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Carl's Jr CEO Explains Why Nobody Is Hiring Young People
In President Obama's speeches this year, a steady theme has been creating jobs and economic opportunity for Americans. In his State of the Union address in January he said that "what I believe unites the people of this nation . . . is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all—the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead." And in his weekly address on Saturday, he repeated his strong appeal to young people: "As long as I hold this office, I'll keep fighting to give more young people the chance to earn their own piece of the American Dream."
Yet during the more than five years Mr. Obama has been in office, young people have been especially hard-hit by the slow and virtually jobless recovery. Given the destructive effect this has on individual initiative and the prospects of a productive and rewarding working life, the continuing struggle of young Americans to find jobs, start building families and contribute to society is no longer simply a matter of politics or policy. On a deeply human level, it's profoundly sad.
Consider these grim employment numbers:
• In February the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recorded the lowest percentage of 16- to 19-year-olds working or actively looking for work (32.9%) since the bureau started tracking the data in 1948. The BLS recorded the second-lowest labor-participation rate for this group in April (33.2%) and the third-lowest in January (33.3%). May's rate was the sixth lowest (33.8%).
• Over the past two years, the BLS has recorded some of the worst labor participation rates for 20- to 24-year-olds since 1973, when the Vietnam War was beginning to wind down. In August 2012, the 69.7% rate was the lowest since '73. The second-lowest (70%) came in March last year. This year, the third-lowest rate came in April (70.2%). May's rate was a still-miserable 71%.
• Looking at the seasonally unadjusted data—which is what the BLS makes publicly available—for 25- to 29-year-olds, the April 2014 labor-participation rate was the lowest the BLS has recorded since it started tracking the data in 1982 (79.8%). May's rate was the second-lowest (79.9%). January, February and March tied with the fourth-lowest (80.3%).
These disturbing numbers raise a simple question: Where are the entry-level jobs?
Five years of 2% average yearly GDP growth simply doesn't produce enough jobs to absorb the natural increase in the labor force, and over the past eight quarters GDP growth has averaged only 1.7%. Between May 2008 and May 2014, BLS data show that the employable population increased by 14,217,000 while the number of people employed actually decreased by 94,000 and the number of people unemployed increased by 1,404,000. It remains a bad time for young people to be looking for jobs.
Nonetheless, various states and municipalities have increased their minimum wage, thereby increasing the cost of employing inexperienced workers. Minimum-wage jobs have always been a gateway to better opportunities. In making hiring decisions, businesses must weigh the quality and value of work that entry-level employees produce against the cost of employing them. For many businesses in high-minimum-wage states or municipalities—Seattle leads the list, having approved a move to a $15 minimum wage—that trade-off is no longer working.
The bottom line on labor: Make something less expensive and businesses will use more of it. Make something more expensive and businesses will use less of it. The Congressional Budget Office has forecast a loss of 500,000 jobs should the president's proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour become law.
The CBO also forecast that this increase would lift a number of people who already have jobs above the poverty threshold. For 500,000 unemployed people, however, that's 500,000 opportunities American businesses will never create.
ObamaCare is also increasing the cost of hiring inexperienced workers. The health-care law requires that businesses with more than 50 full-time employees offer medical insurance to employees working 30 or more hours a week. The administration knows that the employer mandate will kill jobs and has twice delayed implementing it. With an election on the horizon, American businesses know that these delays were political and that the mandate's economically damaging impact is in the pipeline, coming their way.
ObamaCare gives businesses an incentive to either eliminate entry-level jobs or keep the workers' hours to under 30 a week. It also gives businesses a reason to reduce the hours of experienced employees to under 30 a week. These experienced employees are now working second jobs to compensate for their lost hours—resulting in fewer positions for less-experienced workers.
To get on the ladder of opportunity, America's young people need jobs. Creating disincentives to hire them diminishes the notion that "if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead." The reality is that you can't get ahead if you can't find a job.
I'm not speaking primarily as a business CEO. My company will adjust to new laws. I'm speaking as someone from a working-class family. I started work scooping ice cream for the minimum wage at Baskin-Robbins. To put myself through college and law school while supporting my family, I cut lawns, painted houses and busted concrete with a jackhammer. I know how important these jobs are. For one thing, they taught me—as no lectures from my parents ever could—that I needed a good education so I wouldn't have to settle for low-paying work the rest of my life. Too many young people today are being deprived of even that basic lesson.
