Fast Food locations closing down rather than pay employees more

[IndyColtsFan]

This will make the Rich Republicans in here have a brain hemorrhage.

I hope every Fast Food place in Seattle closes.

6-2-2014

http://news.yahoo.com/seattle-counci...--finance.html

Seattle council passes $15 minimum wage

The Seattle City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Monday that gradually increases the minimum wage in the city to $15, which would make it the highest in the nation.

Councilmember Tom Rasmussen said "Seattle wants to stop the race to the bottom in wages" and address the "widening gap between the rich and the poor."

You should move to Seattle so you can double your income!

 

[GoPackGo]

Someone is paying for all that, and it's the consumer:

http://nomadcapitalist.com/2013/11/24/top-5-expensive-countries-on-the-big-mac-index/

So $1 more for sandwich so the employees can have a living wage? What a tragedy!

 

[Exterous]

So $1 more for sandwich so the employees can have a living wage? What a tragedy!

Well, according to MIT you'd only need to make $9.64 for it to be a 'living wage'

http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/5303363000

Still the idea that an unskilled hour wage job can be forced to be 'living' by the government surprises me. Given that 80% of minimum wage earners are part time how are you calculating that this = a living wage? How does raising the minimum wage keep hours from being cut or another employee from being hired and everyone's hours going down? If this was a job with some skill or demand it would be different but that is usually not the case

http://www.timeforaraise.org/benefits-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/

Still I would much rather see local governments address this issue to coincide with the disparate costs of living than see a notable increase at the federal level.

 

[realibrad]

In your example, completely depends on your company. Do you even need a building to begin with? If you rent a building, but don't hire anyone, what good have you done for your company?

Employers who don't value their workers are idiots.

Give unlimited investments to employees? What are you even babbling about. I never said such a thing. I said employees are an investment.

I will remind you, this is what you said. "Your employees are always worthwhile to invest in. Without them, there is no business."

That is what I had a problem with. Your statement means that you should always invest in your employees. The problem with an absolute statement is the absolute implications. In this case, the implication is that no matter the conditions, you should invest in employees. The point I was making is that its conditional and not absolute. You then ironically come back with, "its conditional". Yes, I know it is, thats why I said it.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I will remind you, this is what you said. "Your employees are always worthwhile to invest in. Without them, there is no business."

That is what I had a problem with. Your statement means that you should always invest in your employees. The problem with an absolute statement is the absolute implications. In this case, the implication is that no matter the conditions, you should invest in employees. The point I was making is that its conditional and not absolute. You then ironically come back with, "its conditional". Yes, I know it is, thats why I said it.

It's very simple. You get what you pay for. That will not change.

No and NO.

Capital is always limited, and so your investments should go to what gives you the most return. This notion that people are magic investments that you should invest in is stupid.

It can very well be the case that a companies money is best spent investing in its workers, but it also may not be the case. You can also under-invest in your employees.

This was your reply. Pretty much everyone here understands that.

With your two replies quoted, you get what you pay for still remains. How can you be sure that the little extra given to employees won't yield more return. People making these decisions think they can because they treat people like a number, and just do what the numbers say is better. The issue here is people are not numbers.

I understand what you're saying. Accept that others have a differing opinion than yours.

You want happy, hard working invididuals, well...you get what you pay for.

You want people that hate their job serving you food, ok...enjoy.

 

[realibrad]

/sigh. You asked for proof that raising the minimum wage was a net gain, I've provided links confirming that, and raising the minimum wage has always been a net gain since the 1930's. If you're changing your argument to whether or not it causes a rise in unemployemnt, well economists disagree on that issue. IMO, there will be a slight rise in unemployment, but it is more then made up by the higher wages.


What is your argument? That increasing the minimum wage is insignificant or bad things happen when you increase the minimum wage? That increasing the minimum wage results in a net negative? That increasing the minimum wage results in higher unemployment? You keep on changing the arguments you're making, it's almost as if you've reached a conclusion that suits you, and are rationalizing that conclusion instead of looking at the data.

