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California burger flippers are soon to be making 20 bucks an hour under minimum wage law.

Wirey

Fartist
Thank you, but I am a business owner since 2007. So I accept your informed difference of opinion as merely that—an informed difference of opinion.
Excellent. Love to hear it.
I presented 10 questions, not one. I did not single out profit margin as you have. So you've straw-manned its importance.

Either way, would you be willing to answer all the questions I presented, relative to your business? You'll note that I've only asked for percentages, not dollar amounts. It shouldn't expose any critical business information to disclose what I asked for. But it would allow for a real-world analysis of the minimum-wage arguments being made here.

As an aside, your business appears to be insulted from minimum-wage considerations entirely, making it very comfortable for you to be indifferent to minimum wage laws.
Thanks for the input. If an increase in minimum wage buries your business, your business was flawed. I could pay people minimum wage. I'd get minimum wage people, and be less successful. And my reference to profit margin wasn't a 'straw man'. It was me pointing out that your business acumen is limited. It's like when amateur historians talk about tactics, and professional military guys discuss logistics. It's the difference between professionals and Burger King franchisees. Profit margins are what non-business types discuss when they want to sound like business men (or women).
 

Unfettered

A striving disciple of Jesus Christ
The entitlement here is something else.

If your employees' wages are so low that your employees qualify for social assistance, then your business is being subsidized by taxpayers and every taxpayer is entitled to a say in how you do business.

If you don't feel like lowering yourself to listen to voices you feel are unqualified, then pay your employees enough that they don't need government supports to work for you.
I wasn't speaking of generalities and didn't ask for them, so why did you answer with them? If you own a business and advocate for compulsory minimum-wage increases, tell us about your business. If not, why are you presuming to tell business owners anything?
BTW, since you're so big into qualifications, please tell us how many years you supported your family with a minimum wage job.
I was paid minimum wage briefly back when I was 12. I didn't have a family then. I worked for that same company until I was 19, and when I left was being paid probably double minimum wage. I honestly don't remember; I didn't have any real obligations back then and was just having a good time, so I didn't think all that much about what was minimum wage, or whether or not I was making it.

That's the only time in my life I've made minimum wage. And unless I owned a home free and clear and my kids were grown and gone, I would not attempt to support a family on a single minimum wage.
 

Unfettered

A striving disciple of Jesus Christ
Thanks for the input. If an increase in minimum wage buries your business, your business was flawed.
Flawed? No flexibility there? Simply flawed? (I'm not challenging; I'm asking; probing why "flawed"?)
I could pay people minimum wage. I'd get minimum wage people, and be less successful.
I agree!
And my reference to profit margin wasn't a 'straw man'. It was me pointing out that your business acumen is limited. It's like when amateur historians talk about tactics, and professional military guys discuss logistics. It's the difference between professionals and Burger King franchisees. Profit margins are what non-business types discuss when they want to sound like business men (or women).
"Limited" acumen, or different focus; different circumstances; different stage of business; different priorities? Same as before; I'm not challenging, I'm asking why only "limited"?

Your business seems to be in a growth phase with plenty of low-hanging fruit to feed it, and you seem energetic and amped for the challenge; I would understand why you wouldn't bother too much with profit margin. "Things are a crankin'; who cares right now?" But you don't think a prospective buyer would ask about profit margin if you wanted to sell your business? You don't think you'd look at profit margin if things weren't so fat?

To that point, a local competitor has been trying to sell out to me since 2021. Last year he finally got me to sit down for a serious look. He wanted X for the business; I offered 25% of X. Why so much lower? Because, apart from a few other considerations, his profit margin stinks. Profit margin isn't just "merely the amount of sales the company keeps;" it is the practical measure of how hard a person—or the business—has to work to make each dollar it makes. Why would I offer him what he's asking with his lower-than-industry profit margin? Too much risk for me right now. It's not worth it to me now. So yeah, not "limited" acumen; nuanced.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
The business ignorance on display here is staggering.

I invite all those who advocate for minimum-wage increases to share with us
  1. how many businesses they've owned that had more than just non-family employees
  2. how many non-family employees they had on average, annually, in the most successful of those businesses
  3. the average annual profit margin of the business
  4. what percentage of annual expenses was annual payroll
  5. what percentage of payroll went to the owner
  6. what percentage of annual net profit owner draws accounted for
  7. how many continuous years the business operated
  8. how many of those years were profitable
  9. the profit margin of the last three years of business operation, and
  10. under what circumstances you got out of that business (unless you're still running it).
Any advocate of minimum wage increases who is, or has been, a business owner, and who will answer the few business-health questions submitted above—that person I will take seriously in this discussion, in spite of my disagreement with the morality or sensibleness of extraneous, compulsory minimum wage increases.

