Would you pay 1% more?

[Unknown User]

Would you pay 1% more? #1

Posted: 11/20/12 at 2:53pm

What if all large retailers raised their minimum wage to $25,000 a year? If they passed along 100% of that expense to their customers, they would have to increase prices 1% across the board. And, a few other things would happen:

More than 700,000 Americans would be lifted out of poverty, and more than 1.5 million retail workers and their families would move up from in or near poverty. Retail jobs are a crucial source of income for the families of workers in the sector, yet currently more than 1 million retail workers and their family members live in or near poverty.3 More than 95 percent of year-round employees at large retail firms are ages 20 and above. More than half (54.2 percent) of workers in this group contribute at least 50 percent of their family’s total income. A large number of them
– almost 1 in 5 – are the sole earner for their family. Our study finds:

A wage standard equivalent to $25,000 for a full-time, year-round employee would lift 734,075 people currently in poverty – including retail workers and the families they support – above the federal poverty line.
An additional 769,191 people hovering just above poverty would see their incomes rise to above 150 percent of the poverty line.

The Effect on Economic Growth and Job Creation

The economy would grow and 100,000 or more new jobs would be created.Families living in or near poverty spend close to 100 percent of their income just to meet their basic needs, so when they receive an extra dollar in pay, they spend it on goods or services that were out of reach before. This ongoing unmet need makes low-income households more likely to spend new earnings immediately – channeling any addition to their income right back into the economy, creating growth and jobs. This “multiplier effect” means that a higher wage standard for retail workers will also generate new jobs. Our estimates of the job creation effect are derived from widely accepted multipliers on consumer spending.4 It includes the benefits of a raise on disposable income and accounts for the impact of any additional costs to the firm and the potential for businesses to pass-through the cost of decent wages onto their customers through higher prices. In order to account for uncertainty regarding the firm’s willingness to pay for the raise out of profits, we offer both low and high measures of the total impact of the raise. Estimating both low- and high-end estimates, our study finds that:

A wage standard at large retailers equivalent to $25,000 per year for full-time, year-round workers would increase GDP between $11.8 and $15.2 billion over the next year.
And that is JUST the beginning

[TheatreDiva90016]

Would you pay 1% more? #2

Posted: 11/20/12 at 9:13pm

But how are CEO's supposed to be able to make enough money to build castles and SH*T if they have to pay their workers a living wage???????

"TheatreDiva90016 - another good reason to frequent these boards less."<<>> “I hesitate to give this line of discussion the validation it so desperately craves by perpetuating it, but the light from logic is getting further and further away with your every successive post.” <<>> -whatever2

[Unknown User]

Would you pay 1% more? #2

Posted: 11/21/12 at 10:57am

Many many years ago- when Ben & Jerry wanted to retire from Ben & Jerry's they were looking for a CEO. Part of their policy was that no employee could earn more than 7 times as much as the lowest paid employee. The guys in the plant made $30K a year so the CEO was capped at $210,000.

They had no give that up- no applicant that was acceptable to their investors would work for "only" $210K.

[henrikegerman]

Would you pay 1% more? #3

Posted: 11/21/12 at 12:08pm

Yes. But it would be much better for everyone if we shared that cost with upper managers rather than paying 100% of the increases for their workers.