You gave no such proof. You gave 2 links that were completely misunderstood by you. The first one literally took all the profits, and divided them by the number of people to say you should be paying the people more. That is insane, and I don’t really understand how you don’t get that. You should pay someone what they are worth, and not what they bring in to the company. It is this way, because you can’t pay someone more than they bring in.
Here is the effect it will have if you raised the minimum wage with the CBOs numbers.
52 weeks a year x 40hrs a week x 500,000 jobs lost x $7.25hr wage. That is a total loss of $7,540,000,000 a year once the full net loss of jobs is felt. So, where do those 500,000 make money from? The answer is federal and state assistance. That assistance comes from taxes. That is directly measureable. As for the positive effects, they are speculation.
I will point out that you gave me news articles, and not studies. Even in your most recent post, you gave me an opinion post and an article from www.timeforaraise.org. At no point did you back up anything I asked you to back up, so don’t be confused about that.
Here is a quote for what I asked for” Show me a study of where minimum wage is better than no minimum wage, and Ill show you a very flawed report.” I did not ask for news articles or opinions. I want data.

I’m not sure how you can think that I’m changing the goal, when all of the things you listed were in my post that you responded to. Where did I change the goal?

/sigh So you don't have any links or citations but it feels right? Despite real world studies showing that's not the case?

So an employee is providing a company a profit, the cost of the employee rises, you feel that companies will decide not make a profit and fire that employee because...? Fill in the blank for me.

Let's forget employment for a second and consider almost anything else. Burger Store makes burgers. The price of tomatoes goes up. Do you think Burger Store will stop making burgers? If the price of Lettuce goes up, do you think Burger Store will stop making burgers? If the price of meat goes up? The price of vegetables varies widely during the year and restaurants make do. What is so special about labor that if the price of labor goes up businesses will cut off their nose to spite their face and choose no profit over less profit? Especially since the cost of labor is known and steady, compared to the cost of vegetables which fluctuate monthly and are prone to random unknown price increases due to bad weather, bad crops, etc.

I ask for empirical proof through studies, and now you turn it around asking for studies, as if you had before? Come on now. Here is one anyway.
http://econweb.tamu.edu/jmeer/Meer_West_Minimum_Wage.pdf

Here is the flaw in your argument. If the price of making the burgers gets high enough that its now closer to break even, they will stop making burgers. Companies have potential liabilities. If you are making .01 on ever burger, how can you pay the deductable on an insurance claim? How can you pay for possible litigation? Some burgers can still be made, and that’s because some firms have higher profit margins. Those that don’t will shut down, and take their jobs with them. How can a company save money for slow times, if you take away their profit margins. You seem to be saying that because some companies make huge profits, all firms can then weather any storm. But not all firms have huge capital reserves.

If You think there's no real effect to raising the minimum wage then what's the contention? Let them raise the minimum wage as much as they want, it accomplishes nothing.

Of course, most economists think raising the minimum wage improves the economy, so pardon me if I trust them over you.

Most economist don’t believe that. The 2 links you just posted are opinion articles, and not opinion polls. I know most people will not click on the links, but I did, and what you just said is not supported by those links

You were arguing that there wasn't enough money to give minimum wage earners more money. I showed you there was plenty of money to give everyone a raise. I then explained why a company wouldn't do that on its own(profits), even if it wanted to (putting itself at a disadvantage) but the money is there for a wage increase. Many times in business there are unexpected increases in costs. Companies make do and still continue to make a profit. Where does this idea come from that a small expected increase in cost will devastate companies that face bigger and more random costs changes daily?

Where did I say that a small increase in cost will ruin a company? I looked through all of my previous posts, and I can’t find it. I don’t know how to refute something I did not say?

