The problem is that when minimum wage increases, that same percentage increase does not happen to ALL incomes. So businesses passing on the cost are fighting over a pot of disposable income that isn’t keeping up.
We can’t keep raising wages at the bottom unless the rest of the workers can afford the increase in prices. Otherwise it leads to cutbacks in non-essential spending and that will cause job losses as businesses tighten their belts on diminishing sales.
It’s also causing businesses to reevaluate the consequences of replacing workers with machines. The McDonalds in my rural town just did away with ordering at the cash register inside the restaurant. You now have to use a kiosk to place the order. That’s one job gone.
Kiosks are not new. Fast food places have been dabbling with that system for almost a decade now, and not even as a response to rising minimum wage. Even if you turn back the clock on minimum wage increases, any advances in automation are here to stay. Big corporations are going to continue to find ways to replace workers with robots as soon as it becomes economically viable regardless.
The problem is that when minimum wage increases, that same percentage increase does not happen to ALL incomes.
Likewise, the cost increases will not be felt by all consumers, because not everyone eats fast food.
So businesses passing on the cost are fighting over a pot of disposable income that isn’t keeping up.
Then they should introduce more efficiencies that allow them to lower cost so they can be competitive again. This is capitalism at its best.
The McDonalds in my rural town just did away with ordering at the cash register inside the restaurant. You now have to use a kiosk to place the order. That’s one job gone.
If a job cannot pay a living wage, it should not exist. Being replaced by robots is a good thing. There’s another job in a factory creating these kiosks, or as a service tech repairing them.
Well I guess the Pizza Hut restaurants will be investing in drone delivery then, because their delivery drivers hit the unemployment line. They are part of the cuts. They don’t have the training to be a technician, and aren’t likely to get it in 6 months of unemployment.
Fast food has spent millions making the operation as efficient as is humanly possible. The only place left to cut is the humans. That’s what’s happening. It’s not difficult to make a fast food machine. It might even make better quality food. But the machine won’t be made in the US. The workers won’t be retrained to service them - that task will get outsourced, just like fixing the existing machines is outsourced in the current restaurants.
It’s easy to talk about “capitalism at it’s best” if you’re not the one holding the pink slip, wondering how you’re paying the bills on half an income from unemployment. Thankfully, we have subsidized healthcare in California. But that money comes out of everyone’s pockets, whether they eat fast food or not.
Unemployment in California (and the US) is quite low. There’s no shortage of jobs. And there are lots of job training programs, though we could always use more.
We didn’t lament the loss of farrier jobs when we switched from horse drawn carriages to automobiles. Progress is good.
Well, let’s see how loudly folks start screaming when AI actually gets good enough to replace the skilled workers. But they can be retrained, right? You want to convince me that progress is good, show me legislation that requires retraining as a condition of replacement. If they won’t make it a law, it won’t happen without a lot of pain and suffering for the displaced worker.
Requiring companies to pay for their workers retraining would be an unreasonable financial burden on them. But paying via taxes is a totally fair requirement, and one that California is continuously expanding.
The problem is that when minimum wage increases, that same percentage increase does not happen to ALL incomes. So businesses passing on the cost are fighting over a pot of disposable income that isn’t keeping up.
We can’t keep raising wages at the bottom unless the rest of the workers can afford the increase in prices. Otherwise it leads to cutbacks in non-essential spending and that will cause job losses as businesses tighten their belts on diminishing sales.
It’s also causing businesses to reevaluate the consequences of replacing workers with machines. The McDonalds in my rural town just did away with ordering at the cash register inside the restaurant. You now have to use a kiosk to place the order. That’s one job gone.
Kiosks are not new. Fast food places have been dabbling with that system for almost a decade now, and not even as a response to rising minimum wage. Even if you turn back the clock on minimum wage increases, any advances in automation are here to stay. Big corporations are going to continue to find ways to replace workers with robots as soon as it becomes economically viable regardless.
Likewise, the cost increases will not be felt by all consumers, because not everyone eats fast food.
Then they should introduce more efficiencies that allow them to lower cost so they can be competitive again. This is capitalism at its best.
If a job cannot pay a living wage, it should not exist. Being replaced by robots is a good thing. There’s another job in a factory creating these kiosks, or as a service tech repairing them.
Well I guess the Pizza Hut restaurants will be investing in drone delivery then, because their delivery drivers hit the unemployment line. They are part of the cuts. They don’t have the training to be a technician, and aren’t likely to get it in 6 months of unemployment.
Fast food has spent millions making the operation as efficient as is humanly possible. The only place left to cut is the humans. That’s what’s happening. It’s not difficult to make a fast food machine. It might even make better quality food. But the machine won’t be made in the US. The workers won’t be retrained to service them - that task will get outsourced, just like fixing the existing machines is outsourced in the current restaurants.
It’s easy to talk about “capitalism at it’s best” if you’re not the one holding the pink slip, wondering how you’re paying the bills on half an income from unemployment. Thankfully, we have subsidized healthcare in California. But that money comes out of everyone’s pockets, whether they eat fast food or not.
Unemployment in California (and the US) is quite low. There’s no shortage of jobs. And there are lots of job training programs, though we could always use more.
We didn’t lament the loss of farrier jobs when we switched from horse drawn carriages to automobiles. Progress is good.
Well, let’s see how loudly folks start screaming when AI actually gets good enough to replace the skilled workers. But they can be retrained, right? You want to convince me that progress is good, show me legislation that requires retraining as a condition of replacement. If they won’t make it a law, it won’t happen without a lot of pain and suffering for the displaced worker.
Workforce training is not the place of companies, it’s the place of institutions. Specifically government funded ones. Currently around half of all community college students in California pay nothing due to various grants and programs.
Requiring companies to pay for their workers retraining would be an unreasonable financial burden on them. But paying via taxes is a totally fair requirement, and one that California is continuously expanding.