How real is the reported labor shortage?

Finance
89

Good question.

1 Like
90

Even illegals won’t work for $5/hr.

“Tomatoes are the worst paid: I’ll pick 100 for 62 cents a bucket, or about $62 a day. I don’t do tomatoes much anymore”

eta 2nd source:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-an-immigration-crackdown-who-will-pick-our-produce/2017/03/17/cc1c6df4-0a5d-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html?utm_term=.8da825802b77

“And the pay? Between $10 and $12 an hour, generally. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes less”

1 Like
91

It is the worst argument. It basically says illegal immigrants are great because they don’t have the rights of American Citizens and we get to exploit them and violate the law for profit. I think that’s disgusting.

1 Like
93

Any article that shows the net positive economic benefit of illegal imigration is, in some level, boosted by the fact that many are paid wages that would command public benefits if paid to a US Citizen worker (including the EITC).

95

I thought it was common knowledge that robots were going to take all our jobs within a couple decades? :slight_smile:

I for one welcome our future robot overlords.

2 Likes
96

Employees are an after tax expense and are only hired when they employer expects to make a profit. I.E. if you hire someone that costs $50,000 a year, then you expect that employee to increase to company profits by more than the $50,000 cost, after taxes.

Otherwise, you’d be losing money to hire that person and the person doesn’t get hired (they aren’t a charity).

Thus anything that makes a business more profitable can increase labor (without profits there can be no employees).

97

Except there’s no correlation between business outlook and reality. The vast overwhelming majority of business owners are completely clueless in regards to economics. This goes all the way to the top, with the CEO of Home Depot being a prime and quite laughable example.

98

It’s not an argument, thems the facts.

Apparently you don’t comprehend the meaning of ‘Federal Minimum Wage’.

99

But lettuce would cost three times as much. Would not be popular.

100

Is the minimum wage $5/hour?

101

Obviously you expect that employee to pay for themselves and more, but how are employees an after tax expense? Their salary is a business expense, taken before taxable revenue is calculated.

I think I have an idea of what you’re saying – if a business makes money from each and every new employee, then they’d be more inclined to hire more people due to lower taxes on the profits. I guess this is applicable in some businesses, but it’s probably not the model for most large corporations. Each new hire does not necessarily translate to higher profits. They hire people because they have allocated a budget for salaries and because they have things that need to be done, but that work may not translate into profits for many years, if ever.

1 Like
102

Less for waiters before tips. Currently the news item in DC is eliminating the separate minimum wage for restaurant workers that normally get tips. Now somewhere around $3 an hour would go up to $12 to $15.

103

Are temporary non-citizen migrants covered by the Federal Minimum Wage ?

105

That’s not true. The minimum wage is still the minimum wage for tipped employees. The employer is allowed to count tips toward the difference between the tipped wage and the actual minimum wage.

106

Great point because, no, that is not a safe assumption.

1 Like
107

This may be the case in some states, and I believe it is in DC, but I don’t think it’s the case for states that don’t have a minimum wage and just rely on the federal MW.

109

Legally yes.

110

For the federal minimum wage people who get tips are paid at least $2.13 from their employers. They get tips on top of that. If tips plus the $2.13 does not equal or exceed the $7.25 general minimum wage then the employer has to make up the difference. At a minimum federal applies to everyone so everyone is guaranteed at least the $7.25 (including tips). I expect its rare that the employer has to pay more than the $2.13 since making $5/hr average in tips is really not much.

For states it varies. Several states require the full state minimum regardless of tips. OR, WA, CA all do that and all have high minimums.

111

I did not realize this. The restaurant I worked at in high school and college did not keep track of this. I’m sure there were some slow nights that I made less than $7.25/hr, but most nights that wasn’t the case. Do you know if tipped employees have to make $7.25/hr every day, or is it averaged out per week, bi-weekly, bi-monthly, monthly?

113

Ahh, that makes sense. Disregard my last post.