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In Cambridge, a push on for $15 minimum wage
By adamg on Mon, 08/17/2015 - 7:38pm
City Councilor Nadeem Mazen is sponsoring a petition to set a $15 minimum wage in Cambridge.
This minimum wage is fair and reflective of the cost of living within Cambridge. It will would provide enough income for a full-time worker to meet all of the typical expenses of living in this city of ours.
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Comments
Ya because most
low wage workers are currently living in the Peoples Republic.
And it's not like it would ever effect small businesses hiring practices.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/03/16/we-are-seeing-the-eff...
Yeah, it would really suck
If the corporation with the multi-billion dollar valuation that my daughter works for has to pay her $15/hour. That would sure mean the end of Western Civilization as we know it.
Small businesses like the Gap, Verizon, Macy's would surely go out of business if this outrage comes to pass.
Yeah…
Because the bulk of impacted businesses are multinationals? No, they are the small/medium ones, who will buckle and likely either lower quality, hire less, or close up shop in response. Just because a wage is dictated, doesn't mean the economics of a business is ready to change rapidly in response (and in food in particular, margins are already in the < 5% range)
The focus on minimum wage is a folly, the majority of people working for them don't work for them very long or are generally high school students. This whole hoopla over things like "can't pay for a 1 bedroom apartment on min wage in Boston" are comical - most people who make more still can't afford that and this certainly won't help solve it.
In fact, for the worst off it likely means losing/not getting a job (far worse than a lower wage), or having to pay more for everything you buy (silently the true regressive harm). None of this is going to help income inequality, or fix the problem of people not being able to afford living in these cities.
There will be a segment that benefits, but it will be limited, and possibly to the larger detriment of others already on the ropes.
Because We Always Look Out For Small Businesses
Isn't it funny how we're always "think of the
childrensmall businesses" whenever there's a new government regulation or increase in the minimum wage, but when those same small businesses are going out of business because they can't compete against WalMart or the like it's just "basic economics".Well, screw small businesses*. The sooner we do away with them, the easier it will be to stop large multinationals from taking advantage of their supposed vulnerability.
*Not really.
Nice theory...
But wrong in nearly every detail: http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm
Citations please!
??
Several cities have gone to $15 an hour wages
Please cite relevant sources on the experience of these communities when making your point.
Otherwise, be honest that your opinions are untainted by factual data or living wage track records. Theory is nice, reality is better.
Here is an experience on "living wages"
Good story about the affects raising the minimum wage has on small businesses. The irony here is too good: comic book store owner votes to raise minimum wage but then spits his coffee out when the economics dont work. When he realizes his business cannot withstand the increase in payroll. If the federal minimum wage is raised to $15 hour you will soon see touchscreens and computers replacing the cashiers....
---Hibbs says that the $15-an-hour minimum wage will require a staggering $80,000 in extra revenue annually. “I was appalled!” he says. “My jaw dropped. Eighty-thousand a year! I didn’t know that. I thought we were talking a small amount of money, something I could absorb.”---
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417763/meet-progressive-comic-book...
So you like subsidizing McDonald's?
Because you are, as things currently stand. The difference between what McDonald's, DD, et al pay and what it takes for their workers to actually live is made up for by us taxpayers. In the form of social services like Section 8 housing, Mass Health, WIC, etc. No one is living around here on $9/hour without some form of public assistance.
So McDonald's gets away with paying a substandard starvation wage, and we pay the difference.
Do you want fries with that?
These jobs aren't meant to
These jobs aren't meant to support families. They are ideal for students, retirees and those living at home.
People need to make themselves valuable, and it starts in school at a young age.
Who makes a career out of flipping burgers at McDonalds? Who ever imagined you could support a family, or even yourself on McDonalds pay? It's nothing new, those jobs are great for extra money, they always have been. It's a new thing that they're supposed to be careers. When did this happen?
In MA our economy has recovered nicely, what's missing?
Not really true
McDonald's once upon a time claimed that people could have a career working there. In fact, they still do:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/careers.html
Ysure can
If you work for their corporate division. Flipping burgers, on the other hand, was never meant to be a career.
