patrick.net

Nah, they're just gonna cut service hours like they've been doing for years before any minimum wage adjustment. Whether or not the minimum wage changes.

I just used the bullshit CPI calculator using 80/20 uncooked ground beef prices. According to bullshit CPI, $1.09 of 1994 80/20 uncooked ground beef should be a little only $2.23 in 2023. LOL! SNORT!

Anybody seen ground beef 80/20 in any supermarket for $2.23 recently?
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

The absolute cheapest ground beef I saw all year was at a Winn Dixie, and it was 75-25, after labor day, they must have been stuck with unsold beef. It was still $5/lb. Nowhere near $2.23 according to CPI.

We can do this with gas, eggs, chips, you name it and see the hilarious results out of whack with reality. "But hurr durr muh PC is done be cheaper and so much faster har de har hedonics dildonics hyuk hyuk I read da Economist", yeah, for the same reason VCRs got cheaper and better from 1981-1991... mass production. It's the everyday shit essential that tells the tale.

Running it reverse using standard prices for staples today... it was over $2.00/lb in 1994. No the fuck it wasn't, and that's when I lived in Northern NJ. It wasn't that much if brought at Gristede's in Manhattan, andthat was pretty much one of the top 5 most expensive cost of living area in the Country.

AmericanKulak says

Anybody seen ground beef 80/20 in any supermarket for $2.23 recently?

I'm guilty of it. I don't look at prices in a grocery store generally. So I wouldn't know. They're noticeably down here in IL over the last few weeks though. Admittedly I don't know or generally care what the price is. I just buy it.

Most our meat we freeze and just get 1/2 a cow or pig, processed with different cuts from locals. If we get meat at a grocery store 90% of the time it's expiration day sale meat and we freeze it. We rarely pay full price. Or BOGO's with things like ribs.

FarmersWon says

Is higher wages of labor a cause of concern in our country or management making it like bandits?

Both.

Higher minimum wages cause inflation and kills jobs, because the employer can no longer make a profit at that wage level.

Management in the US is usually overpaid relative to workers. CEO wages a multiple of average worker wages has been going up consistently.

The solution is to eliminate competition from illegal labor in America and to prevent exporting of US jobs.

This hike in minimum wage is necessary to compensate low wage earners for the inflation caused by the previous hike in minimum wage. </sarc>

You're either going to pay the lowest wage earners more or it's going to cost the taxpayers more in social safety net costs.

GNL says

You're either going to pay the lowest wag earners more or it's going to cost the taxpayers more in social safety net costs.

Lowering welfare needs to be an option as well.

If they pay more, then they should expect at least a little more from the worker as far as productivity and increase in value.

Granted the increase in pay is for inflation but there should be some return to the employer as far as the employee being more effective.

So instead of needing a 5 person crew, they can reduce to a 4 person crew in order to realize savings, or there is a noticeable increase in unit output relative to the increase in unit cost.

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Booger says

GNL says

You're either going to pay the lowest wag earners more or it's going to cost the taxpayers more in social safety net costs.

Lowering welfare needs to be an option as well.

More homeless and closer to a 3rd world shithole? Sounds great.

ad says

So instead of needing a 5 person crew, they can reduce to a 4 person crew in order to realize savings, or there is a noticeable increase in unit output relative to the increase in unit cost.

How come it doesn't work this way for products at the grocery store? My beef keeps going up regardless of the minimum wage. This is a circle and everyone must eat. Why can't people see that? You're going to pay one way or another. It's jobs and wealth/income inequality that's the problem.

GNL says

More homeless and closer to a 3rd world shithole? Sounds great.

Need to incentivize and reward work and productivity gains.

Offer tax breaks or credits for housing for the worker class as one way to improve their standard of living and increase disposable income.

As far as your other comment about wealth/income inequality, there could be more emphasis on profit-sharing incentives such as offering shares of a company to its workers ranging from McDonalds to Walmart.
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ad says

GNL says

More homeless and closer to a 3rd world shithole? Sounds great.

Need to incentivize and reward work and productivity gains.

Offer tax breaks or credits for housing for the worker class as one way to improve their standard of living and increase disposable income.

As far as your other comment about wealth/income inequality, there could be more emphasis on profit-sharing incentives such as offering shares of a company to its workers ranging from McDonalds to Walmart.
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I dare say the tax code is a huge contributor to the problem also. You get more of what you incentivize.

GNL says

I dare say the tax code is a huge contributor to the problem also. You get more of what you incentivize.

The long term capital tax rates is at a maximum of 20%. You would want this to be higher for the rich ? And how much is rich ? At least $450,000 a year in income for a California couple ?

