Thread: Congress gives itself a raise, but what about the minimum wage?

CEO Raises Salaries to $70K for EVERY Employee, Now has to Rent Out his Own Home to Make Ends Meet
John S. Roberts
August 1, 2015

Back in April we told you about Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who said he would pay every single one of his employees $70,000 annually.

Every single one, from the lowest skilled workers on up.

Now, as expected, Price has fallen on hard times financially, even having to rent out his own home.

Employees who work for Gravity are now leaving the company, “spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises.”







This was always going to be the outcome.

If everyone hits the jackpot, does anybody really win the lottery?

From BI:

When Dan Price, founder and CEO of the Seattle-based credit-card-payment processing firm Gravity Payments, announced he was raising the company’s minimum salary to $70,000 a year, he was met with overwhelming enthusiasm.

“Everyone start[ed] screaming and cheering and just going crazy,” Price told Business Insider shortly after he broke the news in April.

But in the weeks since then, it’s become clear that not everyone is equally pleased. Among the critics? Some of Price’s own employees.

Maisey McMaster — once a big supporter of the plan — is one of the employees that quit. McMaster, 26, joined the company five years ago, eventually working her way up to financial manager. She put in long hours that “left little time for her husband and extended family,” The Times says, but she loved the “special culture” of the place.

But while she was initially on board, helping to calculate whether the company could afford to raise salaries so drastically (the plan is a minimum of $70,000 over the course of three years), McMaster later began to have doubts. “He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump,” she told The Times. A fairer plan, she told the paper, would give newer employees smaller increases, along with the chance to earn a more substantial raise with more experience.

From Fox News:

Dan Price, 31, tells the New York Times that things have gotten so bad he’s been forced to rent out his house. “I’m working as hard as I ever worked to make it work,” he told the Times in a video that shows him sitting on a plastic bucket in the garage of his house. “I’m renting out my house right now to try and make ends meet myself.”

The Times article said Price’s decision ended up costing him a few customers and two of his “most valued” employees, who quit after newer employees ended up with bigger salary hikes than older ones.

Grant Moran, 29, also quit, saying the new pay-scale was disconcerting “Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me,” he told the paper. “It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.”

The Times said customers who left were dismayed at what Price did, viewing it as a political statement. Others left fearful Gravity would soon hike fees to pay for salary increases.

Brian Canlis, co-owner of a family restaurant, already worried about how to deal with Seattle’s new minimum wage, told Price the pay raise at Gravity “makes it harder for the rest of us.”

And to think, all of this came about within a few short months.

Liberal logic, for ya. One man with good intentions loses so much because he doesn’t understand how economics work.

Socialism: We all fail together!

Companies Forced to Compare CEOs’ Pay to Workers Under SEC Rule
Dave Michaels - 8 hrs ago

U.S. companies will be forced to reveal the pay gap between the chief executive officer and their typical worker, handing a new weapon to groups protesting rising income inequality.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is set to vote Wednesday on a rule that will force the new disclosure. The agency has delayed progress on the rule for years, with SEC Chair Mary Jo White facing attacks from unions and Democratic lawmakers in recent months for failing to get it done.

The disclosure is required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which hasn’t stopped it from splintering the five-member commission. Republican commissioners argue it’s meant to embarrass CEOs and won’t be useful to investors.

White and the SEC’s two Democrats, Luis Aguilar and Kara Stein, are expected to approve the rule. Democrats say the metric will be helpful to investors who are deciding how to vote on executive pay packages.

“As investors increasingly focus on corporate governance and executive compensation issues at public companies, the pay ratio disclosure will provide another metric that is useful on many fronts, such as say‐on‐pay votes,” Stein said in a statement prepared for the meeting.

Company Discretion

The SEC rule requires companies to disclose the median compensation of all its employees, excluding the CEO, and publish a ratio comparing that figure to the boss’s pay.

In a nod to businesses such as Exxon Mobil Corp. that oppose the effort, the SEC will require the metric to be updated only once every three years and will allow them to exclude some foreign workers from the calculation.

The SEC gave companies some discretion in determining the median pay of its workers. Companies can use a methodology based on their own “facts and circumstances” and base the figure on a statistical sampling of employees, rather than the entire workforce, the regulator said.

