What are your thoughts on the "Fight for $15?" Fast food and other service workers are uniting to demand the minimum wage be set at $15 an hour. They also want a union. What are your thoughts? The personal feelings I have are mixed. Fast food is supposed to be a starter job for most. Of course I don't live in a large city. But then again, most fast food workers I have encountered aren't the sharpest spork in the plastic wrap. What say you?

What are your thoughts on the "Fight for $15?"

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Posted 9 y ago

CH (MAJ) William Beaver I understand the idea of a living wage and agree that the minimum wage hasn't keep up with cost of living. I think the key is to define living wage. From what I've seen, too many unskilled workers expect/demand wants as opposed to needs. A big screen TV is a WANT, a nice to have IF you can afford it. IF you want it, get some skills and a job that will provide for it.

How often do we see an interview on TV where some family in Sect 8 housing is complaining about something or other, with a big flat screen TV in the background and a Iphone 6 on the coffee table...

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SrA Edward Vong

Posted 9 y ago

As PO2 Brandon Boucher said, fast food workers are often used as an example, however they are not the only ones receiving minimum wage. There are also less skilled jobs which get paid more. There needs to be a middle ground somewhere between minimum wage and cost of living.

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SrA Edward Vong

9 y

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS
I understand where you're coming from, and I don't disagree with you either. A little help doesn't hurt, and it's not impossible to climb. I am going to say that it was difficult working full time at Target making 7.15 minimum wage (2005) while paying for school (community college) and balancing hours. Even while living at home with family. But yes, this is the land or opportunity and I am doing quite well now. I have the Air Force to thank for that. (and Goldman Sachs)

It's hard to say how much raising minimum wage affects the company unless you work in accounting and finance for that company. Indeed this would detrimentally affect small businesses more so than large companies.

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Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS

9 y

SrA Edward Vong - It's hard to even get into the Small Business v. Large Company scaling problem. I worked for Gamestop (Large Business) doing retail, but one of the problems you always encounter is Hours. Hours or Payroll is the one "Controllable Expense" since almost everything else is fixed, whether it be rent, etc. But with Payroll, you have to trim it to the bone. More $ dedicated to Payroll, means less hours for each employee.

We saw what happened when they mandated health insurance coverage for "full time" employees. Less hours for everyone. Anyone who was close to that 35~ hour/week arbitrary number was cut to 29 hour/week, and quite a few of us prophesized it. Not because they couldn't afford the Hours, but because they couldn't afford the Benefits, which bumped the total Compensation Package to an "unreasonable level." This was at stores with 10~ employees each. Large company, but each store treated essentially like a small business. Many big companies are treated that way.

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SrA Edward Vong

9 y

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS
I noticed larger businesses are hiring more employees, but cutting hours from the employees as well. I'm neither on the side of businesses nor am I on the side of the workers. Just want to find a good middle ground to move forward.

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Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS

9 y

SrA Edward Vong - This is an "equilibrium" issue. Benefits (part of total compensation) cost the company money. Health Care is a SIGNIFICANT cost, which would put you near cost of "base pay."

Using very simple math, an employee is paid $10/hr. After you account for taxes, insurance, etc, the company is actually paying closer to $15/hr for them. When you hit a certain point, the government mandates certain benefits, and that rate jumps dramatically to $20+. By using more (quantitatively) employees, you actually keep your cost/hour lower, than if you used the same number of employees for more hours.

As an example 10 employees working 40hr/week = 400 man hours. 16 employees working 25hr/week = 400 man hours. If you PAID the employees the same $10/hr it actually costs MORE to have fewer employees because of the Benefits. Make sense?

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SSgt Alex Robinson

Posted 9 y ago

All of these people demanding $15 an hour for minimum wage are going to price themselves out of a job. They'll be replaced by automated equipment that can do the job better faster and for more efficiently. Our country is about to see a large spike in unemployment if this is allowed to be

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SGT Darryl Allen

Posted >1 y ago

Maybe it'll help get people off welfare so I don't have to keep hearing about how poor people are leeches to society and a waste of tax payer money.

