Good discussions are an endangered species.
the minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage. just a starting point for someone workig their first job. You got a shitty job making shitty pay, you learned some skills and moved up the ladder.
The problem is that theres little no incentive for employers to increase from a minimum wage. It was never meant to to be livable but for (I assume) the majority of the working class, it's all that's available.
If this high end expensive restaurant is paying the same as McDonald's, then something has gone wrong. (I know they make tips too, but that's not a guaranteed income)
I grew up being told how people could work a part time minimum wage job and afford to go college, or own a decent car or even own a home. Now there's no financial wiggle room for employees to save or afford any of that without outside assistance.
Not long ago I was working a minimum wage ($9.25) factory job pulling in some 45+ hours a week. That used to be a solid blue collar job. And at one point I was doing a job that starts at $16 an hour.
At the time I qualified for and received food stamps.
I'm a pretty frugal and financially sound person, I live within my means with old technology and minimal luxuries. But I still struggled to pay bills some months. There wasn't a possibility of working a second job because all my time was consumed by the first one. That's got to be a solid sign of a broken system.
Good discussions are an endangered species.
I wish I could upvote your reply twice.
There is indeed little to no incentive for employers to raise wages. Agreed.
Unions came about for a reason, although they've gone off the reservation a bit IMHO. And it is a sad state of affairs when all that's available is a minimum wage job. I've worked a few, and I understand. I guess I was lucky enough to be able to find work that allowed me to grow my skills as well as my pay. (My first steady job was $6.50 an hour, back in 1984.)
One of the consequences of raising the minimum wage is what we're seeing now. Businesses are cutting staff hours, automating what they can, and outright letting people go. It's the nature of the beast. We live in a mercantilist system, where business and government are two sides of the same coin. How can we make things better?
That's the $64,000 question.
Unions came about for a reason, although they've gone off the reservation a bit IMHO.
I'm not experienced with unions but have been a bit weary of them.
And it is a sad state of affairs when all that's available is a minimum wage job. I've worked a few, and I understand. I guess I was lucky enough to be able to find work that allowed me to grow my skills as well as my pay. (My first steady job was $6.50 an hour, back in 1984.)
I entered the work force in about 2008. My first taste was during the height of the recession. Minimum wage was $7.06 at the time and I was lucky to find a sandwich shop job. A year or later or so I attended an open interview and saw 37 people show up for 2 minimum wage sandwiche hustling positions. I didn't have a chance being a kid with little experience. But my long winded point is that we have to vastly different backgrounds on the subject from 20 some odd years of different perspectives. Your tale is very similar to many older folks that I've talked to. As mine is similar to many of my peers. The whole bootstraps philosophy is rarely achievable these days. And I know many who would love to have such opportunities.
Sorry, I got onto a long winded sort of tangent there.....
The current situation is that it's more profitable to automate jobs now and there's becoming less menial work for your average people to survive on.
It's not that I disagree with you; it's that I enjoy a good discussion.
So.
The owners of the restaurant are (were) in business to make money. To borrow a line from Boiler Room, we're not saving the fucking manatees here. Simplifying the situation down to 'poverty wages' is disingenuous. Multiple factors go into owning and running a business, including the free exchange pf labor for money.
Now, in NYC, $15 per hour is nowhere near a living wage, due to more than just business owner greed or the current administration's policies. Then again, the minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage, just a starting point for someone workig their first job. You got a shitty job making shitty pay, you learned some skills and moved up the ladder.