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young people aren't looking... they like the parent's basement and live like parasites.... or they get a couple of masters degrees or a doctorate or two on student loans... now essentially waived... 10% of zero income is zero in old math... bankrut and no credit ... they dont give a fuck.... they also have a phone and a pen... to write dad and mom's check with
I know right? Fuck those young people. Why when I was a boy I used to walk 15 miles through ice on a pegleg to get to class herpa derp.
Maybe young people cannot afford to move out because the global labor market is *insanely* competitive and most jobs in productive sectors have been outsourced abroad? Maybe they want to do something more than flip burgers after having studied (and paid a handsome sum) for a three, or four year study. Things have never, ever been more hopeless for youngsters. Who the hell wants to go back to school? 90% of the people in those classes would rather be vacationing, or smoking pot, or living it up on a decent wage but they are there because it is TOO COMPETITIVE to survive on anything less. It's just not realistic anymore.
Raising minimum wage doesn't help the working class. It only helps the banks by sustaining asset inflation.
it also helps the gov by increasing their rake.
I will not believe anything a asshat CEO says if he makes over 1 million a year.
Just a bunch of lying scumbags
Who wants a minimum wage job?
Tuition at most State U's back in the early-mid 70s ranged from $100-300/semester. Minumum was in the $2.00-2.25 range. Regular was 40¢/gal & an unfurnished 1BR apt was $60-75. I got $5.00/hr tutoring athletes undergrad & grad skool during 1973-1976 for 16-18 hrs/week. SS was 1%. I took home $340-360/month, which more than paid my bills... and oh - Jax or Old Mil or Busch Bavarian was $1.19 a 6 pak & 30-40¢ in bars.
Tutoring didn't include what you received on the side for writing their papers or taking a class for them. Or the ACT, for that matter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
This 20 year old interview by Jimmy Goldsmith has to be one of the most prophetic as concerns western decline.
The demand curve slopes DOWNwards? Huh...who knew?
He's -another rich crooked CEO asshole. I used to buy this republican minimum wage garbage. I have always been a Ron Paul Pat Buchanan conservative , but today both democrats and republicans conspire to make us all debt slaves -outrageous student loans, low wages but extension of cheap credit -until you are late on one payment and then the 30% annual interest rate sets in-bankruptcy laws "reformed" to make sure the Gov and Banksters own us for life -limitless gov debt and future obligations to make sure all young people are debt slaves for years to come -while they squander our wealth on immoral endless wars and payments to Banksters.
Yeah, sure-"Capitalism" and "Free enterprise" has really worked- feudallsim, debt slavery and being globalized is our future-- so until we get rid of the criminal Oligarchs who seek to enslave us - I think Asshat Carl and WalMart and all these big corporations should have to pay a $30 an hour minimum wage. My 18 year old son works for McDonalds in Austin. At $30 an hour, for 30 hours a week, he could actually pay for his college , be able to afford a hamburger or movie, or afford an occasional date, and wouldn't be a debt slave. And then when he graduates and can find no job, he can work 50 hours a week at McDonalds flipping Big Macs and wouldn't have to move home to live in my basement.
Please explain why $30/hr is a better minimum wage as compared to say, $15, $100, $500 or $9,999 per hour.
Actually I think $50 an hour is better - I think my son could get me a job flipping burgers.
Please explain why.
Savy, You are bitching about capitalism and free markets. What, are you just stupid?? We have not had capitalism or free markets in my entire lifetime in the USA.
Maverick
Moroots - I see your argument a lot. The answer is scale does matter. I made an earlier argument about incentives to increase revenue. But that does have a limit based on scale. So if I pay $2 more and hour and increase sales to $3 by incentivizing then win-win. Of course I cant pay $10 an hour more and operate at a loss. Your argument is nebulous. The commentator you responded to was accurate in context but used a bad example of $30 as the wage.
