“More money more problems.”

[theGameClown]

It amazes me how little corporate greed is factored into people’s decision making when it comes to politics.

[jakesdaysoff]

Also CEO salary in the 70's was about 20x the average employees income. Today it general exceeds 300x the average employees income. They can afford the wages, they just don't want to

[beth_laubenthal]

What's considered socially acceptable if you're rich but frowned upon if you're poor?
Receiving money from the government.
Make it make sense.
Every worker ought to be making at least enough to meet their basic needs (housing, utilities, food, transportation, health care, etc).
If you're a multi billion dollar profit company that receives government handouts, your employees ought not to be on government assistance because you're paying them enough.

[alliu]

Reminder that McDonalds raised their prices BEFORE the minimum wage raise in many areas in the country. what gives, Mr Mac?

[thomasheerjr]

Or just hear me out:

Better paid and treated employees work harder and care more, which in turn helps lower costs and raises efficiency, which in turn, raises profits...

[koboldsage]

Wages have so stagnated that this talking point has become a baldfaced lie.

[diabolicallink]

My favorite thing is how my grandparents used to say “if we raise minimum wage we will end up with runaway inflation.” So minimum wage wasnt raised yet here we are.

[jacob_ian_decoursey_the_author]

Companies CHOOSE to raise prices when wages go up. They CHOOSE to keep you in poverty. That choice needs to be taken away from them.

[nancy]

If these companies were barely making it, their c level executives wouldn’t be making millions per year.

[MrGameaddct]

More importantly, NOT raising wages is also going to raise prices. No matter what they do its in their best interest to always raise their prices.

[GG-ipru]

“That’s not a revelation Mr. Economist…” 😆 idk why that got me so hard

[brenkrasmer]

Worked retail. Worked black Friday, worked back to school in a large college town. Two, separate, million dollar weekends, as a stocking jockey. They bragged about it. To my face.

But when a raise came around? Best they could do was $0.24 an hour. Less than ten dollars a week. Not even a bonus for working the two weekends that were the highest profit the store ever saw.

So yeah. They can afford it. Easily. They just don't want to.

[mistytsim]

Here in CO, In-N-Out *starts* at $20/hr. It's less expensive to eat there than McDonalds.

[The_Red_Legion]

I agree completely! It's a very complicated situation, but you put it in an amazing way that's understood simply. There is one thing I would like to add though. Raising wages, and not raising prices means they have to get the money from somewhere else. That means it's coming from the higher reps, the bosses. The boss is only want more money, so they would never lose money over something like that. So they have the excuse of raising prices, so they can make more money and you get paid more but it doesn't change your living situation really

[WhatWouldChuckNorrisDo]

It doesn't HAVE to raise prices, but it depends on the greed of the company or corporation. So, while you might have some good companies that raise wages and don't raise prices, you will have many companies that don't want to change their profit margin because they are greedy and it's really difficult to regulate greed

[BreaTheBrat]

I used to work for a small business that was owned by a narcissist. She loved to boast about her profits and than try to freeze wage increases.

[elizabethowen]

Fun fact in Australia. In ANY industry in this country, a union member earns 20% more than a non union member…….. that’s that 😊

[cm]

It amazes me how little people understand how the companies targeted in this argument work. Fast food is by far the industry most targeted as underpaying their employees, people, you included, cite McDonald’s corporate profits as proof that they can afford a live able wage which in most cities is about $40 an hour average. Here where the big lie starts, McDonald’s Donald’s only owns a couple of restaurants, the rest are privately owned so you can take those corporate profits and flush them because that isn’t reflective of what the franchisees earn. I don’t have any current figures but back when the drive for 15 an hour was going on three local McDonald’s were owned by one guy, one of his stores, the most profitable one was used as a study to determine the effects the minimum wage hike would have. The store employed forty people, one general manager, two store managers and four shift managers, the rest were line workers. The wage increase affected 37 employees who worked an average of 35 hours a week each so that put his labor costs for just those employees at 77, 700 with the wage hike to 15. However that’s not all, with his insurance, workers comp, and the other expenses per employee it is roughly double so 155, 400 dollars per 4 week month, his other business expenses were around 30, 000 a month. The store sales averaged out to about 200, 000 per month so on paper it looks like he’s banking around 15, 000 just off that one store, except he owes just over half in taxes be it city, county, state, and federal leaving around 7000 . The wage hike would add around a thousand a month in additional wages paid out for the 37 employees discussed, an extra 37, 000 a month and he’s not supposed to raise prices? Your argument is false!

[ajackass]

Please run for office man. We need humanity back. We need people.

[ByteReaper]

You would not believe how many times I have had this exact argument with people. This and people working overtime but not logging it...blows my mind.