Take your time. Just make sure to use the updated spreadsheet - El Ocho found a calc error that was a good catch. It has been corrected. I can't read too much this evening - had my eyes dilated and its hard to focus! Finally getting glasses after 50 years...sucks to get old.
you literally said it was a problem that people who work have to get social benefits. Your point was that their wage is so low that they have to get benefits, so where’s the line then?
It's been a long day. When I earlier fired off a one line response to you and jem I had noticed that Ocho had responded to you, but I was in such a rush I didn't read any of it. Now I've read Ocho's criticism and it seems the two of you have already done a good job of hashing out what the difficulties are in trying to estimate the impact of a wage increase using a single example, and how complex that example could become if you properly take into account all the relevant factors. What I thought was the mistake we had made earlier was in not allowing for phasing in the wage hike. I had previously estimated, using some faulty numbers, that a 26% increase in prices would be needed to cover the additional cost of going from 7.10 to 15/hr. A 9$ meal became 11.34. But I realize now that's all wrong, because we didn't properly break down the staff, as Ocho has correctly pointed out. They can't all be making 7.10 (or 7.25, or whatever) However that may not be too far off on average, or it might be very far off depending on how many are wait persons and where their tips plus hourly are relative to 15/hr now. I just have no idea. Both of you guys seem to know far more about the restaurant business then I will ever know. The main thing is that when you phase in a wage increase like this you're really only going to need something like a 5%/yr boost in price, if the average wage for all the hourly workers is as low as 7.25, assuming no inflation. But we know that assumption is not realistic. The model seems to have a lot of defects, as Ocho has correctly pointed out. CBO estimates are equally flawed as what we attempted. They make some crazy assumptions but I understand why they do. They have got to simplify, or the problem become intractable. I'm rapidly coming around to the idea that the best anyone can do is to go by our experience with previous raises in the minimum. And there, the outcomes have been pretty positive based on what I have read. I hate the idea of a mandated minimum wage, but I see no way around it at the present time. It makes no sense to continue allowing some employers to pay their full-time employees less than a living wage. We all klnow the arguments against raising the minimum. They are always the same. In the past these arguments did not hold water. I am happy to assume they won't this time either. My concern is not raising the minimum to 15 over 4 years. . We have got to do it. We will do it. And we can do it. My concern is inflation, Not necessarily due to the wage hike, but more a concern that if the fed doesn't act in a timely manner to remove excess outside money from the economy after we are hitting on all cylinders, inflation will really tick up. Between the huge unnecessary deficits the past several years, and now the huge deficits needed to tackle covid, we will have entirely too much outside money in the economy after we are back at full speed. The fed will have to, at some point, start selling bonds to drain reserves. That's going to boost rates and the dollar. I think we are already seeing some anticipation of that in the bond markets. Just as economies can not grow without limit, equities markets can't outpace the GDP forever.
Ok, first of all, we never discussed a phase in approach in our original discussion. If you wish to change that now, we can. But at the time, there were many discussions on simply passing legislation to up the minimum wage to $15, kind of like how Seattle did it. Are you stating here that a passage to $15 an hour instantly would not work as many in your party advocate for? I feel this question must be answered before we can proceed. As for the average per hour, you obviously didn't read the response I had to Ocho. This number is irrelevant as the labor cost was based as a percentage off of revenue and is in line with the industry for eateries. If you want, we can lower the $$/hour they are at now, but that just means we will have to lower revenue as well to keep the % the same. It has a net zero impact to the comparison.
Usually this is based on the poverty level in an area and family size, depending on benefit. I don’t disagree with those metrics. My point was that strict means testing can actually be a disincentive.
...and its dead. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...um-wage-effort-fails-despicable-unacceptable/ Today is the day that the Bernie Bros realized they have been screwed.