Congress was unable to pass a mimmum wage bill, needing at least eight more votes in the senate. While it would be nice for wages to go up, including mine, the reality of the situation is that if minimum wage were to go, it would effect my business a little bit. Most of the folks that work for me make 6.80-9.00/hr. There would be a few that would grumble about not making much more than minimum wage, they are more than welcome to go to work somewhere else. I would be a lot more hesitant to hire new people, as trainees get paid mimimum wage and I am not prepared to spend more money than I already do. I might end up cutting a couple of cooks that work for me, at least the lower paid ones, as I am not going to spend more payroll funds than I already do.
CNN.com – Bid to increase minimum wage nixed – Jun 21, 2006
raising the minimum wage also makes the price of goods rise. if they had raised the minimum wage, you can bet your butt all the stuff in the grocery store would cost about a dollar more.
on a side note, did you know congress just approved themselves another pay raise a few weeks ago? that means their slaries have increased by 35,000 since 1997. they haven’t done a damn thing lately. in my line of work, that usually calls for one of two things 1)termination
2)pay DECREASE
…but i guess maybe things out in the real world would run that way if we all got to vote on when our salaries were increased.
who would say no?
Yeah, I think that I read about the pay increase recently. I actually pretty well insulate myself from the world and only catch up on the news on my days off, or while I am on vacation.
My job is the same way. I get payed based on execution of plans, and getting results. If we paid congress what they are worth based on that scale, they would be making somewhere in the vicinity of 2.65/hr which is about what I pay my waitresses.
If my payroll costs went up by, oh, say 41% (the amount that they proposed for minimum wage) we would end up absorbing some of that, but I could almost guarantee an increase of at least 3-5% in my menu prices, as well as those of EVERY SINGLE RESTAURANT in the country. It is a pain in the ass to have to pay more for gas right now, but I kind of feel like that is just now starting to catch up to inflation. Gas prices are still behind the eight ball. We would be paying upwards of $5 per gallon if it had kept up the last 26 years. If I had to pay more for gas AND everything else, I don’t know what the hell I would do. Some months I feel that I am barely getting by, and my pay would not be affected one little bit by the minimum wage increase even if it had passed.