by Terra Incognita 141 Replies latest members politics
McDonald's labor cost is lower than 25%. They try to keep is closer to 14-15%. One pound of beef (mixed with whatever) makes 10 of those little patties. McDonald's food and labor are both dirt cheap.
The recent raise in the minimum wage made our McD's lose about 1 employee per shift to keep the labor numbers in line.
We could have a completely different debate about how many people are actually too dumb to work there. (Yes, those people exist).
So in effect the wage increase at your McD's cost one person their job - taking their income and giving it to the remaining employees.
If Walmart Paid its 1.4 Million U.S. Workers a Living Wage, it Would Result in Almost No Pain for the Average Customer
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on April 20, 2011, Printed on April 24, 2011
A study released this week found that if the nation's largest low-wage employer, Walmart, were to pay its 1.4 million U.S. workers a living wage of at least $12 per hour and pass every single penny of the costs onto consumers, the average Walmart customer would pay just 46 cents more per shopping trip, or around $12 extra dollars each year.
Consider that the next time you hear some corporate mouthpiece warning of massive job losses if some minimally progressive policy were enacted. You never see them arguing on the cable news shows that increasing the minimum wage will hurt Walmart’s or McDonald's bottom lines; it’s always about the jobs that will be destroyed. According to the ubiquitous spin, large corporations, the embodiments of American-style capitalism, are so vulnerable to the meddling of no-nothing bureaucrats that any government intervention into the “free market” drives corporations away to sunnier locales or threatens their very existence. However well intentioned, it all ends up costing workers their jobs.
But the new study, conducted by Ken Jacobs and Dave Graham-Squire at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and Stephanie Luce at CUNY's Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, suggests that low-wage employers could pay their workers a wage that would afford them a dignified existence without threatening their profitability.
Paying a fair wage would only result in a price hike of around 1 percent for Walmart shoppers. The researchers note that the increase would be “well below Walmart's estimated savings to consumers” – in other words, the big-box retailer could continue to offer “low prices” without impoverishing their workers. The study's authors noted that the 1 percent price hike was the “most extreme estimate, as portions of the raise could be absorbed through other mechanisms, including increased productivity or lower profit margins.”
Walmart and other low-wage employers are poster-children for free-market hypocrisy, claiming that the “market” dictates they pay poverty wages while shifting some of their labor costs onto the taxpayer. A 2004 study by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce estimated that just one Walmart store with 200 “associates” costs taxpayers over $420,000 per year in government assistance to the poor.
The study squares with earlier research that found minimum wage increases to have little or no impact on unemployment. According to the Economic Policy Institute, studies have shown that “there is no evidence of job loss from previous minimum wage increases,” because “employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.”
Yet the idea that paying a decent wage kills jobs persists, as does the claim, made by the corporate right every single day, that high corporate taxes are driving jobs overseas. As I noted last month, he kernel of truth is that, at 35 percent, we do have one of the highest statutory corporate rates in the world – that is, the rate that's written down in the tax code.
What US companies actually pay in taxes is among the lowest figures in the developed world. As the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) explained, the 35 percent rate the corporate mouthpieces on CNBC are always whining about “does not take into account the generous depreciation rules, exemptions, deductions, and credits (some of which are sometimes termed 'loopholes') that corporations may be eligible for.”
Looking at the big picture, the U.S. ranked 28th out of 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (which includes most of the world’s leading economies) in terms of the share of our economic activity that corporations pay in income taxes. At 1.8 percent, our government actually collects around half of the OECD average of 3.4 percent
Let's do some math! Workers salaries and benefits amount to roughly 10-15% of the gross that a company makes.
Wrong. It is well over 40% of gross revenues.
And what darthfader said. There are components of cost of goods sold that are not labor, but there is a labor share of the total cost of those components.
Sammie, I read that article as well and Im not so sure about some of those "fuzzy" numbers. The article really provides no facts unless they define the following two items:
Current "average" pay for walmart workers -- so how much of the $12 is an increase in pay?
How much money is spent on an average shopping trip at walmart?
Side note: Do people really shop only every two weeks for their "stuff" at walmart?
Of course how many products are made for walmart using really cheap foriegn labor.
"Then he said to them, “The Sabbath Economy was made for man,
not man for the Economy Sabbath." Mark 2:27 New International Version
The problem with all these justifications for human misery is that you can make the EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS to justify de facto slavery. Once you have sunk us to that level you will be quoting your facts and figures in order to justify how it would be detrimental to the economy for slaves to be freed.
It becomes intuitively obvious that people who think like this believe in such slavery. They're just too cowardly to admit it.
TI:
You think I advocate slavery? Just because I chose a devils advocate position of yours?
While we're at it, lets throw in hitler and nazism. Maybe a little genocide for good measure.
Pease leave out the "emotional comparisons"... They do no good for the thread or your point of view.
Darth Fader: "You think I advocate slavery?"
Maybe not you in particular Darth, but certainly the Randians and quite a few posters here. And no, they won't advocate it; they'll keep it to themselves for now.
My apologies for not being more precise.
