Amazon Will Raise Its Minimum Wage To $15 For All 350,000 US Workers (recode.net)

Amazon said Tuesday it's raising the minimum wage for all 350,000 of its U.S. employees to $15, effective next month. From a report: The new pay threshold will go into effect Nov. 1 and impact all full-time, temporary and seasonal workers across the company's U.S. warehouse and customer service teams as well as Whole Foods, the company said in a blog post. It did not disclose what its current minimum pay wage is for U.S. workers, perhaps in part because there is not one set rate. "We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead," Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. "We're excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us." Alongside the cash compensation bump, Amazon said it will eventually eliminate its practice of granting stock to these workers and will instead institute a program that allows them to purchase Amazon stock through the company. The announcement comes as Amazon faces increased criticism over its pay and treatment of warehouse workers. Senator Bernie Sanders, in particular, has been relentless in his criticism of Amazon over the last few months, proposing a bill that would tax the company as a penalty for having workers who need food stamps and other public assistance to make ends meet.

Comments

2nd 18th century

[Errol backfiring]

... for having workers who need food stamps and other public assistance to make ends meet.

So, in effect, nothing has changed in 300 years. This is work ethics from the steam age.

Re:2nd 18th century

[lgw]

Would you outlaw jobs for teenagers? It's already vastly harder to get a teenage shit job than it was in my day,

There's a place in the market for shit jobs for peolpe still living at home, going to school, and looking for both pocket money and learning how to work any job (show up on time, sober and well groomed - you'd be amazed). It's bad when adults find themselves working such jobs, but if you have no skills at all, you have to start somewhere.

Amazon warehouse jobs are a tier above that, and it makes sense they pay somewhat better. Those are low-skill jobs for adults, but still there's a big part of their workforce that works part time, either with a second job or other responsibilities. Part-time work should not be effectively outlawed.

Re:2nd 18th century

[sjames]

If raising the minimum wage would effectively outlaw part time warehouse work at Amazon, how do you explain Amazon voluntarily increasing to $15/hr? Looks like it isn't so impossible after all.

And if it's not actually impossible, then nothing is "effectively outlawed" at all.

I'm reminded of an interview with a sandwich shop owner in N.Y. city complaining bitterly that with unemployment going down he has to be nice to his employees and even, God forbid, make sandwiches himself sometimes.

Re:2nd 18th century

[skaralic]

... for having workers who need food stamps and other public assistance to make ends meet.

So, in effect, nothing has changed in 300 years. This is work ethics from the steam age.

I bet you love that free shipping though...

Re:2nd 18th century

[lgw]

If raising the minimum wage would effectively outlaw part time warehouse work at Amazon, how do you explain Amazon voluntarily increasing to $15/hr?

I never made any such claim. But demanding that all Amazon workers are paid enough where they don't need food stamps? Hows that going to work for people who work 24 hours a week? 12 Hours a week?

Re:2nd 18th century

[sjames]

A lot better than it will if they don't see a wage increase.

It would work even better if all employers had to pay better so they would make more at their other job as well.

Perhaps even enough that they don't need taxpayer funded assistance anymore. It might even eventually be enough to cover the last round of tax cuts.

Don't you think you might enjoy not paying a cheap-ass employer payroll subsidy tax?

Re: 2nd 18th century

[Anonymous Coward]

Mongoloid's voice?

I assume that is intended as an insult, which I find hilarious as everything else about the unoriginal child fiddling retard is offensive, but it never occurred to me that his voice would be as bad in audio form as it is in written...

Re:2nd 18th century

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not actually free shipping - it's $119/year shipping whether one purchases anything or not.

The goal is to make it more likely that a purchase will be made through Amazon than someplace else.

Re:2nd 18th century

[lgw]

So how is it ever going to be practical to pay a "living wage" to a low-skill worker who only works 12 hours a week? Did you think that through? The guy who works 48 hours a week should make six figures?

Re:2nd 18th century

[sjames]

Your dislike of the idea has lead you right off the rails in search of an objection. Even $100/hr isn't a living wage if you only work one hour. "Living wage" has always meant an hourly rate that offers a decent living if you work at or near 40 hrs/week.

Re:2nd 18th century

[lgw]

But that's not what Bernie was demanding. His proposed law was to tax Amazon because some of their workers needed food stamps. Do you see where this thread comes from?

No matter what the likes of Amazon and Walmart do, they can't remove these talking points from the Bernies of the world, so why should they bother beyond simple supply and demand?

Re:2nd 18th century

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's not what Bernie was demanding. His proposed law was to tax Amazon because some of their workers needed food stamps.

How is that relevant? You were talking about teenagers and people who don't need to work full time. Those don't sound like people who would need food stamps.

Re:2nd 18th century

[lgw]

That includes people who choose the mix of part time work and checks from the government. In some situations, you actually net less by working more.

Re:2nd 18th century

[Anonymous Coward]

That includes people who choose the mix of part time work and checks from the government. In some situations, you actually net less by working more.

That sounds like a loophole that ought to be fixed either in the law, private companies being more rigorous in self-regulating to discourage the behavior, or a mixture of both.

I mean, I think we can agree that it SHOULDN'T be the case that you net less by working more, right? I think we can agree this is the case regardless of whether Bernie's law would pass, or whether minimum wage gets raised, etc.

Re:2nd 18th century

[sjames]

This thread comes from an article about Amazon raising it's minimum hourly to $15/hr. Then you asked about teens.

As for Sanders, note that his reaction to the $15/hr announcement is that Bezos did exactly the right thing and he has called on other low-paying employers to follow suit.

Re:2nd 18th century

[lgw]

... for having workers who need food stamps and other public assistance to make ends meet.

So, in effect, nothing has changed in 300 years. This is work ethics from the steam age.

This thread.

My point all along has been that you can't practically prevent workers who need (or choose) public assistance without outlawing starter jobs, part time work, and other vital things.

BTW, my Amazon sources tell me this was simple market pressure, that they decided to apply across the country (even the few areas that didn't need it to source labor) to make a good PR splash. Make of that what you will.

Re:2nd 18th century

[sjames]

It is worth noting that more and more parents wish to discourage their kids from those "starter" jobs anyway since it mostly trains them to accept being treated as sub-human by bad managers while being underpaid.

However, it can be safely said that few teens actually qualify for any of the benefits programs since they still live with their parents.

A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

but that's SOCALISM!!

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Oswald McWeany]

but that's SOCALISM!!

In this case it is capitalism because Amazon is doing it to keep hold of it's workforce and probably to have a better public image so it will sell more crap. The government isn't forcing Amazon's hand so it is capitalism.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[AuMatar]

No, its the threat of government intervention like the tax mentioned that would likely cost it more in the end. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with this result. But don't pretend they would have done this absent the likelihood of higher penalties.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Riceballsan]

I don't think it's even to keep the workforce. If they were losing workers they'd have done it a while ago. I think they are doing it to prevent laws from forcing them to do it, as if a law passes forcing them to do it, and the law turns out good for the economy and the common people, the laws might adjust for inflation. Meanwhile if they do it on their own they can say "see we didn't need a law, we did it on our own", then the law fails, and they can hope nobody draws attention when they don't re-adjust for inflation when 15/hr becomes starvation wage.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Alain Williams]

A living wage is not the same as minimum wage, it is an idea that has been around in the UK for some time. What is the living wage depends on all sorts of things, one of which is where you live. London is the most expensive place in England at £10.20 (== $13.30), so Amazon's $15 is OK (which I found surprising).

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Oswald McWeany]

$15 is probably fine most places in the US if you're only supporting yourself. I imagine in places like Bay area in California, or New York $15 is really hard to live on. Rural America $15 is easy to live on for 1 person if you don't have rich tastes.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[mpercy]

They're not doing it for any of those reasons. They're doing it so that that can say they did it for positive reasons while simultaneously asking government for force their competitors to do the same, especially if it hurts the competition way more than it hurts Amazon.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[ShanghaiBill]

No, its the threat of government intervention like the tax mentioned

There is little chance of government intervention, and ZERO chance of Bernie's idiotic tax on hiring poor people.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

tax on hiring poor people.

I know right? They should just choose to stop being poor, then Amazon can continue to pay a low salary without worrying about needing to pay this new tax. I mean, it's not like being paid federal minimum wage contributes in any way to being poor.

Goit.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Riceballsan]

did I miss the part where amazon is lobbying or speaking in favor of bernie's law? He started out more or less trashing the law, and yeah I'll admit Bernie didn't exactly open with a "lets have a friendly conversation" dialogue when his rhetoric more or less started at a "Bozo's is the ritchest guy in the world, and half his employees are on food stamps"

Re:A living wage for workers?

[ShanghaiBill]

How much money you need also depends on how many kids you have, and if you are a sole breadwinner for your household.

Should employers be required to pay more to people with more kids?

What if an employee breaks up with his girlfriend, and she moves out, taking her income with her? Now he needs more money to pay rent. Should he get an automatic raise?

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Opportunist]

Who goes back a century and tells Henry Ford that he's a Commie?

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the Seattle area where this started, $15 an hour isn't even remotely enough to live on your own. That's enough to be a single person living in an apartment with several room mates if you're working full time.

You're probably going to still be paying half your salary for rent at a minimum, but you might be able to afford a roof over your head if you don't waste any of your money on non-necessities.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[mpercy]

WSJ reported today that "Amazon, which has faced criticism about pay and benefits, said it would raise the minimum wage for all U.S. workers. The company will also start lobbying Congress for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 an hour"

Might not be mentioned in the original summary or article.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

The tax is a penalty for hiring crappy workers.

What they choose isn't relevant, basically never is. They made all their choices that mattered in middle and high school.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[ShanghaiBill]

I know right? They should just choose to stop being poor

Poverty is strongly correlated with the life choices that you make. For instance, having a child when you are an unmarried teenager is a choice.

But making it more expensive to hire that unmarried single mother is just going to make her predicament worse. It isn't hard to look at a person and see if they are likely to be on public assistance. Even their zipcode and phone prefix are good indicators. How they dress and the vocabulary they use are also good indicators.

An even easier solution for employers is to just stay away from any area with a concentration of poverty, and to oppose any construction of "affordable housing" near their place of business, that could draw in the "wrong type" of worker.

Taxing employers for hiring people receiving public assistance will just make the "poverty trap" even deeper.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

There might be some argument today.

But Henry Ford increased his workers wages, then fired the lot of them and hired the better people his new salary got him. All industrial plants at the time had insane turnover and training costs. Ford fixed that for himself while making it worse for his competitors by paying $5/day (which he actually didn't, he _bonused_ to $5/day. But only if the workers homelife passed routine 'inspection'.)

Ford was an asshole. Hated 'the Jews'. Hated 'investors'. (He bluffed that he was 'quitting', then bought his shares back cheap, Musk has nothing on him.) Invaded his workers privacy etc. Authoritarian enough to be a commie, thank dog capitalism restrained him.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[bkmoore]

$15 is probably fine most places in the US if you're only supporting yourself. I imagine in places like Bay area in California, or New York $15 is really hard to live on. Rural America $15 is easy to live on for 1 person if you don't have rich tastes.

The only major difference between and major metro area and any rural area is the cost of housing. Wages are lower in rural areas because most employers hold a jobs monopoly and the only way to get a pay raise is to quit and move to another region. Most cannot afford to move, so stay put and wages stagnate. I suspect Amazon cannot find workers in Seattle at $15 per hour. If Amazon goes to a rural area, their only real competition is probably Wallmart, which pays $11 per hour minimum plus health care benefits. Most Wallmart employees earn more than $11, so $15 is probably barely enough to get some workers in the door.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[CanHasDIY]

In the US, it literally refers to the "minimum living wage"

What would a minimum wage be, if not the least wage that a person could survive upon?

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

You mean at an age where we don't believe they are mature enough to vote, make decisions about cigarettes and alcohol, or enter into binding contracts?

What's next from you? Making people carry through with what they said they wanted to be when they were four years old?

What of people who were doing everything "right" who got derailed by circumstances beyond their control? Or does that not exist in your odd little world?

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

Yes, so outrageously expensive that Amazon is voluntarily increasing wages to match the goal.

But since you seem content to use your tax dollars to supplement inadequate pay, why not just finish the job and implement the basic income?

Re: A living wage for workers?

[datavirtue]

Really? I didn't get off my ass until I was about 33. Basically dicked off and did drugs the whole time. I did apply myself to studying software engineering and data engineering but I only did what I wanted to do. I'm now in the top 11MM people as far as income in the US.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[datavirtue]

This is going to clobber thier retail competition during the holidays. This is enough to put a lot of them out of business. They are fucked.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

They made all their choices that mattered in middle and high school.