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LTC Kevin B.

Edited >1 y ago

Posted >1 y ago

Good idea. Raising the minimum wage is long overdue, and NY is expensive. Not sure that amount would be good for everywhere else though.

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PFC Gary Blankenship

Posted >1 y ago

Yes we should raise the medium to at least $15.00 Per hour and see if we can get Nick Hanauer to run for president. He seems to be the one out there that understands if we make more we can buy more. Thanks and God bless

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PO1 (Join to see)

Edited >1 y ago

Posted >1 y ago

I see a lot of hourly calculations, etc going on in this discussion - which shows a lot of interest. I'm just curious - can anyone tell me the last time the federal minimum wage was raised and by what percentage?

The main reason I ask this is not to engage in the debate regarding how a small business would or wouldn't survive in a higher minimum wage scenario. Years ago I knew a young man, who's dad worked in Detroit at one of the big 3 auto makers. He started out at some low level position - comensurate with his skills and experience - but he was making $25.40 an hour, which was the union scale for that job. You do the math - I was working 2 jobs (military active duty and a part time job) and I was making roughly 22k a year. I was well trained and had 4 years experience. My response to that scenario - choices.

Back to my original question; I seem to recall it's been several years since the minimum wage went up. If my memory is correct the federal minimum wage last went up in 2009. If you do the research you will find that the cost of living went up, on average, at least 3% each year since 1960. So, in the years following 2009, the cost of living went up 15% -while those earning minimum wage actually lost buying power every year.

Whether minimum wage jobs are actually unskilled labor or not - I can actually tell you of at least 20 individuals working at McDonalds for minimum wage and those 20 individuals have PHD's.......so they are not unskilled. Another group I am aware of have BS/BA's or Masters Degrees.

I am not saying a doubling of the minimum wage would be proper, but with the now mandatory requirement for individuals to obtain ACA coverage and those same company's that are not providing medical coverage limiting individuals to 30 hours or less per week - something has to give. The cost of living is not going to go down - leaving the minimum wage where it is can only be described as a travesty.

By the way....I happened to meet a SMG the other day....who worked at McDonalds after retirement simply because it was the only job he could get.

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Sgt Christopher Collins

>1 y

The min. wage was designed for entry level workers with little education, in HS or HS grad but was not designed as a career, flipping burgers. They scream and yell they want $15/hr and here I sit unemployed, have a college degree, military background, experience and so on. I worked my rear off to get where I am and yet, I sit without a job and these burger flippers want $15/hr. Just irks me.

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PO1 (Join to see)

>1 y

I think the general idea of the minimum wage being a burden is hogwash. It simply establishes the minimum allowable - otherwise I assure you that places like Walmart and McDonalds would lower the wages for the people that work there as far as they could....and as they were lowering the wages their profit margins would be rising even faster. Establishing the minimum wage made it impossible for a Walmart to reduce wages like it was done in the Depression era.

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PO1 (Join to see)

>1 y

Actually....the minimum wage was established in 1938 to force the Robber Baron's to pay their employees a fair wage. My great grandfather and his son (my grandfather) worked in a cotton gin sunup to sundown in west Texas....they may big money at the time $1 dollar per day. When the minimum wage was established the owner of the cotton gin claimed the minimum wage would cripple him and run him out of business - it didn't. In fact, the year of the minimum wage, the owner of the cotton gin hired another 60 employees that same year.

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SSG Terry Back (Martin-Back)

>1 y

A degree means nothing unless your studies and direction are focused on a specific area. If that area is full, your chances of becoming employed shrink drastically. I live in a college town, there are many MS, BS and those with law degrees working for $10-$15 per hour or less, because their field of study is full. Many have joined the real estate industry, only to find they actually have to work to earn a living wage. Skill, work experience, personality and a desire to succeed is what will propel anyone to a good wage. With my construction company; we use sub-contractors who bid the job. We found paying someone a wage, is a money losing proposition unless you are working on government jobs. I posted on this thread before... if the minimum wage is increased to the level POTUS is recommending; unemployment ratios will increase significantly.