The Nike plant in Sanford Maine paid $9.00 an hour in 1979 for "entry level". Think inflation has not risen? The math from more than one economist that $26 an hour minimum wage based on inflation is what should be paid. Switzerland pays very close to this rate but the bankers that own this world are smart enough to not shit in there own backyard.
So who do you suggest balances the tradeoffs between marginal revenue and marginal cost? You think this can be done on an economy-wide level, with highly disparate industry structures and assymetric data? That belies belief.
I think inflation has risen significantly and the insufficiency of the minimum wage is a SYMPTOM of that problem. Raising the minimum wage is political pacification for those too stupid to understand the economics. It is de facto bad policy but it is also a lightning rod to distract from the real causal relationship between an inflating, debt-based currency and declining standards of living.
This is just WRONG: the problem is Government has been taken over by money interests. Now, making a minimum wage of $15 an hour or $1000 an hour will not fix it. We need to go back to the Constitution and call for our government to do the one thing it was charged with doing and that is to PROTECT OUR BORDERS and the interests of the average American. That would mean repealing NAFTA and GATT and closing our borders for real. The children and people streaming over the border need to be placed back to the other side of the border from which they have just come. Let the Mexicans deal with them. They seem to know how it works better than we. The Mexicans don't tolerate illegals there and put them in prison. They don't give their illegals ANYTHING but a ticket to jail. You cannot have open borders AND welfare. It just doesn't work.
Next they need to clear the Supreme Court and have open elections for the judges that sit there. The Supreme Court is obviously compromised. Look at John Roberts, flipping to give the deciding vote to Obamacare. He is obviously compromised due to his adopted children being from a "closed" adoption. He has been blackmailed to change his vote.
Flooding the country with poor uneducated illegals is encouraging the takeover of this country by the false premise that we are "compassionate" We need COMPASSION for our own citizens first. It's not just the uneducated immigrants, it's also the H1B visas who have been brought in to supplant all the IT. professionals and stagnate and depress their wages.
The only reason conceivable why the Republicans also support such open borders is that they have been co-opted into the Globalist plan. They are all compromised by money. The corporations given personhood by the supreme court now buy politicians. I don't know why the average citizen cannot see that we are being made communist/socialist with each new bailout, each new social program. We used to be at war with the Communists. Now our government IS communist.
The disconnect between the insuficiency of a minimum wage to keep pace with rising costs and the monetary policy which is the cause of the rising costs among the voiceferous ignorami in the media, in Washington and unfortunately encountered on a daily basis ("armchair economists") is a textbook example of cognitive dissonance.
PEOPLE, if i have said thios once, I've said it a thousand times.
Minimum wage is nothing more than a TAX INCREASE!!!
It causes wage compression, which essentially boost tax reciepts. SSI, medicare, federal income, state income, all get a lift with this type of legislation. We have to make a payroll and I see all the employment taxes. I know our little company would go bankrupt if something like this were to pass. We own several gas stations with about 75 employees. We barely earn enough to stay afloat thanks to Wal Mart and their predatory pricing strategy. Wal Mart would love for this too pass, it would drown out all competition.
Propaganda media labeling this guy as a greedy pig in 3..2..
I don't wish this on anyone, let alone youngsers, but, lets be real - this is only going to get worse. My thoughts, at this juncture, let it unfold! Why? Because, barry is doing a much better job than the alt right or conservatives to prove to one of his most enthusiastic voting blocs that his policies and all of progressivism is a very bad deal. I see the M's turning viciously on first barry and second progressivism. You say - HA, no way, crazy talk. Really? Try living in a parents basement for 8 years or more. Try to imagine an overly inflated sense of self (the snowflake) literally melt in front of you. Evidently, these kids are already starting to turn. I think the alt right should adopt a strategy of playing into this, after all, they're psycologically hurt (literally breaking up as if someone cheated on them), which makes them a very captive audience and open to anything. First we should focus on the practical - you have no future or job because of these failed economic policies. Next, believe it or not, you'll get the social side of things, especially the disenfrancised sub-groups such as young men...how? Easy, the same failed economic policies went to fund social policies, which in the case of young men, deliberately kept them "down" aka oppressed from realizing thier full talent and potential. Sound familiar...turn some of the key emotional rhetoric used by the progs against them. homosexual marriage and homosexualism? The question is - if you're not one of these people (1-2%) then what has this done for you? You're langishing in stagnation with no future...is this really that important and why are you living your life for someone else? Exactly. Lastly, we should connect student loans, the factual quatitative data that shows how its keeping all youngsters down, the declining quality of education across the board and, with emphasis, the hypocrisy of a tenured professor class that preached evils of greed and capitalism but at the very same time knowingly fleeced all their students out of hundreds of thousands of dollars putting them into modern day indentured servitude. You see these kids have been built-up then cheated, expoited and lied too. Oh, and for all thier mental angst, at some point, the over-looked connection to divorce can finally get its recognition. We're in a progressive hell, that much is true, but, many times we miss the obvious; that its a hell because it doesn't work or even make sense. Those conditions tend to not last long, indeed, historically, radical deviations away from a societal mean result in shorter durations and rapid mean reversions.