This isn't the 1970's anymore. Anyone can get into some college. Cost is the limiting factor.

Don't have parents that can help, don't have a special status that allows you to qualify or get preferential treatment for grants outside Pell? The options are: military, 80k in debt, or a minimum wage job.

Not even the trades or manufacturing are options anymore. Both often require some experience and the former usually requires knowing someone "on the inside."

Re:A living wage for workers?

[ShanghaiBill]

What of people who were doing everything "right" who got derailed by circumstances beyond their control?

An obvious way to help these people is to make it EASIER for employers to hire them and give them a chance to turn their lives around. For instance, the EITC is an effective program that has helped millions of people earn enough to support their families.

But Bernie's poverty tax does the exact opposite. It penalizes companies for hiring the people most in need of a job. It is an insanely stupid proposal, and I can't believe that anyone takes it seriously.

It is a myth that "low pay" is a significant cause of poverty. The real problem is NO PAY. Only 9 percent of adults living below the poverty line work full time.

If Amazon hires a poor single mother, it is idiotic to say that somehow Amazon "caused" her to be poor. The truth is, that by giving her a job, they are helping her take the first step out of poverty. Punishing them for doing so makes no sense.

Poverty is a difficult societal problem, and we should all bear the cost of alleviating it. Dumping the cost onto the companies that are providing much needed entry level jobs, and thus disincentivizing them from doing so, is counter-productive.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

Sure they can get into a Jr college. But unless they've changed it's a waste of time and money.

Do you really expect them to 'get it' on their third or fourth attempt at learning algebra? Especially when the real problem is they can't even add fractions or use a tape measure?

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

Better luck next reincarnation!

People's traits are 99% 'cooked in' by the time they are 18. Nothing anybody can do about it. 'Wish into one hand...'

Re: A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

Your pretending to not know any 'air thieves'.

American 'unemployables' are basically illiterate, certainly innumerate, entitled and lazy as all fuck. Also chronic fuckups.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

So basic income it is. Easier to administer and actually closes the gap. It also avoids rewarding employers for paying less than the work is worth and expecting the rest of society to pay enough to keep their workers from dropping dead.

Or were you thinking of lowering the minimum wage to a penny because surely working 80 hours a week for a cheeseburger will help get people out of poverty.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[losfromla]

I did, Jr College and "got" algebra on my, probably third attempt. Then went on and got a Masters in Mechanical Engineering at the second of the UC's and now work as an engineer in aerospace. So, yeah, some of us dick around for a while then straighten up.

So, to sum it up... fuck you HornWumpus you irrelevant, arrogant, inhumane dickwad.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[losfromla]

You're saying that being poor is more a result of societal factors than personal ones, also that upward mobility is extremely poor in the US. Isn't that a horrible indictment on our society and our nation? Shouldn't the realization of that unfairness increase rather than decrease your compassion and understanding of the plight of the poor?

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

So your story is: You started Jr college taking remedial algebra? How many years was that Engineering BS?

I took algebra freshman year in HS...Soph Geometry, Jr PreCalc, Sr AP Calc. You were _years_ behind.

Did you know how to add fractions? You overestimate the abilities of the true air thief.

Everybody 'straightens up' to some extent. But those that don't get serious until after their brains have aged out of easy learning are pretty screwed.

I actually know some adults that can't use a tape measure, apparently it's common enough they sometimes don't get jobs because they fail the 'tape measure test'. Just pitiful.

Fuck you too, right in the ear.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Hognoxious]

What would a minimum wage be, if not the least wage that a person could survive upon?

Well it could be the least that employers can get away with.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

Moron. Cooked in at 18 is not 'inherently'. They fucked up, now they are _screwed_.

Young minds learn better, waste that time window and you are screwed. But you know that, just look at your life.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

No. The answer is for people whose work is _not_worth_ minimum wage to serve as a warning to later generations.

Don't make the bad decisions sjames made...

Re:A living wage for workers?

[ShanghaiBill]

So basic income it is. Easier to administer and actually closes the gap.

There is no plausible proposal for basic income that "closes the gap" and provides a living income to everyone. They only proposals that come close do so by eliminating social security, which is politically infeasible and deeply unfair to the people that paid into the system for a lifetime, and by raiding medicare, which ignores the fact that medical expenses are not evenly spread.

Or were you thinking of lowering the minimum wage to a penny

Markets don't work that way. Nobody would accept a job for a penny, because someone else would offer more. Employers can't just arbitrarily set wages.

Only 2% of full time workers earn the minimum wage. For the other 98%, even the current minimum wage isn't enough.

Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have no legal minimum wage. Number of Scandinavians earning a penny per hour: 0.

Minimum wages by country

Re:A living wage for workers?

[ShanghaiBill]

You're saying that being poor is more a result of societal factors than personal ones, also that upward mobility is extremely poor in the US.

Yes, that is what I am saying. Are you disagreeing?

Isn't that a horrible indictment on our society and our nation?

Yes. Absolutely.

Shouldn't the realization of that unfairness increase rather than decrease your compassion and understanding of the plight of the poor?

What??? How does saying "We shouldn't punish companies for hiring poor people" indicate a lack of compassion?

Bernie's proposed tax on poverty will disincentivize companies from hiring poor people, incentivize them to locate jobs in areas with fewer poor households, and raise the barriers to upward mobility. It is an idiotic proposal. But I don't think Bernie's supporters lack compassion, I just think they lack basic economic literacy.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about the intelligent students that are poor but need to take care of their families or had other things going on?

I have three advanced degrees (considering a terminal fourth) and just shy of a perfect GPA. I barely graduated highschool. It wasn't me that changed, but my situation. It took over a decade, but I got there. Good for you and your charmed life. Some of us had to earn what we got and started in a hole without a shovel.

Your response is elitist while failing to account for anything outside your perception and ignored the other points made.

You have a real ugly character and I hope some day you "get it" and change to become a decent human being.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a B.S. in physics and can't get a job at Starbucks or Trader Joe's. No drug use, ever. No criminal record. My AP high school diploma and my university diploma are useless. I am at the edge of suicide and cannot find employment.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you an idiot?

I knew full well that if I wanted out of poverty I would have to make decisions early. I did and I worked very hard. Most kids just accept they cannot change anything. I have seen them just give up in high school and become worthless.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[HornWumpus]

Bullshit.

Your attitude is what leaves people unequipped for life. By telling that lie, you tell kids they can wait to start making an effort and it will 'all be fine'. The worst thing you could tell them.

It's biology, kids learn better than adults. If they haven't learned to learn by 18, the best they can do is some sort of 'certificate of attendance' degree, which are common enough, but worthless.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

So, insults rather than arguments. I guess you're saying that now that you're over 18 you are learning disables? So much so that even riding the short bus can't help you?

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

So your main upset is that they don't hurry up and die?

You might find that they are willing to violently oppose your nice plan for them.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

That's because they have other social programs that allow for people to demand a worthwhile wage.

Employers WILL arbitrarily lower wages when the unemployment rate is positive and the government pushes people to employment in order to get benefits.

For non-human worker units (aka machines) they either pay what it costs to keep them running or they do without. Why do we willingly subsidize the operating cost of human worker units? If they won't pay what it costs to keep a human alive and in good enough condition to work, why shouldn't they do without?

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know nothing of his life. You are a subhuman piece of shit. Get off your high horse. People make mistakes. Don't codemn them for it.

I hope one day you make a mistake, and then we can codemn you for the rest of your life. Fucking asshole.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just know, you will pay for your sins.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You keep making yourself look stupid as fuck. Keep posting, ill keep printing out these comments and hanging them up. So when people feel sad they can get a good laugh at the ramblings of a moron.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the man who couldn't find an American wife, so he had to find a desperate jap bride. So desperate in fact, she bought him a real doll so she wouldn't have to sleep him him.

Bills wife: holds up the L sign on her forehead.
Bill: ahhh look guys she loves me.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You keep saying this, but don't mention how.

Not everyone pays their warehouse workers like shit.

Gaspppp, some warehouse workers that work somewhere other than amazon are getting paid $20 an hour.

But yea, according to creimerTheFat, everyone's going to quit their jobs to work for amazon.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

What have you done?
Nothing.

Stfu you armchair economist. You are a fucking idiot all up and down this thread. You've been downmodded 7+ times. Keep em coming boys.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[GameboyRMH]

Holy shit you're a cosmically evil hyper-misanthrope. This is the kind of utterly inhuman shortsighted capitalist-utilitarian cruelty I'm afraid AI will empower.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your (sic) certainly an air thief Wumpussy.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give every real citizen* ten grand a year, fee-free education and fee-free basic** medical care. You can then eliminate most other programs to pay for it.
Freeze and then cut Social security and those types of programs by 3.33% a year over the next thirty years as a bridge as current pay-iners bridge out and die off.

*Natural born, to American parents, of legal age. We can debate whether only one US citizen parent is sufficient, whether or not serving in the military, peace corps, etc for 2 or more years is an alternative qualification.

** Sorry, but million dollar prescription drugs aren't covered. It should cover everything that an EMT or army medic would be expected to at least try and treat, but without the equipment/mobility limitations of their field work.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Common form of self deception. I worked hard, and I succeeded. Therefore everyone who works hard succeeds and everyone who succeeded worked hard.

Success is, at a minimum, a two factor process. Both opportunity and effort are required. If you were born to a failed jihadi suicide bomber in, say, Somalia or Yemen, you would probably not have the enormous educational opportunity that even a shitty public school in the US gives.

The simple fact is that the number one predictor of wealth in the US is the zip code your parents live in. Born in Appalachia? You are probably not a millionaire. Born in Beverly Hills, odds are much better that money was in your future.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hornwumpus just said that brains "age out of easy learning". This is prima facia evidence that he believes old people are mentally inferior to young when it comes to learning. Learning things like new technology.

Translation, age discrimination is OK by Hornwumpus, so don't hire old people, only hire young if you staff might need to learn anything ever. So don't hire adults for tech jobs.

HR lawsuits, feel free to bookmark these posts.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldnâ(TM)t be zero chance. Small but not zero.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Opportunist]

Ford was an asshole, no doubt. He sure as fuck didn't pay more than minimum wage because he was such a sweet, lovable guy that he wanted people to be happy. He wanted workers that can afford his own products that wanted to stay in his factory SO badly that they put up with everything, from insane working hours to zero privacy.

He realized, though, that it IS possible to motivate people with money. Easily so, even. And that it's even cheaper in the long run to pay your workers more because that means that they'll bend over backwards to keep that job.

Re: A living wage for workers?

[Uberbah]

If your business can't pay a living wage, your business doesn't deserve to exist.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Talderas]

Amazon is raising wages for one of three reasons.

1. They're attempting to stave off anything that could upset their end goal of near 100% warehouse automation. They accept the higher costs now because they are fairly confident that in a few years many of these workers will likely be automated away.
2. They believe that higher wages and possible good will PR is worth more profit than lower wages and possible bad good will PR.
3. Going into the holiday season they're hoping to make it more difficult for competitors to hirer temp workers and consequently are looking at it as a way to gain an even larger online market share.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

I'm absolutely Amazon is doing this because they believe it is good for Amazon. They are, after all, a large corporation.

All I'm saying is that the fact that they're doing it shows that it is doable.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Talderas]

Amazon's annual net income is a little under $8bn iirc.

I'm just going to make some assumptions... the 250k regular employees are 40hr employees and the 150k seasonal employees are equivalent to 1/12th of a full time employee (12500). Splitting $8bn profit 262,500 ways is roughly $30.5k per employee per year. $30.5k per employee per year (revenue) divided by 2080 hours (40hrs per week) works out to $14.65/hr. That's the theoretical upper limit, ignoring other costs like payroll taxes or overtime, on how much Amazon could raise wages by without running losses every quarter. What are these employees currently paid? $10/hr? That's effectively cutting Amazon's profit by a third. Federal minimum wage? They're cutting Amazon's profit in half. Even raising wages by just $1 increases annual payroll by half a billion and that's assuming those 150k seasonal workers are working 20hr weeks for 8 weeks. These are not insignificant knocks to profitability and it almost certainly means that Amazon has some strategic plans in place that are going to eliminate this cost or increase revenue in the next five years or so.

