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Horror of horrors! Surely now businesses will flee the state in droves, layoffs will skyrocket, and a hamburger at McDonalds will cost $25! 8U
Or, you know...not.
As ever you are guilty of delivering a strawman argument. Businesses having to pass wage costs on to consumers is a legitimate concern.
Businesses don't have to do anything.
The ratio between the costs of doing business and the costs consumers have to pay has been utterly arbitrary for decades.
Rent has gone up. Food prices have gone up. Live-saving medicine has gone right up. All of this happened without minimum wage increases and will continue to do whether the minimum wage rises or not.
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
Horror of horrors! Surely now businesses will flee the state in droves, layoffs will skyrocket, and a hamburger at McDonalds will cost $25! 8U
Or, you know...not.
As ever you are guilty of delivering a strawman argument. Businesses having to pass wage costs on to consumers is a legitimate concern.
Businesses don't have to do anything.
The ratio between the costs of doing business and the costs consumers have to pay has been utterly arbitrary for decades.
Rent has gone up. Food prices have gone up. Live-saving medicine has gone right up. All of this happened without minimum wage increases and will continue to do whether the minimum wage rises or not.
but have profit margins gone up, or do they remain razor thin especially for things like food and rent?
The company I work for will now not hire new work from home agents from CT, much like they will not from new agents in CA. $12.50/hour is very good in some parts of the US, approximate to minimum wage in some places, and not good at all in other parts. The company has the entirety of the US to choose from and so it chooses where it can get it's labor where it matches the price point they want. This may change when the options dry up over time, but those are jobs now immediately not available in Connecticut. YMMV.
Horror of horrors! Surely now businesses will flee the state in droves, layoffs will skyrocket, and a hamburger at McDonalds will cost $25! 8U
Or, you know...not.
As ever you are guilty of delivering a strawman argument. Businesses having to pass wage costs on to consumers is a legitimate concern.
Businesses don't have to do anything.
The ratio between the costs of doing business and the costs consumers have to pay has been utterly arbitrary for decades.
Rent has gone up. Food prices have gone up. Live-saving medicine has gone right up. All of this happened without minimum wage increases and will continue to do whether the minimum wage rises or not.
Horror of horrors! Surely now businesses will flee the state in droves, layoffs will skyrocket, and a hamburger at McDonalds will cost $25! 8U
Or, you know...not.
As ever you are guilty of delivering a strawman argument. Businesses having to pass wage costs on to consumers is a legitimate concern.
Businesses don't have to do anything.
The ratio between the costs of doing business and the costs consumers have to pay has been utterly arbitrary for decades.
Rent has gone up. Food prices have gone up. Live-saving medicine has gone right up. All of this happened without minimum wage increases and will continue to do whether the minimum wage rises or not.
Higher minimum wage means that those people will have more money left over to spend on buying things and that helps to keep economy going. After all law of supply and demand is thing in capitalism so when there is demand there is also need for supply those products to market. that is what keeps economy going, not rich getting tax cuts.
"In the embrace of the great Nurgle, I am no longer afraid, for with His pestilential favour I have become that which I once most feared: Death.."
- Kulvain Hestarius of the Death Guard
I am of the wait and watch mentality myself. There has been some indications of businesses cutting employees and hours in similar circumstances. And as I mentioned elsewhere I am getting cynical.
One anecdote I am referenced to is when my father was in the Navy. They would announce the military pay increases. And most of the businesses around the bases would raise their prices by that percentage. Just before the raise went through. So effectively those military people lost money with the raise. And there is no excuse that cost went up to justify the increases.
You have some making the excellent point that prices have risen while pay rate has not gone up similarly fast. So profit margins. But making a profit is not good enough anymore. You have to meet or exceed growth every year. So a factory costs a few million and brought in billions in profit. But it could be more, so close it and relocate to Mexico. . .
I have personally seen minimum wage go up and all the minimum wage people gained money. And all employees that had been making more, were suddenly minimum wage employees. As they don't give raises to everyone. Just when they have to.
So you got into a place and worked hard for promotions and raises. Got yourself up to $15/hr. Now it means you get as much as a new hire but you are expected to do more. Congrats.
The aspect the people advocating for this don't seem to realize is that a minimum wage increase will mean in increase in cost in basically every good and service because of the added labor cost on every level. It in no way turns a minimum wage job into something with a "living wage."
"Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough."
-TR