"The honeymoon did not last long"

"The much celebrated Seattle CEO, Dan Price, who set his companies minimum salary at $70,000.00 is reportedly fallen in hard times."

In a video segment on The New York Times which accompanies an in-depth story on Price, the executive — oddly appearing in his garage seated on a bucket — says things are rough right now.

“I am working as hard as I’ve ever worked to try to make it work,” says Price. “I am renting out my house right now to try to make ends meet myself. I haven’t made this little amount of money since I was in my early 20s.” Price has an estimated net worth of $3 million.

The 31-year-old Price, who cut his salary and bonus of more than $1 million to $70,000 in April, is facing heavy legal costs after his brother and Gravity Payments co-founder, Lucas, sued him in King County Superior Court.

“Among other wrongdoing, he has improperly used his majority control of the company to pay himself excessive compensation and to deprive Lucas of the benefits of ownership in Gravity Payments,” the suit says.

Meanwhile, in South America... "Venezuela troops occupy Polar, Nestle food distribution warehouses"

Venezuelan troops occupied a Caracas warehouse complex used by local food giant Empresas Polar and Nestle to distribute food and beverages, workers and company officials said on Thursday.

The move follows months of accusations by President Nicolas Maduro that Polar, the country's largest private employer, is working to sabotage the economy. The company denies this.

Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez expropriated several warehouses from Polar, in some cases arguing that the space should be used to build houses for the poor.

Hey Seattle!

"How’s that $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Law Working Out for Ya?"

Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise – in a bid to keep overall income down so they don’t lose public subsidies for things like food, child care and rent.

Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less.

“If they cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn’t actually help get them out of poverty, all you’ve done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people,” said Jason Rantz, host of the Jason Rantz show on 97.3 KIRO-FM.

The twist is just one apparent side effect of the controversial -- yet trendsetting -- minimum wage law in Seattle, which is being copied in several other cities despite concerns over prices rising and businesses struggling to keep up.

Some long-time Seattle restaurants have closed altogether, though none of the owners publicly blamed the minimum wage law.

“It’s what happens when the government imposes a restriction on the labor market that normally wouldn’t be there, and marginal businesses get hit the hardest, and usually those are small, neighborhood businesses,” said Paul Guppy, of the Washington Policy Center.

The imaginary economics of Henry Ford

Kevin D. Williamson National Review.
Recommended.


As George Washington said to the slaves he held at his plantation on Mt. Sinai, "You cannot teach a zebra new tricks and leopards never change their opinions" so you can just forget about those two radio guys, Andrew Leonard, the Los Angeles Times, and others, ceasing their repeating the falsehood that Ford raised workers' wages in order to sell them more cars.

And if you ever hear that nonsense again then you can repeat this somewhat extended explanation why that isn't true, a takedown so thorough that listeners get lost in its presentation and reject it halfway to comprehension. It amounts to, "He did no such thing."

"CEO raises firm's minimum wage to $70k"

"The boss of a technology start-up in Seattle shocked his employees by announcing he was taking a massive pay cut in order to raise the salaries of the firm's lowest-paid staff." 

Dan Price, founder and CEO of credit card payment processing company Gravity Payments, decided to introduce a new minimum wage of $70,000 (£47,000) while reducing his own by 90 per cent.

 

Admirable, but, he will be going up against market forces beyond his control, if I may be so bold. I don't know anything about running a company. But... What do you think investors are going to do when the profits are not as handsomely commensurate with the rewards exacted from the company?

 

Any chance this company will succeed?

minimum wage

Screenshots, links not active. I was looking for something else and saw this. [Colorado District 1 representatives] (Denver)

Why is my representative even talking about this?

Oh. That's right. Marching orders from Party.

On the 'what people think' side, omitted: workers with zero skills, workers entering workforce, leisure and hospitality workers that receive tips, and contrary to the graph provided by Economic Policy Institute, most tend to be young; under 25- 50%, teenage 21%, 3% of total workers over 25 yrs old. Let's not mention persons with criminal records that figure would just mess things, and people with disabilities such that simply cannot perform without constant attention. The graph provided is flatly wrong. 