Combine this with their desire to campaign for increasing the Federal minimum wage to $15/hr and it's highly probable they are aiming for a goal of significant automation (cutting labor force) in combination with running competitors out of business by making their labor costs too burdensome to be profitable.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

You're confusing profit and revenue. Profit is what you have left after you pay for everything you needed to bring in your revenue. So that 8 billion isn't being divided among the employees, it's being divided among the stock holders (minus what they keep aside for later).

The exception is Hollywood. In Hollywood, every movie takes a loss for tax and profit-sharing purposes.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Uberbah]

Bernie's idiotic tax on hiring poor people

That's an impressively batshit crazy framing of the issue. Are you and your friends going to hold a tearful service, complete with burning candles below a picture of St. Rand....because....less of your tax money will be subsidizing a trillion dollar company??? Amazon paying $15 an hour means less people on food stamps and Medicaid, slick.

Poverty is strongly correlated with how much money your daddy had, same as it does for the rich

FTFY. People "choose" to be poor like you "chose" not to own your favorite sports team and be a tech billionaire before you turned 25.

An obvious way to help these people is to make it EASIER for employers to hire them and give them a chance to turn their lives around.

Companies will hire the minimum number of workers needed to produce the maximum results. How "easy" that is is as irrelevant to that equation as high corporate tax rates are.

But Bernie's poverty tax does the exact opposite. It penalizes companies for hiring the people most in need of a job.

Aside from the service, the tears and the candles, maybe you could start a GoFundMe for Bezos, because having a larger net worth than dozens of countries just isn't enough. Were you the inspiration for that South Park scene where we're all supposed to cry for the rich because they had to settle for a Gulfstream III instead of a Gulfstream IV for their private jet? Or maybe the fundraiser for Kylie Jenner, to hurry up and be the youngest billionaire before she turns 22.

It is a myth that "low pay" is a significant cause of poverty.

The fact that someone can work full time and be below the poverty line makes a bad liar out of you.

There is no plausible proposal for basic income that "closes the gap" and provides a living income to everyone. They only proposals that come close do so by eliminating social security, which is politically infeasible and deeply unfair to the people that paid into the system for a lifetime, and by raiding medicare, which ignores the fact that medical expenses are not evenly spread.

Mark Hamill called, and said every word in those sentences are false.

Markets don't work that way. Nobody would accept a job for a penny

Unpaid interns are fascinated by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Talderas]

I am quite aware of the different between profit and revenue and costs. You appear to be missing that raising costs necessarily lowers profit unless you offset those costs. No company should be borrowing money to make payroll, so while you are technically correct that the raise doesn't come from profits, the current profit serves as a reasonable absolute upper limit by the fact that the company will probably need to be profitable in order to reasonably drive innovation and growth. Raising employee wages by $1/hr will cost the company roughly an additional $500m per year in direct payroll. However, raising wages by $1 typically turns into $1.50 so a $1/hr wage increase is closer to $750m in additional costs per year for Amazon. That will lower profit, since costs increased, unless that $750m is offset by other cost-cutting measures. Across the board, the average is probably closer to a $3/hr increase for most employees making the total increase in cost closer to $2.25bn or more than a quarter of their current annual profit.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

In that case, your post was a bit unclear. Not sure why you're assuming a 1$ raise would somehow cost $1.50 since the raise doesn't increase the overhead for employing someone. It would cost $1.07 due to matching SS contribution.

They'll likely get some of that back in the form of reduced costs of employee turnover and improved productivity.

It's not nothing, but note that even if Bezos paid it personally, he would remain the richest man in the world.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[Talderas]

In that case, your post was a bit unclear. Not sure why you're assuming a 1$ raise would somehow cost $1.50 since the raise doesn't increase the overhead for employing someone. It would cost $1.07 due to matching SS contribution.

$0.50 is a figure I'm using based on what I have heard from payroll accountants. There's more than just social security that needs to be paid in. There's unemployment as well as other government mandated benefits. It's a fairly well researched topic but suffice it to say, each $1 of wages corresponds to roughly at least $0.40 of additional costs for that employee and it can go higher. If you want to read up on it you can view this Pew link.

Re:A living wage for workers?

[sjames]

Those figures are an average that includes some fixed costs that exist regardless of the amount the employee is paid. I don't dispute that those costs exist, only that they scale with pay.

This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

As wages go up, you will see inflation pick up as well (natural consequence) and as a result the stock market will plummet. There will be billions in losses amongst the investor class and the economy will stumble as well.

Re:This will spur inflation

[jellomizer]

Historically minimum wage changes has small effect on inflation.
First there is a factor is someone gets paid more, they tend to work harder. So a business doesn't need to hire more employees to expand. As employees who are getting paid more, are in less stress of their finances. So a lot of the costs are balanced by efficiency.
Second being minimum wage, you do not have a lot of buying power. For the most part the extra wages goes into things that you should have, but have been putting off. Oil change to your car (if they have one), Paying Rent on time, healthier food, medicine and healthcare. A lot of this is currently being paid by government services, which would change to them buying it themselves.
Third Most people do not stay at minimum wage for too long. My first job in High School paid minimum wage, I got a raise after a month. Because I wasn't a slacker. Most companies if they find an employee they don't want to leave will pay more them minimum wage.
Forth, there is limit on the Trickle effect both trickle up and trickle down. Minimum wage increase is a trickle up. Which the lowest may get a 50% increase, then 25% increase for the next level (as to not have them at back down at minimum wage) then 12%, 6%, 3%, 1% then they stop. So Minimum wage will only increase anyone who is getting paid under $20 per hour.

Re:This will spur inflation

[Opportunist]

I hear this myth every time, yet strangely it never happens. Maybe because there's exactly no reason why it should?

We, in our post-industrial, service based economy, are a, well, service economy. Depending on the area you're in, 60 to 80 percent of all jobs are services. In other words, jobs that depend mostly on workforce and less on natural or industrial resources. Now, inflation is driven by a surplus of money compared to goods and services offered, with a shortage of supply and an increased demand due to a surplus of money, inflation would rise. But what happens in an economy with a surplus of money, a supply that is mainly dependent on workforce AND unemployed people?

I'm sure you're smart enough to figure that one out yourself.

But as a hint: As soon as we have a shortage of workforce, I agree with you. Until then, please, go troll somewhere else.

Re:This will spur inflation

[MrKaos]

trickle up and trickle down

Any additional income paid to people will simply be spent. I think this was researched in Texas where they found pay rises generate a lot of economic activity.

Paying people more money is a way to get more money into circulation instead of it sitting inside a bank account doing nothing.

Re:This will spur inflation

[jeff4747]

As wages go up, you will see inflation pick up as well (natural consequence) and as a result the stock market will plummet.

Ok, so what's the downside?

Re:This will spur inflation

[HornWumpus]

Hint: We have a shortage of capable workers today. To the point that people that can barely fog a mirror think they're worth $15/hour.

Re:This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

As wages go up, you will see inflation pick up as well (natural consequence) and as a result the stock market will plummet. There will be billions in losses amongst the investor class and the economy will stumble as well.

You have the wrong cart in front of the wrong horse....

Inflation will be DIRECTLY caused by the prodigious printing of dollars in the various QE (Quantitative Easing) efforts of the last administration. You know that buying of T-Bills using printed dollars by the Federal Reserve? For 8 years we where burning the midnight oil at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing turning out greenbacks as fast as they could.

We now have a bunch of bucks circulating, chasing the same goods, so is it any wonder that prices are getting higher? I'm not surprised, I was saying inflation would be the result of this back when they announced QE1, 2, 3, and Forever... We will pay the piper for this though inflation, it is inevitable as the sun rising in the east.

Inflation won't kill the market, but the lack of cheap money will drive investment away from stocks back to bonds. The issue is how fast this happens. At current inflation rates, it's not a problem, stocks may not be wildly profitable anymore, but sanity may ensue. If we double or triple the inflation rate, THEN there will be some pain, both in stocks, wages and standards of living.

My leading indicator will be oil prices and the base inflation rate. If oil keeps outstripping inflation rates, everything and everybody will get hit with inflation. Oil prices are a double whammy to core prices and if we reach oil prices above $125 bbl I will start to prepare for an inflation cycle.

By the way.... There ARE ways to profit from inflation.... If you really believe it's on the way, I suggest you start placing your bets.

Re:This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

trickle up and trickle down

Any additional income paid to people will simply be spent. I think this was researched in Texas where they found pay rises generate a lot of economic activity.

Paying people more money is a way to get more money into circulation instead of it sitting inside a bank account doing nothing.

Same thing that happens when you lower taxes.. The additional money is spent and generates may times its value in economic activity.

Re:This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply breathing is worth $15/hour

Re:This will spur inflation

[butchersong]

Even progressive economists acknowledge that raising the minimum wage has an inflationary effect. I've not heard a serious discussion that this isn't the case. The pro arguments I have heard have always been that the effect is relatively small compared to the gain. I don't really disagree. Cheap goods are a rationale for a lot of bad practices walmart crap goods etc.

Re:This will spur inflation

[sjames]

If you were offered less than it costs to continue existing, you might not be willing to do much more than fog a mirror either.

Kinda like at one time, slaves were claimed to be universally lazy. It couldn't possibly have had anything to do with not being paid, no no no.

Re: This will spur inflation

[datavirtue]

Agreed. The likely outcome looks something like people paying thier rent on time and being able to afford a pizza. This will mean less stress and an elevated sense of themselves.

Re: This will spur inflation

[datavirtue]

Everyone is worth $15 a hour. If we could only convince them of the same truth they might actually be productive. People are lazy and unproductive when they don't think much of themselves.

Re: This will spur inflation

[datavirtue]

Just outlaw bonds. Problem fixed.

Re:This will spur inflation

[HornWumpus]

You supposed to have learned something useful while still a kid. If your hiring on the cheap, the best you can do is a kid that won't be there for long. The adults available to you are just useless.

Not all jobs are intended to support independent people with families. That is the fundamental lie told by the 'living wage' morons.

It's true that slaves were _lousy_ workers, but don't tell the libs who claim 'slaves built America'. They will call you a Nazi.

Re: This will spur inflation

[HornWumpus]

People learn to be productive over years, everybody productive has 'paid dues'. A 30 year old 'air thief' is beyond help, years of bad habits are ingrained.

Most lazy and unproductive people have quite good 'self images', part of the problem is they think they're above working.

Re:This will spur inflation

[sjames]

You seem to be pointedly missing it. The slaves were lousy workers because the pay was lousy (zero).

If you got paid nothing, I'll bet you would do the bare minimum to not get whipped too.

You'd also probably desert at your first opportunity. Imagine that.

Re:This will spur inflation

[HornWumpus]

I'm not disputing that slaves are lousy workers. Just telling you that saying it will get you called a Nazi, by people like you.

Your supposed to believe that 'slaves built America'. Get with the program.

Re:This will spur inflation

[sjames]

I'm not disputing that slaves are lousy workers. Just telling you that saying it will get you called a Nazi, by people like you.

Why would people like me disagree with people like me? Logic fail.

Look closely at the people you imagine will call me a Nazi. Don't you see the straw coming out of their sleeves?

Re:This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't tell ShanghaiBill. He'll call you braindead.

Re: This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Blasphemy.

Re: This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Your. LOL

You are all up and down this thread calling out people who aren't skilled.

And you can't even fucking do grammar properly.

What a retard.

Re:This will spur inflation

[GameboyRMH]

False dichotomy.

Re:This will spur inflation

[MrKaos]

Same thing that happens when you lower taxes.. The additional money is spent and generates may times its value in economic activity.

However that only applies if the money is spent. If the money is horded into investments then it does not get circulated in the economy.

Re:This will spur inflation

[Opportunist]

Pay peanuts and you get chimps. And frankly, if you only paid me 15 bucks an hour, I would leave my brain at home, too. If you want me to do something, pay me. If you don't pay me, don't expect more work to be done than is absolutely minimally necessary to not get fired, and even that only insofar as finding another job (which also pays shit) is down the road.

Supply and demand, baby.

Re:This will spur inflation

[Opportunist]

Odd. I actually hear this "sky-is-falling" doomsaying only from people who fear that if more people can afford it, the stuff they want to buy gets more expensive. Never from someone with some kind of background in those matters.

Re: This will spur inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, that's almost universally a problem of incompetent management and training.

Pay terribly, provide incompetent management and training and that's what you get.

The near complete lack of real entry level positions is another part. There used to be a pipeline from entry level to management for anybody smart enough and hard working enough to make it, but that's mostly been disassembled.

then lobby to increase min wage to kill main st

[Anonymous Coward]

“We intend to advocate for a minimum wage increase that will have a profound impact on the lives of tens of millions of people and families across this country.”