Other advocates of minimum wage increases (those who have never owned a business)…I would compare to back seat drivers, who presume to make decisions from a vantage point that make their demands or advocacy very dangerous for everyone—those inside the car, as well as those in traffic.
I observe that they have laudable social goals in mind.
But they leap to simplistic economic solutions without
a clue about the complexity that will inevitably lead to
unanticipated consequences.
It's like CA's mansion tax. The anticipated windfall was
cut by 2/3 because mansion sales tanked unexpectedly.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Our son has his own cement contracting business for over 20 years now, and he pays well because he wants to keep his employees around. Also, some people do put people ahead of money.
 

Unfettered

A striving disciple of Jesus Christ
I observe that they have laudable social goals in mind.
But they leap to simplistic economic solutions without
a clue about the complexity that will inevitably lead to
unanticipated consequences.
That's what I see, as well.
It's like CA's mansion tax. The anticipated windfall was
cut by 2/3 because mansion sales tanked unexpectedly.
Exactly. Laudable social goals are checked by reality in a free-exchange market. That's why I want to see people put their theories to the test of the real world.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
That's what I see, as well.
Exactly. Laudable social goals are checked by reality in a free-exchange market. That's why I want to see people put their theories to the test of the real world.
Aye, people behave as they do under existing conditions.
Change the conditions, & they'll change their behavior.
It's somewhat predictable if one considers how people
tend to respond, eg, profit seeking, risk avoidance, loss
aversion. Behavioral economics has subtlety & complexity.
 

Unfettered

A striving disciple of Jesus Christ
Our son has his own cement contracting business for over 20 years now, and he pays well because he wants to keep his employees around.
AND he pays well because his business has enough profitability to allow him to do so right now. It's both. Your son doesn't pay well only out of the goodness of his heart. That's just nonsense. Either that, or his business is majorly subsidized by some charity, or he's going to shut down next year and no one knows about it yet, or he's got so much money already that he can lose money without caring, ... etc.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
AND he pays well because his business has enough profitability to allow him to do so right now. It's both. Your son doesn't pay well only out of the goodness of his heart. That's just nonsense. Either that, or his business is majorly subsidized by some charity, or he's going to shut down next year and no one knows about it yet, or... etc.
You don't know our son as he doesn't put money ahead of people.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
AND he pays well because his business has enough profitability to allow him to do so right now. It's both. Your son doesn't pay well only out of the goodness of his heart. That's just nonsense. Either that, or his business is majorly subsidized by some charity, or he's going to shut down next year and no one knows about it yet, or he's got so much money already that he can lose money without caring, ... etc.
Aye, concrete contracting is a high skill time-criticial
business (despite what some might think). I know from
having many thousands of square feet of it poured
& finished. A company needs skilled reliable workers,
which cost $$$$$.
Burger flipping is low skill, so high wages would
be the death knell for such a business.

BTW, the fact that he calls it "cement" contracting
shows little understanding. Cement is just one of
the ingredients in concrete. It's a concrete contracting
business.
 

Unfettered

A striving disciple of Jesus Christ
You don't know our son as he doesn't put money ahead of people.
You're right; I don't know your son. But I do know that he—like every employer—deals with a balance sheet. I know that the money your son pays his employees has a real opportunity cost (as in the opportunity cost of those wages he pays is felt in the real world). You're making it sound like he doesn't deal with a balance sheet and that the money he pays has no opportunity cost. So yeah, I'm calling that bluff.
 
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Unfettered

A striving disciple of Jesus Christ
Aye, concrete contracting is a high skill time-criticial
business (despite what some might think). I know from
having many thousands of square feet of it poured
& finished. A company needs skilled reliable workers,
which cost $$$$$.
Burger flipping is low skill, so high wages would
be the death knell for such a business.
A real possibility, yes!
 

Unfettered

A striving disciple of Jesus Christ
What would you say if a business required actual slaves in order to make a profit?
Are you saying employees aren't actual slaves? Because by several metrics, if you ask me, they are just that—slaves. Some are just better-paid slaves. But I know that's not the question you were asking. So carry on with Revoltingest.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Again, these kinds of statement mean little. What has substance is the real world. If you own a business and advocate for compulsory minimum-wage increases, tell us about your business.
The real world is saying they had enough with inadequate wages.

Best to notice the substance that the winds are slowly changing now.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Are you saying employees aren't actual slaves? Because by several metrics, if you ask me, they are just that—slaves. Some are just better-paid slaves. But I know that's not the question you were asking. So carry on with Revoltingest.
Actual slaves have reached out thru a wormhole
in spacetime besmirch your parentage for
diluting a term that described their terrible
lot in life.
 
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