Posted on 11/20/2012 9:52:05 PM PST by mykroar
With more than 15 million workers in in the sector, and leverage over workplace standards across the supply chain, retail wields enormous influence on Americans’ standard of living and the nation’s economic outlook. It connects producers and consumers, workers and jobs, and local social and economic development to the larger US economy. And over the next decade, retail will be the second largest source of new jobs in the United States.
Given the vital role retail plays in our economy, the question of whether employees in the sector are compensated at a level that promotes American prosperity is of national importance. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical retail sales person earns just $21,000 per year. Cashiers earn even less, bringing home an annual income of just $18,500.
(Excerpt) Read more at demos.org ...
I heard a clown from this "think tank" on Money with Melissa Francis tonight. Article is long, but essentially an argument for raising the minimum wage. One of the arguments was that the workers will turn around and spend the money in the store they work for, so it's no big deal to the company. Laughably ridiculous arguments - had to find the report (but I'll admit I couldn't make it through the whole thing).
The writer must have flunked Econ 101.....communism has NEVER worked
Artificially raise labor costs for retail workers and Internet shopping will get an unneeded shot in the arm. The trend to self-checkout will accelerate, and customers will be assisted by remote shopping assistants in India — or robots.
The market will figure out how to do without overpaid workers.
I was going to say Catherine needs to quite writing and go find someone with some brains who’ll be able to take care of her the rest of her life but, I’m single. I don’t want her mucking up the dating pool.
That sounded dangerously close to calling her incompetent. Careful, don’t want to get branded a sexist.
The Henry Ford school of thought. Instead of trying to produce the best product possible at the lowest price, hobble yourself by overpaying your employees. Ford rapidly became number 2. I have to wonder whether its stupid pay policies made it the benchmark for the UAW’s shakedown artists, thereby ensuring that all of Detroit became a life support system for the UAW instead of businesses run for profit. I suspect Detroit’s fall from grace - in large part caused by insane UAW pay and benefits packages as well as featherbedding work rules - was postponed for decades because of the complete destruction wreaked upon its foreign competitors and their domestic markets by WWII.
Check out their “tag line” and you’ll know all there’s need to know about what “Demos.org” is about.
“IDEAS AND ACTION TO PROMOTE THE COMMON GOOD”
Anytime I see someone promoting the “common” good I think collectivism and marxism.
and your thinking is exactly correct.
Just as a “gold standard”, minimum wage imposes a “mundane labor standard” on money.
Labor has inherent value. Goods/services have inherent value. Money, however defined, is just a way of normalizing the exchange thereof. Basic labor which pretty much anyone can do with nigh unto no training has an inherent value which we currently peg at $7.25/hour. Two gallons of gasoline cost about the same. It’s not the pegged value that creates this equality, it’s that an hour of floor sweeping, burger flipping or gas clerking is worth about two gallons of gas - change that pegged minimum wage value to 10x that, and you’ll see gas prices soon increase tenfold to match.
The only benefit increasing minimum wage has for the poor is that there is a delay between the increase in wages and an increase in prices charged. During that brief delay, mundane workers enjoy a bump in buying power ... then prices again normalize, ends aren’t met, and the demand for increased minimum wages resumes.
Fact is, regardless of imposed wages, 8 hours of floor sweeping isn’t worth 12 meals and 1000 sq ft of urban real estate daily.
This person is delusional. Reminds me of a song "I owe my soul to the company stoooooo"
“the typical retail sales person earns just $21,000 per year. Cashiers earn even less, bringing home an annual income of just $18,500.”
Would it be fair to suggest that, say, an iPhone app developer’s labor has an inherent value of about 4x that much? As an example of highly trained & skilled & specialized work, vs what pretty much anyone can just walk in and do with an hour of orientation?
The employee will not be able to purchase as much as he could before the raise!!!
The only reason to be in business is profit, employees are a commodity and worth only as much as the labor supply demands.
Wages raise with the scarcity of employees in a given field.
Only government is stupid enough to set pay by compassion!
The author is a fool! Here is how it works in fast food, first the number of employees on any given shift are cut and the remaining workers have to pick up the slack. The reason for this is of course that the operators can only raise prices so far before sales drop. Now that the employees that are left get a small increase in income in return for a large increase in work load. On top of all this they get a lesson in economics when they see increased prices across the board to pay for it. Yet they never learn, they always believe they will come out ahead.
Well this is true. Wal-Mart, for example, is well aware that its employees are its best customers. However, it doesn't at all support her argument.
This is a setup for sympathy for the coming Walmart walkout.
Let’s make a long story short shall we? Lower taxes == an across the board pay raise for the entire workforce. Mission accomplished.
I suspect the same. The '50s and '60s are said by some to have been booming because of unions that created the middle class. I believe that the boom could only humor the union excess because all of our competitors had been bombed to rubble in the '40s. Once Europe and Japan rebuilt the unions made us uncompetitive. And we have slowly lost the "arsenal of democracy".
Hey, Mr. Think-Tanker, I have a cunning plan:
I’ll trade my hat for a pair of pants; then trade the pants for shoes; and then trade the shoes for another hat!
Pretty soon, I’ll have cornered the market on hats, pants, and shoes, and retire in style.
Retail will make us all rich!
These idiots think that the purpose of a company is to create jobs, or better yet, good paying jobs.
It is incredible that these “think thank geniuses” can’t fathom the following simple facts:
1. No one starts a business because they want to create jobs, good paying or otherwise. The only reason an entrepreneur starts a business is to make money, i.e. a profit.
2. The only reason a business will hire someone is if that someone helps him make MORE money.
3. If the business becomes very profitable other entrepreneurs will notice and they will start similar businesses, possibly creating more jobs, and also reduce prices for the consumer via competition.
4. Wages for the employees will go up if there’s a scarcity of people willing to and capable of doing that work. That will only happen if society provides a business climate that encourages entrepreneurs to start new business (hence new employment), which means a climate that regards profits as a good thing rather than demonizing them.
5. Creating more labor regulations and setting labor costs will only hurt the people that these “do-gooders” are supposedly trying to help. And they want to go beyond that - they also want to tell the company how to run its business, basically take over the business. If this isn’t stealth marxism, I don’t know what is.
They already spend the money in the store they work in. My daughter used to work at Gap and she had to wear the Gap’s clothes while you were on the floor and you had to purchase them.
Well when you bring in 1 million legal immigrants a year and countless illegal ones. It does tend to suppress the price of labor. Especially for the low skilled and entry level jobs.
20K a year would be pretty hard to live on.
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