Yes, but the reality is
Yes, but the reality is different. How do you support a family on $15, let alone $9?
None of this should be a surprise to anyone yet it it, so it seems.
Aaah, good old 19th century thinking!
Really? I'm wondering if you skipped the part of school called "history", and the boring old part about the Industrial Revolution. The pace has simply accelerated since: the shiny-shinies call it "innovation" and "disruption", but by any name it means that you can't plan for what will "make yourself valuable" when you're "in school at a young age". By the time you're out of school, everything you planned for is gone. This isn't the 1950s.
$15 hour - reality
If Cambridge raises their minimum wage to $15 an hour, thus making an employee ineligible for child care subsidies, housing vouchers, etc, I can guarantee that they will either demand less hours or will work for $9 an hour in a neighboring town. You'll also see the underground economy swell, as both employers and employees became more incentivized to work "under the table". $15 an hour might sound like a feel-good rallying cry but many minimum wage employees will sing a different tune when they find out that they are no longer getting an EIC refund.
I'm not very good at math
So maybe you can help me: If somebody's wages jump from $9 to $15 an hour (and let's pretend that happens all at once, rather than being phased in over several years as in Seattle) and somebody manages to work 40 hours a week, how much extra income is that in a year? And would that be more or less than an EIC refund?
OK
But this would be the end of teenage employment in the Republic. And the company I work for I'm sure would switch to unpaid interns rather than paid interns.
The average worker earning minimum wage earns it for 6 months before receiving an increase. An awful lot of damage will be done to entry level employment for low skilled workers to see this Utopian reality. It's fine, though, as it will just create another societal problem that liberals can exploit to further their power over the productive class. A win/win for them!
Have you seen a teen working lately?
My son is a shift leader and makes $11 - and he has added responsibilties.
He's nominally a teen, for the next few months, but most employers in Cambridge and environs won't hire younger teens already! He recommended his brother to the boss, but boss won't hire high school kids.
Why? Because there are plenty of college kids. So we have a young adult in year 3 of college making $11 for a job with responsibility.
That "teen employment" ship has sailed, dear.
Also, consider this: I made $6 an hour for entry level work in 1985 and $9 an hour for a coop job in 1986. Considering that living expenses are now 4 times as much, he should be making far more.
Even $3.35 an hour (minimum in 1980) would be $13.40 an hour, scaled for expenses.
Amen, Swirly
I made $6 an hour in 1999 at the age of 15 running the board at a radio station. That employment almost absolutely does not exist in 2015, and if it does, I don't know anybody who would hire a 15 year old to do that job. Not everybody has Ben Hamilton's gumption, I guess.
I wouldn't hire a HS kid either. Too much red tape, I'll get a legal adult to do the job. There's 8 billion people. $15 an hour for an American? 3/4 of the planet will undercut that without batting an eye. Does the expression "Made in China" mean anything to anybody? Of course it doesn't, because Americans don't care where their cheap crap comes from, and the Chinese don't care that their buyers are a bunch of fat capitalist Americans.
We're outbreeding the world's currency and resources. Why am I the only person I know who talks about this? $15 an hour is a Band-Aid. Paying men to get vasectomies and freeze their sperm, thus setting a barrier to breeding, is an intelligent and sensible solution to a real problem of too many people and too few jobs left to do once computers and non-Americans who tolerate slum living have taken many of the tasks.
Wal-Mart is not "evil," it's a store run by wealthy heirs and stockholders who have the same concerns as any other human: Protect their wealth. I'm not going to bash any human for trying to acquire wealth, nor am I going to bash any human for responding to their urges to have sex and breed. The intersection of these two things is a government bribe to engage in birth control.
Be Green - get steralized
Nobody really wants to talk about getting sterilized as the most green thing people can do to combat global warming. Its the elephant in the room. Who is going to tell India, Brazil, China, Mexico etc. that they need to use birth control or a little self control?
