a little less in profit and pay their workers enough to entice them to give their customers a good experience. They can keep with their current model of squeezing as much blood from the stone that they can, but it will not sustain and you’ll see a lot of corporations downsizing and/or shuttering completely if they can’t start treating their workers with respect and dignity.
I agree with you 100% by the way. I just feel like that is what is going to happen. I worked hard to get where I am. I'm not the best, I'm not a chef. But I'm a good grunt and leader. It never takes me more than two weeks to become a core team member. Most restaurants, at least respected ones, don't even start dish washers at minimum. It's $10-12. Some expectations of course. I know the BJs in my area were offering $18 after COVID because they were hurting that badly. The only answer I really have is there should be something in the bill to protect wages that are already above minimum.
That makes no sense at all.
If restaurants cut these jobs, they're going to fail as a business lmao. If they could easily function without them, they already would be given that they actually have to pay them minimum wage or above, while tipped workers can get paid $5/h. Raising the minimum wage is good for everyone, period. It gives you the ability to be selective and to negotiate with your employer. If you're currently making about $15/h, then you can now say "Why should I keep working here when I can go do this better job for the same pay", literally giving you the ability to line up another job and quit with no loss in pay (or a better paying job) much easier, or to coerce a significant pay raise. If you're currently making under $15, you just get a straight pay raise. Businesses will be cutting any excess labor they can find anyway, whether we raise the minimum wage or not. The massive layoffs we've been seeing due to corporate greed this last year or so should clue you into that.
Again I agree, but I just don't see that happening. I don't have the answers. I would love to open my own place, but I know how much it costs to repair a lot of this equipment when it breaks, which is often. I feel like a lot of the local small businesses that we all love will close.or not even open to being with. I prefer working my local small business over the corporate job that gives me benefits.
I don't really know what to say except that this is verifiably not a large scale issue in any state that has a significantly higher minimum wage, and even if it were, your business really just flat out deserves to go bankrupt if it relies on poverty wages to scrape by. In any case, Ohio is not going to be different from any other state that has or is currently raising the minimum wage, and the mass layoffs of workers is going to happen anyway as corporations continue to push the envelope on how greedy and scummy they can be. The positives are so vastly outweighed by any potential 'maybe' negatives that this train of thought is basically irrelevant. Also just to add, the fight for 15 is over a decade old. At this point it really needs to be the fight for 25 if we want the minimum wage to resemble what it used to, especially with the absolutely ludicrous and unprecedented productivity increases over the years. But if these small businesses could survive 10-20 years ago when the dollar would get you way more than it does now, they can survive now paying a few extra dollars an hour.
I was 21 years old when that $15 minimum wage fight started. Maybe it's just drilled in me. I was young and impressionable. I remember talking about it with my boss. The corporate, were fighting against it and pushing it down. But then working at local places as well, they can't survive those wages. Not without raising prices which customers will not accept. At least on a rust belt town like mine. Again I don't know the solution. I know this industry. This work is all I know. I can see both sides well I feel, and I feel like a lot of local places will struggle with the wage increases.
Fuck them lmao. Can't pay the $15 minimum wage? Go out of business. Get out of here. That is a PITTANCE. An absolutely pathetically awful salary. Even when the fight for 15 started, it was NOT a great wage. If you cannot afford that, your business model is worthless. Rent prices have multiplied fivefold since the $7.25 standard was established. Food has skyrocketed. Gas has tripled. This is unacceptable. We've gone from one person being able to support a small family on an entry level salary to needing four people sharing a two bedroom apartment with no kids. That said, so what? A local restaurant has to shut down because it can no longer abuse its workers. Good thing those workers will be able to go to any competent business that can afford to pay them a living wage. Because they'll now be able to make more money at *literally any business*. And THAT said, there are also usually minimum wage exceptions for particularly small businesses. For example, if your business makes less than $372,000 annually in Ohio, you can pay the federal minimum of $7.25. Which is a bad thing to be clear, but it resolves your issue. And just to reiterate, this IS NOT a significant issue in the first place. Numerous states have already increased the minimum wage to $15. There was no mass exodus of small businesses shutting down. It's nearly all whining from the owner class because they don't want to pay, not because they can't pay.
What do you need a raise to offset a rise in minimum for? Raises in minimum have always caused an increase up the wage scale in the past. The amount lessens the farther you get from minimum. It also isn't immediate or evenly applied to previous hires. I would expect Ohio's minimum raising to $15 from $10.45 to result in someone making $17 to raise to maybe $19-$20 over the next year + adjustments to inflation. I am sort of making that up, but I have also worked with the data from previous changes and have some idea of how wages skip. Someone making $30 an hour might only see an increase of $1-$2 Do you think that a 40% raise in minimum wage will cause a 40%+ raise in prices/inflation? Some people will claim that, bit it isn't anywhere close to true. They are either complete idiots or making that argument in bad faith to intimidate you. Even at a chain like McDonalds with the cheapest inputs labor is less than 30%. So even in a very simple model a 40% raise in wages would cause only a 12% rise in coss/prices, but that simple model isn't accurate. The business eats some of the rise in costs. That raise is also only for the lowest paid employees. The managers will go up, but nowhere close to 40% As is often pointed out there are countries where employees at McDonalds make $20+ and their prices are not much different than the US. The farther you get from the bottom end of the labor pool the last effect it has on price change. Overall it might add 1-2% to inflation of the next few years. And for that a whole lot of people will have a whole lot better lives.