Translation: We intend to use this to wipe out the rest of our competition that has somehow survived up to this point. Goodbye main street. If you don't have the facilities to monitor your employees to wring maximum value from every second they are present, you won't survive.

Re:then lobby to increase min wage to kill main st

[Anonymous Coward]

Main street has been ripping us off for decades - good riddance to it.

This is not helpful

[JackieBrown]

Doing something like this across the board makes no sense since so many locations have completely different costs of living.

Some areas, this will be so over paid that it will cause prices to rise as other companies start having to match the wages.

In other areas, 15 is not even close to meeting a living wage that it will do nothing to help.

Re:This is not helpful

[SoonerSkeene]

I've wondered if the minimum should be tied to inflation so you keep the same buying power. That is, regardless of inflation, your salary will always get you the same number of loafs of bread or such. But clearly that isn't a single shot solution, since as you said the cost of living in (say) San Francisco is wildly different than Nowhere, OK.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention how pissed off the people who worked up to $15/hr will be. If the $7.50 folks are moving to $15, are the $15 folks moving to $22.50?

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not raising pay across the board - it's raising the minimum across the board. What they actually pay may vary from location to location, but even where pay is lowest it will be at least $15. Incidentally, "not even close to meeting a living wage" is about what I'd expect from Amazon.

Also, I'd personally love to earn $15 an hour - terrible exchange rates would work in my favour for once and I'd be rich.

Re:This is not helpful

[cascadingstylesheet]

Doing something like this across the board makes no sense since so many locations have completely different costs of living.

Some areas, this will be so over paid that it will cause prices to rise as other companies start having to match the wages.

In other areas, 15 is not even close to meeting a living wage that it will do nothing to help.

Reasoned thought is SO western, white, old, and reactionary.

Don't stand in the way of progress!

Re:This is not helpful

[hispeedzintarwebz]

I think the issue that would arise is that (in a vacuum) the cost of that bread is dependent on paying bakery workers $7.50 an hour, and if the minimum wage was determined to be $15, then the labor cost increases the cost of that bread, which has to be adjusted for either in terms of quality/quantity of materials, or in an increased overall price. Suddenly the $15 bread-adjusted minimum wage has to be increased, and so on. Bread is cheap, so it's sort of an abstract example - but it's still a matter of labor value compared to the value of what the labor creates. They are certainly tied to each other, but not at parity. At least that's the economic argument - I'm sure there are plenty who would dispute it. And I'm sure it doesn't always hold true, and it doesn't account for government subsidies, etc. You're right, it's not a single shot solution, but it's an interesting thought. I wonder how something like that could happen but also not result in price increases when the market determines that the value of someone making bread is less than the value of the bread itself. I would argue that if companies weren't subsidized both in tax breaks and in not having to pay higher wages (due to knowing that their employees can get benefits to fund the gap) that they would be forced to compete more on wages and benefits, but that too is in a vacuum. I would be curious to see what an Amazon with no tax incentives or minimum wage, competing with other companies with neither, would fare and at what level their wages would end up.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh hush. It's 30,000 dollars a year. No place in America has such a different "cost of living" that people making 30,000 a year are going to cause "prices to rise." You are so full of shit.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

COUGH federal minimum wage COUGH

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Some areas, this will be so over paid.

This is an incorrect and completely shit take and you're dumber for having mentioned it.

Re:This is not helpful

[lactose99]

$15/hr is overpaid in what context?

Re:This is not helpful

[jellomizer]

So people who live in a populated area, with a lot of job opportunity (high price areas) will move from living in abject poverty to just poverty.
The people who live in a less populated area, with little other job opportunities (low price areas) can now have a comfortable life style.

Perhaps there should be more effort in finding way to lower cost of living in Cities, vs. finding ways to improve property costs (AKA raising the cost of living)

Re:This is not helpful

[cordovaCon83]

I doubt that Kentucky will suffer the same issues as Silicon Valley as far income inequality causing housing issues which is the major driving factor behind cost of living.

Re:This is not helpful

[pak9rabid]

Ever been to Goliad, TX?

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop talking out of your ass.

List one state where the set minimum wage is higher than $15. Go ahead I'll wait patiently.

Re:This is not helpful

[AmiMoJo]

Wages tend to be a small part of the cost of most goods though. When you look at he volume of bread coming out of factories and the number of people working there, wages don't contribute much to the sale price.

Re:This is not helpful

[JackieBrown]

Yeah, I'd say most of Texas outside of some of the major cities.

In fact, in San Antonio 30,000 is enough for a single person to get by comfortably. (May not at the comfort level a lot of the higher middle class that a lot of Slashdot users live at.)

I was making $46 thousand and was the sole provider for my family of 4. Cooking your own meals and not going out for lunch makes a huge difference in a budget.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Stacking boxes and moving them is not the most taxing of work or challenging

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

the cost of living in (say) San Francisco is wildly different than Nowhere, OK.

Part of the problem as I see it, is that people expect, for example, a Big Mac to cost the same whether you are at a McDonalds in the middle of San Francisco, or a McDonalds in Nowhere, OK. They don't care that that means hours long commutes for the workers at the San Francisco McDonalds because they cannot afford to live anywhere close to work, they just want their cheap food damn-it!

Re:This is not helpful

[DigressivePoser]

COUGH abolish COUGH

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing something like this across the board makes no sense since so many locations have completely different costs of living.

Some areas, this will be so over paid that it will cause prices to rise as other companies start having to match the wages.

I'm sorry, but you need to elaborate here to justify your statement that says $15/hour is "overpaid" in ANY part of our country. The cost of car insurance and "affordable" healthcare for the average young person is a shitload of money per month (my sons insurance costs on a POS car are as high as a new car payment). Yeah, I get the impact on prices when payroll expenses increase, but this is something that likely needs to happen across the board anyway due to the ever-increasing gap between a minimum wage and a living wage.

In other areas, 15 is not even close to meeting a living wage that it will do nothing to help.

That is why you have Cost of Living Allowances to make up for the deficit in certain areas, which is how they manage this exact problem in the military.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Seattle the minimum wage is tied to inflation. The problem with that though is that it's tied to the national inflation rate which may or may not be the same as it is for the local area. It also excludes a lot of expenses that normal people have to pay, like rent and gas prices.

Here in Seattle, the cost of living has been advancing far more quickly than what the inflation rate would suggest primarily due to housing prices increasing at a rapid rate. Right now, you're likely to be homeless if you're trying to raise a family on 2 minimum wage jobs.

Still, it's better than nothing, but it should probably be tied to something a bit more meaningful like how much money the richest Americans have so as to put a limit on how much wealth they hoard at the expense of the rest of us.

Setting a maximum wage related to how much the poorest employees at the company making would make a huge impact. Similarly going back to a system where the top bracket was round about 90% and heavily taxing investments that weren't held for at least a year would also likely help a lot.

Not to mention actually sending bankers to prison for engaging in fraud.

Re:This is not helpful

[Stonent1]

Winner!

Re:This is not helpful

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Warehouses are all located just outside cities. About the same distance, because they are logistic centers. They need to be close to the places the ship to (and next to major truck routes), and where land is cheaper.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

COUGH DIAF cough

Captcha: Replete. You got yours, so fuck everyone else.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

You all need to read Adam Smith's 1776 "Wealth of Nations" before espousing random economic theories.

Re:This is not helpful

[Thelasko]

Wages tend to be a small part of the cost of most goods though. When you look at he volume of bread coming out of factories and the number of people working there, wages don't contribute much to the sale price.

That argument is very narrow in scope. As a whole, wages are the only cost of most goods. Sure, the staff at the bread factory may not be a significant portion of the cost, but other resources are purchased to make the bread. Those resources have labor costs.

The grain mill has staff to turn the wheat into flour.
The truck driver has to be paid to transport the flour
The farmer has to be paid to grow the wheat.
The truck driver has to be paid to transport the wheat.

It takes labor to find and extract any natural resource. Including oil. The only exception might be the air we breathe.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting the poor CEO and other C-levels at the top, who are barely making ends meet - unless they are considered in the "wages".

Re:This is not helpful

[jeff4747]

The grain mill has staff to turn the wheat into flour.

And the mill spends much more on buying wheat than on paying that staff.

The truck driver has to be paid to transport the flour

And his pay is a very small fraction of the cost of the load.

The farmer has to be paid to grow the wheat.

The farmer isn't getting paid a wage, so he's irrelevant to this discussion.

The truck driver has to be paid to transport the wheat.

And his pay is still a very small fraction of the cost of the load.

It takes labor to find and extract any natural resource.

That doesn't mean labor is the most expensive part of that process.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

So people who live in a populated area, with a lot of job opportunity (high price areas) will move from living in abject poverty to just poverty.
The people who live in a less populated area, with little other job opportunities (low price areas) can now have a comfortable life style.

Perhaps there should be more effort in finding way to lower cost of living in Cities, vs. finding ways to improve property costs (AKA raising the cost of living)

Improving the quality of life outside cities, such as you suggest this will do, should decrease population expansion pressure in cities. It may not lower costs, but it should slow future increases.

Re:This is not helpful

[jeff4747]

Part of the problem as I see it, is that people expect, for example, a Big Mac to cost the same whether you are at a McDonalds in the middle of San Francisco, or a McDonalds in Nowhere, OK

People have been unable to expect this within a single city, much less across the country. There are nearby McDonalds that are expensive and some that are cheap.

My typical "Oh shit I'm late for work" breakfast is about $2.75 at the one near my house, and about $4.75 at the one near work.

Re:This is not helpful

[king neckbeard]

I don't why there is always so much hand wringing over giving people in the sticks half-decent jobs. Wealthy vacationers are going to do much more harm than these jobs.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Then those workers will seek employment elsewhere.

Labor demand is up. That's why Amazon is bumping their base pay.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

$15/hr is overpaid in what context?

When you can't produce enough value for you employer in an hour to pay for that $15 - along with paying for the overhead of your employment.

Then your minimum wage is zero.

Re:This is not helpful

[sjames]

And at each and every one of those steps, labor is a small contributor to the price. Profit for the management and capital class is a larger chunk.

Even less of the cost is attributable to people being paid minimum wage.

Re:This is not helpful

[sjames]

They will likely see some improvement as well since they could more easily get another job paying $15 and their employer can't afford for everyone to leave.

So no, they won't be pissed off. They will see benefits as well.

Re:This is not helpful

[sjames]

So not overpaid, just adequately paid.

Re: This is not helpful

[datavirtue]

Then the fed would be virtually powerless. Not going to happen.

Re:This is not helpful

[c]

In other areas, 15 is not even close to meeting a living wage that it will do nothing to help.

What proportion of Amazon workers at their minimum wage level are living in areas where $15/hr isn't close to a living wage?

I don't know the answer, but it seems rather relevant to deciding if it's a good or bad change.

Re:This is not helpful

[whopis]

In most of those examples, there is still an underlying labor cost.

For example, with the truck driver delivering the load - yes you are right that his labor costs are a small part of the delivery charge. Other costs include the fuel, and paying for the usage of the truck. So we have to look at the cost of those items, and guess what? There is labor included in those. Refining oil has a labor cost. Drilling oil has a labor cost. Making the equipment to drill oil and refine oil has a labor cost.

While at any stage, the labor cost is fairly minimal, it is there at every stage, and it is an accumulating percentage of the cost at any level.

In the end, the vast majority of the cost of any goods are labor. Sure there are some costs that are not associated with labor (real estate rental, for example). But most things boil down to labor at the end of the line.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

$15/h is overpaid? What the fuck is wrong with you? That's barely minimum wage. ... Oh, you're American aren't you? Poor thing, probably don't even realize how much you're getting fucked by corporations. Prices will not need to go up to cover the cost of wages. Corporate profits are at an all-time high, they can afford to pay a lot more than $15/h without raising prices.

Re:This is not helpful

[jeff4747]

In most of those examples, there is still an underlying labor cost.

And no one is disputing that. What we are disputing is your attempt to make that labor cost a large part of the overall cost. And it simply isn't.

In the end, the vast majority of the cost of any goods are labor.

[Citation Required]

Let's look at some numbers instead. Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 is a more than 100% increase. So what affect would that ~100% increase have on prices? Well, let's look at the worst-case scenario: Fast food. Because unlike all your examples, a significant percentage of the costs in a fast food restaurant is wages.

That 100% increase in wages translates to....a 4% increase in the cost of the food. Or about 17 cents for a Big Mac.