Hey, there's the 9:55
Right on time with an irrelevant comment that demonstrates nothing except his fascination with other people's wabbly bits, it's MarKKK.
(not the 9:55 actually...3:09 am? Don't got a job to go to in the morning? That explains a lot)
Reading uhub comments helps me sleep
if having trouble. Clueless ones like yours give me a laugh when you don't understand the connection between population and CO2 as a function of population size from food production to heating/cooking, to consumer goods.
The only thing I don't understand
...well, two things actually.
1. What connection your remark has to do with the current thread (answer: there is none, it's irrelevant, just MarKKK shoving his oar in as usual)
2. Which of Newton's laws is currently under suspension to keep your ears from slamming together.
Not so much
Based on CPI, $3.35 in 1980 equals $9.70 today, so you are only off by about 40%. And, yes, there are teens in college so they count too.
Wages must be based on productivity, not the cost of living. If wage inflation exceeds productivity gains there will be less labor. You cannot artificially charge higher prices for a certain thing and not expect negative adjustments elsewhere.
I assume an "enlightened" person like you are an environmentalist. Isn't that the argument used about the delicate balance of the natural world? Why would you think that it will throw the earth out of balance if the delta smelt in California dies off but pricing labor higher than it's resulting production will not have negative consequences?
Don't be disingenuous
When people talk about "teens" having jobs, they are not talking about college students, they're talking about high school age teens living at home. And please stop trying to bolster your fraudulent argument with crocodile tears over the environment. You'd set it all on fire if it would line your pocket.
You mentioned three very
You mentioned three very large companies that can absorb and adjust to things like this. What about ACTUAL small businesses that cant?
Check out the Galleria Mall
And find me three Mom-and-Pop outfits in the entire building. The Tasty left Harvard Square along with Damon and Affleck--the place is a retail Disneyland. I ain't crying any tears for Chipotle or Au Bon Pain having to pay their workers a living wage so I don't have to subsidize them through my taxes.
Oh, but you will
Through higher prices. Either that, or their profits drop, their stock tanks along with broader market (see WMT today,) and you can kiss your 401k adios...
Remember who the largest employers are in Cambridge
Harvard, MIT, and the City of Cambridge.
All of whom can clearly afford this...
Harvard has the second largest endowment of any non-profit in the world behind only the Vatican, MIT isn't exactly struggling, and thanks to the high property values the city of Cambridge can certainly also afford to pay this wage.
So what?
The question isn't who the largest employers are.
It's who are the largest employers of minimum wage staff. I'd imagine percentage of staff would be more pertinent too than raw count since a store with 9/10 employees at minimum wage might go under, but a store with 100/200 staff members at minimum wage would probably be able to cope.
Macy's might go under on their own after Trump fiasco
With tens of thousands of loyal customers destroying their Macy's cards after the chain sided with the pro-illegal alien crowd and against Donald Trump, I don't think Macy's will have to worry about the minimum wage or much else. The thousands of Macy's layoffs this year are just the beginning.
Statistics Please
n/t
F___k statistics
how about proven economic.
You should pick up a HS Econ book and look at things like;
Price Floors and Celings.
Keynesian Cross
Price elaticity
Demand for labor vs. labor supply (trained)
Spending power and disposable income of those making 15+ currently whose wages will ultimately adjust to the market.
= Decrease consumption and purchase power.
You're trying to argue a political talking point, while demanding statistics for something being implement now. Ya stats don't exist, but economic theory does.
https://jonmalesic.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/the-minimum-wage-and-elastic...
Basically simply put, in order to sustain the current employment level with a drastic increase in wages companies will need to increase prices of goods across the board, decreasing the purchasing power of said individuals receiving such increase in wage. Thus reducing there purchasing power and disposable income. This will result in market corrections and leave those receiving higher wages in the same spot.
Equilibrium!
How about
Trying that again with a bit of grammar check before posting.
Multi billion $ evaluation?
Your argument assumes that Harvard is the only employer in Cambridge. You also talk about national chains which everyone complains are Already squeezing out local businesses. So if this passes you will still have the Gap, but not locally owned businesses, congratulations. I'm afraid you need to think these things through.
