Xenophon wrote:Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
What if the employer himself is barely scraping by, or worse, in massive debt? How does he pay more?
- Doc
Chap was probably mostly referring to large corporations that have considerable profit margins that continue to pay as low a wage as possible.
A good illustration of this is the short (two minute) and snappy video at the link below that examines just how much Walmart would have to raise their prices in order to pay their workforce no less than about $15.00 per hour. The amount of the cost increase will probably surprise most folks...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAcaeLmybCYThe end result would not only serve to pay their team members what some would arguably call a 'living wage' (a subjective term, for sure) but would also have the secondary effect of paying them enough for most to not fall into the eligibility range of SNAP assistance. You'd think that folks like ajax would be all over this idea, especially given that Walmart - if they were doing this - would not be
socializing their payroll cost with everyone in town regardless of being a Walmart customer or not. Walmart's customers, instead, would be fully supporting that workforce through their purchases of adequately-priced products. That seems like a sound conservative principle of being responsible for and compensating others for what you use. Otherwise, isn't Walmart stealing from the larger community that is now expending tax dollars to provide SNAP assistance to Walmart employees that qualify for it based upon their fairly dismal wages?
Another example comes from the fast food industry. If
Mickey Dee's had to raise the cost of their burgers and fries to a level that allowed them to keep the same abundant profit levels while also paying their workforce a minimum of 15.00 an hour (this amount chosen only since this matches the Walmart example above), exactly
how many fast-food consumers would balk at the minor increase in prices and decide that they no longer wanted to heed their unhealthy cravings? Probably very few, judging by the looks of the general population. : )
Xenophon wrote:You raise a good point though that many small businesses do struggle to pay what their employees are "worth". I'll note anecdotally that most small to mid-size businesses acknowledge that and try to find other perks to offer, also most people that work for them understand that and do so for other reasons.
Worst case scenario, they could always socialize their debts by declaring bankruptcy. Our esteemed President has used this strategy on 6 occasions to restructure or write off
billions of dollars worth of debt that he freely accumulated, while still retaining a significant personal fortune afterwards.
Hooray for debt socialization!
Xenophon wrote:There is a reason that some countries are experimenting with basic income stipends and I think that is one solution. I'm probably more in favor of tax breaks filling the gap, but I'm willing to change my mind on that. Frankly, whether business pay enough or not aside, we will need to figure out a basic income strategy that accounts for automation I don't think we have many lawmakers that it has even crossed their minds.
You're right about this; things are going to get interesting as increased automation takes more human bodies out of the employment picture. Even McDonalds is experimenting with automated order kiosks so that they can study how the results will enable traditional hiring requirements to detach from store deployment in the future.