Trump and Bush Jr cut taxes. You want to go back to Clinton tax rates including the business tax rate ?

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@ad, what is a good society to you?

I want everyone to have a living wage job and ZERO welfare except for the indigent.

The prices went up before the minimum wage did. McD's already are down to kiosks, that was happened before COVID and the first one I saw was around poor ass rural Lake Okechobee where there is absolutely no high wage pressure.

Food Stamps are difficult for the working poor. 30 page forms. They wanna know everything to the last penny and documentation for everything; illegals swoop right in, claim no id and no papers, and get the full monty. Which benefits their Tyson and Koch Brothers employers.

ad says

GNL says

I dare say the tax code is a huge contributor to the problem also. You get more of what you incentivize.

The long term capital tax rates is at a maximum of 20%. You would want this to be higher for the rich ? And how much is rich ? At least $450,000 a year in income for a California couple ?

Trump and Bush Jr cut taxes. You want to go back to Clinton tax rates including the business tax rate ?

I couldn't care less about the rich...the truly rich. They aren't contributing to America anymore. They're internationalists. This country means nothing to them. Who do you think makes all the laws, rigs elections, opens the borders etc etc?

https://allnewspipeline.com/Americas_Demolition_Is_An_All_Government_Operation_And_Full_Blown_Communism.php

"More Americans than ever finally see through this convenient fiction and understand that a single Uniparty acts as a guild of political thespians who are the face of a permanently entrenched national security Deep State that runs the show.

Furthermore, more Americans than ever finally recognize that the United States is not a country that supports free markets but rather a central bank-directed financial cartel that regulates labor, commodities, and transactions so stringently that there is nothing outside of the government’s (or Wall Street’s) economic control. Taxing Americans’ labor, forcing them to use an inflation-driven paper currency, and encumbering their ownership of real property are not policies for encouraging middle class prosperity; they are chains meant to create debt-anchored, government-dependent slaves."

UkraineIsFucked says

Given how Sikhs don't know economics, it is more apparent to me why the street shitters rule over them.

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/6959770/mcdonalds-major-new-store-update-conveyor-belt/

UkraineIsFucked says

UkraineIsFucked says

Given how Sikhs don't know economics, it is more apparent to me why the street shitters rule over them.

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/6959770/mcdonalds-major-new-store-update-conveyor-belt/

At the 10 second mark you can see an employee behind the pickup window. So, doesn't seem "totally" automated.

GNL says

You're either going to pay the lowest wage earners more or it's going to cost the taxpayers more in social safety net costs.

Higher minimum wage means some people will never get any job, which would also also cost taxpayers more in social safety net costs. Many people just starting out in the job market take a lowest-wage job as a training job and move up the ladder as they gain skills and reputation of capability.

Forcing employees to pay more seems to be putting the burden on employers in certain industries. How about if the government reworks the welfare system such that earning money doesn't reduce benefits in a 1-to-1 ratio. Then, getting a low-paying job still has some benefit to the individual. Seems to me that anyone getting welfare should be working a minimum of 2000 hours a year, which adds up to $15k at current country-wide minimum wage. Over and above the welfare benefits, that's not nothing!

GNL says

You're either going to pay the lowest wage earners more or it's going to cost the taxpayers more in social safety net costs.

Yeah? Businesses shouldn't have to care.

Crotchedy Cheapskate Cons Today: "har, har -- kids being replaced by McD's Kiosks"

Crotchedy Cheapskate Cons in 10 years: "Hey, why is my social security and medicare being cut?!"

Because kiosks don't pay into retirement programs.

Wages are going to go up regardless of minimum wage laws. Demographics, Money Printing, and Debt are all related.

Juan Valdez might mow a lawn, but he can't process medicaid billing paperwork at the Internist's office porque no se mucho ingles.

UkraineIsFucked says

GNL says

You're either going to pay the lowest wage earners more or it's going to cost the taxpayers more in social safety net costs.

Yeah? Businesses shouldn't have to care.

I understand, I'm only trying to look farther than my own dick. I'm thinking about society as a whole. Scream muh communism or socialism if you want but, imo, everything is the government's fault since they regulate the shit out of everything. Not only that but they fuck the balance of everything up simply because of neverending access to fiat and picking winners and losers plus tax code bullshit and on and on and on.

I simply prefer that everyone has a living wage job and we reduce welfare to the indigent. If an able bodied person doesn't want a job, they can beg or live in their parents basement.

SunnyvaleCA says

Seems to me that anyone getting welfare should be working a minimum of 2000 hours a year, which adds up to $15k at current country-wide minimum wage. Over and above the welfare benefits, that's not nothing!