Low wage workers in the people's republic
Leaving aside that there are certainly parts of Cambridge where low wage workers live, this is more about the ones who work there and live elsewhere.
Yeah...
The projects and section 8 housing. There isn't one affordable nook in that bullshit city anymore. I work in Cambridge (unfortunately) and live in Lowell, because that's the closest town with reasonable rents.
Fair?
"This minimum wage is fair "
To who? Not to the person who owns a business with three people making min. wage and four people making $ 12.50 and two making $ 15.00 an hour.
Where does Councilor Nadeem Mazen think the money is going to come from to give all those people raises? Who would be the first ones to be let go in this scenario?
Lets do some numbers!
1980: $3.35 minimum wage
College costs were $10K a year
Rent was $250 a month
2015: $7.25 minimum wage
Rent is $1000 for that same bedroom in a shared apartment
College costs are $50K a year
See something wrong here?
Quadrupling and quintupling of costs (not even getting into people who aren't in the educational system), barely a doubling of wages.
$15 is actually pretty close to what $3.35 was worth 35 years ago.
Somehow, businesses survived that wage horror just fine back then!
You forgot one important metric
U.S. population in 1980: 226.5 million
U.S. population in 2015: 318.9 million
That's a 40% increase in 35 years. That went up too. And they all eat and require shelter.
Why should the minimum wage increase at all, then? I know a lot of that 318.9 million is retired, but that work force got bigger, and all the factories are outside of the U.S. now. The human race is a race to the bottom.
So your argument is to stick 'em all on ice floes?
I don't see you volunteering to give up your vittles.
"See something wrong here?"
Yes, I do. Minimum wage in MA in 2015 is $9/hr, not $7.25.
I see something wrong here
3.35 an hour in 1980 is $9.70 today according to the BLS (and that's probably the range of where the minimum wage should be nationally - Mass may need to bump it up a little)
College is a completely different animal - but very few are paying that $50k a year - and nobody making $10 an hour that has kids is paying that kind of money. There was some very interesting work done by a couple of economists that indicated that while college sticker prices have skyrocketed, the actual average amount paid has actually only slightly exceeded inflation.
As for rent - yes that is much higher - but there are also a lot of things working there - as someone has pointed out - limited supply and increased demand. Population is up about 65% in the last 50 years - and last time I checked NY, Boston, Philly, DC and most other cities weren't doing a lot of landfill projects. Humans - especially urban humans have to get used to living in smaller spaces as long as we keep reproducing faster than we are dying.
And while that extra $5 an hour may seem like very little - how much does it cost to develop an app if you are McDonalds, or Panera or Starbucks and you just order and pay online with a Menu app? Be careful what you wish for. One minute you are making $9 an hour - the next $15 an hour and the next you are standing on the side of the street with a sign in your hand.
Don't believe me - ask a cabbie that paid $500k for a medallion.
I see something REALLY wrong.
The answer is to lower the damn college tuition. That's gone out of control more than anything else.
OK, Rick...
my feeling is that if you own a business, you, as the business owner, should be bringing in enough dough to pay your workers a livable wage. If your business is not tenable enough to do that, than you should rethink how you do business or not be in business.
Which for a stereotypical "small business owner" might mean less of a salary for him or her (which is probably one of the real reasons why some folks hate the idea of raising the minimum wage.)
Missing the point.
The business owner will pay the wages she is required to and more to those that are qualified, but do you think the minimum wage workers in the scenario above are going to hang on to their jobs? I think it's highly unlikely.
Less hours and maybe one or two less workers is probably the most likely outcome of having an increase of that magnitude forced upon you.
Maybe so, maybe not
Those who are against this increase are focusing exclusively on what the proposed minimum wage will be compared to what it is now. That's part of the picture, but have you considered looking instead at:
People have been tossing around "65% increase", which sounds like a staggering amount. But it does not translate to a 65% increase in operating costs, or even to a 65% increase in labor costs unless every single person working for the business is making minimum wage.