And what does this have to do with price of rice in China? This is a bit of a non sequitur but I'll go ahead and humor you.

1. I do agree that it's possible to have a company that employs workers and is not driven purely by profits. Look at Chick-fil-a, who eschews Sunday profits in order to give their employees a day of rest. Look at Apple eschewing profits and investments from people who don't believe in global warming

2. Disagree, A company should try and make as much money as it can, ethically. Whether concentrating solely on wealth is the best thing for the world, that's a different discussion entirely.

3. I've provided links that show the vast majority of real-world economists agree with me, though I'll concede that my opinions are the minority among people who have never read an actual economics book or taken an economics class.

1. Chick-fil-a is most certainly driven by profits. Just because they do 1 or 2 things that are not in their financial interests does not mean they are not driven by profits. You can find a million more examples of where they did things to make money. An example is that they pay many workers minimum wage.

2. Agree

3. No you did not. You cannot honestly believe you did that, when the links you gave were opinion news. Give me a study, which if you remember, is what I asked for in the beginning.

 

[desy]

Around here Fast Food places have had to limit hrs because they can't find enough labor to be open all the time. We hired a summer student for IT and joked with him he couldn't leave us just because the DQ across the street paid a buck or two more an hr than we were willing to pay.
In a lot of other locations we had to pay senior student rates for first year guys to remain competitive.

So, point I'm making is its not a crime that Fast Food places would need to close because of poor margins and unable to pay the labor pool. It just means their model isn't competitive for the market they are in, either legislated or free market regulated, it happens.
Ultimately companies fail, employees are marginalized, right to work legislation erodes employee rights, min wage erodes employers flexibility, poor management or overreach by unions.

Protect yourself by diversifying your financial portfolio, when a company hurts your investment hurts, pensions are hurt, friends and families and your communities hurt. As an employee plan, don't overextend your house cars toys, live within your means. What coverages do you have for layoffs, medical absence, parental care and on and on.
How does your vote better your economy, your communities, there are no guarantees of a better life. I've had my down years and you retrench, rethink and energy wasted on woe is me won't get you out of a hole.
So many people walk around in our societies like grasshoppers instead of the ants they need to be.

 

[Subyman]

$15 per hour? That's starting pay for an LPN around my area. I'd be nice to be a high schooler in Seattle, make $15 per hour walking around an Ace Hardware.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

 

[kia75]

You gave no such proof. You gave 2 links that were completely misunderstood by you. The first one literally took all the profits, and divided them by the number of people to say you should be paying the people more. That is insane, and I don’t really understand how you don’t get that. You should pay someone what they are worth, and not what they bring in to the company. It is this way, because you can’t pay someone more than they bring in.

So, Realibrad, just how much is you mother worth to you? Since you're don't pay her a wage you're not going to tell me that your mother is worth nothing to you One shouldn't confuse "worth" with "pay." Pay is determined by how easy it is to replace someone, how easy it is to find someone else to do that work. Worth is how valuable that person is to the company. Remember, DC comics bought Superman for $412. You're not going to argue that the Superman brand is worth ONLY $412 ($6,000 adujusted for inflation). I can show you expensive CEO's that ruined companies, they aren't worth the millions of salary they were paid, and I can show you inventors, engineers, and writers who created things that made a company millions (inventor of post-it-notes, guy who wrote "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer") while making significantly less.


You can definitely pay someone more money then they bring in. A janitor brings in no money, yet he still gets paid.

You are misunderstanding the link. "Can" does not mean "should". The point of that article was to show that there is plenty of money to give everyone raises, in the case of Apple and Wal-mart raise everyone's salaries tremendously. The idea that companies can't afford to raise wages is bunk. It's not that companies can't afford to raise wages, they can, it's that there is no reason for them to raise wages when they they can continue to hire people at the current minimum wage.

