So the news is that some small companies have found they're 'going to have to make significant changes ' because of the recent raises in the minimum wage. Well good. It's about time. This is in no way a bad thing. The whole business employee model is very outdated for the 21st century.
Businesses are saying they’re going to have to raise prices, reduce
hours or reduce staff, and some businesses are speculating they might
have to close, as the price of labor is making it difficult. Well, now look at that statement. Out of the dozens of things a business can do to save money the only ones they mention are raising prices, reducing hours or staffs and closing. Wounder why they don't even mention the other things they can do? Wonder why they don't mention the 800 pound gorilla of simply reducing their obscene personal profits? The greedy business owners sit back in their mansions with piles of money and live the high life. Well, how about take some of the bloated income they make and cut it in half?
I'm not even sure why reducing hours is a big deal: just do it. A business does not need to be open all the time. A couple years ago many businesses were open from nine in the morning until nine in the evening. Then many places started to stay open until midnight or even two in the morning. Then many businesses went to being open twenty four hours a day. For the next couple years nothing changed, and then things started to go backwards. Most business stopped staying open twenty four hours and many when back even farther. Today, it's common for a business to not even open until close to noon and close by six at night.
Minimum-wage raises are examples of states and cities leading in the
absence of leadership by Congress, which has kept the federal minimum at
$7.25 an hour since 2009. These state and local increases, though important, are no substitute for a robust federal minimum because they don’t affect places that will never act on their own to lift minimum wages. Currently, 21 states do not impose minimums higher than the federal rate, and that includes the poorest states, like Alabama and Mississippi, where it takes nearly $20 an hour to meet living expenses for one adult and one child. Even in states that have raised their minimum wages, the levels are still not high enough to meet living expenses for typical workers and families.
But this era’s minimum-wage workforce, while still disproportionately young, is not the teenage burger-flippers of the 1970s. While there is a perception that minimum wage jobs go to teenagers working at fast food restaurants, that's only a piece of the picture, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only 45% of the 2.6 million hourly workers who made federal minimum wage (or less) in 2016 were between 16 and 24 years old. Another 23.3% were aged 25-34, meaning that 31.7% of all hourly workers making minimum wage or less were over 34. A single minimum-wage worker can’t afford a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country. Anywhere. A one-bedroom unit can be had in only 22 counties in five states, including in Washington. But here the relative affordability applies to only a few rural counties. Even in many places with an $15 an hour minimum wage, a person couldn’t afford an apartment working 40 hours a week. Nearly half of all American's that rent were “cost burdened” in 2016. This is defined as spending more than 30 percent of pre-tax income on rent. In many places rent can be 50 percent of income or higher.
