Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021

How is that a fallacy? So the single mom working at a McDonald’s franchise or coffee shop needs a pay increase less than a AT&T worker?

unperson otm

i know we all hate small business owners but it would truly be a travesty if this coffee shop in green river utah were gone. do yee oh wise ones of ilx have a response to this kind of scenario.

― map ca. 1890 (map), Friday, March 5, 2021 7:56 PM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've had this convo with small business owners and I don't have the answers either. They look at their thin margins and feel attacked by the messaging that they're not paying people an honest wage and ultimately they have to take home less in their own pocket. I do want to acknowledge that if you thought that was a good business model, to some degree it’s because you were told it was. You learned it and watched others be called successful for doing it. It doesn't mean you "failed." It might mean that your business model is flawed though, and artificially expanded beyond its capabilities.

The fallacy here is that small businesses and Fortune 500 companies absolutely need to be treated the same.

But the minute you start carving out exceptions for the "little guys", the big guys immediately figure out how to utilize the loopholes to their advantage so they can continue underpaying their workers.

A guy who owned a deli/catering businesses where all his workers are either family members or Latinx immigrants, told me angrily that if min wage went up to $15, he would have to pay the dishwashers 15, and then the more valuable employees would need to get THEIR wages raised, and pretty soon he'd be out of business. I mean, I hear what he's saying but also his Latinx employees' kids were the demographic of 30% of my school and a lot of them were living in circumstances that "small business owners" would never consider living in to save money.

suzy otm.

some small businesses will go bust - not that many, per the analysis i linked upthread - but small businesses go bust every day of the year.

there’s also this paper, which rounds up a recent wave of research into the effect of the minimum wage on low-wage employment: https://cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf

It’s called “Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No Discernible Effect on Employment?” and it’s from 2013.

it notes that “The employment effect of the minimum wage is one of the most studied topics in all of economics.”

The knock on effect is a big part of why Biden’s desire to negotiate down with Republicans is an unacceptable failure. $15 in four years ultimately changes the lives of half the working population of the country.

How is that a fallacy? So the single mom working at a McDonald’s franchise or coffee shop needs a pay increase less than a AT&T worker?

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, March 5, 2021 3:44 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was not talking about workers.

Just the companies they work for? There is no fallacy in treating small businesses and Fortune 500 companies the same when it comes to labor law.

SMEs can be provided with relief to cushion for the increase in wages.

They already have that relief, a multi-year phase in. Paying businesses directly to 'cushion' their labor costs and hoping they pass it on is just socializing risk and privatizing profit once more - and immediately falls prey to evasion by large businesses who want to get that free money.

AT&T needs a multi-year phase in? Ok.

Yes, that's what I said, exactly.

Well if small businesses need a multi-year phase in, I would argue some corporations don't. Hence, there's a difference of treatment between SMEs and large corporations/businesses.

I'm just going to repeat what I keep on repeating: nothing less than $15 is acceptable, and even that amount is much too low. $20 should be the figure that we should be fighting over, as has been mentioned numerous times.

Nothing that any sMaLl bUsInEsS oWnERs say changes that, nothing that anyone says changes that.

If you can't afford to pay your workers a living wage, then you and your business can get fucked. Period.

What if you can't afford your workers a living wage because overall workers aren't paid enough to buy enough of your services/products?

volume =! margin

There are about 10 posts answering that particular concern-troll in the last 50 posts.

The way to avoid this exact scenario was to flip at least 1-2 more Senate seats in November. We didn't, so here we are.

Want to lessen Manchin/Sinema's power? Flip more seats.https://t.co/RBZCw4GCNi

— Charles #GetCovered-ba (@charles_gaba) March 5, 2021

Feel like now is not the right time to play the "give us money so we can have a majority so good things can happen" card, since they have a majority.

I worked in an organic grocery store in tourist town of ~3600 people, and the starting wage was $10/hr, with 50cent increases every 6 months. It was back-breaking work.

The owners owned four houses, including one in a *different* tourist town across the Oregon border, and balked and retaliated against anyone who asked for a raise. Yet they were always wondering why none of the younger employees stuck around...

Small business owners who say shit like this are essentially telling their workers, "get fucked so we can live a middle class (or upper middle-class) existence."

Fuck those people and anyone defending them.

Sure, and some other businesses, providing essential services to poor neighbourhoods for example, are struggling to survive even with artificially low wages. If your answer to that is: they deserve to close. Well, I don't know, it just adds poverty in the end, it just seems cruel to me. I don't see why addressing complexities across a wide spectrum of economic situations is always seen as such a bad thing by americans, even on the left, especially that it works very well elsewhere on the continent.

Sure, and some other businesses, providing essential services to poor neighbourhoods for example, are struggling to survive even with artificially low wages.