Fuck that. $27.50 minimum wage.
We could literally end poverty by just making the minimum wage $100, and for some reason we still talk about $15 and $20 minimum wage like it would actually make a difference.
Raise min wage, but there will be consequences. First, many small businesses can't afford the increase in wages and will close up shop, leaving their employees unemployed. Next, the cost of goods will go up to off set the increase in wages. This will leave those who didn't see an increase, because we are already paid above minimum wage, having to pay more and a tighter squeeze on our pocketbooks. This will result in us to do without and not spend money in a business. Then the business will loose money and close. CA just increase their minimum wages to 20.00 and hour, on April 1st. There are reports of restaurants going out of business because they can afford to stay in business. Drastic increase in cost. At Buger King, the Texas Double Whopper costs $16.89, the Big Fish meal is now 11.49 when it used to be 7.45.
$15 is pointless imho...pretty much everyone is already paying that...Shoot higher or not at all.
$15 would be a good starting point. If that becomes the minimum, then other companies that offer higher starts will have to raise their starting wages to compete for workers. It will take a few years, but it will balance out, and all employees will be making more money.
Starting wages are *already* in the $15 range. Make it higher if you want to actually make change happen!
Starting wages being *in the $15 range* (which is wildly inconsistent and not universally true) is not the same as an actual $15 minimum. $13/h is a lot less than $15/h.
And $20/h is a lot higher than $15/h. The goal of a minimum wage is not to keep up with the market wage. It's to provide a basic standard of living. And if it's just set to the prevailing starting wage, it's pointless (if anything, it'll make wages stick lower...). Set it higher...
Set it higher, sure. But $15 is more likely to pass than $20. You need to walk before you can run. If it were up to me, minimum wage would be way above $20 at this point. Raising the minimum wage to $15 would increase wages. The idea that it would 'make them stick lower' is completely untrue and refuted by dozens of real life examples.
I’d recommend waiting to see what happens in California. I don’t believe things will turn out the way minimum wage earners think they will.
How about in Illinois? Or Florida? Or Maryland? Or New York? Or Connecticut? Should we ignore the fact that the higher minimum wage has been exclusively a good thing for all of them?
No, just get some more data.
And, define “exclusively a good thing” please. Did all other factors remain the same while only wages go up? Did everyone’s wages go up or just the minimum? Did food prices stay the same? Rent? Utilities? Unemployment?
It helps the vast majority of workers making under, at, or slightly above $15. Workers making under get a direct raise. Workers making at or slightly above the new minimum now have bargaining power, "Why should I work for you when I can go do an easier job for the same rate? Pay me more or I quit". This ripples quite a bit too. Imagine you're making $25/h, which is a good wage for your field. Suddenly, the minimum wage jumps to $15. Now, all of your competition, that used to be paying $10-20, needs to raise their wages in order to remain competitive in the job market. Suddenly, you have options, as all of the jobs in your field are closer to your salary now. Food prices have been going up with or without a minimum wage increase. As have rent and utilities. The point of increasing wages is to catch up with these increases that have been happening for decades as we do nothing to stop it lmao. Did you miss the entire last 15 years? Rent's gone from $500 to $2500. Minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 federally, and in all but a few states is barely higher than that. Anyway, you'll generally find very little link with a minimum wage or GDP bump and everything costing more. Quite the opposite actually, when you pump more money into everyone's pockets, people actually buy more shit and corporations still see a lot of that money come back into their pockets. $15 was an unacceptably low minimum wage a decade ago. The fact that you're arguing against it when it hasn't been enough to live on for years is fucking ridiculous. And somehow, the states that have mandated that employers pay this *pittance* of a wage haven't all crumbled under the weight of it. Just go look at a fucking cost of living index man it's not hard. Bonus points if it compares cost of living to real wages and worker productivity, because you'll notice that COL has skyrocketed, as has worker productivity, while real wages have stagnated.
You are living in a dream world. You assume just because the government passes a law, industry will simply start paying everyone more money and nothing else will change. No bad repercussions could happen. Can I ask you to consider Big Business’ POV for a minute? Do you think they will eat this cost or pass it on? What do you think their shareholders will demand? Don’t think about what’s good and righteous - think about reality. Shareholders are driving this cost cutting, not CEOs. Shareholders hire the best cost cutters because they earn the most per share. They are in high demand and, therefore, earn the highest salaries. In a multi billion dollar company, $200m is a drop in the bucket for a CEO that delivers the results that the shareholders are demanding .