I ask for empirical proof through studies, and now you turn it around asking for studies, as if you had before? Come on now. Here is one anyway.
http://econweb.tamu.edu/jmeer/Meer_West_Minimum_Wage.pdf

Are you posting a link to a study that says increasing the minimum wage increases jobs? I concede, you win, I happily yield! Way to go!

Your study says that increasing the minimum wage depresses job creation for younger workers, but jobs continue to be created, just not as quickly as they were before a minimum wage increase. The paper then goes on to state (page 9) that even though less people are hired after a minimum wage hike, less people quit their job, resulting in little change to total unemployment, leaving the only potential change being future growth.

The paper you posted contradicts the CBO link you posted earlier saying that there is a net loss of jobs with a minimum wage increase. I would argue that more jobs with higher pay is a net gain. With the paper you just provided, I can't think of a single reason to not raise the minimum wage.

I'm also going to re-arrange some posts so I can answer them together instead of separately.

Here is the effect it will have if you raised the minimum wage with the CBOs numbers.
52 weeks a year x 40hrs a week x 500,000 jobs lost x $7.25hr wage. That is a total loss of $7,540,000,000 a year once the full net loss of jobs is felt. So, where do those 500,000 make money from? The answer is federal and state assistance. That assistance comes from taxes. That is directly measureable. As for the positive effects, they are speculation.
I will point out that you gave me news articles, and not studies. Even in your most recent post, you gave me an opinion post and an article from www.timeforaraise.org. At no point did you back up anything I asked you to back up, so don’t be confused about that.
Here is a quote for what I asked for” Show me a study of where minimum wage is better than no minimum wage, and Ill show you a very flawed report.” I did not ask for news articles or opinions. I want data.

I’m not sure how you can think that I’m changing the goal, when all of the things you listed were in my post that you responded to. Where did I change the goal?

You originally asked for link showing net gain. When I provided a link showing that a minimum wage provides a net benefit to the economy, you provided a picture from the CBO showing a potential raise in unemployment, while ignoring the fact that the very same CBO report states if the minimum wage was increased to $10.10 then there might be a 500,000 job loss but 900,000 families would no longer be in poverty, and 31 billion dollars would be pumped into the economy, the net gain that you asked for. BTW, the CBO did the figures you were trying to calculate and came up with very different numbers.

You then changed the argument from net gain to unemployment. I'm willing to talk about unemployment but you then post a paper that says there will be no decrease in employment from a rise in the minimum wage, the very exact opposite stand you're currently taking.

That's the major change, but the truth of the matter is, I'm not quite certain what your argument is. I know you oppose raising the minimum wage, but since you've posted a study saying it won't cause any unemployment, and a study showing the various benefits (less poverty, more money in the economy), I'm not quite certain what your position is.

Here is the flaw in your argument. If the price of making the burgers gets high enough that its now closer to break even, they will stop making burgers. Companies have potential liabilities. If you are making .01 on ever burger, how can you pay the deductable on an insurance claim? How can you pay for possible litigation? Some burgers can still be made, and that’s because some firms have higher profit margins. Those that don’t will shut down, and take their jobs with them. How can a company save money for slow times, if you take away their profit margins. You seem to be saying that because some companies make huge profits, all firms can then weather any storm. But not all firms have huge capital reserves.

That is what's called a straw man. Nobody is arguing that no company should ever not make more then a penny margin on their products. I was pointing out that large changes in costs, much much larger then the paltry change a minimum wage would cause are common in many of the businesses that would be effected by this (fast food), and the companies were able to weather such changes with little to no ill effect. Why can a restaurant deal with tomato prices doubling because of a bad crop, dairy and meat prices increasing due to Mad Cow Disease, and other completely random factors. A random 30% monthly change in food costs isn't out of the norm. Why would a predicted 30% change in costs be anything more then a blip?

