The Minimum-Wage Job-Killer Strikes Again!
Economic Fallacies: McDonald's stock has hit new highs in recent days, despite fast-food industry woes. Why? Mickey-D's is replacing 2,500 human workers with digital kiosks this year. Way to go, minimum-wage advocates!
Working from the absurd idea that if higher wages are good for individual workers, it must be socially beneficial to have government order all employers to pay their workers more, progressives and other leftists have had extraordinary success in forcing small businesses to pay higher minimum wages.
Big Mac's stock is up 27% this year. Why? Pushed by concerns over a rising minimum wage, the fast-food chain is replacing human cashiers as fast as it can. But it really has no choice.
By the end of 2017, it plans to have digital cashiers in 2,500 restaurants; by 2018, another 3,000 restaurants will go digital. They're also going to let you order via mobile device at 14,000 restaurants by year end. McDonald's calls it the "Experience of the Future" strategy.
That's thousands of workers gone. That's no future jobs for young people with no skills, no training, no education and no alternative who might have found a job at McDonald's.
Don't blame Ronald McDonald. This is the inevitable result of the minimum wage, pushed down business' throats by politicians using the phony language of compassion and economic equality.
Since 2012, the labor-union driven "Fight For $15" movement to raise the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour has demonized employers like McDonald's, Wal-Mart and Starbucks, among many others, for not paying workers "enough." Responding to this, Democrats in Congress now have 184 co-sponsors for a bill to do just that. Cities and states around the country have jacked up their own minimum wages.
But the fears that McDonald's and others have are real. Most franchises are owned by individuals, not corporations, and often operate on a slim profit margin. Since labor is two-thirds or more of costs, a doubling of the minimum wage would be ruinous for many franchisees.
For mom-and-pop businesses that aren't part of a chain, the damage is even worse. Already in California, which is at the cutting edge of the minimum-wage hiking trend, cities such as San Francisco and San Diego that have raised the minimum are seeing waves of restaurants and other small businesses go belly up. It will only get worse.
The truth is, the minimum wage is both hypocritical and racist in its effects, since it disproportionately hurts young minority and immigrant workers, who tend to lack skills, education and training for other jobs. The hypocrisy is this: Of the 184 congressional supporters of the bill — nearly all Democrats — 174, or 95%, pay their own interns nothing, according to the Employment Policies Institute.
The minimum wage is a job killer that destroys opportunity for the young and minorities and ruins family businesses, all so that a handful of morally preening politicians can pretend to care. What they are really doing is making our whole society a lot poorer.
RELATED:
Minimum Wage Hikes: A Feel-Good Lie That Destroys Jobs And Minority Kids' Futures
Minimum Wage Is Racist, Kills Jobs And Doesn't Help The Poor — Apart From That, It's A Great Idea
'Fight For $15': The Most Devastating Minority Job Killer Ever? http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-minimum-wage-job-killer-strikes-again/
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The minimum wage puts more money into the pockets of people who will spend it. They will buy food, clothing, pay for housing, utilities, car payments, gas, etc. They will consume. Then the people they purchase those products and services will also have jobs and they will also by food, clothing, pay for housing, utilities, car payments gas, etc. and on and on and on. Consumer spending is the single biggest driver of the American economy. One always hear's this same false argument when it comes to issues like unemployment. Instead the same people, more often then not, come up with the false idea that it is better to let the already rich to keep the money or to even more stupidly to give them more money through tax cuts hoping that the money will magically trickle down when it never, ever does. Making the rich, richer does shit for the economy. The main way to get and keep the economy going is to put money into the hands of people who will spend it because that dives the engine of our economy and is the biggest job creator in America.
The ultra high minimum wage will do nothing but destroy entry level jobs across the country. A $15.00 minimum wage translates into 30,000 a year for one working full time. The federal minimum wage as well as the one in California doesn't take into account a state or local variation in cost of living. A burger flipper in Mississippi will do much better than one in Connecticut earning the same federal minimum wage, as will one in Red Bluff, Ca. do much better on the same minimum wage than one in San Francisco, Ca. All sky high minimum wages do is give rise to the machine to replace labor that costs too much.
Just one comment on this policy article.
Automatiion in most all industries has been taking place for years. This is nothing new and it is and will go well beyond the food service industry. Employers of all stripes want to lower costs, that is the way of business. The food service industry has survived on cheap labor for decades now they can't. So they will automate, simply as that.
Look at industries from auto to mining all have been automating and will continue to do so far into the future.
Can you blame raising the minimum wage, sure you can but the fact is that the food service was going to automate one way or the other.
'' Of the 184 congressional supporters of the bill — nearly all Democrats — 174, or 95%, pay their own interns nothing, according to the Employment Policies Institute.''
Interning has been a non paid position for decades. If you want to point out dems not paying it's best to give both sides of the story.
Here is a link that shows congress and who does and who doesn't pay their interns...You'll see that the republicans top the dems in not paying interns...Interesting don't you think....
So, you don't think more than doubling the federal minimum wage will have a severely adverse impact on inner city minority young people taking their 1st step on their career ladder? Excessively high increases in the minimum wage will speed automation into areas it wasn't previously economical to do. What about my other point? Do you having once lived near my location in Ca, think that 15.00 an hour is justified in such places when Seattle, LA, and SF may not be able to support it?
I'm not opposed to any increase in the federal minimum wage. I'd support raising it from 7.25 to 8.75 over three years and then. Thereafter increasing it 3% a year. 9.01 in year four, 9.28 in year five, 9.55 in year six.
''So, you don't think more than doubling the federal minimum wage will have a severely adverse impact on inner city minority young people taking their 1st step on their career ladder? Excessively high increases in the minimum wage will speed automation into areas it wasn't previously economical to do.''
XX, where did I say anything of the sort. What I said is that the food service industry is going to automate, now, tomorrow or next year doesn't matter, it's going to happen. IT"S HOW BUSINESS OPERATE. Can the increase in minimum wage accelerate it, sure it can.
I wasn't aware that the only people that would have an impact are inter city black youth. Do you mean that the McD's in suburbia and rural America aren't going to automate?
You seem to be missing the point as far as me supporting a $15 minimum wage. I am of the mind that the mw needs to be increased, but not in one fell swoop, it should be done gradually over a period of years. I believe that has been proposed.
As far as your second point. I''m not sure exactly where you live, and yes I did live and still own property (ranch and rental properties) in the far north of CA. I assume that you live in the Redding area, if that is correct it would seem that a gradual increase over years, as stated above would be the best way to increase the mw for food service industry in your area.
IMO in many way the minimum wage a red herring. Automation is going to happen. Automation will have a much larger effect on working Americans than the mw ever will.
More and more industries are going full bore into automation and that will continue. It isn't the low wage positions that are being targeted by automation, it the white collar jobs and well paying manufacturing jobs that are the target.
Also the notion of bringing back jobs to America is a pipe dream, no matter what Trump states. Between automation and out sourcing those jobs are gone, period. One only has to look at the companies that are moving overseas currently. It's the way the world works. Corporation want to maximize their profits, and they are not going to cut out increased profits to stay in the US if it's not economically feasible.
As for the minimum wage and the increase, it shouldn't be doubled overnight. But it can and should be increased over a period of time.