A living wage would be nice

Target is offering $15 an hour as a STARTING wage and they've had the hiring sign up for months on end. McDonald's is offering $14 an hour plus thousands down the line towards college tuition and they can't fully staff their building.

We didn't use to have these problems. These places hired with little trouble. Here's the thing about people; when you give them two choices, one of which is an easy road with moderate rewards and one which is a harder road with a bigger payoff, very few choose the harder road. Lockdown and unemployment checks are not conducive to cultivating a work ethic in people.

(As an aside, one of the few places that still seems able to hire around here is Scheels. That's because they're a truly Christian company though and as a result the compensation they give their employees from day one is actually insane. Good pay, shares in the company, a retirement plan that grows from day one, etc...That's a model company, in my opinion.)

Yup, it's not that 15$ is too much, it's honestly too little. It is my opinion, that when you work in any service related field, where you have to deal with potential Karens (and this is more common in food service than you know) and have to suffer their verbal abuse...? That needs more that 15$ an hour. When the CEO makes 300x the amount you make and does nearly half the work, that's a problem. When you have to work 60hrs/week on a minimum wage (in my state) of 15$ is barely enough to support one person in an apartment. People want to start families.

So, those who have families and brave this on their own, have to rely on food stamps to make ends meet for their kids.

Official out east said he didn't want any of the federal covid funding for their school because they didn't want the kids getting used to a free meal.

As a kid growing up myself? That "Free meal." kept me fed most of the week. I'd go without eating saturday and sunday. Lucky I got free breakfast too.

And yet, many people on the right, want to abolish food stamps if not limit those who can get it even further.

People only see the "welfare queens" because that's what they look for. Has anyone ever been able to pick out non-welfare queens? Has any one been able to point out anyone who is on welfare and uses it justly? No.

15$ isn't enough. It's true that if we raise the minimum wage, companies will just raise their prices back to keep the same margin of profits.

Gotta love free enterprise and the free market.

Here's what I know; a pizza place in my town and in a few other cities here in Montana is about to go under. The owners are friends of mine, and they don't make much. Not poor, but nothing glitzy. They pay about $12 an hour to kitchen workers, and waiters after tips average $18-24, by my estimation. They employ one manager per location, who is paid more than that, but he's a full-time worker and it's his career.

The rest of the employees are usually students. The family has always had great success attracting students (high school and college) and others looking for a good entry-level job. Hiring issues were nonexistent. Yet they're about to shutter several of their locations because they simply cannot attract or retain help since lockdowns ended.

Now, that's obviously not all related to stimulus payments and whatnot. But something has changed since COVID changed American work culture, and as a result my friends are going under. They simply can't afford to hire full-time professional staff. A $15 minimum wage would break them.

So yeah, there are problems with big companies and their cultures. But you can't fix a culture problem with laws, and trying is only gonna squash the little guys like my friends who just try to run a pizza place and employ people looking to build a resume and a small checking account.

In the end, I don't have a good solution. I don't even have a full grasp on what the problem in America is, though I'd hazard it's coddling companies with protective regulations and general culture issues. But I know what the problem in my community looks like, and none of these, "For the worker!" movements would actually help the workers and small employers that I know.

Do your small business owner friends net 300x more money than their min wage workers?

They wouldn't be exempted from a minimum wage hike. At that point nothing else is relevant.

Doesn't really answer the question..

Yeah dude, the couple that owns four pizza restaurants clear three hundred times as much annual income as their employees. Good grief.

So, it sounds like they should've budgeted for more overhead before expanding?

If you're budgeting for minimum wage, you're gambling on the notion that it won't rise or spike suddenly. If you budget ahead of that (well ahead) you'll be fine.

Dude, just lay off. You don't know any of the specifics of the situation. You're talking about something you clearly don't understand. I sincerely doubt you'd be so insensitive if you were talking to them in person. "Yeah, sorry, your life's work and passion is just collapsing because of factors totally outside your control, should have planned ahead you chumps."

""Yeah, sorry, your life's work and passion is just collapsing because of factors totally outside your control, should have planned ahead you chumps.""

That is the same rhetoric passed on to the homeless by fiscal conservatives. Don't bother pointing at the druggies and alcoholics. Pointing at that as the reason is not as important as the why they went into that in the first place. And when.