Costs will go up
"unless every single person working for the business is making minimum wage."
If an employer is paying a few people 9 dollars an hour and a few 12 dollars an hour and a few more 15 dollars an hour and then is required to increase the 9 dollar an hour employees to 15 dollars an hour the other employees making less than 15 dollars an hour currently are going to want more. And the ones making 15 dollars an hour are going to want more. No company I have ever worked for paid everyone the same and they will figure out how to make things work by having fewer employees or less hours or a combination of both.
That's my opinion anyway.
Costs don't need to go up
What's your imaginary store owner sell? Tourist trinkets?
Well, all those other people who are now making a higher minimum wage in Seattle might have enough pocket change finally to be able to afford a trip to Harvard Square to buy trinkets from your store whereas they didn't before. So, now your sales volume is up because more people have disposable income that didn't before. Costs don't have to change for you to pay your own workers more from the new found sales volume.
Widgets
It doesn't matter what they are selling , an across the board pay increase for all employees without the guarantee of an increase in sales is going to hurt.
A theory of what may happen isn't going to put more money in the business owners pocket to meet payroll. I suppose she could forgo her own salary to cover increased costs, but how likely is that?
Stop making your own scenarios
Yes, and an across the board pay increase while also getting sued and then the whole place burns down including your fire insurance policy (and it was the only copy in the world) is going to REALLY hurt.
And if you don't like the "theory" of an increase in sales, don't tell me. Here's the list of people you need to write to:
http://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-statement/
Have fun. You can google most of their addresses, I assume.
$10.10 is reasonable.
They didn't say anything about a $15.00 per hour min. wage for Cambridge.
They are looking for a $10.10 federal min. wage.
That's your rock to bear
The section I quoted has nothing to do with the amount of the minimum wage hike. If you think $10.10 is somehow more reasonable than $15, that's your argument to prove not mine. Just saying you like $10.10 better than $15 for reasons undetermined is wholly unconvincing. I'd say what's reasonable is to be able to raise 1-2 kids with 2 parents making minimum wage without needing food stamps or government assistance of any kind. Determine the minimum wage that satisfies that (which means taking into account the cost of living in the location you're talking about). Then we can talk about what would be "too much" to set it at. Until then, all you're doing is draining from all of us to allow companies to pay less than what it takes to live as a family.
To live in Cambridge
The minimum wage should be fifty dollars an hour.
… sigh, here we go again
Chasing the California disaster (or I guess Seattle, where things aren't going so well either).
There will be repercussions: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-14/first-restaurants-raise...
That article is fact-less
The linked article speculates about the relative impact but offers no real before/after statistics about the actual impact of the wage increasing. It's reads like some semi-drunk stranger a bar spouting out political predictions to the ether.
Seattle isn't at $15 yet
And won't be for awhile.
In the meantime ...
Isn't it funny
.how the selfishness cult has jealous fits and fears of a falling sky whenever an upward adjustment in pay for the peons is mentioned?
And the array of rationalizations rarely change.
Or why not work at all and
Or why not work at all and live off tax dollars for 40k a year.
Because
I can't afford to move to Denmark.
Some jobs can be replaced by robots
"Writing doom-and-gloom predictions about the ruin that will befall businesses if the minimum wage goes up" seems to be among them. Just plug in a number and recycle old predictions that failed to come true every other time poor people got a break, and a bot could write the rest.
I remember coffee vending machines
Push a few buttons, a cup plops down followed by a stream of hot liquid. In the decades since, there are more baristas and coffee pourers now than ever before!
uh yeah.
And NO SUCH THING as a Keurig Machine right?
You reap what you sow. The
You reap what you sow. The good people of Cambridge elected him. Now they can suffer the consequences of giving an idealistic young councilor a platform from which to wreak havoc that will far outlast his term. But I hope it does pass and we continue to see a mass exodus of small businesses. Who would like to read the minutes from the city council sessions where people subsequently complain about the fact that the only businesses the city can attract are big national chains?
Yeah, it would really be horrible
If all the unique and interesting locally owned shops in Harvard Square were replaced by boring national chains ...
