Do You Pay More than the "Minimum Price"?
By ParaTed2k
@ParaTed2k (22940)
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
July 28, 2009 11:17am CST
People say that minimum wage doesn't cause any real problems for employers. In their minds, somehow increasing the price of unskilled labor, without increasing productivity, somehow doesn't make a difference in the bottom line.
But do proponents of minimum wage practice what they preach?
When you see a price tag, you are looking at the minimum price the merchant is willing to accept for the product. How many of you proponents of minimum wage tell the merchant, "I don't think you can live off what you are making if you only charge this amount.. here, this is what I think is a fair income for you" and hand them an extra $5 or $10?
That may seem far fetched, but that is exactly what you are demanding of employers when you push for a raise in minimum wage.
A more direct example would be giving tips. Many of us are decent tippers, we would never leave a restaurant (or other tipping appropriate place) without leaving a tip.
My question to you proponents of minimum wages hikes.. do you tip according to what YOU think minimum wage should be? Let's say the you think minimum wage should be $10/hr. Do you base your tip on making sure that the employee YOU are paying will make $10/hr for serving you? Do you make sure that is $10 net, not gross?
Or do you simply base your tip on a percentage of the bill, without regard to whether or not that equals a "living wage" and forget everything you ever said to anyone about how awful others are for not paying what you think mimimum wage should be?
3 people like this
7 responses
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
28 Jul 09
First of all, there's a common standard for tipping...15%. I don't know who made it up or when it went up from 10%...but that's what my base tip is. I then increase or decrease that percentage based on the service I received. Since I don't know what the wait staff is paid by the restaurant in addition to the tips they receive, trying to calculate a tip based on minimum wage would be impossible unless I wanted to be nosey.
To counter your purchasing example. The minimum wage is not raised with any regularity and the cost of goods does not increase with any either. So, do you know how many times a particular store raised it's prices while the minimum wage of it's employees remained the same? Should you refuse to pay the higher price unless the store has also increased wages accordingly?
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
28 Jul 09
Those have nothing to do with the points I made. Proponents of increases in minimum wage say that no one should be expected to raise a family on anything less than what they think should be minimum wage. If they truly feel that way, do THEY make sure that they are paying what they consider a "fair wage" when it's their money being paid out?
If they don't think anyone can make a living with a markup of 5-10 cents (which is pretty much what the mark up of a loaf of bread is), do they offer the equivelent of what they think a merchant CAN live on?
I think most proponents of increases in minimum wage don't really live up to their own rhetoric.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
28 Jul 09
Ted, don't be ridiculous. How is anyone supposed to have the slightest clue about the personal finances of any merchant? What we can and do know is how much someone earning the minimum wage brings home each week and, from that, we can determine whether it's enough to live on depending on what area of the country we are in.
"I think most proponents of increases in minimum wage don't really live up to their own rhetoric."
I think you're grasping at straws.
@N4life (851)
• United States
28 Jul 09
I think I understand what you are saying here and it seems a semi-valid point Ted. Personally, knowing what the hourly wage is in my area for servers I have taken what I think minimum wage should be into account, particularly when I seem to be at the server's only table.
There is a rather large "fair trade" movement now, where people do willingly pay more for "goods". Of course, this has very little to do with giving the retailer a fair price and more to do with paying what the product is really worth in terms of the labor that was put into making/extracting and converting the items into a useable form and/or distributing them. Many Americans do seem to want to have things such as banannas all year around and expect them at ridiculously low prices and the laborers on down the line are the ones that suffer. Such products should be higher priced but the retailers (mostly big boxes) demand low prices so the jobs go to the lowest paying countries. Certain products should not even be expected to be bought by the average American consumer as the real "fair trade" price for them would be too high. I think this choice is what many (not all)who support raising min wage would be unwilling to make, simply going without!
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
28 Jul 09
So what you're saying is, only those who can afford to pay higher prices should even consider having anything.