Average CEO pay at the 350 largest U.S. companies by revenue surged 997 percent from 1978 to 2014, while the compensation of non-supervisory employees rose 10.9 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a research group that advocates for workers.

While CEOs earned about 30 times what the typical employee did in 1978, corporate chiefs’ pay had jumped to more than 300 times their employees’ compensation as of 2014, the institute said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compa...cid=ansbloom11

I think all memebers of congress should also reveal their incomes and perks as compared to the people they are supposed to be representing

New living wage ordinance signed Into law

Posted: Aug 17, 2015 3:40 PM CDT

A new living wage in New Orleans guarantees workers under city contracts a 44 percent increase in pay. The move will cost taxpayers about $60 million, but there's nothing in the new law to ensure that those making the extra money must live within the city.

It was the culmination of years of effort by city Councilman Jared Brossett. With Brossett and other council members standing by, the mayor signed into law, a new living wage ordinance that guarantees all workers under future city contracts $10.55 an hour.

"Today is a great day as we reverse a trend that we won't condone poverty wages in our city," Brossett said.

The law also provides that workers under city contract will get seven days s of paid sick leave each year.

"When they don't get that seven days of sick leave, they get a 30 percent increase in their wages, which goes up to 13 plus dollars," said higher wage advocate Latoya Lewis, with the group Stand With Dignity.

The law takes effect Jan. 1 and it won't be cheap.

"The administration gave a fiscal note. It said something to the tune of $60 million, but they will continue to work that out," Brossett said.

While the people of New Orleans will pay substantially more, currently there are no guarantees that the people who benefit will actually come from Orleans Parish.

"Paying a living wage is important for anybody that's working for contractors that are doing work for the city. That's the point whether they live in the city or not," said Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

City officials say new living wage provisions are still being tweaked.

"We gonna continue to work on local hiring, and the administration is working on an ordinance, and the policy - we're gonna keep working on that," Brossett said.

"One of the other things we're doing is making sure contractors hire local folks, so we'll watch that and have an enforcement arm," Landrieu said.

Landrieu says the new higher wage is an economic strategy. He says, when it comes to salaries, "a rising tide lifts all boats."

http://www.wafb.com/story/29805902/n...nttype=generic

comments

Maybe he ought to pay the police and firemen what they are owed first.

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Nothing has been done for these people who have learned a trade skill. There wages have been frozen for the past 7years. But the minimum wage keeps going up. I know its because the shortage of work and these minimum wage jobs are now the jobs of single moms and the unskilled men. But for the men who are good family men they deserve better than to struggle day by day. Most construction jobs are miles away and a lot of there pay goes to gas.

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If you are black and/or vote democratic in every election, here is the truth about minimum wage from a brilliant black man that has studied it for over 30 years. In this clip Dr. Thomas Sowell will explain why black unemployment has remained unchanged during almost 8 years of having a black president who got elected on the campaign promise that he would improve black unemployment, yet he has accomplished NOTHING in that regard. Here's why:

http://youtu.be/6TGkfjaxFWs

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I'm guessing he is ready for either those contractors to lay people off or raise what it cost to do business with the city of New Orleans.

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Next these worker will want to work no more than 20 hours a week as the increase will check in the way of section 8 housing limits and welfare aid. It's not about the wage per hour they just want more for less

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Now they can afford $100,000 mess ups like pulling down 3 power polls with a dump truck...

Part of the issue with this : the Mayor of New Orleans has been ordered BY THE COURTS to raise the pay of the fire fighters and police force but claims there is NO MONEY. So if there is no money to pay these men and women ... how are they going to come up with the cash to pay the contractors ?

CALIFORNIA PIZZA SHOP GETS REAL LIFE LESSON IN ECONOMICS AFTER SELLING “LIVING WAGE PIZZA”
August 24, 2015




Liberals love the idea of the minimum wage and a “living wage”…at least until it hits their bottom line.

Lanesplitter Pizza & Pub in Emeryville, California is learning that economics lesson the hard way.

Cities up and down California have been considering hiking up their minimum wage so Vic Gumper, the owner of Lanesplitter, decided to get ahead of the curve and do it on his own.

Rather than just raise the minimum wage for his employees, he decided to do it in the form of creating a “living wage pizza.”