Again, we have real world examples of raising the minimum wage (Every minimum wage increase since 1930), and of cost increases and their effect on businesses (Vegetables, fuel, plastic, gold, copper, any costs that fluctuates with time) and they've never had the horrible effect that certain message boards would have you believe would happen if the minimum wage was raised. What makes this minimum wage and cost increase different from virtually every other time the minimum wage was raised, or every other cost increase to business?

1. Chick-fil-a is most certainly driven by profits. Just because they do 1 or 2 things that are not in their financial interests does not mean they are not driven by profits. You can find a million more examples of where they did things to make money. An example is that they pay many workers minimum wage.

I'm going to link to Chick-Fil-A's Who We Are Document, but Chick-fil-a claims to not be about profit, instead it's dedicated to helping the community and applying biblical-based values. Chick-Fil-A has repeatedly rejected franchise deals that would result in large profits for the family that owns it, they haven't taken the company public, despite the fact that it would make them filthy rich. There is more to life then profits and to think that everything is driven by them is a rather large mistake to make.

2. Agree

3. No you did not. You cannot honestly believe you did that, when the links you gave were opinion news. Give me a study, which if you remember, is what I asked for in the beginning.

Most economist don’t believe that. The 2 links you just posted are opinion articles, and not opinion polls. I know most people will not click on the links, but I did, and what you just said is not supported by those links

The links I posted are sourced with papers and postings showing where their data comes from and if you'd like you can read the 90 page studies but for brevity's sake they were summarized, but that's irrelevant. The link you've posted (CBO and tamu.edu) both confirm what I'm saying. If you don't believe my links at least believe your own. What I'm posting isn't controversial. Heck the introduction of the tamu.edu paper more or less mirrors my statements about economists disagreeing whether minimum wage hikes cause unemployment.

 

[Veliko]

The ones who are most vehemently against the minimum wage only ever see it from one, solitary perspective and work themselves up into a panic about mass unemployment due to escalating costs for employers.

It's a perfect example of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing.

 

[realibrad]

So, Realibrad, just how much is you mother worth to you? Since you're don't pay her a wage you're not going to tell me that your mother is worth nothing to you One shouldn't confuse "worth" with "pay." Pay is determined by how easy it is to replace someone, how easy it is to find someone else to do that work. Worth is how valuable that person is to the company. Remember, DC comics bought Superman for $412. You're not going to argue that the Superman brand is worth ONLY $412 ($6,000 adujusted for inflation). I can show you expensive CEO's that ruined companies, they aren't worth the millions of salary they were paid, and I can show you inventors, engineers, and writers who created things that made a company millions (inventor of post-it-notes, guy who wrote "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer") while making significantly less.


You can definitely pay someone more money then they bring in. A janitor brings in no money, yet he still gets paid.

You are misunderstanding the link. "Can" does not mean "should". The point of that article was to show that there is plenty of money to give everyone raises, in the case of Apple and Wal-mart raise everyone's salaries tremendously. The idea that companies can't afford to raise wages is bunk. It's not that companies can't afford to raise wages, they can, it's that there is no reason for them to raise wages when they they can continue to hire people at the current minimum wage.

First, my mother is not my employee. Totally different “market” if you will. 2nd, you seem to not understand what money is. I honestly don’t mean that to be inflammatory, so hear me out. Money is simply a representation of value. It’s a market driven way to help quantify something intangible. I think we would both agree that it’s not perfectly representative of value, but it’s the best alternative. Your argument is now about how wages don’t reflect the value driven in by person X. Not every position “makes money” in the financial sense, but they do in an economic one. People often interchange profits in finance and economics. They have very real differences. A job brings in X value, and that value can be represented in dollar terms. Now, the company may have misjudged the value of that position, but the employee has the ability to adjust and find other employment if they disagree.

Are you posting a link to a study that says increasing the minimum wage increases jobs? I concede, you win, I happily yield! Way to go!