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SGT James Eastling

Posted 11 y ago

I think economically it's a crap deal.  I don't know all the details, but I read a line somewhere that minimum wage only applies to companies that gross (or net?) over a certain amount each year, but this may have been false.  Whether or not this is true, the raising of minimum wage in an across-the-board manner would destroy many economic areas, simply because many (most?) small businesses, especially single location mom-and-pop-types, barely have enough profits at the end of the year to stay in business, much less pay an extra ~$15k per person they're staffed with. What would end up happening is a large number of these smaller businesses would either let people go, or completely go under.  Either way, now the economy is plunged even further behind because the only places to get hired are giant chains where everyone from the former new hire to the now bankrupt owner are competing for the same jobs, all on top of everyone who was already looking for work. It seems to me that some people want the only places of employment to be McD's, Wal-Mart, etc., where they can be choosy on their hires because they have 3 spots to fill and 400 applications.  I know this is a gross generality, but from a drone's-eye-view, it's what I see.  I know a number of comments have stated various things from 'minimum wage jobs were meant for teens,' etc., to 'get promoted and get paid more for your position'. While I don't disagree, from my family's experience, it isn't always that easy.  When I was in school and out of the work force, my wife started and has been continually working for a fast-food chain.  While she's got 5-6 years continuous experience, and is now an assistant manager, this national chain is by private franchise, meaning that she's worked her way up from three different locations under three different owners, and not paid through corporate payroll. Where she is now, despite being Asst. Mngr., she's not being paid too much higher than current minimum.  She's on average twice the age of everyone except the owners, works twice as hard as most of the staff across all four or five locations these owners have, but is one of the least paid Asst. Mngr.'s on their payroll.  The problem we would have, and I can almost guarantee this is fairly universal across the country at the moment, is that if it was mandated $15/hour, most of the people she works with would be let go, some of the locations would close, and the few employees that are left would be consolidated into the remaining locations.  And if (when?) this happens, as hard as she works, I don't know which side of the 'released employees' list she'd be on. Now, before anyone goes off and starts picking apart the fact that I'm not currently working, and how I should 'pick up some of the slack', no kidding.  As a graduated but uncertified personal trainer, I am not looked at for hire due to lack of a certification.  That's it - and I'm in the process of fixing that. The point of my story is an example of what could and probably would happen not just to us, but to large numbers of people across the country, and certain entities (not just in our government) would be closer to getting their wish.  (Yes, I'm brushing on 'conspiracy theories', but as George Carlin once said/wrote - Paranoia, you only have to be right once to make it all worth while.)  Ignoring C.T.'s, what *is* the number of experienced, degree'd, intelligent, articulate people who are titled 'engineer' and similar, who are currently flipping burgers or doing other minimum wage jobs AND looking for new positions in their chosen fields?  I don't know the answer to this, but I would suspect more that a few.  The problem with this analogy is that too many folks with those credentials are being passed over for flipping burgers because they are 'overqualified', or viewed as an excessive expense, in the sense that with all their experience, some employers feel they would have to pay them more, and therefore go with the less or minimally experienced person because they're 19 and have fewer bills to complain about. Do all employers think like this?  No; but the smaller the company, and especially those with smaller the annual income, the more likely this kind of thought process is going on.  Generally speaking, even if it is an engineering or similar skilled position, the owners are thinking, 'Is this person's contribution going to outweigh the ($8, $13, $45, $130) I'm paying them every hour?'  I am not a business owner (yet, I have multiple plans I'm working on), but I do have non-traditional mentoring and other things available that teach people business mentality.  This is where my general knowledge is based from. Again, for what it's worth...