If a 100% increase in wages only yields a 4% increase in one of the most wage-intensive industries in the country, we probably shouldn't be worried much about the effect on the price of milling wheat into flour.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing about this... is a lot of that can be fixed by moving away from places where it is expensive to live.
But people insist in impoverishing themselves to live in large cities.

*shrug* enjoy your expensive, run-down, crime-ridden, polluted hell-hole.

Also the air pollution, noise pollution, stress and lack of quality sleep... Yeah have fun with your parkinson's, hearing loss, hypertension, osteoporosis and cancer.

Re:This is not helpful

[squiggleslash]

I'm not sure what you're saying is 100% true, but that said, the difference between the lowest and highest paid in most companies means that the wages of the bottom 50-80% of the company's employees are rarely a significant part of the sale price.

To put it another way, if you want to reduce costs in most modern corporations, you'd achieve more by firing half the top executives than half the people who do the work.

Re:This is not helpful

[Thelasko]

While at any stage, the labor cost is fairly minimal, it is there at every stage, and it is an accumulating percentage of the cost at any level.

Well said. Precisely my point.

Re:This is not helpful

[galabar]

That works well for Venezuela.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Venezuela tied their currency to inflation so your earnings are always worth the same amount? I never knew.

Re:This is not helpful

[Solandri]

Poverty level for a single person is $12,140/yr. Which at 2000 work hours/yr (40 hrs/week, 50 weeks/yr) is $6.06/hr. For a family of 4, it's $25,100/yr, which would translate into $12.55/hr.

So in both cases $15/hr would lift you and your family well out of poverty. Only in Alaska would a family of 4 with a single breadwinner making $15/hr still be in poverty.

Reducing living costs in cities is simple - allow more housing to be constructed, build better transportation to make it feasible to live further from work. Unfortunately, most cities are resistant to this, or are bound by geography which prevents expansion.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

So the idea of kicking illegals out and making work for citizens isn't going to raise the cost of food prices like the left says it will?

Re: This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Labor is not the dominant cost in any aspect of human life, other than when a mother gives birth.

The farm worker is not the primary cost in the price of crops. The land owner and water right owner is, generally followed by the equipment (machines, pesticides, fertilizers) owner's. Those are usually owned by bankers, aka mortgaged/leased/financed. Those factors mostly apply to every business.

Even a kid's lemonade stand is leveraging/subsidized by the parent for the fair market value of renting that location, including the insurable liability risk of doing so for a stranger seeking to do the same. I would charge a stranger a lot more than $20 a day to rent a spot on my lawn for a table and chair before I took that risk on.

A thousand dollar iPhone has about $15 worth of labor paid by Apple involved. At its core, sure it is just sand made into silicon chips, but it is not a thousand dollars of labor by someone hand polishing it onto circuits. It is billion dollar capital expense foundries taking $20 worth of sand dug with $1 of labor and shipped with $19 of fuel and truck depreciation, purifying it, and turning it into a thousands of ARM chips.

Labor is less than ten percent of basically anything you can buy from two different stores (aka not uniquely hand made). The rest is rent seeking profiteering. I say this as a property owner who seeks rent as much as I can. It's wrong but legal. Want to change the behavior, change the law.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why we need to fix the definition of poverty level because in much of the US that's just not true. You know, the places that people actually live. There's no way on earth that you could afford to be a family of 4 around here with just one parent working for $15 an hour full time and not be impoverished.

I can't figure out how they have such a low figure because you're looking at nearly that much money just to pay the rent, let alone frivolous things like utilities and food.

Re:This is not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the issue that would arise is that (in a vacuum) the cost of that bread is dependent on paying bakery workers $7.50 an hour, and if the minimum wage was determined to be $15, then the labor cost increases the cost of that bread, which has to be adjusted for either in terms of quality/quantity of materials, or in an increased overall price. Suddenly the $15 bread-adjusted minimum wage has to be increased, and so on.

It almost sounds like $7.50 is the only price at which bread can be made... if you increase the wage, suddenly you enter an increase in the price spiral which you'll never get out of! I almost feel like saying that if you decrease the wage a bit, suddenly the bread becomes free. Labour costs will be a percentage of the price of the anything you make. If you double labour costs, you increase only that part. So, unless the rest of the bakery is free (as in beer) and only one bread is made per person, per hour, the price won't increase dramatically.

Re:This is not helpful

[Thelasko]

That 100% increase in wages translates to....a 4% increase in the cost of the food.

Your example, and the research you cite are microeconomic studies. When we raise the minimum wage, we are not just raising the minimum wage for food service workers, as the study you cited suggests. Minimum wage will go up for all workers. It will have a macroeconomic effect. That will increase the costs throughout the entire supply chain. That is not within the scope of the research you cite.

When you sum all of the costs down the supply chain, labor is the dominant force.

Re:This is not helpful

[jeff4747]

That will increase the costs throughout the entire supply chain.

Here's what you're desperately skipping over:

It will increase the costs throughout the entire supply chain by a trivial amount because wages are a tiny fraction of the costs in the supply chain.

You keep insisting that the increase will be large because you keep mistakenly thinking wages are a large expense. They aren't. That 4% increase on a 106% increase in wages is one of the worst-case scenarios.

When you sum all of the costs down the supply chain, labor is the dominant force.

Once again [Citation Required].

Any farmers need help with hay?

[Anonymous Coward]

What am I supposed to do with my pitchfork now?

Re:Any farmers need help with hay?

[Opportunist]

Keep it nearby, this ain't gonna change much.

Good for you Amazon

[shaitand]

As for Bernie Sanders bill, he may have had Amazon in mind but the bill remains a good idea. It makes the companies which are systematically subsidizing with tax funds reconcile the bill instead of asking taxpayers to do so.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather just not subsidize corporations. Let them compete on wages and benefits, instead of wooing cities to pay them to bring their jobs.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[shaitand]

Ummm yes... this is a measure which attempts to actually accomplish that. "just not subsidize corporations" is a vague ideal not an actual implementation.

Amazon seems to be ready to compete on wages. Which isn't a total shock since economists have been saying there is no way companies could hold out forever with record low joblessness and continue to deny market realities which dictate a raise in wages.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[drinkypoo]

Which isn't a total shock since economists have been saying there is no way companies could hold out forever with record low joblessness

It is a surprise, if not a shock, because record low unemployment is a myth.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[lgw]

Even with that very broad measure, it's going down, which means upward market pressure on wages. As the economy continues to improve, wages will continue to rise. Let's just keep this economy going as long as we can before the next stupid bubble.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

When these numbers were used while POTUS BO was in, they were disregarded as fake numbers. Are they really real now?

Re:Good for you Amazon

[jeff4747]

An employment-population ratio of 100% is not something to strive for. But that assumption underlies all of the methodology used at ShadowStats.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[shaitand]

Whether or not those stats are more accurate is disputed because while they undoubtedly capture people who are missed (and the most severely unemployed) by the other metric they also capture people who aren't seeking employment. Like most things, it isn't that simple and what most people agree with at the moment has more to do with what fits their politics than reality. Parisians are as bad as sports fans.

That metric is interesting because while it is not a record low as you say, you can see the disparity grow during the Obama years and finally start caving around 2015-2016 and it also is declining. That isn't necessarily critical of Obama policies though, it could have been more an effect of the mess he inherited.

I do think people are misguided regarding recent changes though, cutting taxes on corporations is not the same thing as cutting taxes on wealthy individuals. Cutting taxes on wealthy people who already gain more than they spend wouldn't do much. Money will end up going to the wealthy in proportion but retirement accounts and small investors own huge swathes of the stock in those corporations. They don't just hand the money out to the shareholders for the most part anyway, those gains mostly come from speculation, the saved money generally gets reinvested into increased operations to turn it into even more money. That does mean employment growth which eventually means wage growth. There is nothing partisan about that any more than 2+2=4.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[drinkypoo]

They don't just hand the money out to the shareholders for the most part anyway

Right, they hand it to the executives.

Re:Good for you Amazon

[shaitand]

They hand plenty to the executives but that also tends to take the form of stocks and stock gains which come from speculators rather than revenue. The magical thing about blindly pushing the concept that the stock in some way is the measure of company performance means at the top everything gets tied to the stock so the board and executives always end up with lots of it so their money is tied to the stock price.

Taking money out of the company works against their interests, announcing some new plan or expansion bumps the stock price and if it actually works it fuels EPS and holdings which just grows the stock price even more. It isn't that they aren't greedy enough to take the money and run it's that they are greedy and well educated in matters of finance and know they run with more money this way. It is usually safe to assume one thing about people at the top, they want more.

How many are affected

[SoonerSkeene]

Yes Amazon has 350k US workers, but how many were below this threshold (how many are being impact by the change?)

Re:How many are affected

[Anonymous Coward]

More like "how many of the 350k US workers are going to be let go due to increased cost of labor"? Amazon may be wealthy, but I would guess that this increase in minimum wage coincides with some decent breakthrough with pick'n'pack robotics that will ultimately lower the number of minimum-wage workers necessary for operation.

Re:How many are affected

[Actually, I do RTFA]

t how many were below this threshold (how many are being impact by the change?)

17,000 full time employees, and 20,000 seasonal employees.

as a last-resort

[nimbius]

https://boingboing.net/2018/09... this was done to short-circuit the high likelyhood of unionization at Amazon factories, which could then risk spreading to the corporation as a whole (unionized developers, SRE's, managers.)

Re:as a last-resort

[Anonymous Coward]

If i was one of the managers i would make it a point to help them unionise. They are effectively using their monopoly position to intimidate their workers.

Re:as a last-resort

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why you'll never be promoted to manager at Amazon, obviously. I'm not arguing one way or another whether it's a good idea, but I'm sure you could get a warehouse job if you tried.

Re:as a last-resort

[squiggleslash]

...which is fine. Anti-union campaigns that involve smearing unions and firing unionization advocates suck. Anti-union campaigns that involve improving conditions for workers so they don't need to unionize are a good thing. Even the unions will tell you that.

Re:as a last-resort

[mapkinase]

>unionized developers

As long as more developers needed there will be no union. There is only quantum vacuum level of unemployment among software developers.

MAGA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see what a REAL economic recovery looks like.

And yes, it IS Trump's fault. Trump isn't ruining the economy since he doesn't "need to remake the US economy [along 'progressive', redistributionist lines based on failed ideas from the 19th century]."

Yeah, Obama kinda left out that part about WHY he had a need to "remake the US economy".

Re:MAGA!

[Dan667]

at best trump is riding Obama's coattails after Obama fixed the mess bush left. And all indications are trump is screwing the economy up overheating it with money supply. His bad decisions take a while to catch up.

Re:MAGA!

[scrout]

Oh FFS, no one trusted Obama at all, and basically held on to their money and invested as little as possible because the risk was high with the Obomber in charge. Jesus man.

Re:MAGA!

[Anonymous Coward]

The progtards disagree with you, because they have so much experience with capital investments.

Re:MAGA!

[Drethon]

at best trump is riding Obama's coattails after Obama fixed the mess bush left. And all indications are trump is screwing the economy up overheating it with money supply. His bad decisions take a while to catch up.

Just curious, how is Trump providing too much money supply? From my minimal understanding of economics, the fed is more in control of the money supply via their interest rate. If Trump has no political control over them, as I believe the fed has claimed, he is not the one controlling the money supply.

Re:MAGA!

[DNS-and-BIND]

You mean Trump is doing so well that Obama has to take credit for his accomplishments?

Re: MAGA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Via tax cuts....

Re:MAGA!

[Anonymous Coward]

The quantity of dollars worldwide has decreased enormously under Trump, and the world is pushing for US devaluation.

The "dollars" you are seeing in this country are foreign holders scrambling to get their money into this country before we return to a New Bretton Woods System and Forex trading is once again banned.

In 10 years, we will have what Keynes proposed when the UN was founded: The Bancor.

Re:MAGA!

[Anonymous Coward]

95% of all money is created by banks as "New Money Loans" as defined by FIRREA. The Fed nor the US government affects this (though they could if they so chose).

What is happening is the quantity of US dollars worldwide is decreasing as we transition to a New Bretton Woods System.

Re:MAGA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Presidents are capable of getting loans (adding to the national debt) up to a certain ceiling. The fed controls the flow of real cash, the president (with the power given to him by Congress) can funnel debt laden cash into the economy.

How come...