Cambridge is more than Harvard Square
But you get upset when people try to tar all of Boston with the same brush.
That whizzing sound...
...is the point going over your head. When Adam points out that Harvard Square has largely been taken over by large chains, it's not tarbrushing, it's a fact.
Slow down
You're in such a rush to be rude that you've ignored the context.
The fact that Harvard Square has been taken over by large chains does not interfere with the fact that Cambridge consists of more than Harvard Square.
To view Cambridge as a whole based on what you see in Harvard Square is akin to viewing Boston as a whole by what's happened in, say, the South End — a narrow perspective that Adam has fought to defeat, yet here he's applied it to a neighboring town.
It's a fair point. You have a lot of misplaced aggression.
And you have...
...a misplaced sense of diction. I recommend a copy of Strunk & White, or a quick Google search on the phrase "tarbrush".
Seriously?
The idiom I used was "tar with the same brush." And you're snidely suggesting I pick up a copy of Strunk & White? Physician, heal thyself.
Yeah, seriously.
Tar with the same brush: to characterize with the same undesirable attribute, especially unjustly. That doesn't apply to a simple, value-neutral observation about the makeup of businesses in one neighborhood.
Please stop
This is a proposed economic measure that would impact every business in the city of Cambridge — not just Harvard Square.
To take a mockingly sarcastic corporate-strong "observation about the makeup of businesses in one neighborhood" and suggest that those are the conditions throughout the entire city is the very definition of tarring with the same brush.
I do not understand why you are persisting with this.
I hope
your intern reads this.
Someone just got a raise.
Report. Compensation Advisory Board. City of Boston.
Scroll to PDF page 37-164 or so for the City of Boston Compensation Advisory Board Report
after clicking on... Packet
for Regular City Council Meeting 8/12/2015
http://www.cityofboston.gov/cityclerk/citycouncil/meetings.asp
Hmmm
Better load up on irobot stock - it's only a matter of time before they come up with something much more economical than $15/hour burgerflipper/plasticorpaperer/floorsweeper/etc.
Oh yes, of course
...because the minimum wage jobs of Cambridge are such a devastating economic force that some Sloan School punks are going to run right out to robotize it, and all these small business people that everyone's clutching their pearls about who can't afford $15 minimum wage will have no problem affording their product. Hold your breath for that one.
$25,000
One-time cost burger-flipping robot makes more sense than a $32,000 (plus taxes/benefits/etc) per year burger flipper, even to a small business barely making ends meet.
A note on typography
Bold type does not a citation make. Please provide references to the $25,000 one-time-and-no-recurring-costs robot that a non-standardized small business can buy and fully replace the work done by a human being.
A note
On bleedingheartedness (and most likely a nice chunky trust fund) - we already have $200 robot vacuums/floor washers. It wouldn't cost that much to beef them up for heavy commercial use, and all those $15/hour wax on/wax off folks are going bye bye. As for burger flipping, all you need is a timer and a couple motors, and a place to bolt it onto a grill - it can probably be made for $2,500, not $25,000.
Artful dodger, you!
Stop making stupid assumptions about people. You just make yourself look like an idiot.
Yes, I've heard of roombas too. You have come up with examples of automation that can take over some human tasks. You have not come up with an example of a robot that can replace a human. Or do you really think that people walk into McDonald's, assume the position by the grill, and do absolutely nothing but "flip burgers" for eight hours straight?
Civility is a lost art on the internet.
You said " Sloan School punks "
and then you said ,"Stop making stupid assumptions about people. You just make yourself look like an idiot."
So I assume you know all these people personally and they would agree that they are punks?
Ha!
I work in software. I have lots of engineering friends.
If you think a burger-flipping robot is a "one-time" cost, then knock yourself out opening the first robot-only burger joint.
If you think my services or my engineering friends' services are less than $32k/yr, draw up the contract...I don't subscribe to the Sunday paper any more, so I'm fresh out of funnies to read.
Well, that's not entirely a bad thing.
