And there is another factor. Perhaps a higher wage brings in a more productive laborer or management spend the time to figure a ways to make their workers more productive due to higher wage costs.
The lower unemployment rate due to low minimum wage came at a cost to the government as many $7-8 an hour workers could obtain food stamps due to their low wages. Is a society in which the government is providing corporate welfare due to non living wages is one we wish to live in? YMMV
Would that be due to a preference for part time, instead of full time, workers? Why would that be? Because the “JC” is not required to provide benefits like health insurance to part time workers? Do part time workers have a vacation benefit, like full time? Would the shift to more part time have happened, regardless of the increase in minimum wage?
Yes, but there is no real indication we are close to that point yet. Labor costs for fast food are about 25-30% of the total so a 25% increase in minimum wage might result in ~ 7% increase in cost. But read on:
Anti-worker propagandists like to misleadingly report minimum wage increases as if all workers are making the minimum. For example:
Fast-food workers in the state are set to get a pay bump of close to 30% in April as the minimum wages rises from $16 to $20 an hour…
As noted above, “close to 30%” is Job Creator speech for “25%.”
BUT most workers already make more than minimum wage. In Washington State for example, next year the minimum wage will increase to $16.28 per hour. But fast food workers here already average over $18/hour (current minimum wage is $15.74).
So no, there won’t be some big surge in crappy fast food restaurants going out of business because the price of a Big Mac went up a few cents.
The data is completely corrupted. It is from an ignorant time in American economics supply-side economics.
We are going through factory buildout. The GDP is growing fast. The factories are paid for faster if the bottom 80% are paid better.
It is not like no one paid by Harvard has never said something extremely stupid. The study was in the waning days of supply-side economic.
Because Congress was not spending nearly enough funding during those years and long before on infrastructure. In the US at that time we were not creating economies of scale. Idiots who had bought into supply-side economics were outsourcing the factory production.
As usual, there is much more nuance to the story than appears in a headline.
The general minimum wage in CA is increasing to $16. But fast food workers will have a $20 minimum wage. (Health care workers are getting a targeted increase as well.)
There are a few more details here:
What is happening here is that food delivery directly by the restaurant is changing. A restaurant employing a delivery driver will have to pay that driver $20/hr. But that same driver working for Door Dash, Uber Eats, and other delivery services can get away with paying a per-mile rate to the driver and avoid the minimum wage issue completely.
Thinking like steve, this is good for the JCs. They just cut the cost of paying delivery drivers by shifting them from in house drivers to third party drivers. Individual places like Pizza Hut also improve their profits by foregoing their own delivery drivers. The cost of a pizza already includes a portion of the cost of delivery, even if you don’t get it delivered. So cut out delivery but don’t cut the food prices.
As an example, I just looked at ordering a large pepperoni delivered directly from Pizza Hut. All up, the price was about $30, including tax and delivery fees. A tip to the driver is extra. Ordering the same pizza from Pizza Hut through Door Dash came to $27 before the tip. (See note below)
Why the difference? Pizza Hut - even before this change - was paying the delivery driver more than Door Dash. That difference gets even larger after this min wage change.
I’m also compelled to point out that most of those lost Pizza Hut driver jobs will switch over to Door Dash and other delivery services. So there isn’t likely to be a significant change in the number of jobs.
–Peter
PS - The really sad part is the price of the pizza drops to about $20 if you go pick it up yourself. (Or do like I used to do - order the pizza then pick it up on my way home from work, adding maybe a block extra distance to my commute home.) So get off your lazy rear and go get it.
A higher minimum wage does not mean fewer jobs. We have a shortage of workers.
With supply-side economics, it would mean fewer jobs because idiots are deciding things.
With demand-side economics, we are creating economies of scale as the country gets wealthier. Intelligent people want the US to be wealthier. As opposed to just a tax cut for the rich which is corruption.
The board needs to understand the stark differences between supply-side and demand-side econ and stop using old corrupted data from prior to 2022 as a case for anything remotely true.
It would be interesting to know how many people use hot food delivery services (not grocery delivery services). If others here on this board are like me, we do get up off our lazy rear and go get it instead of incurring the delivery fee plus tip.
I am apparently the first in the “sometimes” category - in spite of my admonition. But I do keep an eye on the up charges compared to pick up. I prefer to compare to the cost of dining out. If the place I’m considering is a place where I would normally tip a server, the tip to the delivery driver is close to a wash. So I rarely use it for fast food, but I do consider it for table service restaurants that will prepare meals to go.