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SPC Christopher Smith

Posted 11 y ago

$15 an hour is a bit much, but I agree fully with the idea of $10.10 an hour that was brought up in the SOTUA last night. *Gasp* the first time I've agreed with this President about anything.

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SPC Christopher Smith

>1 y

SGT Davisdson,

Thank you for attacking my education, my original point wasn't based on scientific or strong logical stand points. Could I do a paper in Micro and Macro economics to prove that it is possible to increase the Federal minimum wage, and keep businesses no matter how small viable? Yes I could, but for a forum like this it would b pointless. In my micro class we explored pay increase to $12 an hour and this was viable, with an average .20 cent increase in goods and services. The idea was the more money have to spend, the more they can pay down past debts, and purchase more goods and services once those debts were gone. Sure your 20+ years in the business world, compared to my 4 or 5 might give you a better insight on certain things. Thank you for your answer. I'll take my failed education elsewhere.

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SGT James P. Davidson, MSM

>1 y

SPC Smith, please don't take it as an attack on your education. I apologize for coming off as such. My goal was simply to point out the obvious regarding the 'supply and demand' of money in that specific application.

While raising even the minimum to $12/hr, that doesn't reduce financial commitments the earners have, nor does it create jobs. As we have seen throughout the last hundred years, 'life' increases at a far more rapid pace than liquid income. COLAs don't necessarily offset rent/mortgage, utility bills, et cetera, and an increase in wages, as history has shown, doesn't keep up with the increase of the costs of goods and services. Call it a vicious circle...

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SGT Jason Doyle

>1 y

The idea that paying low skilled workers a living wage is ridiculous. The point of these entry level positions is to encourage people to either develop a trade or attend school in order to support a middle class lifestyle, which is easily achievable with hard-work. By raising the minimum wage to this level would have a devastating impact on the US economy and the unemployment level would rise much higher than it was during the financial crisis. I say the minimum wage should be increased in line with the CPI index.

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SPC Christopher Smith

>1 y

SGT Davidson, you are correct, that the vicious cycle is all too real, and maybe I was a bit harsh in saying that you were attacking my education. I know there is no miracle answer to fixing our issues, but something needs to be done to reduce our debt, it takes up far too much of our Nations GDP, and will be our down fall as our credit level continues to drop. I am not saying the rising in wages is the only answer, but we need to do something to bring down person debts to managable levels, and inspire the ability to afford goods and services. Maybe a Federal program to eliminate Higher Education Student Loan debts, to help people in their 20s and 30s afford to purchase a house. Maybe we demand more trade programs in our High schools, so able bodied men and women with no drive to get a higher education at this moment have a certifiable skill to join the work force immediately. I would support so many other options, but this is the only one on the table right now.

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SPC Christopher Morehouse

Posted 11 y ago

A government mandated minimum wage makes about as much sense
as a government mandated maximum wage.  That is, none. And frankly, I hate hearing people compare enlisted pay to minimum wage.  Higher or lower (depending on who you talk to or how you calculate it) there is no comparison.  None.  Enlisting in the US Armed forces is volunteering to put your life, comfort, and personal considerations subsidiary to the well being of our nation.  Even the guy signing up to be a Chair Force mechanic is volunteering to be thrown into harms way with no notice what so ever at the whim and need of our nation.  Comparing that to a cashier at Walmart is like trying to compare being a snorkeling instructor to an astronaut.   So yes, if you are a E-4 with a 9-5 duty, your making it out pretty good.  If your an E-1 in combat for 12 months, probably not so much.  But it is what it is.  for those who say enlisted make so much more then minimum wage, I say good, they deserve it.  For those who say they make to little I say no, they volunteered for it.  And if your walmart minimum wage job doesn't make enough, get a plan to get a better one.  If your not smart enough to do that you can always join the Marines (heh).  To lazy and to dumb, um I dunno, tough nuggets I guess.

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What are your thoughts on the "Fight for $15?"

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