Seems like a good start.

AmericanKulak says

"Hey, why is my social security and medicare being cut?!"

Because kiosks don't pay into retirement programs.

Kiosks don't collect from SS, either.
The problem is that SS is a corrupt pyramid scheme.

SunnyvaleCA says

The problem is that SS is a corrupt pyramid scheme.

Yes, and that it's been expanded to Depressed Addicts and all kinds of shit is was never intended for.

GNL says

ad, what is a good society to you?

I want everyone to have a living wage job and ZERO welfare except for the indigent.

ad says

GNL says

ad, what is a good society to you?

I want everyone to have a living wage job and ZERO welfare except for the indigent.

Sarc, correct?

GNL says

Sarc, correct?

No. It's a pizza party. This is what you give kids to shut them up. The suits are sitting on cash. It's life. Not sarcasm. Those people will be happy with the pizza and move on with their day. It's actually a really good meme/image of how life is run.

Then don't ever bitch about minimum wage hikes, welfare, homelessness or even looting/wildings.

I believe you said you live close(?) to a war zone that has claimed more lives than WW2. Do you think that area will grow or shrink? Maybe more areas like that will pop up over time? This is what I'm most getting to. I want to keep from living in a place that is growing into a 3rd world.

I live in McLean Va. and there is an area that is becoming ghettoey. Pittbulls, trash, few street lights etc. The HS my daughters went to are top 50 schools in the nation.

Patrick says

The solution is to eliminate competition from illegal labor in America and to prevent exporting of US jobs.

Uniparty won't support import of legal and illegal labor into the United States of Dollars.

ad says

GNL says

ad, what is a good society to you?

I want everyone to have a living wage job and ZERO welfare except for the indigent.

One of the two guys should wear be wearing red suit and the other blue in this picture. They are different sides of the same coin.

https://reason.com/2024/03/16/seattle-law-mandating-higher-delivery-driver-pay-is-a-disaster/

Seattle Law Mandating Higher Delivery Driver Pay Is a Disaster

In 2022, Seattle's City Council passed an ordinance mandating a minimum earnings floor for app-based food delivery drivers in the city. The law finally went into effect in January 2024, but so far the main result has been customers deleting their delivery apps en masse, food orders plummeting, and driver pay cratering.

The ordinance, part of a legislative package called "PayUp," was passed under the banner of protecting gig workers. By setting a compensation floor for app-based delivery drivers based on miles driven and amount of time worked, the ordinance operates as a (supremely complicated) minimum wage.

The wage floor is based on labyrinthine calculations: the "engaged minutes" for drivers are multiplied by a "minimum wage equivalent rate," which is then multiplied again by an "associated cost factor" and then multiplied yet again by an "associated time factor." ...

Heralded as a "first-of-its-kind" legislative breakthrough when it passed, the first two months of the ordinance's operation have provided a grim real-world Economics 101 lesson. First, the delivery companies were forced to add a $5 fee onto delivery orders in the city to cover the sudden labor cost increase. On cue, news stories started popping up of $26 coffees, $32 sandwiches, and $35 Wingstop orders in which taxes and the new fee comprised nearly 30 percent of the total.

Local news station King 5 reported that Seattle residents started deleting their delivery apps from their phones in response to the spiking exorbitant delivery prices. Uber Eats experienced a 30-percent decline in order volume in the city, while DoorDash reported 30,000 fewer orders within just the first two weeks of the ordinance taking effect.

In turn, this decrease in demand directly impacted the pocketbooks of the delivery drivers themselves. A driver who made $931 in a week this time last year saw his earnings drop by half to $464.81 in a comparative week this year. Another reported consistently making $20 an hour prior to the ordinance, only to see his earnings likewise fall by more than half since its enactment.

In other words, while the ordinance theoretically raises driver earnings to over $26 per hour—a number that ironically far exceeds Seattle's $19.97 standard minimum wage—drivers are barely logging any hours as a result of the drastic decrease in demand for food delivery. As one Seattle driver summarized: "It was dead. Demand was dead." A second driver put it more bluntly: "I've got nothin'. I'm not gonna sit here for hours for one frickin' order."

Everyone has to eat. The "income" will come from somewhere.

Theyʼll just get unemployment or become criminałs. Sounds like a win-win.

What will really happen is people at the bottom will be pushed into poverty. Central bank run economies prey on the weakest, and eventually push everyone to the bottom.

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Likely the poor will qualify for more local and state subsidies. They'll just line up more at the local food bank.

By the way, did you all see the Obama-phone program (Affordable Connectivity Program) is not being funded this year ?
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