In a perfect world, nobody would do menial labor ever. It's unpleasant, (or even if you don't mind the work it's a bit dull) so having machines that don't experience such displeasure do it instead is a real improvement. Since most people need to work for a living we're in an awkward position where people need to hold onto their terrible jobs in order to not starve, but in the long run, the goal should be automate unpleasant work and let people do what they enjoy.
Raising the minimum wage alone doesn't really address the whole "need to work to live" problem, but as long as most people keep their jobs or find other jobs we can nudge things in that direction.
Great for surrounding communities
I for one welcome this change. Think of all the businesses that will flee Cambridge to Boston, Somerville, etc.
Of course they will...not.
What businesses in Cambridge are currently paying less than $15 an hour? Do you think that there are large factories that will blithely up and relocate to neighboring communities where the wages are lower (and guaranteed to stay that way)? Or are they perhaps retail businesses for whom relocation means finding an entirely new customer base? How easily do you suppose they'll do that in the neighboring suburbs?
New biz
If I'm thinking about opening a new restaurant, or shop, or whatever, and I can pay my employees $15 in Cambridge, or $9 a few blocks up the street or across the river, what am I going to choose?
We're talking about a 66 percent increase in the minimum wage. That's significant. Let's not pretend there won't be any negative consequences to this. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Good luck with that
Your staff is going to be made up of people who don't know they can get a raise by going those same few blocks. Enjoy the lunch rush!
But
I'm not walking to Somerville to buy your sandwich, so good luck with that.
There you go. You just proved my point.
So, you have no qualms about paying your hypothetical new employees $9.00 an hour where one needs to make $80K plus, per year, to afford an apartment rental in Boston?
So...
Are you saying McD/BK/etc should be paying burger flippers $80,000 and hour just because that's how much one needs to rent a luxury 1 bedroom apartment in Boston? Last time I checked this is USA, not USSR - unskilled laborers tend to make less than nurses or programmers.
Excellent idea
Burger flippers are on strike, let's give them $15 an hour. Next thing you know, there will be a "we're not burger flippers, we want more money!" strike amongst lower-paying skilled workers (mechanics, EMTs, social workers, etc.) Then, there will be a "we're not drones" strike amongst lower-level management. Then a "we're not lower-level management" amongst mid-level management, then upper management - you get the idea...
And then, THE CIRCUS PONIES WILL TRAMPLE US ALL TO DEATH!
Slippery slope arguments always fail because they're pure speculation.
Really?
Are you naïve enough to think everyone currently making around $32,000 a year doing skilled and/or dangerous labor, or perhaps having spent a crapload of money on their degree, will be OK with burger flippers pulling in the same salary?
Funny you should bring that up
Paramedic explains why he supports $15 an hour for fast-food workers.
? He blames the evil
? He blames the evil "overlords" to keep people fighting amongst themselves. Gah...
One person's misguided opinion. If a licensed electrician is making $13 an hour, then ya, they've got every right to be upset that a job that just about anyone can do which requires no skils pays more. Of course, I know of no electrician making $13 an hour. Down south where wages are lower, but NY?
Is there a reason why they shouldn't? A GOOD reason?
You have a job. Your neighbor has a job. If he gets a raise so that he now makes the same as you, is that somehow going to take money out of your pocket? Or will your $32,000 suddenly buy you less?
If you had a beef with your $32,000 before, it wasn't with your neighbor, it was with your employer. If your neighbor gets a raise from HIS employer, you still don't have a beef with him.
It's value. Flipping a burger
It's value. Flipping a burger for a living requires no education. Salary is usually market driven. A burger flipper today can be easily replaced tomorrow.
Please be specific
The question is a very simple one. You have a job. Your neighbor has a job. Your neighbor gets a raise and is now making as much as you. How does this deprive you in any material way? Please be specific.
Easy
Higher prices due to higher labor costs. Lower investment returns due to lower profits - that retirement plan of yours most likely holds all those evil corporations that are going to tank once their profit margins are shot. So, less money in that retirement account of yours, and less stuff your unchanged paycheck can buy - how does that not deprive you in any material way?