6% of minimum wage earners are women, 3% are men. 

11% work less than 35 hrs. week

States with most minimum wage workers: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho. Conversely, the states with lowest % of minimum wage workers: Alaska, Oregon, California, Montana, Washington, all under 2%.

Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The institute that produced the graph states: Raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 would give working families, and the overall economy, a much-needed boost.

Of course it would. It would tend to move minimum wage toward living wage. Insisting on this demonstrates that policies pursued affect job creation so negatively that minimum wage now must be considered living wage for increasing number of workers.

When I worked minimum wage this was an issue then too, apparently a perennial issue as economies grow, and I was all for it. Employers are rich, I'm poor, easy that, just raise it already. But having endured that and grown I can see I really was a crap employee, although I was the best doggone dishwasher that place ever had. I wanted to be cook, and those guys just didn't see my potential. They dismissed all that I had to offer. 

From pure economic pov, the correct thing to do is abolish minimum wage altogether. The government has no business in that. But legislators do imagine themselves lords of the economy and by pulling levers this way and that and our allowing it, they make themselves so. Unless stopped. Cries by politicians to raise minimum wage is admission they've messed things so sorely that minimum wage conflates with living wage as must be for the damage they've done. Okay for those who already employed. Not okay for those shut out from employment due directly to this specifically and this type of government meddling.

This subject is a bit boring. Like children arguing over matters long settled, I'd avoid it, but here it is again. Apologies for being so boring, but the subject was delivered from on high, and with no small force. They have to be answered.

Minimum wage increase and SNAP spending reductions, compared

"How do minimum wage policy increases affect enrollments and expenditures on means-tested public assistance programs? In this report we address this question for the case of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program.

By definition, government spending on a means-tested program should decline as average earnings increase, insofar as benefit levels fall with increased earnings and insofar as the earnings increase makes some individuals ineligible for any benefits. Both of these conditions are satisfied in the case of the effect of minimum wages on SNAP benefits. SNAP benefits decline 30 cents for every 1 increase in family earnings and phase out entirely at about the federal poverty level. Low-wage workers are disproportionately enrolled in SNAP. A minimum wage increase that lifts many families out of poverty should therefore reduce public expenditure on this program.

But the relationship may be more complex. If a minimum wage increase reduces employment, thereby adding to the number of unemployed, the number of SNAP recipients could increase. SNAP recipients who are unemployed, disabled, or retired will not be affected by a minimum wage increase. Conversely, if many SNAP recipients have earnings that already bring them close to becoming ineligible for the program, a minimum wage increase may have a very small effect on SNAP expenditures. The quantitative effect of minimum wages on SNAP spending is not self-evident. It requires a causal analysis.

...According to the finding in this report a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces SNAP enrollment by between 2.4 percent and 3.2 percent and reduces program expenditures by an estimated 1.9 percent. Taking into account each state’s 2014 minimum wage level, we apply these results to the legislative proposal put forward by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA) to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. Our results imply that the effects of the Harkin-Miller proposal on wage increases would reduce SNAP enrollments by between 6.5 percent and 9.2 percent (3.3 million to 3.8 million persons). The total anticipated annual decrease in program expenditures is nearly $4.6 billion, or about 6 percent of current SNAP program expenditures."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Six of one, half a dozen of the other? 

What would Pelosi say: Yeah, but think of all the 'poets' that can come from that pool of 500k

Hill budget office: Minimum wage hike would boost earnings for over 16.5M, cost 500k jobs http://t.co/YwCaGX6Z7G
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) February 18, 2014 

“Yeah, if you want to be a writer, if you want to be a comedian, if you want to be a camera person, if you want to start a business . . .” In an earlier iteration, Pelosi even suggested that Obamacare would allow people to quit their awful jobs to write poetry."

The poetry of bad news around Obamacare