Tag Archives: minimum wage

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Bernie Sanders is a Wealth of Bad Ideas

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from IBD:

Bernie Sanders Wants Jeff Bezos To Pay For The Welfare State — What Could Go Wrong?

Bernie Sanders, who never held a steady job until he started getting paid by taxpayers, thinks Amazon should pay its workers more. And if it doesn’t, he wants to tax Amazon for each “underpaid” employee, to finance government benefits. Even Bernie’s friends think he’s off the rails.

Sanders, never one for subtlety, calls his new bill the “Stop BEZOS Act.” It would impose a tax on each worker employed by any company that hires more than 500 people. The tax would cover 100% of the cost of whatever federal benefits those workers or their families might also be getting. read more

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When Liberal Ideology Crashes into Reality

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from IBD:

Fight Against $15: Democrats Push To Repeal Minimum Wage Hike In Nation’s Capital

“Fight for $15” is the rallying cry for most Democrats these days. But soon after Washington, D.C., voters approved a hike in tipped wages to $15, Democrats on the city council moved to repeal it. That’s what happens when ideology crashes into reality.

On Tuesday, 7 of the 13 members of Washington’s city council sponsored a bill to jettison the wage hike for tipped workers that 56% of D.C. voters had approved by a ballot initiative less than a month before. read more

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A Chick-fil-A Lesson in Free Market Capitalism

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Just another reason to love Chick-fil-A

from Conservative Review:

Leave it to Chick-fil-A to show you don’t need government for a ‘living wage’

Eat mor chikin CFA cows

Paulbr | Getty Images

Whenever the Left wants to have a conversation about a “living wage,” it’s almost never a discussion, but a series of demands and slogans made in ALL CAPS on Twitter. Those demands almost always involve the heavy hand of government coercing businesses with the force of law. But one of the Left’s favorite businesses to hate, Chick-fil-A, is showing that entrepreneurs in a competitive free market can improve conditions for workers without paternalistic government oversight. read more

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The Fight for 15 is Decimating the Workforce

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by: the Common Constitutionalist

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Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh reminded us of something we may have forgotten. It hasn’t been in the news lately, and with all else that is happening, it’s easy for we who write about this stuff, not to follow-up.

Rush updated us on the infamous “Fight for $15” movement, and how it is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Actually, more accurately put would be the gift that just keeps on taking – as in jobs and businesses.

You may have heard from Rush, or many other internet sites, that McDonalds is currently replacing 2,500 jobs in the U.S. with self-service kiosks. And this is only the beginning. Next year they plan to roll out another 3,000. You might surmise that this is 5,000 jobs being replaced. It’s likely to be many more.

Remember that human workers are at the restaurant for usually 8 hour shifts. Robots don’t have shifts, so they don’t need to be replaced by another human for the next shift. They work 24 hours a day, every day. These kiosks can potentially replace most all shift cashiers. In other words, that 5,000 could easily double or triple.

And to add insult to injury, McDonalds has plans to roll out mobile ordering across 14,000 U.S. locations by the end of 2017. This is sure to be a huge hit – and cause many more layoffs.

It’s like judgment day in The Terminator 3, when, with one keystroke of a computer terminal, machines became self-aware and began taking over the Earth. read more

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The Robots are Coming – and Sooner Than We Think

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by: the Common Constitutionalist

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Remember the “Fight for 15,” the big progressive plan to raise the minimum wage to the arbitrarily chosen hourly base of 15 dollars? And recall that we free-market conservatives have been arguing that a mandated wage hike will not end well?

Already, the hike has taken a toll on some cities. Local and State minimum wage hikes are forcing restaurants and like service industry employers to raise their prices and/or lay off staff. Other businesses are closing up and relocating outside of cities to avoid the mandated pay hike.

Governments – federal, state and local, bowing to the pressure of a tiny minority of radicals, know not what they do.

Governments and radical activists create static charts and models showing how a massive minimum wage hike will benefit “the workers.” They never consider how the mandates will affect the employers – nor do they seem to care. They don’t understand that the private sector cannot just vote themselves more money to pay for the wage hike and further crushing regulations.

So instead of subserviently complying with government overlords, companies of all kinds are seeking to find ways around these crushing big brother decrees. And just like everything else in life – leave it to private sector innovators to find a path around Nanny State mandates. read more

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Real World Economy Versus The Minimum Wage

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by: the Common Constitutionalist

Once again liberals have demonstrated that they just don’t get how the economy works. They are so utterly ignorant.

When purchasing an item, do you ever comparison shop? Of course. Most everyone has or does. And you want to get the most for your dollar. Again, of course – otherwise, why comparison shop. And if you see two of the same product, with different prices, all things being equal, you would choose the lower cost item.

Maybe one of the two products presents better value for the same cost. Again the obvious choice would be to choose the better product for that same cost.

And so it is for labor. Labor is a product. Companies don’t hire people out of a sense of charity. No – even for the lowest position in the company, people come in and fill out an application, maybe submit a resume and possibly fill out an evaluation form. Then someone goes through the applications.

And what are they doing? Why, the HR person or whomever is comparison shopping. He or she is looking for the best, most qualified candidate for that particular position at a predetermined cost. They’re looking for the biggest bang for their buck. He or she is looking for a hire who will bring at least as much value to the company as they will be paid. Otherwise, it is just charity. read more

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McDonald’s CEO Supports Raising The Minimum Wage

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from IBD:

Don Thompson, CEO of McDonald’s, recently remarked that his company would support raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour.

It is always noteworthy when a chief executive has kind words about regulation affecting his industry. After all, if McDonald’s saw benefit in paying its workers more, it could do so today without having to wait for Congress. No regulation needed. read more

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Seattle Proposes $15 Minimum Wage

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from the American Thinker:

Seattle’s proposal to adopt a $15 an hour minimum wage has some economic experts asking if it will doom Seattle’s economy.

Even Slate’s business and economics correspondent, Jordan Weissmann, questions the wisdom of adopting such a precipitous increase:

Yesterday, Murray announced a plan that would gradually raise Seattle’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and tie it to inflation, which won approval from a large committee of business and labor leaders, as well as some city council members. Today, Washington state’s minimum is a comparatively piddly $9.32. read more

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Federal Government Has Declared War On Work

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While 50 years ago the federal government declared war on poverty, I would submit that in recent years it has led an undeclared but real new war: a War on Work. The government increasingly is using its coercive powers to punish people who want to work, creating a vast class of able-bodied Americans dependent on the government — and politicians — for their daily bread.

The statistics are startling. A smaller proportion of working-age Americans works today than when the recession officially ended 4-1/2 years ago (June 2009).

But this trend is not just a failure of policies to encourage economic recovery, such as the stimulus package and the ineffective, highly expansionary Federal Reserve monetary policy. The decline in work has been going on since at least 2000, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. read more

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The Ultimate Dominion by Robots

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After you heard President Obama’s call for a hike in the minimum wage, you probably wondered the same thing I did: Was Obama sent from the future by Skynet to prepare humanity for its ultimate dominion by robots?

But just in case the question didn’t occur to you, let me explain. On Tuesday, the day before Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage, the restaurant chain Applebee’s announced that it will install iPad-like tablets at every table. Chili’s already made this move earlier this year.

With these consoles customers will be able to order their meals and pay their checks without dealing with a waiter or waitress. Both companies insist that they won’t be changing their staffing levels, but if you’ve read any science fiction, you know that’s what the masterminds of every robot takeover say: “We’re here to help. We’re not a threat.” read more