[Comboman]

How come no one worries about inflation due to the constantly rising wages of CEOs and Wall Street douche-bags? How come no one worries about inflation due to tax breaks for the wealthy? It's a specious argument anyway, since the employees will have minimal extra spending money to drive inflation. The difference will be that all their money is coming from their employer instead of their wages being subsidized by government programs like foodstamps.

Re:How come...

[Opportunist]

Their fear is that if the unwashed masses can actually afford something, the increased demand due to a larger amount of people being able to afford something, will drive prices for stuff that only they could afford before up.

What they fail to see is how our economy actually works. If anything, it will result in more supply to hoover up the increased amount of demand, creating jobs and employing more people. Which is pretty unlikely considering the minimal increase in purchasing power.

Re:How come...

[bkmoore]

How come no one worries about inflation due to the constantly rising wages of CEOs and Wall Street douche-bags? ....subsidized by government programs like foodstamps.

Because the powers that be prefer to pit skilled workers against unskilled workers. We tell the $40 per hour worker he's being screwed over by the $10 per hour minimum wage worker. All the while we rob both blind. Inflation is caused by monetary policy PERIOD. Wages. and everything else is a side effect of this policy because it effects the prices of everything that we buy.

Pre-emptive action, to avoid lawmakers.

[xpiotr]

Amazon is facing lawmakers wrath unless they do something,
This is a pre-emptively action, that is to avoid this.
Diverting 0.0x% of their profit to their actual workers is not an actual cost
They are trying to look good in front of the growing critics.
If 15$ is a living wage, remains to be discussed.
For people citing inflation, please consider that
McDonalds in for instance Denmark are able to pay workers an ok salary + 5 weeks of vacation,
while Big Mac prices are not that much higher than the US
Yes, and health care...but that comes from the "high" Danish taxes
Spreading wealth actually creates more wealth...
-- Sig: Now take those bears that you carry in your arms and clean up the swamp.

It's just a small change in Amazon's profits

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple calculation, 350 000 workers * 160 hours per month * 5 dollars average increase = 280 million per month. But with the lowered expense in offering stock, it will be one less drop from Amazons ocean of profits. It's basically karma-whoring.

What about "contractors"

[Anonymous Coward]

All warehouse workers will eventually be provided by a 3rd party staffing agency to skirt around this. If I knew which one Bezos had in mind, I could make a few bucks on the stock market.

Re: What about "contractors"

[Anonymous Coward]

Or robots. I suspect olâ(TM) Jeff has oodles of warehouse robots just waiting for the right time to be let loose.

Yeah, so AI Will Take Over

[Anonymous Coward]

When $15.00 and hour was first brought up, and something like 22 states were going to go for it, I got on a few forums and said, "Are u guys mentally retarded? Corporations don't do something like this for you benefit. Actually, that's the price-point that automation and AI can take over. They don't need sick leave, vacation, insurance, maternity leave, and they don't start unions. Basically, by voting this in, you are fucking yourselves!" They laughed at me. They won't be laughing at Amazon when they slowly replace the vast majority of those workers with automation and AI.

Cheers,

AB5NI

Re:Yeah, so AI Will Take Over

[mpercy]

I don't think it will be all that slowly. Expect to see more and more pick&pack robots at Amazon real soon now.

Re:Yeah, so AI Will Take Over

[Opportunist]

Good.

Slavery and cheap labor have always been anathema to progress and technological advancement.

Re:Yeah, so AI Will Take Over

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon warehouses are already full of as many robots as possible. Fake argument.

Re:Yeah, so AI Will Take Over

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, with the time-frame given, I guess I was being a bit hopeful. You're probably right; it will be swift and crushing. I also predict that Walmart will be almost be completely using automation and AI shortly as well. Expect to see little AI vans skirting around town, and they'll send u a text and e-mail when their in the driveway. Pop outside, swipe ur Walmart card, and the thing opens up.

The truly, truly evil folks (besides the crooks that instigated $15.00 an hour to start with), will be the folks promoting "Basic Universal Income." They know -- without any doubts, mind you -- that AI and automation are going to sweep corporate America and small businesses alike. The only way to placate the mega-millions of serfs and peasants (Read; you and I....us) out of work will be some form of basic income provided by the government.

Another way to put all of this: "It's all planned and has been, for a while now, by the central bankers and some of the 1%." A LOT of folks are going to be needing copious amounts of butt-lube in the not-too-distant future.

Cheers,

AB5NI

Re:Yeah, so AI Will Take Over

[Anonymous Coward]

And...

Owners and management get tired of paying high worker wages

Automate all the jobs

Fire the employees

Employees have no money, stop buying stuff

Orders for goods and services drop

Former workers become politically active, start talking about turning over the economy/government

Since they now have nothing, they also have nothing to lose

This chain of events played out in 18/19th Century France, as wealthy landowners (mostly Aristocracy) drove off poor tenant farmers. The industrial revolution hadn't hit its stride yet, so this surplus population struggled to find gainful employment. They were also very easy to manipulate as long as you promised them a better life, or at least a loaf of bread.

In the end, a lot of the French Aristocracy was lucky to lose just their wealth, as quite a few of them lost their heads too.

The learning moment from this is that the unwashed masses have significant power. Those who have a lot of wealth but do not create mechanisms to spread that wealth so others benefit too will quickly learn just how much power is not in their hands when the society they depend on to create and defend that wealth completely churns over.

If you're Biblical, it was in Deuteronomy that we are advised not to muzzle the oz as it treads out the grain. In other words, make sure those who perform the labor that makes you wealth also partake in the success of their labor. Pay the worker a wage that reflects their worth to your success. It doesn't say pay them the lowest wage legally allowed. This is for each employer to determine what is an equitable wage. If said person is a religious Christian, Jew or Muslim, then they should take this direction into account. If the person is not religious, then the warning I outlined above from the French Revolution should be enough there too if basic human decency isn't enough.
 

Re:Yeah, so AI Will Take Over

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, really. If you believe that, be prepared to be very, very disappointed. Elon Musk is right when he says (as I have your years and years) that AI is the true evil we need to be watching. Unfortunately, I'm going to predict that civil wars are getting ready to be fought over all of this, and the central bankers are surely going to love the hell out of that, lending all sides money.

Watch what happens when the Fed decides to pull back the cash and instigate margin calls. Watch how the rich buy up homes, land, businesses and other real-world, tangible assets for pennies on the dollar. You'll sell them all of that stuff, just so you can afford to eat. Go ahead and laugh at me for thinking this stuff. We'll see who has the last laugh.

Watch what happens when 3 families are living in a 3-bedroom home that's being paid for by universal income and being rented out by the elitist and the 1%.

Cheers,

AB5NI

$15 an hour is impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

A majority of the people in the world make little more than $3 a day. Those people are happier in general than our populance.

How can life be so hard making so much money, though? Unreasonable expectations "the American dream". Unreasonable regulations that require us to have certain costly services and possessions. Forced wealth distribution that is allowing the well-off to take "charity" from the government, you know those people who pay several thousands of dollars a month for a condo then complain about not having enough left to live a normal life or save for a rainy day. Well, there are a lot less expensive places to live, but if the government is handing out charity to just about anybody...

Re:$15 an hour is impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

no wonder the rest of the world is a shithole
MAGA

Fuck the Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize, of course, that when you raise the minimum wage, you make people unemployable. There are plenty of people who, for a variety of reasons, are not worth $15/hr. I have twin sisters with Down's. They're not high performance employees; bagging groceries is about the top end of their skill set. When bagging went away with a minimum wage increase, so did their employability. Now they're living with my parents watching movies instead of working.

Go fuck yourself.

Re:Fuck the Disabled

[radja]

no, it's the companies that don't want to pay that minimum wage that make people unemployable. Don't blame the decision of a company on anyone else.

Re:Fuck the Disabled

[cordovaCon83]

Do you not have vocational rehabilitation services in your state? I'm sorry to hear that your sisters have been displaced in this economy.

Re:Fuck the Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

You're too stupid to realize that reality counters your argument.

Re:Fuck the Disabled

[shaitand]

There is nothing about down syndrome that prevents them from learning skills.

Re:Fuck the Disabled

[shaitand]

Neither this nor Bernie Sanders proposed Bill are a raise to the minimum wage. So how is your comment relevant?

Re:Fuck the Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we have vocational rehab services. However, we have a lot of people in the same situation, and mid 40's is a tough time for a career change for anyone, much less a significantly disabled person.

Re:Fuck the Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's that consumers don't want to pay higher prices for goods and services and do not believe that you should be trying to raise a family on an ass wiper's salary--entry level is for those just entering the job market.

Hard Workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they doing for the people who worked their way to $15/hr? I'm sure they're getting a large bonus... Oh wait, they're losing their earned stock options and will need to buy stock from now on... How is this good for the workers who actually earned their $15+/hr?

Re:Hard Workers?

[GameboyRMH]

That's right, what about the crabs that have spent a long time getting near the lip of the bucket? Are they gonna let those other crabs that just dropped in get to the lip of the bucket too? - said the fisherman.

Why would Amazon want to "lead" to $15?

[GregMmm]

Why lead and suggest other companies go to $15 for their minimum pay? At this time they will be paying a premium for workers. This is just good business. They will retain workers better, and attract better workers. Turns out if you pay more you get to pick from more applicants with better skills.

So why would you want your competition to meet the same pay? I suppose this is simply a political move. Looks good if you go first. Unfortunately, in the business world this will be forgotten by next Monday.

Not sure what the impact will be about the stock grants their losing. Maybe they will give a discounted stock purchase plan, which might compensate the lost income. Also, you don't need to hold the stock grants till they mature, usually like 4 years for all of the grant.

Re:Why would Amazon want to "lead" to $15?

[Anonymous Coward]

So why would you want your competition to meet the same pay?

duh, wow, are you stoopid, the competitor's employees will have more money to spend at amazon

Re:Why would Amazon want to "lead" to $15?

[Anonymous Coward]

Smaller competitors may not be able to survive the cost increase from a minimum wage increase and go under; that's why Amazon is now lobbying for a minimum wage increase. It's basically the reason as they now lobby for online sales tax collection: increase the cost of being in the market to compete with Amazon.

Re:Why would Amazon want to "lead" to $15?

[GameboyRMH]

Maybe Jeff Bezos used his long-term thinking to figure out that underpaying workers will starve the economy out in the medium/long term, since demand-side economics is real and supply-side economics is destructive nonsense, so to keep a population of Amazon shoppers around, he wants to raise wages across the board. I'm surprised a guy who prides himself on his long-term thinking didn't figure this out sooner.

Ford and the Fed

[harvey the nerd]

The $15 wage floor is slightly reminescent of Henry Ford's "$5 day" policy, which bought Ford labor peace and productivity for a few years. Soon enough, others were able to match or exceed Ford's labor rates. Some of it was fueled by productivity and sales, but a lot of it represented more rapid expansion of M2 by banks and the Fed in the 1910s. Forbes on Ford's $5 day NPR

The frightening aspect is price inflation that has already occurred and will accompany a broader application like a $15 minimum wage. Such a tremendous rising wage is a symptom of expansion of credit and money.printing, courtesy of the Federal Reserve since 2008.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

$15 an hour is enough in some areas, but in a lot of areas it's not anywhere near enough.

I'd be somewhat more impressed if Bezos would do something about the terrible work place conditions.

Also, keep in mind that until recently he's claimed that he's been paying workers more than that, so I'm guessing the public pressure that's been mounting may have had a small effect. IIRC, he's been claiming that the compensation package was $17 an hour, even though that includes things that individual employees never receive because they're fired or quit prior to being vested in their shares.

UPS is a bit better in that they don't generally fire people for failing to meet targets as long as they're doing what's being asked by the managers. That's not to say that it's a good place to work, they do fire people over sexual orientation and their process for firing people that aren't yet in the union is one of the most abusive I've ever seen, but they do at least concern themselves with safety, something that Amazon does not.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

The advertisements for amazon warehouse at the university all tend to say $16-$20/hour + tuition reimbursement. So... a $15 minimum wage doesn't seem like it would effect them very much at all. Unless current workers are making much less?

Re:Ford and the Fed

[bkmoore]

$5 for an eight hour shift in 1914 dollars would be $123.26 in 2018. $15 times 8 hours is $120. Ford in 1914 paid better than Amazon in 2018.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[gtall]

Not only the Fed, Congress and our alleged Presidents went along with massive reductions in tax receipts and massive increases in spending. Inflation will really bite because to tame it will require the Fed raise interest rates. In a year or so, the U.S. will spend more every year on servicing its debt than it spends on the military.