Your study says that increasing the minimum wage depresses job creation for younger workers, but jobs continue to be created, just not as quickly as they were before a minimum wage increase. The paper then goes on to state (page 9) that even though less people are hired after a minimum wage hike, less people quit their job, resulting in little change to total unemployment, leaving the only potential change being future growth.

The paper you posted contradicts the CBO link you posted earlier saying that there is a net loss of jobs with a minimum wage increase. I would argue that more jobs with higher pay is a net gain. With the paper you just provided, I can't think of a single reason to not raise the minimum wage.

I'm also going to re-arrange some posts so I can answer them together instead of separately.

No, the study does not say that at all. Here is the quote from the conclusion.
"We provide both theoretical and empirical reasons to believe than an effect of the minimum wage should be most pronounced on net job growth. In addition, we conduct a simulation showing that the common practice of including state-specific time trends will attenuate the measured effects of the minimum wage on employment if the true effect is in fact on the rate of job growth. We examine the effects in three separate data sets and find that the results are similar both qualitatively and quantitatively: the minimum wage reduces net job growth.”
"More importantly, we find that on net the minimum wage meaningfully affects employment via a reduction in the rate of long run job growth."
I will admit, I did choose a report that would be misleading to see if you would actually read the whole thing.

You originally asked for link showing net gain. When I provided a link showing that a minimum wage provides a net benefit to the economy, you provided a picture from the CBO showing a potential raise in unemployment, while ignoring the fact that the very same CBO report states if the minimum wage was increased to $10.10 then there might be a 500,000 job loss but 900,000 families would no longer be in poverty, and 31 billion dollars would be pumped into the economy, the net gain that you asked for. BTW, the CBO did the figures you were trying to calculate and came up with very different numbers.

You then changed the argument from net gain to unemployment. I'm willing to talk about unemployment but you then post a paper that says there will be no decrease in employment from a rise in the minimum wage, the very exact opposite stand you're currently taking.

That's the major change, but the truth of the matter is, I'm not quite certain what your argument is. I know you oppose raising the minimum wage, but since you've posted a study saying it won't cause any unemployment, and a study showing the various benefits (less poverty, more money in the economy), I'm not quite certain what your position is.

If you look back at what I posted, that is not what I said. I said that minimum wage causes a rise in “natural unemployment” and a rise in underemployment. In fact, you directly replied to those comments. I ALSO asked for you to provide an argument for net gain, but they were both there, and not a CHANGE.
Perhaps I missed your link on how there would be a net benefit so please repost or PM me that link and I will surly go over it, but I did not and still do not see it in your posts.

That is what's called a straw man. Nobody is arguing that no company should ever not make more then a penny margin on their products. I was pointing out that large changes in costs, much much larger then the paltry change a minimum wage would cause are common in many of the businesses that would be effected by this (fast food), and the companies were able to weather such changes with little to no ill effect. Why can a restaurant deal with tomato prices doubling because of a bad crop, dairy and meat prices increasing due to Mad Cow Disease, and other completely random factors. A random 30% monthly change in food costs isn't out of the norm. Why would a predicted 30% change in costs be anything more then a blip?

Again, we have real world examples of raising the minimum wage (Every minimum wage increase since 1930), and of cost increases and their effect on businesses (Vegetables, fuel, plastic, gold, copper, any costs that fluctuates with time) and they've never had the horrible effect that certain message boards would have you believe would happen if the minimum wage was raised. What makes this minimum wage and cost increase different from virtually every other time the minimum wage was raised, or every other cost increase to business?

Now I’m confused. I think you are arguing that companies should be able to weather price fluctuations and that they should not fragile. I guess I agree with that, but only to reasonable extents. There was a bad crop of tomato and some of the fast food companies down here stopped including them, because it was not worth the price.
As for the “examples” or raising the minimum wage, that is correlation and does not explain anything. You may simply not be measuring the affected areas. A raise in the price of labor may not cause prices to rise, but thinks like a reduced GDP or job growth may happen instead.

