Fast food jobs in NY evidently attract a lot of comedians.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/fast-food-workers-in-nyc-strike-for-higher-wages-better-benefits-right-to-unionize/2013/07/29/6e1e5b56-f87b-11e2-a954-358d90d5d72d_story.html

Good luck with that, kids. I'm sure your neighbors will be perfectly happy to pay $10 for a Whopper so you can support your family of 8 by flipping burgers.

Odd how .99 McDouble costs the same in 9.17/h Seattle as it does in 7.25/h states.

Considering that fact, why do you assume that raising wages will impact price in NYC?

And spare me the econ 101 bullshit. Please base your answers on reality where you can't just ceteris paribus away everything inconvenient.

Really? Put them on the boat back to Takeashitistan that dropped off the immigrants willing to do it even cheaper.

You really think those McDonald's are just going to eat shit at the bottom line? If not, where do you suppose that extra money is going to come from?

Of course I can't guarantee it will drive up prices and discourage customers. They should definitely try it and find out.

Maybe it doesn't affect prices. Maybe they close a few stores, fire half the workers, and consolidate the rest into part-time staff at the remaining locations. Nowhere on the table will you find "just make less money" on the table as an option under consideration, I suspect.

I'm sure it does come at the expense of a bit of profit.

UA made the claim that raising wages would necessarily increase costs to the consumer. I gave a real world example showing that to be false.

And yet that isn't happening in Seattle, even with our 9.17/h minimum wage, paid sick leave, plastic and styrofoam ban and all the other 'KILL OFF JOBS!!!11!!' rules we have. In fact we are at near full employment. 4.25% unemployed, all jobs lost to the recession returned.

Uh huh. What's the rest of the story, there? What heavy-handed statist meddling prevents them from acting on their bottom line? They aren't acting differently in your little workers' paradise out of the kindness of their hearts.

That doesn't make much sense. If they can make more money by closing stores and consolidating, they will do so, right now, no matter what the minimum wage is. If you want to make a point, you need to show a direct connection between a rise in minimum wage and a sudden shift in best economic policy.

Nothing. They could shut down and pack up if they wanted. But it turns out making 'less money' is better than making 'no money' so they stay. And make good money, and without screwing their employees quite as hard as in other locations.

This is what I am talking about when I say we should discuss the real world. Call it the novel idea of getting 'truth from facts' and not rote ideology.

Unless doubling their wage overhead mysteriously has an effect on this little equation.

Ah, so before you declare me worthy, I must satisfy your bullshit, impossible causal link?

A counter proposal: I'll make my point as I see fit, and you go find a quiet place to fuck yourself if you don't approve.

Cut the shit. There is a reason your glorious workers' paradise is different (if I accept that), and it's not that McDonald's decided they don't like money. There's some devious fucking arm-twisting somewhere.

So a policy that would see them make less money is something they're not going to compensate for somewhere along the line?

With the Seattle example, I would be real leery of eating at a McDonald's if the minimum wage goes up and the prices don't. Because there will be cost cutting. Even worse if the cost cutting is invisible. Watch for news reports about the sudden and inexplicable decline of rodent and stray cat populations in Seattle.

It's the same because you're getting nothing. A .99 McDouble is not food. And I say that as someone who has eaten at McDonalds.

And there is a difference between $9.17 vs $7.25 and $7.25 vs $15.00.

A big enough difference that you would see changes at those locations in New York.

Yeah, that cost differential is being made up somewhere. Lower costs for ingredients, lower energy costs somehow, lower taxes . . . somewhere in the expense chain there's an offset that allows the business to pay higher wages in that area. Unless all the Micky-D's in Seattle are owned by the same franchise and they're just willing to live with two cents profit on the dollar instead of three, or like that.

Lawyer question. Is the whole "illegal to fire striking workers" a state/local thing, or at the federal level?

Yeah, it couldn't possible be that you get a better class of employee and one that's motivated to work when you pay them more, thus getting more value out of their work.

Walmart. Costco. We've had this conversation.

How long did it take for you to get a raise at McDonalds? 5 years? 10?

Oh, for fuck's sake. How much more value can you get out of a Big Mac? Does it taste better if the person who prepared it is making $15 an hour?

Sure you'd get a better quality employee.

Now the question these workers have to ask themselves: Are they going to be that better quality employee?

Because if I'm paying $15 an hour for burger flipping you're going to bust your ass off and if you step out of line I'm going to push you into the unemployment line.

I suspect these workers don't realize that yet.......

If you're not in a union how can you go on strike?

Right now they are just throwing temper tantrums.

Depends.

Has he made 5 big macs, or 500?

And really these workers are just pawns being used by unions and leftists.....

But can they be fired for it in Seattle, is what I'm getting at.

Ultimately, the staff of a typical McDonalds will consist of a manager, a couple of cashiers, and one guy to feed the machines and keep em clean. Other than that, all will be replaced by automation. In the Costco vs. Walmart argument, Costco uses higher paid employees... who are expected to do the same work as 5 or 6 Walmart employees.

$0.99 McDouble? I don't know about that.

I bought a Big Mac the other day--I don't have them very often--and here in the People's Republic of California, it was $3.99. I was mildly shocked. It was only a few years ago they were half that.

How can I make an economics argument without using economics?

I'll do better than that.

I don't think a business owner needs to justify lower wages by resorting to claims that higher prices will result. It's in the business owner's legitimate interest (and society's, too, but that's too Econ 101) to keep profits high.

The value of a wage is not based on how much wealth can be extracted from the owner before prices must increase; it is on how replaceable that labor is.

Yes indeed. This really is basic economics. If there is a policy that will make them more money, they will implement that policy. They will not wait until some financial loss in another area gives them a reason to "compensate" that loss by making more money. They already want to make more money now.

The only new policy they will adopt in reaction to a higher minimum wage would have to be one that becomes feasible because of a higher minimum wage, when it wasn't feasible before. That is not the case for cheaper ingredients, more favorable tax codes, or general consolidation and downsizing.

This is what is called reality. What you're engaging in instead is the typical middle-class fear of bosses, fantasizing that the bosses will punish everyone for passing a new minimum wage by being more inclined towards profit than they were before. Which is like fearing a lion will be more willing to eat you than before because you have brought a rifle to shoot lions before they eat you.

There's always a tipping point where drastic action becomes worth the hassle.

Because you say so? Bullshit. Maybe it was feasible before, maybe it's more feasible now, or maybe they just react out of spite.

Translation:



Fundies are so cute!