XPost: alt.society.liberalism, alt.atheism, talk.politics.guns   
   From: kbjarnason@gmail.com   
      
   [snips]   
      
   On Sat, 02 Mar 2013 14:25:07 -0600, RD Sandman wrote:   
      
   >>>> It has NEVER harmed the economy every time it's been raised before,   
   >>>> so why all of a sudden would it do so now?   
   >>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>> Then why does a Burger King $1 burger now cost $1.29?  Why does a new   
   >>> Chevy Camaro selling for $3,700 about three decades ago now cost   
   >>> #37,000?   
   >>>   
   >> Wow! Good point. Three decades ago the minimum wage was $3.35 per hour.   
   >> Now it's $7.25. The Camaro went up 10 times while the minimum wage went   
   >> up about 2Œ times. Perhaps it's not the minimum wage that's caused the   
   >> increase.   
   >   
   > I have not claimed it has been the only determiner of prices.  I have   
   > only said that wages (minimum or not) are a contributor to the prices of   
   > items and that raising those wages increases the cost of producing that   
   > product or service.   
      
   Sure, but enough to matter?   
      
   Take, oh, a burger joint as an example.  Assume it sells 1,000 burgers in   
   an 8-hour shift, or about one burger every 30 seconds.  Ignoring the   
   people doing "irrelevant" tasks (fries, drinks, etc) your staffing   
   requirements for the shift are:   
      
   One grill person   
   One cashier/sandwich assembler   
   One supervisor   
      
   Assuming the supervisor makes $15 per hour and the peons make $8 per   
   hour, wage costs are $31 per hour, or $248 per shift.  Thus approximately   
   25 cents of the cost of each burger is a wage cost.   
      
   So let's up the wages a bit, to, say, $20 per hour for the supervisor and   
   $10 for the peons.  Wage costs are now $40 per hour, $320 per shift.   
   Wage cost per burger is now 32 cents.   
      
   Which is to say, giving supervisors a 33% raise and peons a 25% raise   
   adds a total of 7 cents to the cost of the burger.  If the burger   
   initially cost $1, that's only a 7% increase.   If it's a $4 burger, the   
   increase is less than 2%.   
      
      
   If paying workers a decent wage is going to cause the economy to   
   collapse, the economy damn well *should* collapse.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)