Such as?

and I'm not even proposing to reduce the minimum wage of 15$, agreed with Table that 15$ is the absolute bare minimum. I just think that some different realities need to be dealt differently.

Such as?

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, March 5, 2021 5:56 PM (twenty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Independent grocery stores. Restaurants.

Ah, yes, "poor neighborhoods" widely known for being hubs of independent grocery stores.

Perhaps Americans are averse to your stances because your "wide spectrum of economic situations" are pulled directly from your ass to justify half measures and further subsidies of downtrodden classes like "grocery store owners."

If you're talking about bodegas, corner stores, and delis, which are large parts of the food infrastructure of poorer neighborhoods in the US, then I'd like to let you know that selling some crappy vege, blunt wraps, and snack food isn't providing an essential service. If anything, poor neighborhoods need more actual grocery stores, whether they're chains or not.

(response to VHS, obv)

is there data to suggest mandatory wage increases actually cause small businesses to close or is it a chamber of commerce et al. talking point

Milo, I really hope you find meaning in your antagonism because from here it looks sad.

The only difference is that I don't see a problem with subsidies for struggling SMEs, something that shouldn't be very controversial within leftist circles, and I that don't understand why there should be a phase-in for larger corporations to implement 15$ minimum wage.

Yes yes completely uncontroversial in leftist circles to (further) subsidize the literal petite bourgeoisie, how could anyone disagree?

The phase-in over the course of years is the "relief to cushion" you requested.

The minimum wage went up in Seattle and until covid people couldn’t stop falling over themselves to open restaurants. A local bagel shop was offering $250 gift cards to anyone making a successful referral.

There was a longer phase in for “small” businesses, with under 500 employees worldwide, but as of this year small employers get a discount of $1.69 for tipped employees, everyone else the minimum is $16.69, a rate which is now indexed to the local CPI-W

Eventually the tip exemption for small employers will go away too.

Yes yes completely uncontroversial in leftist circles to (further) subsidize the literal petite bourgeoisie, how could anyone disagree?

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, March 5, 2021 6:14 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

If the point is to double the minimum wage of the worker, what could possibly be the problem?

if we truly want to help the small biz owner, aka the backbone of the economy, the distillation of the America dream, then clearly we should be trying to lower the minimum wage

they're struggling will, STRUGGLING

might only buy a new Ski-Doo this year instead of a pair

VHS do you own a small business, like a boutique slaughterhouse or something

We've already cut billions of dollars in checks over the last year to small businesses (via PPP grants) rather than sending that money directly to workers.

(I say grants because you have to fuck up pretty good as a small business with employees to not get the loans forgiven)

No, I am vegetarian thanks, but I worked for some that had to close despite paying minimum wage (around 10$ CAD at the time) leaving owners with insurmontable amount of debt and in one case having to move out of the city because of rent increase, but surely every business owner is evil because some socialist LARPers can't move on from Marx or something.

VHS, in all seriousness, why should people who've started small business get subsides to *pay their workers a living wage*? Shouldn't they be paying their workers a living wage already? If they're not, couldn't one consider them class enemies and not worthy of respect or consideration?

If I was going to take VHS seriously, I'd point out the fundamental difference in categories - no one is forced to be a small business owner, everyone is forced to work to survive. The former, if they're struggling, have made a choice to enter into that struggle because of the potential benefit. As a society, we are not compelled to ensure their risk taking pays dividends.

They had to move out of the city?! God help them.

If only their workers had been more willing to make sacrifices for their benefit.

Sorry, *could* one consider them...

etc.

VHS, in all seriousness, why should people who've started small business get subsides to *pay their workers a living wage*? Shouldn't they be paying their workers a living wage already? If they're not, couldn't one consider them class enemies and not worthy of respect or consideration?

― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table), Friday, March 5, 2021 6:41 PM (twenty-six seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

If small business were on the same level playing field as larger corporations, I would agree, but they aren't. I don't think they can be faulted, at least not nearly as much, for people generally having a dwindling purchasing power, for not being to sustain the price predatorial commercial property owners fix, for not being given the opportunity to adapt to technological changes, etc. If the government, and there's enough money in the US to do, can chime to cover the difference between 7.5 and 15$ to help to business continue to survive, I see a win for everyone involved.

I don't think anyone is saying that there aren't ANY small businesses anywhere in existence that wouldn't be "harmed" (for some value of harm) by a raised minimum wage. Those individual cases just aren't enough to justify keeping 50 million people in poverty. I mean I don't know what to tell you.

The first thing I would want to know would be: Are the business owners/founders in a particular case in a different social class than their employees? Do they live a noticeably different lifestyle? Because if so, there's a possibility of balancing the scales differently.

I mean YES, of course, this is completely a false scarcity argument because if we had M4A/socialized medicine and a better support system then everyone's costs potentially go down and there is relief in other places.