The only problem I see with this theory is that only a handful of Republicans (IE Rand) have any real solutions, but as a party, the Republicans are basically Socialist/Democrat "lite". Sure, they speak to the ideals of Capitalism, but they don't vote for Capitalism. Additionally, I wonder if a handful of young educated adults disenfranchised with the failures of socialism can outvote the massive influx of thirdworld socialists streaming accross our borders?
I know, the demographic influx is troubling and I think we're crossed the Rubicon on that alredy. However, focusing on just the M's, indeed the republicans at present are socialist lite, however, that makes them part of the larger progressive whole. A difficult reality for us to accept since that means we're effectively a one-party state, but then again, tell me something we don't know. But, consider aside from Rand, the current republicans are hardly consistent with their supposed core (small government etc). Net: they will be part of the overall rejection. Having a crappy life can really mess with a person and their "convictions".
re Make something more expensive and businesses will use less of it...
Not necessarily.
Once knew a guy who put together what was basically a compendium of current financial data for use by banks, and started off charging $500 a month. Result? No takers.
Upped the price to $5,000 a month and they were banging down his door to get it.
Women know how this works - or, at least, they used to.
short answer - USD is hugely overvalued. Either wages have to fall or prices have to go up
Oh, so according to the CEO of Carl's Jr., nobody's hiring young people because they won't work for starvation-style wages.
He's being more than a little disengenuous. What he won't say is that big business has does everything possible to loot the nation. Companies get huge tax breaks (aka business incentives) in every U.S. state and don't create jobs in return for getting these generous gifts.
So, no, keeping wages low or lowering them further won't incentivize businesses to hire anyone.
You do realise that if people aren't willing to work for starvation style wages, he would be forced to raise wages himself to get people to operate his business. It is the supply of labor and the demand for jobs finding equilibrium.
It's not really supply and demand in the labor market that is making people willing to work for starvation wages. It's simply the lack of available jobs.
When almost the entire manufacturing sector is sent offshore, there tend to be fewer jobs. People are taking low-paying jobs out of necessity, not because they enjoy working for minimum wage.
We've already seen that giving businesses incentives does little or nothing to get them to create jobs. They've already begun creating self-checkout lanes in retail stores despite minimum wage not keeping up with the rate of inflation.
Wages have actually gone down dramatically in the U.S., but employment hasn't gone up. Corporate profits have gone up, though. Salaries for CEOs have gone up, too.
The biggest problem in the U.S. now is corporate welfare. Every U.S. state has lost huge amounts of tax revenue by giving tax breaks to companies that do nothing in return. This is a giant looting spree.
And guess who gets to pay the tab? Ordinary Americans. Their taxes go up and their income goes down.