I'm going to link to Chick-Fil-A's Who We Are Document, but Chick-fil-a claims to not be about profit, instead it's dedicated to helping the community and applying biblical-based values. Chick-Fil-A has repeatedly rejected franchise deals that would result in large profits for the family that owns it, they haven't taken the company public, despite the fact that it would make them filthy rich. There is more to life then profits and to think that everything is driven by them is a rather large mistake to make.

Profits is the way that capitalism lets a producer know it likes what it is doing. You can get profits by doing harmful activity granted, but on the whole, profits are made through doing something that someone else wanted and was willing to pay for. I think you simply do not understand what I mean when I say profits.

 

[realibrad]

The ones who are most vehemently against the minimum wage only ever see it from one, solitary perspective and work themselves up into a panic about mass unemployment due to escalating costs for employers.

It's a perfect example of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing.

That's not really fair. I would like to help the poor. I just see data and draw a conclusion that thinks like the minimum wage hurts the poor.

BTW, I still need to get a copy of your book and read it. Unless you have an audio book?

 

[SurelyYouJest]

So businesses with thin profit margins are not allowed to exist in Daveland? Or just restaurants?

CKE Restaurants who owns Hardee's and Carls JR Made almost THREE HUNDRED MILLION dollars ($300,000,000) profit on ONE BILLION THREE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX MILLION dollars ($1,326,000,000) in revenue for 2013.
I would hardly call that razor thin profit margins!

The problem is that CEO's that run companys that make hundreds of millions and billions in profit subscribe to the "I'm getting mine f*** the rest of you" school of thought.

10% of most of these overpaid CEO's Salaries would go along way to paying a decent wage to the people who, you know, actually do the work and keep the company in business.

 

[raildogg]

LOL, so-called Democratic America acting like Communist Russia. Forcing companies to do this or that.

This is about getting votes. This is about getting attention. These guys fix one problem, but create two others.

 

[BoberFett]

Then they can man the fry machine forever, if they don't have any personal ambition to improve themselves without being hounded to move up by their manager.

There are always outside hires if you need higher skill levels.

 

[BoberFett]

CKE Restaurants who owns Hardee's and Carls JR Made almost THREE HUNDRED MILLION dollars ($300,000,000) profit on ONE BILLION THREE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX MILLION dollars ($1,326,000,000) in revenue for 2013.
I would hardly call that razor thin profit margins!

The problem is that CEO's that run companys that make hundreds of millions and billions in profit subscribe to the "I'm getting mine f*** the rest of you" school of thought.

10% of most of these overpaid CEO's Salaries would go along way to paying a decent wage to the people who, you know, actually do the work and keep the company in business.

Please show me the data that shows they're at a net 20% margin. I can't find anything to substantiate that.

 

[raildogg]

Isn't capitalism supposed to be about brutal competition? If so, then leave it at that. These politicians seem to be watering it down - making it more compassionate, if you can call it that. That means if the system is so good, then let it do its thing. Apparently, human greed is so strong that if the government did not enforce certain things, then there would be total exploitation. Wow. On the other hand, government total control would be the same thing. So, in the end, they are the same. Exploitation. Ah, humans. And our greed.

 

[cubby1223]

CKE Restaurants who owns Hardee's and Carls JR Made almost THREE HUNDRED MILLION dollars ($300,000,000) profit on ONE BILLION THREE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX MILLION dollars ($1,326,000,000) in revenue for 2013.
I would hardly call that razor thin profit margins!

The problem is that CEO's that run companys that make hundreds of millions and billions in profit subscribe to the "I'm getting mine f*** the rest of you" school of thought.

10% of most of these overpaid CEO's Salaries would go along way to paying a decent wage to the people who, you know, actually do the work and keep the company in business.

Moral? If you want to make a decent living for yourself, don't gamble in a future as a fast food line worker, invest in an education instead.

