Minimum Wage $7.25 - WHAT BS!

back when I was 15 years old, minimum wage was still 3.35  I worked 7 days a week at a chinese restaurant

I was ecstatic to get my pay raised to 4.25 almost a whole dollar more than every one else. 

I was an advocate for minimum wage increases

why?

because as a teenager I had no skills and no education and no experience.  A job to me was simply to get money...not to provide for my family, not to invest in my future, not to have a career, not to fulfill a need in society...my boss actually was "the enemy"...an ogre that made me do stuff, and told me what to do, even if it was outside my job description...I didn't NEED the job...so being late, not showing up or quiting was always an option for me, especially when I tired of being told what to do. 

Real work responsibility was not given to me until I was 16 and work for a "corporation", a large one that I won't name.  But i got GREAT pay...min wage was 3.35 and I was making 5.35  within the first year I was over $6 an hour with my 25 cent pay raises from cross training and positive reviews (which i thought were funny).  I got "floating" holidays, which meant I could take my birthday (or any day) off and get paid for it.  If I worked 2nd or 3rd shift or on thursdays I got a shift differential, as well as bonus pay for working a holiday. (this company provided services 24/7).   working a holiday equated to TRIPLE time pay.  I got medical and dental after a year, and had opportunities for management.

I wasn't quite ready, still a rebel...didn't care for corporate politics and culture and was more concerned with me than anyone else, I especially could care less about the companies customers.

Still...I got a good check, thats all that mattered to me.  But of course the RICH bosses, purchased boats and houses, so "unfairly", instead of giving all us lower workers a "deserved" raise.

Here we are 15 years later...and I have been an EMPLOYER for over a decade, often dealing with employees who could care less about me or my business or my customers, and are just in it to get a check and maybe even steal some stuff I paid for...until they find someplace else to get a check. 

Fine, I guess, cost of doing business, right? But WHO does it really cost?

So, here I am now in the process of opening up a new retail venture.  And I have to think that most of the jobs I am creating on the entry level are gonna cost me an arm and a leg because I have to pay minimum wage (even though there is no minimum purchase from customers).

I have to pay this even though I am a startup, even though we may not be that busy at first, and even though we start at a LOSS and have no profit or even strong cash flow. 

It is very different on this side of the issue, because with workers compensation, employers taxes, unemployment etc etc, it will cost me almost 9 bucks an hour to have an entry level employee with no benefits.  Make that $10 if your in a state like mine (florida) which adds a $1 to the federal minimum wage.

10 bucks an hour to train someone to do a job they probably don't want to do, but will do it just to get a check.

I will pay this even for an employee who is 16 years old, can only legally work limited hours, has no experience, no education and probably sees it as just some extra income.

It also means that someone who was once making $10 an hour, who would be a semi skilled person, say an entry level graphic designer or programmer or a shift manager and has a few years experience..who was making almost TWICE minimum wage, now will feel "cheated" because they are "only" making 10/hr (actually costing me 13-15).  They feel they are worth more...so its pay them more, or lose them to a bigger company.

As an owner, what can I do?

not much, except maybe:

==> raise prices (tick off customers)
==> hire less people (creating a greater workload for the few employees there)
==> pay out a lesser portion of benefits, if any (making it even harder for minimum wage workers)

I can't help but think of all the "dollar menus" will lose items, or simply become "value menus" with items under $3.   I also think of $3/gallon for gas being normal, because now, to simply push buttons with pictures of a burger, or to cash out a customer, or do some other no-skill-needed position, will cost a business owner $360 a week (or $400 in florida) instead of $280 a week.

Let's not even get into the non-profit organizations that already struggle to pay it's employees.

Thats right, EVERYONE suffers, and no one is helped by this.

Those who are pushing this minimum wage hike, estimate that a minimum-wage increase will lift the income of 13 million workers -- 5.6 million earning the current minimum wage and 7.4 million just above that level.

That sounds great on the surface, especially in thier publicity campaigns on the news.

However, truth be told, 2 bucks an hour won't change the lifestyle of a minimum wage worker.  One worker paraded before congress cries "I can't even afford to get my hair cut!"

Boo hoo...I mean, really, your saying 2 bucks an hour alleviates that?  I would rather it be mandatory for small businesses to provide one haircut a week to all employees than be forced to pay an extra $2 an hour and the ripple effect that goes with it.

$2/hour? Your talking a measely $80 a week increase BEFORE TAXES. Which for most will end up meaning take home will only come to about an exta $66 a week.  That's ONLY $286 more a month they are making.

So exactly, what can one do with an extra 286 a month...well if you are making 60+ a year... probably a lot as that would become disposable income.

More dinners out, maybe a third car, extra savings/giving/investments, etc etc.

However, we are talking MINIMUM wage workers, who make about $15,000 a YEAR (minimum wage of $7.25 by 40 hours times 52 weeks)...then its not much.  since your TOTAL monthly after taxes is around $1100

$1100 to live off of each month...how generous of the folk in washington...whoops...I forgot..if its TWO people making minimum wage, thats $2200 a month...WHOO HOOO! (I hope they don't have kids.)

But hey, now they can afford cable and a better TV along with that haircut...but not much else.

BUT WAIT, theres more...if you order minimum wage increases right now, (the one that won't effect the lifestyle of the poor today), you will get the following thrown in as a bonus.

Small-business tax breaks that would cost the Treasury up to $10 billion over the next 10 years!  Yeaaaaaaa, go government!

Pop Quiz: for an extra 4160 pretax dollars per minimum wage worker a year;  Can guess who bears MOST of the burden for taxes in the USA?

Yup, ding, ding, ding, ding!

You guessed it:  its the Wage Workers and Small Businessess!

Mr. Politician says:

"I have an idea, lets make them THINK they are getting ahead.  Let's Give them 4 beans, and then take back 3....bwahahahahaa.....suckers!"

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What we need is more education and skills training...not simply encouraging people to never have to improve themselves. 

Let's pay people MORE to be dumb! Yah..that will help our economy! That's the ticket!

Why aren't we teaching people how to save, get property, invest and build wealth.

Let's not encourage the current, and false poverty mentality and zero sum consensus that is plaguing our nation.

I am not talking about the helpless young, the needy, the disabled, the homeless, the destitute or mentally and/or medically incapacitated whom we SHOULD HELP.

I am talking about the able-bodied (albiet sometimes overweight) worker that oft is the person making minimum wage.

I got no problem with welfare for those who need it...I got no problem with child labor laws...I got no problem with some sort of wage regulation to stop "slave wages"

I got a problem with making it darn near impossible for the small business to grow.

Supposedly, there will be breaks or tax cuts for the small business owner.  That's great, but who pays the bills BEFORE the tax write off?  As if somehow saving the amount of money I pay to the government at the END of every year, helps me make it through the year in the first place? Well unless they take it out of the 941s, that might help.

Again, I still think it's a big business slant that will hurt more than help us little guys.   I still gotta come up with the wages all year long, before the "credit" is applied to what I owe uncle sam, and businesses don't get money back at the end of the year, like the wage workers will.

So if now the minimum wage is up to $7.25...then I would now expect for prices of goods and services and the unemployment rate in small businesses to also be up to match it.

Well, on a positive note, at least now the minimum wage workers can watch it all fall apart with a nice new haircut on CNN with their new big screen.