Minimum wage increase

[nissangirl74]

In seven states <Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington>, the minimum wage is going up by 9-12 cents / hour. How much of an impact do you think this is really going to make on a person's take home pay and their ability to pay their bills? Say you make the max, 12 cents, AND you work 40 hours per week. The increase is $4.80 / week, before taxes. If you saved that money all year, it would end up to be $249.60. Not a bad bonus check. However, do you think most people will save it or spend it?

Your thoughts?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101230/ap_ ... wage_hikes

[Jesda]

aka "unemployment increase"

[AZ89two4Tsx]

Hey now, I get min. wage, not including tips.

Honestly, I could care less but in the big picture, I see it doing more harm than good.

[nissangirl74]

aka "unemployment increase"

I wonder if this will impact those collecting unemployment in these states? Will they get a raise too?

[themadscientist]

Minimum wage kills jobs.

[MinisterofDOOM]

aka "unemployment increase"

I wonder if this will impact those collecting unemployment in these states? Will they get a raise too?

I doubt it. Unemployment calculations make Excel gurus run for the hills in terror. I filed in July when I lost my job and was not actually eligible because I got a severance check (which I'm definitely not complaining about) so I don't remember exactly what I was eligible for, but I know it was partially based on the wage I had been making at the job I lost (since I lost the job through no fault of my own). Which means a small change in minimum wage won't make more than a few cents difference and only for those who had only been getting minimum wage anyway.

[Ace2cool]

Military wages got a freeze on pay raises, thanks to our illustrious leader. *sigh*

[Dattebayo]

The short answer: No, it won't help. But it makes politicians feel good, I suppose...

[air_forced]

Military wages got a freeze on pay raises, thanks to our illustrious leader. *sigh*

I thought that was shot down? Something like all federal employees except military have a three year pay freeze.

[Ace2cool]

I didn't see the official article. That's just the word that's been getting passed around through the base.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

Military personal have the worst pay rates of any job field. I haven't kept up with it, but is it still 20% less than the median pay rate nationwide? Even if you throw in any of the extra pay options (COLA, BHA, Flight Pay, Haz Duty, Jump Pay etc...) you're still barely breaking even depending on where you're stationed.

[elwesso]

I don't really see how it would make that big of a difference either way.. $250 a year for a business per employee is hardly anything..

I would say in general, the people who are making minimum wage are younger people (high school/college) working part time jobs... Which my point is that those people probably aren't worried so much about their long term stability on minimum wage.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

I don't really see how it would make that big of a difference either way.. $250 a year for a business per employee is hardly anything..

I would say in general, the people who are making minimum wage are younger people (high school/college) working part time jobs... Which my point is that those people probably aren't worried so much about their long term stability on minimum wage.

Maybe so, but depending on where you are or what you do the average pay for most labor or office jobs is in the $10-12 range, which if minimum range is a little over $9 then once these young kids working at Burger King get out of school they won't be making much more than that in the real world. The problem isn't just the pay, but also the median cost of living. Here in the Philly area you'd be hard pressed to find a place to rent that's less than $800-900 a month unless you really don't care if you live in the slums and have everything you own stolen and/or defaced. The average rent in a decent area is roughly around $1000 for a 2 bedroom apt and $1200-1500 for a row home.

[Jesda]

I don't really see how it would make that big of a difference either way.. $250 a year for a business per employee is hardly anything..

It adds up when you take an organization and multiply that across hundreds or thousands of entry-level employees.

Say you own a decent-sized restaurant. You have ten employees who earn $8/hr but their wage is now $8.50. Washington, where I used to live, has been fairly aggressive about minimum wage. Here's an example:

@ $8/hr:
40 hours * $8 = $320/wk
$320 * 52wks = $16640
$16640 * 10 employees = $166,400 in labor costs not counting training, turnover, etc

@ $8.50/hr:
40 hours * $8.5 = $340/wk
$340 * 52wks = $17680
$17680 * 10 employees = $176,800 in labor costs not counting training, turnover, etc

That's a $10,400 increase in operating costs for a small business. That $10,400 could make the difference in being able to afford to hire another person. Now imagine the impact on Target.

Now add up all the small and large businesses nationwide that utilize entry-level labor. That begins putting a dent in job availability. And during a recession, that's like throwing alcohol on a fire.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 31,00.html

[nissangirl74]

Jesda speaks the truth. I was working part-time in fast food during the last minimum wage increase. My boss didn't hire anyone for several weeks and just piled the hours on the existing employees. She said it was cheaper to pay overtime than it was to hire more people. It looked great when it came to her making payroll but it sucked when we had a rush of people and not enough cashiers / clerks to wait on them.