 

[cubby1223]

Please show me the data that shows they're at a net 20% margin. I can't find anything to substantiate that.

these are their public statements:
http://investor.ckr.com/press-relea...nary-unaudited-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-0

revenue $1.15b
expenses $940m
diff $218m

though I must say I'm not familiar with what EBITDA is

 

[Attic]

Isn't capitalism supposed to be about brutal competition? If so, then leave it at that. These politicians seem to be watering it down - making it more compassionate, if you can call it that. That means if the system is so good, then let it do its thing. Apparently, human greed is so strong that if the government did not enforce certain things, then there would be total exploitation. Wow. On the other hand, government total control would be the same thing. So, in the end, they are the same. Exploitation. Ah, humans. And our greed.

I get this in theory.

But in practice we are not capitalist or free market in america. What we have crony capitalism catered to by politicians.

If it was about legit competition it'd be one thing for low skilled workers, but it's not. Not sure what it's about, but there's not any real great solutions to the growing wealth inequality in America (massive growth in this since GFC) and minimum wage raises are one way to combat it.

Any better options?, sure, remove crony capitalism from suffocating the free market and destroying lives. That's not going to happen.

Similar predicament with the ACA, don't do anything or at least try something. With government it is often the case that the "cure" is worse than the disease, but not changing anything on wage front and healthcare wasn't a great default from what i've seen around the country.

 

[Fern]

CKE Restaurants who owns Hardee's and Carls JR Made almost THREE HUNDRED MILLION dollars ($300,000,000) profit on ONE BILLION THREE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX MILLION dollars ($1,326,000,000) in revenue for 2013.
I would hardly call that razor thin profit margins!

The problem is that CEO's that run companys that make hundreds of millions and billions in profit subscribe to the "I'm getting mine f*** the rest of you" school of thought.

10% of most of these overpaid CEO's Salaries would go along way to paying a decent wage to the people who, you know, actually do the work and keep the company in business.

I can't find any info that even remotely suggests such a profit margin.

In fact their 10K (annual financial info submitted to the SEC) says they lost $6 million in 2012. And I cannot find the 2013 final financials. I cannot believe a company can go from a $6 million loss to a $300 million profit in one year.

Preliminary financial results for 2013 can be found here: http://investor.ckr.com/press-relea...nary-unaudited-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-0

They appear to be expecting a net profit (before income taxes) for 2013 of $20-23 million on $1.326 billion. That would be a (pre-tax) profit margin of less than 2%.

Fern

 

[Fern]

Around here Fast Food places have had to limit hrs because they can't find enough labor to be open all the time.

Where the heck are you at?

So, point I'm making is its not a crime that Fast Food places would need to close because of poor margins and unable to pay the labor pool. It just means their model isn't competitive for the market they are in, either legislated or free market regulated, it happens.

Yes, it is a crime. People are out of jobs. Investors are out of money. venders are likely out of money. Bank is out of money. No more sales taxes etc, so the city/county is out of money.

And it's not just their "model". The economy has been poor for many years now. Then the gov adds additional costs in the form of a higher minimum wage, Obamacare and likely increased utility costs.

IMO, it's damn stupid for the govt to be imposing these measures now. If they must be done, do it when the economy is is hard charging. Not now.

Fern

 

[Fern]

The ones who are most vehemently against the minimum wage only ever see it from one, solitary perspective and work themselves up into a panic about mass unemployment due to escalating costs for employers.

It's a perfect example of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing.

I'd say the same about those arguing an increased minimum wage hurts nothing. The CBO, Warren Buffet and common sense all disagree with you.

Fern

 

[Fern]

So $1 more for sandwich so the employees can have a living wage? What a tragedy!

At what price point will consumer stop buying the sandwich?

If an increase of $1 didn't affect demand these companies have been making a big mistake and leaving a lot of money on the table for years. I don't think that's the case.

Demand will go down and that will bring with it the resultant undesirable consequences.

Fern