Now, let us all bow our heads in remembrance of those solemn vows Republicans gave us that the tax cut will pay for itself in the hopes we fail to notice the deficit going to over a Trillion dollars every year. Remember also that Trump once claimed he was the kind of debt. Also remember that he destroys all that he touches.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL.. Puts this into perspective when you do the math, doesn't it...

Re:Ford and the Fed

[dunkelfalke]

They had 10-11 hour shifts back then.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[harvey the nerd]

Ford had 9 hour shifts, but I would tend to agree Ford was much better relative to other workers in 1914, never mind the multiple CPI series, politicized stats.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[bkmoore]

They had 10-11 hour shifts back then.

The standard shift was nine hours in 1914 and probably included a break at some point. Originally the daily wage was $2.50 for a nine hour shift. Ford had to hire 52,000 men (there were no women back then) to maintain a staffing level of 14,000 in the production plant. The high rate of turnover was causing very serious production problems and costing Ford a lot more money than doubling the wages would. Ford doubled the wage to $5, reduced turnover and saved a lot of money.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Muros]

A different way to calculate the value of $5 in 1915 would be to compare it to house prices. A 48 week year of 5 days a week at $5 would net you $1200, and house prices were ~$3200. So Ford paid around 37.5% the median house price per year. Current median US house price is roughly $200k, so if Bezos wants to deserve a comparison to Ford he needs to up wages to about $39 an hour.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

And then after work I went back to my shack and bounced a ball in the heat. Maybe read a book. Then to bed to do it all over again.

The pay might be relatively the same, but quality of life is so much better it's not remotely comparable.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[ShanghaiBill]

The median house in America today is more than twice the size it was in 1914. If you calculate by square foot of housing, wages today are about the same.

But housing prices have climbed faster than general inflation for most of the last century, so it is not a good benchmark for comparing wages.

Re: Ford and the Fed

[datavirtue]

Wait until people get thier check and realize nothing changes about thier life. Going from $10 to $15 is sort of a big deal...for a month.

Re: Ford and the Fed

[datavirtue]

Well something will change...they will lose thier food stamps.

Re: Ford and the Fed

[datavirtue]

Controlling spending comes from controlling lending. The powers that be are the powers that be because they lend the money.

You always see long diatribes about economic dominos that start with good times. I realized that excessive lending/borrowing in the good times is always the cause of problems in a downturn. Downturns are good, slight, and barely noticed unless big corporations and banks can't service thier debt....then shit hits the fan. Watch.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

(there were no women back then)

How peaceful

Re: Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sure. No one will appreciate a 50% pay raise. Such a waste. You are so convincing.

Re: Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

They will lose their food stamps and other benefits. Which will make up for it.

Aka nothing has changed

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a goddamn excuse for everything.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember this is a trend that has been going on for multiple administrations regardless of party.

So, fucker, tell us what we should realistically hope for given the shit that is being shoveled at us instead of trying to beat a dead partisan horse.

I'll be waiting.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Solandri]

Tax revenue initially fell after Bush's tax cut, but picked up again after the tech bubble-caused recession. Same for the housing bubble - tax revenue fell during the recession, but returned to historical levels post-recession. In other words, the tax cuts didn't cause the growing deficits and debt.

It's increased spending which is causing the growing deficits. Primarily growth in Social Security, Medicare, and other health programs. Spending on other programs - even defense - has been falling. So Social Security, Medicare, and other health programs are what we need to rein in if we want to get the budget under control. Unfortunately, those are the programs Democrats consider sacrosanct and refuse to allow us to modify.

I'll also point out that the flip side of the stimulus spending under Obama to jump-start the economy, is that once the economy gets going again you reduce spending to below historical levels. Basically government spending should act as a stabilizer, 180 degrees out of phase with the economy (stimulating the economy when it's poor, slowing it down when it's good to prevent it from overheating) The government saves up during good times, so it has a piggy back it can use to spend during bad times.. I agreed that stimulus spending was the correct thing to do after the housing bubble, but opposed it because I knew the second half (reduced spending) would never happen. Leaving us further mired in debt (which went from about 60% of GDP to over 100% under Obama). Unless we get that debt reduced, the only thing saving us right now is the low interest rates. If those go up, the interest on the debt will balloon and begin to dominate the budget.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

Also remember hat gtall is a drooling moron.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Lost Race]

Current median US house price is roughly $200k, so if Bezos wants to deserve a comparison to Ford he needs to up wages to about $39 an hour.

In 1915, $5 would buy a quarter ounce of gold. To keep up with Ford, Bezos would have to pay ... 1/32 oz/hour ... $1200/oz ... $37.50 an hour. I'd say your math checks out!

Re: Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a good damn reason for everything.

FTFY.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Are you saying that unlike today's Amazon workforce, Ford's employees didn't have a shack to go home to? That is inconceivably horrible!

Re: Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress controls spending And congress has been republican for 8 years give or take

Re:Ford and the Fed

[hackertourist]

House prices these days are based on two incomes per household, in 1915 that would have been 1 income/household. House prices have been climbing faster than inflation for a long time.

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Cederic]

Aren't you comparing skilled vs unskilled labour?

Re: Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

Only since 2008, or more like since the inception of the Federal Reserve

Re:Ford and the Fed

[Anonymous Coward]

$15/hr is price inflation? At the standard 2080 hour/year, you make $31200/year without vacation or holidays.

Re: Printing money causes inflation

[hunter44102]

Where will the money come from? From higher prices? Well higher prices for the same exact product is definitely inflation especially almost everyone NOT getting this kind of raise. And it really hurts those that were already making 15 doing a more skilled or more labor intensive job

In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is announcing across the board price hikes, raising Amazon Prime rates, and increasing non-Prime shipping costs.

Wow how much were they getting paid before?

[AnthonywC]

And apparently $15/hr is $31,200/year. A lot of cars on the road has MSRP more than that..

Re:Wow how much were they getting paid before?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of cars on the road has MSRP more than that..

Protip: you can live close to where you work and then simply walk or bike there. Also, you don't have to buy a car new from a dealership; there's such a thing as used cars and they cost a lot less. Or, y'know, you could try saving up to buy a car or pay for it in installments etc.

Nobody owes you a nice living standard. Everyone else has to work to eat, you're not special.

Re:Wow how much were they getting paid before?

[citylivin]

"And apparently $15/hr is $31,200/year. A lot of cars on the road has MSRP more than that.."

Obviously you are not poor. Poor people don't qualify for 31k loans. They buy $500 beaters. I've never paid more than 1k for a car and I am not even that poor.

The biggest scam in the world is new car sales. I would argue that anyone who pays more than a few thousand for a car is bad with their finances.

I worked for $8 an hour when i was just starting out 20 years ago and it was about 400 after tax bi-weekly (850 per month or so). You cant really afford gas and insurance for that much unless you live with your parents. A car loan would be completely out of the question.

Re:Wow how much were they getting paid before?

[GameboyRMH]

We should thank the people who buy new cars and take a bath in depreciation so that the rest of us can buy affordable used cars. They provide an important service.

Prices only really rise

[rsilvergun]

in response to wage gains if there aren't matching productivity gains. We've doubled productivity in the last 20 years while wages remained the same or went down. There is a _lot_ of room for wage growth and better standards of living in America.

If I may rant a bit here, I do wish we could get rid of this pernicious lie that raising wages is pointless because it just means prices will go up. It's so obviously wrong on the face of it. If such a thing were true we'd never have gotten out of the gilded age.

Re:Prices only really rise

[TheSync]

"We've doubled productivity in the last 20 years while wages remained the same or went down. "

Average non-farm real output of workers per hour has risen by 50% over the least 20 years.

Average non-farm real total compensation of workers per hour has risen by 20% over the last 20 years.

The question, though, is what is the distribution of those two items. Has the rise in average productivity been driven by the productivity of a few, high-earning non-average workers, or has productivity risen for all workers? Also, what portion of productivity increase has come from capital investment in equipment as opposed to improved labor skills?

These are US numbers as well. It is possible that US productivity increases may be due to improvements in labor and capital in countries like China (where labor has seen tremendous wage increases) which provide inputs into US companies.

Re:Prices only really rise

[JackieBrown]

You realize that our productivity rises are do to technological advances, not actually people working 50% harder.

Re:Prices only really rise

[TheSync]

You realize that our productivity rises are do to technological advances, not actually people working 50% harder.

Indeed, productivity can rise from capital investments (such as machinery & automation), labor human capital improvement (going to chef school to learn how to cook more efficiently), management human capital improvement (learn how to more effectively run a business), and government/regulatory improvements (more efficient permitting process, reducing time to clear customs, etc.).

That's the trouble with the American economy

[rsilvergun]

it's workers can't afford the goods they're making. An entry level 4 door sedan that's not a death mobile like the Sentra retails for $17k. I've got a 4 year old one and they're kind of junky on the inside but they do well in crashes (which the Versa does not). That's $300/mo (after taxes and the like) + $100 for insurance (more if you've had an accident recently). Plus at $15/hr you need to come up with 1.75 month's pay for a downpayment.

Yeah, you can buy used, but the price of used cars keeps going up since nobody can afford new.

Re:That's the trouble with the American economy

[markdavis]

>"it's workers can't afford the goods they're making."

And a considerable amount of that comes from regulation. Every time the government forces another expensive safety feature become mandatory, or another pollution control to get another 0.1%, or another 0.5MPG fuel improvement, or countless other regulations/fees/taxes/legal battles, the base price of cars goes up a little more. Year after year, it adds up to a lot. This happens across the board with many products.

Sure, you end up with base products that are more reliable, more environmentally friendly, more convenient, and safer (cars are SO much better)- but also more and more expensive.

Re: Printing money causes inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

How rich. Obama FIXED the mess left by georgy and his private wars. What donny is doing is messing up the entire economy, but go ahead. Hope you like eating dirt.

How many $15/hr workers...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. will suddenly find their hours cut so they don't meet benefit requirements to offset the wage increase?

Re:How many $15/hr workers...

[FormOfActionBanana]

That's nothing. They are not getting their AMZN stock anymore.

Re:How many $15/hr workers...

[Anonymous Coward]

ding ding ding.

Re:How many $15/hr workers...

[Anonymous Coward]

many will also LOSE their health care.

shitty employers like amazon and walmart dodge health insurance requirements by limiting hours to under that which insurance offerings would be required.

this brings many of their workers to their respective states for their version of medicaid. this is one of the things anti-amazon and anti-walmart people always bring up -- the government is providing their insurance benefits.

increasing their wages will disqualify many from that "health insurance".

300 years ago they didn't have food stamps

[rsilvergun]

I'm not saying we should have to pay to keep Amazon's employees fed, but it's better than the alternatives.

Still, this is great news. The public shaming (mostly from Bernie Sanders) worked. It worked for Disney too.

Re:300 years ago they didn't have food stamps

[Anonymous Coward]

And weirdly Amazon didn't need a law to do it.

Re: 300 years ago they didn't have food stamps

[datavirtue]

This is win, win, win for Amazon. They will get higher productivity, get people off their back, and make it really difficult for their competition going into the holidays. They are going to fucking clean up on this.

Re: 300 years ago they didn't have food stamps

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be able to save more for future years

Re: 300 years ago they didn't have food stamps

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this make it difficult for their competitors?

Re:300 years ago they didn't have food stamps

[zlives]

yes, just a threat of one worked this time.

Re: 300 years ago they didn't have food stamps

[pintpusher]

Hiring temp labor during the holiday season will be hard for anyone who doesn't meet or beat Amazon's minimum wage.

As long as productivity is going up

[rsilvergun]

price inflation isn't an issue. And productivity has doubled in the last 20 years and continues to climb (thanks to computers, better software and automation).

If anything we need shorter work weeks and higher pay to absorb job losses due to increased productivity. At my job it's been the same 3 man team for 15 years (with folks coming and going here and there) and our user base continues to increase. We haven't had to hire more because the software keeps improving so there's less to break, keeping the amount of work pretty consistent even as the number of users we support climbs.

Re:As long as productivity is going up

[ShanghaiBill]

And productivity has doubled in the last 20 years

In America, productivity has gone up about 30% in the last 20 years.

... and continues to climb

In America, productivity growth has been mostly stagnant since 2004.

If anything we need shorter work weeks and higher pay to absorb job losses due to increased productivity.

There is little historical evidence that increased productivity causes job losses. There is much more evidence for the opposite, and productivity improvements are more often than not correlated with rising labor force participation rates.