This business model means that all workers now earn $15 to $25 an hour as part of an experimental business model that also did away with gratuities and raised prices, making meals at all five locations “sustainably served, really … no tips necessary,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

“This movement, it’s going on everywhere,” Gumper told the paper. “We just decided to manage the situation and get to a place where we can sustain it.”



But while patrons have applauded the move verbally, they haven’t put their money where their mouth is.

The “living wage pizza” costs more than $30 and people haven’t been too keen on paying for it.

Gumper has seen a 25% drop in sales since April and has had to eliminate lunch hours at a few of his locations, according to the L.A. Times.

“The necessity of paying people a living wage in the Bay Area is clear, so it’s hard to argue against it, and it’s something I’m really proud to be able to try doing,” he said. “At the same time, I’m terrified of going out of business after 18 years.”

http://100percentfedup.com/californi...g-wage-pizza//

San Francisco Restaurant Responds to Minimum Wage Hike by Installing iPads
Michael Cantrell
September 7, 2015 

Liberals have skulls thicker than four inch concrete, which is why you can verbally beat them over the head with facts and not a single bit of truth will sink in the grey sponge inhabiting the valleys of their cranium.

Conservatives have been telling the loony left that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is sheer nuttiness that will only make the economy worse instead of helping people up out of poverty, yet those in San Francisco totally ignored the warnings and did it anyway.

What are the results?

Restaurants are closing down left and right, and those that are surviving are doing so by getting really innovative with the application of modern technology. Like this restaurant that’s now using iPads instead of human workers.

From The Daily Signal:

Want to know what the future of the restaurant industry looks like? It could come in the form of a San Francisco fast food restaurant named Eatsa.

Eatsa is a quinoa (a South American grain dish) eatery that is preparing to automate most of its workforce.

The Ferenstein Wire got a sneak peak at the restaurant, which will be debuting a new healthy fast food prototype in downtown San Francisco. The restaurant promises cheap, healthy food and has customizable menus with an automated experience.

(It’s difficult to describe all the futuristic design elements that go into the delivery process. Eatsa is science fiction in real life.)

Instead of a front counter, customers choose their bowls at a tablet kiosk. Then food pops up in one of a series of translucent cubbyholes a few minutes later.

For now, little of the restaurant is actually automated, but the owners plan to replace a good portion of their cooking and serving workforce with robots in the next year of two.

So Eatsa will function as a test for the feasibility of automated restaurants.

Currently, Eatsa uses a line of chefs working diligently behind the scenes, but their goal is for patrons to be unaware if humans or robots are serving them.

Now, while I think this application of technology is rather cool, it’s not necessarily a good thing, as this means fewer jobs for folks who need work.

Unfortunately, that is the natural outcome of a minimum wage hike, which is a fact liberals just can’t wrap their minds around for some reason.

It baffles their small brains to see businesses who lose money paying higher wages suddenly close their doors, fire people, and stop expanding. They just don’t get it.

The owners of this establishment obviously want to keep their business open and profitable, so rather than lose tons of money paying low-skilled employees a huge wage for minimal work, they’ve opted to take a much cheaper route and use modern technology.

This is great for the business, bad for those in need of a job.

Liberals, in their attempt to destroy poverty and end “income inequality,” actually created more of the problem they’re trying to solve.

Will they ever learn?

‘McJobless in Seattle’ as order screens arrive: Labor Day reality check for $15 minimum wage

September 8, 2015 | Steve Berman

While it seems liberals may think that raising the minimum wage will raise living standards for poor Americans, they should have seen this coming.

With Los Angeles joining Seattle in setting a $15 minimum wage (Los Angeles by 2020, and Seattle by 2021), it stands to reason that McDonald’s would find a way around simply paying workers more, as Vox pointed out the obvious fact that “the reality is that McDonald’s just wants to make money.”

In a very real-world example of big business’ response to liberal policies, a conservative Twitter user sent Labor Day wishes from McDonald’s workers whose minimum wage never goes up


http://pbs.twimg.com/media/COUrmfJWcAAF-JG.jpg

McDonald’s has unveiled its plan to use touch-screen technology in self-service kiosks where customers can order and pay for their food.

According to a Business Insider report last month, McDonald’s franchisees see the minimum wage issue as “a major threat to the survival of the operator community,” and are encouraging the company to put “every resource available” into reducing labor costs through technologies such as kiosks and automatic fry dispensers.


http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/09/...#ixzz3lMpok1SA