"When almost the entire manufacturing sector is sent offshore, there tend to be fewer jobs" "Sent", is the wrong word. "Substituted"......there fixed it for ya. America returns to prosperity when it returns to respecting the Constitution, property rights, rule of law; a recognition that there is no free lunch - EVER, and that before I can become better off, I have to first help make somebody else better off; and finally (perhaps most importantly), that government cannot create value because it must first confiscate it from other productive areas of the economy. Want jobs? Institute free market principles, embrace them (learn it, love it, live it), and abandon the notion that government is going to save everybody. Never going to happen. After $17T (a problem in and of itself), what else is there to learn? government doesn't work and will never work. I won't junk you because I think the corporate welfare commment saves you from an intellectual miss. But, the comment that "people are taking low-paying jobs out of necessity, not becauase they enjoy working for minimum wage", is quite frankly, half the problem. Change the attitude about what one does and the expectations - change the mantra - "I don't get enough" to "what else can I do?" and rid yourself of tyrannical government so that entrepreneurship rules the day rather than a tax rate and redistribution schemes that kill incentives and the desire to work in individuals. Only then will America return to prosperity.
I agree with part of what you say, Pareto. Government should indeed get out of the way and let free market principles rule the day.
The problem is that big corporations won't allow a free market. They run to state governments and the federal government for handouts in the form of tax breaks. Why do they want corporate welfare? Shouldn't they have to earn their income instead of cheating and jumping ahead in line?
We wouldn't need a lot of social programs if the U.S. Government weren't passing free trade agreements that enable and allow big corporations to offshore all our manufacturing.
My point is that corporate America has distorted the entire system to benefit at the average worker's expense. If they didn't do that, perhaps nobody would be talking about raising the miminum wage.
That little red book you've been reading is full of lies.
You really go out of your way not to blame the politicians and government as a system for those 'tax breaks'...did the companies pass those laws?
And nothing in ypur first paragraph supports your coclusion as yout 'so' implies. I guess when you can't support yoir opinion you just state emphatically as fact. Statists do that often...but until you realize the govt and the largest corps are one in the same nothing you try to deduct will be logical.
How many minimum wage workers you think the biggest companies actually have? Practically none...raising tbe minum wage will only drive out any competition they still have left...and the POLS pushing that agenda know this and are getting rewarded plenty for presenting that charade.
You are right. The politicians bought & paid for by those corporations do the bidding of the corporations, rubber-stamping laws literally written by the corporations.
Monsanto writes the farm bill, Obamacare was written by health insurance companies & you know who writes "bank reform" finance laws.
Couldn't you find a photo of someone under 50 for the leader? That ones already garnering a mustache.
Agree 100%
So just about everything the government does in the economy only screws it up more and yet there are some who believe that government forcing a minimum wage hike is a good thing? Talk about cognitive dissonance.
We don't need workers when machines cost less than the workers, and they don't come in late, don't qualify for BarryCare and don't piss and moan when you tell them to do their job.
For all you fast food workers out there, have you taken a look at that drink dispenser at the drive through? How about the touch screen at the counter that the customer can use just as easily as you? Go ahead, ask for a raise and before you know it, you too will be pumping your own gas, finding your own seat in the theatre, and scanning and bagging your own groceries.
Machines cost more than workers.
They have maintenance, repairs, replacement costs, electrical power costs that all together do not compensate for the fact they can't learn new things or self-repair, unlike human workers.
Humans are in fact cheaper.
Humans also have maintenance, repairs, replacement, power costs, etc. And these costs are VERY expensive.
Less expensive than machines. Humans self-repair using energy more efficiently than any combustion engine, and what for machines would be the most advanced nanotech that's never yet been invented.
Machines don't replicate & humans do: not only do we make more humans but they evolve (improve) over time. Machines can't do that without us.
SO no, machines are the more expensive option every time. Machines can't seek out their own medicine, tools and/or self-repair. Humans do all that. Humans seek out their own food rather than sitting still & waiting to be fed (fuel, electricity) like machines do (helpless).
Self-Checkout Machines freaking suck when you are dealing with actual product like at Home Depot or something, pain in the ass, machine always gets stuck asking you to put the items on the bagging bench , then it gets stuck and someone has to come unlock the machine anyway . . .
pointless.
Sounds like the Nobel Prize for Economics heading to the Kenyan soon!
I just spoke to a friend of mine. His 16 year old son got a job at Home Depot in the morning and a landscaping that afternoon. Two jobs in one day.
if automation is cheaper then labor, companies have an incentive to really drop hiring.
The reality is produtivity growth has not flowed to workers wages.
How about we do a couple things first.
