On Friday, June 16, 2017 at 9:57:31 PM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:

I thought most of the people asking for it were ivory tower do-gooders who
if they ever broke a sweat in their lives did it on the tennis court. It's
one of the things the Democrats just plain don't get. The fix for the
problem isn't to raise the minimum wage, it's to bring enough decent jobs
back that people don't _have_ to work for minimum wage. That's one of the
big things that cost them the election.

Seriously, how true is that? While there seem to be more lazy, uninspired lazy worker than ever before, there are some that really want to work. And once they get the hang of it and decide it is a good thing, they want to do it. They found this out in the Great Depression; the fact that """at that time""" most people wanted a sense of accomplishment, and that hard work wasn't beneath them. They liked the even exchange of a full day's work for a full day's pay. It worked well back then, but it was a different ethos. People lined up at the CCC, WPA, etc. to get a chance at a road building, timber management, or other manual labor infrastructure jobs.

I am probably living in fairy land, but I think there are some of those folks still around that would excel in a system of fair pay for a fair shake at work. Minimum wage was never meant to be a livable wage, it was never meant to be wage to use to raise a family after you receive the rest of your govt bennies. Those jobs were to teach you how to work, teach you the importance of being a team player, and to teach you the relationship of the employer/employee. They were never about earning enough when flipping burgers that you could earn enough to raise a few kids,live in a neighborhood of your choice,etc. You can't do it on $15 now, but that is the way it was sold by the govt.

I knew this would happen, and my fellow business owner remember me talking about this the first time $15 came up about 3 years ago. Business will find a way around the $15, and it will be fine. And it is.

My amigo in the food service industry has reported back to me that they are getting in more prepackaged food to sell than ever before. I tasted his new samples of guacamole salad, carne guisada and barracho beans and they were great! So for every one that buys enough of his product (which is quite good) they will be able to fire at least a couple of prep guys in the kitchen and use the premade products. A couple of tweaks (more garlic, celantro, etc.) and it is their own recipe. So the business owner (not the worker, his family, or the community) will benefit from this. Likewise, he employer has two employees he doesn't have to manage or worry about.

Cost saving innovations driven by the market have some long reaching implications. Now several restaurants give you discounts if you order by app. Better still, several restaurants now that have limited menus are asking you to order with a tablet on the table, no wait person! How many jobs is the employer able to cut? Say at Outback (where I saw this) they were able to lose 3 full time waitresses, you could now shift that pay over to busboys and dishwashers to make that $15 work.

But perhaps not for long. There is already a dishwashing unit available that will sort and stack plates, and put the silverware in a hopper to be washed. ONE busboy can now clean a restaurant, and one guy can unload the dishwasher if they have this machine.

The whole $15 an hour minimum seems like a good idea, but we will have to see. No one will want high school kids that are learning just to come to work at $15 an hour. When businesses find out what they can save by updating equipment, procedures, etc., they will pay $20 to a reliable dishwasher that can operate their machine because they were able to get rid of 2-3 other jobs entirely.

Be sure about this; McDonalds is used to getting a black eye over their employee treatment for issues real or imagined. Their long studies that including tinkering with their own menus have revealed that people will not give up cheap, fast food as a "go to" choice. So something has to give. Higher wages with less employment, or higher wages and higher food costs. McDonalds experiments reveal that people want it both ways, but in the end the don't want to pay $X for a hamburger. They want cheap and fsst, and oh... don't forget to take care of the worker after you take care of me first.

Good post, J.

Robert