As workers become more productive, it is more profitable to employ them, so demand for labor goes UP, not down.

Countries with low productivity growth tend to have higher unemployment.

Predictions of job losses from productivity improvements are usually based on the zero-sum Lump of Labor Fallacy.

Re:As long as productivity is going up

[Anonymous Coward]

Predictions of job losses from productivity improvements are usually based on the zero-sum ...

How about simple census figures? In 1950, ~52% of the population was working. ~17% were under 18. ~3% were over 65. ~32% of the population was unemployed or undermployed.

Compare to 2015 where the figure is ~43% were working. ~24% of the population were under 18. ~14.8% were over 65. ~18% of the population was unemployed or underemployed.

So, it's not just a demographic shift. Clearly the figures indicate that job losses per capita is happening. This is especially true as "retirees" working is much more of a thing now, and "part time" is not well captured in census statistics. It's not based on the fallacy of zero-sum. It is based on the logic that a relative high supply of labor vs work won't magically make just the right amount of work to compensate, nor will the pay magically be sufficient for the work that is available.

This is Trumps economy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama was like a guy with the families credit card who wanted to be popular by spending aimlessly, not making the hard decisions.

The boom at the moment (apart from tax-cuts) is by repealing a large number of red-tape, forcing government agencies to buy US product, and re-negotiating deals.

A bridge that during Obamas time would take 20 years to be approved/built can now be done in 2.

Credit where credit is due - This economy is Trumps.

Amazon did it to stop turn over

[Anonymous Coward]

The job market is hot right now, and most likely Amazon did not raise wages to $15 because they are so good to employee's or from pressure from anyway. They did it because the job market is tighter now and people have options and probably are leaving Amazon for better pay and benefits elsewhere.

Re:Printing money causes inflation

[bkmoore]

Obama, does not tell the Fed how much money to print. I'll take a page from the Tea Party 2011 playbook and mention that Trump and the Republicans have been in control of all three branches of government for almost two years now. It's time to stop blaming the last President for everything.

Goliad, TX

[Anonymous Coward]

99.999 % of American's agree:

There is no amount of money that could get me to move to Goliad, TX.

Um, it's $16/hour in Seattle

[WillAffleckUW]

Talk about being behind the curve, Amazon.

Re:Um, it's $16/hour in Seattle

[Nethead]

That's why Amazon pays six figures in Seattle.

Re: Printing money causes inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama fixed it by increasing poverty, no yearly GDP over 3%, increasing food stamp (EBT) usage, increasing homeless rates and so on.
Yea that's better. All while printing nearly a Trillion a year and deficit spending another trillion a year (that 2 trillion added to the economy each year to get that crap)

Whats even BETTER is Trump was running on getting 3%+ GDP and Obama saying it was impossible, saying whats he going to do wave a magic wand.
Now that GDP is 4% Obama is out making speeches that he is responsible. Yep, taking credit for Trump's work doing something Obama said wasn't possible.

How many times does Obama have to be wrong before you stop believing him? It appears you are too dumb to have figured it out yet.

Bezos vs Workers

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you sum up all the hourly pay to the 350,000 workers, for 8 hours per day for 365 days in a year, you get about 15.3 billion, which is less than TEN PERCENT of the net worth of Bezos. One person. Modern slavery. Who says we are living in a civilized world?

Re: Printing money causes inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Revisionist history. The actuality went something like this:

GW: Watch me increase the federal budget a stupid amount to pay for my wars.
Obama: Yeah? That's nothing, let me make your eyes water by trying to fund the Obamacare boondoggle.
Trump: "Hold my beer."

Not a huge leap

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon workers were already making pretty close to that, so it is of no consequence to the company to satisfy the $15 movement.

PR and Political win for Bezos, while Amazon workers continue to toil for minimum wage in the warehouse.

Meaningless when using zero hour contracts.

[Anonymous Coward]

The hourly rate means fuck all if you are employing people on exclusive zero hours contracts.

Make yourself available for 100 hours per week at short notice (or else) - and with luck you will get paid for 10 of those hours.

Please do fuck off Amazon.

We listened to our critics AKA the Market

[guruevi]

Over the last 12-18 months, finding people to work a bit above minimum wage (due to the fact that we receive federal aid for those jobs, we can't post them any higher) has been increasingly difficult. We recently posted one for basic grunt work and got only 3 applicants and I keep passing McDonalds locations that have signs up at $15-18/h for shift managers.

Economic growth is exploding, the lowest unemployment in decades drives wages up. NYS is increasing minimum wages to $11.15 next year but nobody even wants to work at those rates anymore.

Re: then lobby to increase min wage to kill main s

[datavirtue]

Main street was not ripping anyone off. They lacked efficiency which Amazon has.

Basically giving money back to themselves...

[RyanRife8866]

As their own employees depend more on Amazon services they are, in effect, basically giving the money back to themselves. And of course they'll want the national minimum wage higher, because they're the ones that will reap the benefits the most.

Propped up by AWS?

[eth1]

The cynic in me wonders whether Amazon is really doing this due to the huge amount of higher-margin revenue they get from AWS that other retailers don't have. They might be able to absorb the cost without raising prices, while if they can get the min wage raised, it would really put the squeeze on other retailers. Maybe causing them to have to raise prices, which would drive more customers to Amazon, and help drive competition out of business.

Re:Propped up by AWS?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

It's not "other retailers" as a vague threat. WalMart is stepping up their game online, and is starting to appear as a real threat (I've started comparison shopping between the two, for instance.) Raising the minimum wage to $15/hr affects 17,000 full time Amazon employees, but more than 100x for WalMart, at least 1,700,000

What a JOKE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, $15.00 dollars an hour is still NOT a livable wage.

Before I escaped the insanity that is Silicon Valley, I was paying Mexican day laborers $10.00 dollars an hour, plus lunch, in 1985.

Happy to see this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm happy to see this. I'd decided to stop buying from Amazon this season. Usually I buy some misc items and ebooks from them because it ties in nicely with my kindle. But given how crappy Amazon has been to their workforce, I was going to stop doing business with them. I'd already removed their ads from my website.

Once they follow through with their min-wage increase I'll be willing to return to shop with them again. $15/h is still pretty low (it's about $0.50 above the bare minimum here), but it's at least a step in the right direction.

In days of yore

[Hognoxious]

You supposed to have learned something useful while still a kid.

Like the difference between "you" and "you're"?

If your hiring on the cheap

Or the difference between "you're" and "your"?

Re:In days of yore

[HornWumpus]

I can afford a proofreader for those times it matters.

Grammarians are useless.

Re: In days of yore

[Anonymous Coward]

How sad is your life that you are a regular poster here that comments on all this stuff with an inevitably political bent to your posts? I don't login, but there are a few assholes that post so much that we randos can notice the name. And the NYCLUamicus guy, but that's from his non asshole posts mostly from years back.

So either your schedule happens to perfectly overlap mine over the years I've skimmed this site or you are o here so much, so often, that something is really, really wrong with your life. You should ditch the phone and laptop for a few days and think about why you spend so much time on a message board.

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

We caught up to 2010 wages!

They should do this in Germany too

[nospam007]

That would fuck up the Unions big time.

If you measure by manufacturing output

[rsilvergun]

you'll see the doubling. If you look at overall stats the service economy makes it hard to measure, leading to lower figures.

And we most certainly have had technology unemployment in the past. The Luddites weren't just overly conservative, they were losing their livelihoods. We produce twice as much with 2/3rds the workforce.

When there are new jobs they're low paying service sector jobs. But the trouble there is there's less money in the economy, so less money floating around and an overall slowdown in the economy. That's exactly what we're seeing if you take Wallstreet out of the picture. It's part of a broader trend taking us back to the gilded age of income inequality and aristocracy. Folks see it happening but don't know what to do...

Re:If you measure by manufacturing output

[ShanghaiBill]

the service economy makes it hard to measure

Productivity is easy to measure.

Productivity = GDP / (hours worked)

The Luddites weren't just overly conservative, they were losing their livelihoods.

But overall employment in the spinning/weaving business was going UP. It was only their particular skills that were declining in value.

When there are new jobs they're low paying service sector jobs.

That is a big problem.

But the trouble there is there's less money in the economy

Rising productivity means more goods and services produced per unit of labor. That does not lead to "less money".

... an overall slowdown in the economy.

The economy is currently booming, but the "slow" period from 2007 to 2014 coincided with a DECLINE in productivity growth. This is the opposite of what you are claiming.

Re:If you measure by manufacturing output

[Anonymous Coward]

the service economy makes it hard to measure

Productivity is easy to measure.

I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse but it ties into:

When there are new jobs they're low paying service sector jobs.

That is a big problem.

and

But the trouble there is there's less money in the economy

Rising productivity means more goods and services produced per unit of labor. That does not lead to "less money".

Rising productivity in *manufacturing* produces more goods which on average decreases their price, but there's little gain to be had in services productivity. Hence, when service business jobs account for 80% of employment (and 79.6% of GDP) but pay many positions pay less than manufacturing jobs, the net effect is a large part of the working population has effectively less purchasing power. Meanwhile, in a lot of places where there are productivity gains in service business jobs tends to just create higher unemployment*--a large percentage service business jobs tend to be on the bottom pay rung of employment opportunity and there's really no whether down to shift to.

One could reasonably argue the goal should be to seek a service business job that can't be "productivity" replaced. Even presuming that AI never really can do remotely what it's claimed--and I don't think it will--, how many positions exist now and how many positions do you honestly think will be created for a lot of those jobs that are replaceable? Certainly, it's not some sort of "everyone will be unemployed" catastrophe, but it's definitely not clear what percentage of people will be effected or where they'll go when their jobs disappear. Using history as a guide, perhaps a whole new industry will appear to use the labor supply. That, though, is not something one can adequately predict in any meaningful sense, though.

* Replacing fast food workers with kiosks will possibly in the short term boost employment as one fast food chain can maintain or lower prices and hence be a more preferred location to eat, but in the long term most fast food joints will do the same to save money and the productivity gain will result in fewer workers. Lather, rinse, repeat for a lot of service business jobs where a kiosk or similar would do the job as well.

Re: Printing money causes inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is coasting on Obama's policies. And getting rid of the ones that don't make him money.

To hurt Walmart

[Actually, I do RTFA]

This affects 17,000 full time employees of Amazon, and 20,000 seasonal workers (so, ~10% of their employees). Meanwhile, WalMart is starting to step up their game and compete. WalMart has 7 times as many employees and a much higher percentage of them are below $15/hr. This is designed to hurt them.

Also, with the stock doubling over the last year, I'm sure they're scared of the cost of options.

Does it count as capitalism

[rsilvergun]

when it was a Democratic Senator (Bernie Sanders) who's campaigning got them to relent? Also, there's a good chance this was done to take the wind out of the sales of that law Bernie was pushing to tax corporations an equal amount of money for the government aid their employees receive. Those temp workers often still rely on gov't healthcare (esp in California). That's half the reason to hire temps (the other half to avoid paying unemployment).

I think this has less to do with capitalism and more to do with pressure coming from the government. It's kind of like how the game industry made a ratings board so the gov't wouldn't force them to do it. If you don't fix your shit the gov't will fix it for you, and they'll be a lot more thorough when they fix it than you would.

That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

But it isn't nearly enough. Bozos can easily afford to do better than that.

Ripple Effect?

[Namlak]

I just wonder how this works in practice. I know that if people in lesser jobs than mine started making the same as me, I'd have an issue.

Are the people who were making $15 before this going to demand $20 because people in lesser jobs are making the same as them now?

And then the $20/hr people demand $25...

And the $30/hr people demand $40...

And on and on... ???

Slashdot quote of the day

[Anonymous Coward]

Never buy from a rich salesman. -- Goldenstern

Amazon will pay

[Holdinn]

Starting on November 1st, Amazon will pay all its US employees a minimum wage of $15 an hour in a move the e-commerce giant expects will impact more than 250,000 full- and part-time employees and 100,000 seasonal workers. Amazon has also said that it will be lobbying for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which is currently set at $7.25 an hour.

Inflation

[Wizardess]

This is the start of another round of inflation. Next some folks say, "My Amazon costs me more. Therefore I need a raise.' Then we have more saying "Now my everything costs more so I, too, need a raise."

And people on fixed incomes cope how? Thanks assholes.
{O,O}

Cap Profits for Companies/Corporations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just make it so the CEO/Owner of a company can only take home a % of their max profits and the rest must either be re-invested in the company to grow, pay employees better, offer better benefits, invest in new tech, open another branch etc.