If I were still in the work force (I’ve been retired for almost 3 years now) I’d have some concerns about a minimum wage increase!
If I were working in a grocery store and I was making (lets just say) $12.50 an hour, the idea of having a minimum raise increased to $15.00 an hour would be quite threatening. I don’t think it would matter whether it was a mom and pop neighborhood store or a national chain, I’d fear for keeping my job.
It is very possible I’d be reduced to part-time hours………which at $15 an hour may keep me close to what I was making at full time. Would they, the store want to do that, get less production for the same dollars? Maybe for awhile, and then the inevitable happens, I am released……..now I have no income. Or, when the minimum of $15 hour goes into effect, they just lay me off immediately. Now I lose both the income and benefits (eventually). If somehow I keep the job, cost of benefits may go up as well, I may be required to pay more of the premium. Lots of things happen with minimum wage increases, this high anyway at $15. What about people already making $15 an hour, I guarantee you if they are in union jobs, the demand for an increase is in the next contract renewal date? They usually are anyway, but now those increase demand become larger than they would have. Potential contract strikes in the future.
Full-service check out lanes get turned into self-service lanes, (the full-service check out employees will be let go. Think not? It’s already happening at places like Home Depot and Target. My nearest grocery store just took out a couple of full-service lanes and added MORE “self-service lanes”. One less butcher, one less shelf stocker, checkers are now sweeping floors too!
I’d rather keep my job at $12.50 an hour than to be released from my job, and lose the benefits. Trust me, as soon as the talk in Congress started about an increase, I’d start having some restless nights! That is another thing, lets add in the stress. Sure, now I get to go look for that $15 an hour job, and maybe 3 months later after I have fallen behind on my car payment………I find one. In the mean time, I can’t sign my kids up for little league baseball and have to explain why.
Minimum pay increases in the past, have often been necessary. Salary’s got too far behind inflation and cost of living. I know Bernie Sanders will argue that point for being the case now. Let’s face it, if I am making $12 an hour flipping burgers at McDonalds, that ain’t bad! I didn’t go to work at McDonalds for a career job, unless maybe I am a manager. It is a great place to build work experience, maybe I’m enrolled in higher education classes, and Mc D’s helping pay the way. I’d be looking for more career oriented jobs in the mean time. Jobs that are higher paying than minimum anyway. Here is another thing, I know this for a fact, tellers will be let go in banks, tellers are making slightly over minimum anyway. They are the lowest paid, while being the most visible employee for a bank; and it is not an easy job. You face and deal with the public more than any other employee in the bank; even more than a manager. Most tellers are there only temporarily, some are going to school at night, some are just working to hold them over until they find something better paying (I know, I was that person once). Many tellers are married women, there as a 2nd income for the family. Banks will always keep tellers at the bottom of the pay scale. ALWAYS!
We haven’t even touched on what losses of jobs will do to the community. Tax revenue will be significant.
Bernie Sanders and his Socialist Party are well aware of what a high minimum pay increase will do to businesses, to the work force, and to the communities. They are Socialists……….they know what they are doing, THEY DON’T CARE.
ARLIN REPORT...................walking this path together 