[Reply to your red-bar comment]:

Dude! What about this do you not understand! I am talking about a specific small business that simply cannot find people to work. EVERYWHERE in my area is hiring. This includes the McDonalds that is starting people at $14 an hour and paying thousands to their tuition if they stay on for months. This is including the Target starting people at $16 an hour. These companies have been hiring since lockdown ended. If they are not attracting new help, how on earth can you possibly expect my friends to do the same? Like I said, it's not that they can't compete. That would imply these big companies are taking all the workers.

No, the problem is that since lockdown has ended there simply ARE NOT WORKERS (caps for emphasis, not yelling. I wish we had italics.). People are not applying for jobs. It's as simple as that. So please quit dismissing me as just another heartless conservative trying to save business executives money. I'm bringing this up because I am seeing businesses suffering.

In fact, I mentioned Scheels in an earlier post. They opened up a new location in Missoula recently and have hired over 200 workers. They're the ONLY company I've seen in the last two years actually hire everyone they need. Do you know why they pulled this off? Because they make a metric crapton of money and reinvest a HUGE portion of that back into their workers and communities. The benefits and support they offer are beyond insane for the average worker who signed up. If that's the new "normal" needed to attract competent help, there's no way a small business could reasonably operate.

So again dude, if you want to offer insight, think beyond that bleeding-heart, "Be perfect." rhetoric. It's not helpful.

I think we're simply not communicating effectively. We're seeing two different sides of the same problem. That being, that these big businesses aren't really affected here. In fact, there were businesses that profited from the pandemic, and are continuing to do so simply because the tax breaks are detrimental to everyone else. That, and there is no throttle for profit. We're seeing late stage capitalism and how it really starts gnawing at the middle class because of its shortcomings.

"You gotta have money to make money." Keeps the rich rich, and everyone else poor.

All I know is I'm seeing people not working in a dynamic small business post-pandemic that had no trouble hiring pre-pandemic. It ain't COVID fears; everyone in this state who's afraid of COVID is vaccinated, and everyone else never cared in the first place. I don't WANT to blame the stimulus checks, because a lot of students and other financial dependents who usually comprise their workforce don't qualify anyhow, but you'd think that if it wasn't something like that then the bigger fish would have no trouble filling their ranks.

As far as big business goes, that's what happens when you protect big companies with regulations and then don't prevent them from dominating sectors. The only way to combat that is de-regulate, lower taxes across the board, and break up the biggest players IF necessary. That way the entry bars are low, the competition is unfettered, and nobody is crowding out someone else.

Whether Congress actually has the guts to do that in the face of Big Corp lobbyists is another matter entirely. But it's not relevant to my example either way.

If we break up big companies, we hear right wing cry "big gubmint stealing success!" Heard it before.

Yeah, and if we end farming subsidies you hear, "Evil [insert party here] destroying American jobs!" But if you don't, you're accused of subverting free trade.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Farming subsidies... a socialist program... or government handout, take your pick. I have no problem with them. I just wish the right would stop accusing people of talking "handouts" so that they can be lazy when instead they're trying to be successful.

[Reply to redbar] It's not a socialist program, lol. It's just an economic policy. But, that's beside the point. If you're gonna generalize about the right, then of course you're gonna be mad. There are morons on this side. There are morons on yours as well. Best ignore them.

It's not a socialist program? How do you figure?

We've hashed this exact question out before. I frankly don't have the patience to endure that nightmare of a conversation again.

Sounds like a utilitarian socialism to me.

It's not, my dude. It's just not.

Then neither is our EBT. Fundamentally work the same way/serve same purpose.

The work ethic is greatly overrated.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/19/post-work-the-radical-idea-of-a-world-without-jobs

Like everything in life, work must be balanced with leisure. But to suggest that we shouldn't need to work at all is fundamentally opposed to human nature. Having our every whim met with no effort would just be hell on earth.

I don't disagree with that!

Do you think $14/hr is worth risking your health being exposed to a deadly pathogen and having to deal with anti-maskholes getting in your face or half-maskers who can't seem to find one that fits? Give me a good reason to risk my life and the lives of all my family members.