I wonder how life would be for the poor if all they could get was what was produced locally?
@N4life (851)
• United States
28 Jul 09
NO that is not what I am saying at all. There are certain products that the prices are artificially low for various reasons, if the prices were higher maybe these products could be produced in the U.S. where wages are higher and people could then afford them. Some "goods" that are artificially low just may not need to be purchased, particularly off season produce, no matter what the income level. If people really cared for things like fair wages (some really don't) and were more educated than they may not buy these products as much. Really has nothing to do with buying nothing if you can't afford it, and has more to do with being closer to a "free market" (never can be such a thing truly) than what is disguised as free today.
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
29 Jul 09
We usually tip 15 percent of the restaurant meals, and none if the waitress is rude, the service is surly, etc. As for hike in minimum wage, our provincial government automatically puts it up based on the cost of living so if everything goes up except the wages, they will raise the minimum wage to reflect that. That is what you have to do in the States, find out what the costs of the basic necessities are and raise the minimum wage to reflect that. Of course there is a percentage when it is not raised and it is never lowered. I think the cost of living increase has to be 2 percent before it is raised.
But I can see where you are coming from. If they demand minimum wage with factoring in the cost of business, and living, then the minimum wage demands are through the roof. And once the minimum wage goes up, the employer starts laying off people, and people work as telemarketers, or at home for less then minimum wage, that is at subservient levels. But then I never go for the cheapest unless it is of the same quality or better then a higher priced item. And I do not shop at the cheapest. I also feel that if one has a lot of money, one can give more money to the store owner, but I cannot so I am rather in the middle.
@doggyhouz (548)
• United States
29 Jul 09
This discussion is a little confusing. Because if mimimum wage is what your talking about then that is the employers job not my job at all.
If you want to talk about what is the best tipping rate there is one common one for what style of dining your doing.
Now I have a feeling you might be a hostess or a waiter because you seem angered.
I believe those jobs are great for college students that aren't asking for much because when they graudate they will be making more. It is a unskilled job, a balancing act. I don't believe they should even get tips just a salary is good enough. People that work at McDs work in extremely conditions with NO TIP. Same with IN n Out. So for a person to ask for more than they deserve based on education that is ridicious.
I am not bashing on waiters or hostess.
But I was always taught that u get paid less as an ox and you get paid better with your brain. So being a waiter or a hostess is like ox work and for me to increase there pay is to decrease my efforts in pushing them to better themselves.
Imagine a bum outside getting so much money from people, what makes you think they will stop being a bum?
Think about it.
God bless.
@doglady112 (604)
• Canada
29 Jul 09
When I'm by myself, I always leave a very good tip. I get the bill and figure out a round amount in my head and usually it's about a few dollars more than the bill. I don't know if that's good enough I guess you'll have to enlighten me on that. But I do agree with you that nobody can live on minimum wage. I think if the government is going to raise taxes well then the minimum wage should be increased too. I would like you to drop me line and tell me if what I'm giving as a tip is OK.
@katran (585)
• United States
29 Jul 09
Geez Louise. This discussion is full of more hogwash than a pigpen.
Let me ask you this, since you seem to be so anti-minimum wage. If there was no minimum wage and business owners paid employees based on what they thought those employees deserved, do you think business owners would be fair? Do you have that much faith in people? Because I can almost guarantee you that they would pay their employees the absolute MINIMUM that they could get away with and still have people want to work there. Do you really think that is more fair? More fair to the business owner, maybe, but why is he/she the only important factor in this situation? Why are the needs of the workers not important to you?
I would make a comment about you probably never having worked on a minimum wage job, but I am sure you have a story about how that is how you started out and you had to take three jobs to support your family and if you can do it others should be able to do it and blah, blah, blah insert more arrogance here. "If I can do it, ANYONE should be able to do it."
Man, I really don't know if I can call myself conservative anymore. Conservatives call liberals elitists all the time, but they are just as elitist themselves.