We got started on it when I was working from an office and my wife was no longer really safe properly cooking a meal. The best way for me to work late and to make sure my family got a meal was to fork out for a delivery. But during times I don’t have to work so late, I’d go pick up before paying for delivery.
So while I do suggest getting up of your lazy rear and picking up the food, that advice needs to be tempered for those who are physically unable to do so.
Not in MN. New law requires employers of part-time workers to give them benefits similar to full-tiime workers. PTO, vacation pay, sick pay, etc.
'As of June 2023, Minnesota law requires that all employees, including part-time workers, earn sick and safe leave (ESSL) if they work at least 80 hours in a year for the same employer in Minnesota. The law will take effect on January 1, 2024, and requires employers to provide at least one hour of paid ESSL for every 30 hours worked. Employees can earn a maximum of 48 hours of ESSL annually, unless employers agree to more.
The law applies to nearly all employees in Minnesota, including private sector, state, and local government employees. The law does not fully cover certain seasonal workers.
With the employer’s consent, employees can return to work part-time during their leave without losing their right to return to employment.’
Ah, but that means you own a car (or more than one). For those who do not own cars, different issues.
Ignoring car price, major ongoing expenses are insurance, parking, repairs and maintenance, fuel (EV/gas/hybrid/whatever). So the money cost to go pick up something is usually pretty minimal because it is a marginal addition to all the other vehicle costs . Time is more valuable. Add up the costs per year and you hit the $3k to $6k range pretty fast.
$7+/hr and up. Price includes fuel and insurance. There is supposed to be one across the street from where I live (in the near future).
The teardown of the last Kmart is finally done. Other redevelopment is happening all over here on a large scale after the George Floyd riots. So can’t say when the cars will be available. Already almost two years late. But the new construction on the old Wells Fargo site has not started, and I believe this will be done with the new building (city block wide, but all affordable (?) apartments). So it makes sense to have it there. There is an Enterprise Rent-a-Car near here (2-3 blocks), so be interesting to see what they do when the car-share starts running. Haven’t rented from them in 20+ yrs, when it was $10/day for the weekend ($20/weekend + gas).
Meanwhile, in my wanderings today, stopped at a Tim’s/Wendy’s dual for lunch. As I walked up to the store, I noticed there were about 7 cars lined up at the Tim’s drive-through, and none lined up at the Wendy’s drive-through. Tugged on the lobby door. Locked. The main door, however, is supposed to be the Tim’s entrance, with the Wendy’s entrance hidden on the side of the building. Went around the corner, tugged on the side door, and it opened. I only saw one person working the Tim’s side, vs the three I usually see there, which explains the backup. Wendy’s staff was thin, three in evidence, but I was able to get my lunch (grilled chicken wrap and geezer pop, $6 and change. I don’t know what the staffing issue there is. Could be they use a lot of college students who went home from Christmas break.
I get what you are saying and I agree with it, but…I make a concious effort to not be in a position to order food in the first place. Every week, typically on Saturday, I make a full meal plan for Sunday through Thursday. I tried weekly meal plans but they never survived reality.
I keep track of all the meal plans in a Google sheet along with my notes of how I liked it, link to the recipe, etc. If it gets to meal planning time and I don’t feel like planning or don’t have time, I simply look at the “Greatest Hits” and pick those. If I have time, I do some light perusing of cookbooks or the Internet and come up with a couple things I’d like to try.
Although this sounds like work, it is actually labor saving over needing to run to the store everyday, and definitely an enormous cost savings.
No, you make a conscious effort to plan the coming week’s meals in advance. I do that also, but I have to order and have it all delivered. If they do not have something, I have to improvise or plan a delivery from someplace else. When a store is out of what you want, you do the same thing–but you have to drive to another store and get it if you need it. I always have lists going for each store, as they each carry a number of different items I can’t get at other stores. Most of the stores are within 5-7 miles, so a $5-$6 tip is more than reasonable, IMO. Plus, the drivers do sometimes make multiple deliveries on a single run, so the tips ad up without having the driver return to the store each time. Amazon Fresh did that–and no tipping because Amazon said they paid the drivers well so they did not need it as an ongoing income stream. Unfortunately, they raised the “free” delivery for orders to $150 and up, so that made them unrealistic. Great for a family on SNAP because they get free delivery from Amazon Fresh, but not for me. Now their minimum order for free delivery is $100, which I still find too high to justify ordering from them. Their choice. Most other places, $35 is the order minimum (or pay a surcharge).
But the kids are not taking these jobs this year. Too many good opportunities with internships elsewhere. Rare for a kid to return to any of those jobs. Internship is a loose way of saying whatever prior better jobs they had they can show up for a few weeks there instead.