Well
Why would anyone do dangerous and/or difficult manual labor or spend money going to school when they can Get the same salary bagging groceries or flipping burgers? Not everyone's a bubble-dwelling bleeding heart idealist - lots of people work for money, not for their personal enjoyment. Why would they kill themselves in their highly demanding jobs when they can get the same paycheck for simple up and down arm movement? if burger flippers make 32k, social workers, teachers and paramedics should get 64k at the very least, right off the bat. In Bumfuck, MO that is, assuming $15 becomes federal minimum wage - they have every right to demand at least $100k in cities like Boston or NY, along with everyone else in the skilled labor force. But then again, cost of living is a foreign concept to occutard clowns like you...
Namecalling? That's all you got?
Oh well played, anon coward, well played. You're an idiot and you don't have the first idea what you're talking about, but you get points for enthusiasm. Or at least, you get points for reciting what you've been trained to say, very very well.
People work for money, yes, that's part of it. Most of them don't work just for money, however. There are other factors such as aptitude, such as availability, such as the fact that some people have moral qualms about doing certain kinds of jobs and moral or ethical reasons why they want to do other jobs. Why would someone turn down a job with more money? I don't know, have you asked a parent who wants to spend more time with their kids, and realizes that what they're making is enough? Why would someone do something difficult and dangerous and not just go for the job with more pay? I don't know, have you asked a Navy SEAL? Have you asked a Coast Guard rescue diver?
And you say I'm "bubble-dwelling". You're the one with the blinkered worldview. I truly wish you the best of luck on getting over that.
At Dwelltime in Cambridge
At Dwelltime in Cambridge last weekend, where they have a "no computers at the table" brunch, a barista kindly reminded a computer "scientist" of this restriction and the reaction was "i am developing an app to revolutionize the future, you wouldn't even have a job here if it wasn't for us so don't tell me what I can and can't do."
I hope this passes as it will be a strike against the millennial intelligencia at MIT and Harvard that only care about the rights of others if they magically unionize or are female, minorities and can learn to program video games.
Instead of doing real science, they are developing apps and robots to replace bartenders and other service workers. Give the blue collar folks some reason to beat the STEM oligarchy out of Cambridge and make it a place where all businesses can thrive instead of it being an autistic playland and surrogate bedroom for computer kids.
Seriously???
If you seriously believe that the "STEM oligarchy" cares about the rights of women, no matter what they can do in the workplace, then all I can say is, you're a profoundly ignorant man.
"you're a profoundly ignorant
"you're a profoundly ignorant man."
UHub is getting more and more like every other blog out there. What a shame.
Really, is it just me or was it a bit more civil before?
And how polite is it...
...to tell women and minorities that they're riding high on the white man's back?
There's been a profound push
There's been a profound push to get women and minorities into STEM (specifically computer science) related fields but it has nothing to do with engaging interests, but all to do with the arrogance of the tech industry in that they believe that anyone not in tech is lower than them. Teaching computer programming to inner city 6 year olds is not to going to engage them any more in high level mathematics than if they were interested in college, same with many women. If there is no interest, then it won't be pursued. It can't be forced. It's more of the idea that anyone that isn't in a STEM field is of a lower class. This is why the Cambridge intelligencia cares only their best and brightest 18-25 year olds and the hell with anyone else.
Look at how San Francisco's push is to price out and marginalize anyone that doesn't make STEM money or works in those fields. The lower paying jobs there are designed exclusively to be servants to computer programmers and engineers. This is what they want to do to Cambridge as well.
Agreed to a point
Eh. This myth of "no interest" persists: "Oh, we're trying really hard to hire and promote women, but I guess they're just not interested!" Of course. What else could it possibly be? Couldn't possibly be a sexist corporate culture...naaaaaah...
Isn't that a concern of
Isn't that a concern of individual companies? How is someone supposed to know the inner working of a corporate culture when they're in high school looking to choose a program in college. Would a young girl interested and with aptitude for computer science turn down specialization in college based on something she doesn't even know about?