Kill the H1B and all similar programs
Send all the fucking illegal invaders home that have devalued the labor pool.
This is not rocket science.
That would be nice, but we don't have enough Americans that can fill jobs. We're fucking stupid now.
There's plenty of Americans, they just expect more money.
Most of these H-1Bs are just taking up space, it takes nine of them to do what one smart contributor could do, and you can get that smart guy for the cost of about three H-1Bs. But business types *hate* paying that much to techies, they're just much happier paying more to maintain the class difference. I know how that sounds, but it's about the only rational explanation I've found, not that people are rational all that often.
And fat.
Those immigrants running across borders are doing it on actual feet, not motorskooters pushing landwhales.
you're all illegal
http://youtu.be/knHE31FtJww
Let in tons and tons of more illegal low skilled dependant immigrants! Thats gotta help! 'Change You Can Believe In!'
And don't forget to ask why the minimum wage "needs" to be raised in the first place. Money does not lose its purchasing power all by itself.
This is something the community organiizer in the White House will never understand.
Andrew Pudzer rails against raising the minimum wage, which I agree is probably a bad idea. But he does not argue for raising wages by restricting the labor supply, which is actually the ONLY way to raise American wages. Why does he not argue for such restriction? It is simple: CEO's such as Pudzer want to suppress US wages as quickly as possible. Indeed, that is why CEO's and corporations are in favor of unrestricted immigration, whose primary purpose (and effect) is to reduce US wages as quickly as possible. Furthermore, in recent decades, US wages have plummeted, and they shall continue to plummet for as long as the unrestricted immigration policies are in effect.
And that is why you shall never hear most politicians advocating for reversing the immigration flows: The corporations are paying the politicians to flood the USA with an unrestricted supply of cheap, immigrant labor.
Honestly, I do not understand why most Americans do not understand these simple facts.
-- Paul D. Bain
PaulBain@PObox.com
Provided workers were free to immigrate to leave without restriction this would reduce the labour supply again.
See, immigration control is a statist type of supply/price control & should not exist.
Well, I guess I'm in favor of some minimum wage or other so it comes down to price, as the old joke goes. And I'm in favor of some minimum because when I was a kid I worked for minimum, with other minimum workers and with the bosses of all us minimum workers (and with a few illegals making less than the legal minimum), and I know that without that minimum, those jerky bosses would pay even less, and even in the 1960s when the minimum wage was at its real maximum, it wasn't that much.
So this $10.10 today would pretty much move it back to that 1960s range. Hey, the republic survived it, so maybe this isn't the worst thing in town. In fact, if that's the national rate, then the rate in high-cost urban areas might be somewhat higher. That $15 in Seattle *sounds* really high, but when you do the math, well, maybe it's not as high as all that.
Of course the problem isn't the minimum wage as such, it's that the pyramid of better paying jobs is being crammed down, and down, and down. And there are many reasons for this. Part of the story is that the post-war US economy was a bit of a golden age, and that finally went bye-bye in 2008, but we're not going back to what it was before, we're going forward to something new and it may not be pretty. So at last here's a thought - maybe the minimum wage needs to be higher so that it is distinguished from welfare! We keep reading about how the disposable income of some welfare types is the equivalent of making $30k/year or more. Well, whatever the number, the minimum wage needs to be at least that high - or yes, welfare lower. This has been a nasty issue for many years, but it remains a nasty issue today. And nastier because of the overall shortage of jobs, and because of the salary cramdown on the jobs that exist.
So, there you go, I think I've come down firmly on both sides, so have a nice day.
I gots me an idear.
How's about me make a maximum inflation-rate on what's paid for with the lowest wages (food, fuel, etc.) and make all actions restricted, or illegal, that government takes to raise those prices.
De facto removing the need for a minimum wage & simultaneously making inflationary actions of any central bank illegal, maybe the central bank itself illegal.
2 birds, 1 stone, whammo.
The general concept here is it's not a price control, it's actually a restriction on a price control (inflation is a price control, controlling prices upward & affecting all supply in the mean time, of goods & labour).
Great news for the Demorats! More dependant voters! Woohoo!
Hahahahah!
You're so funny.
You still think VOTERS are people.
Diebold, machines, do your voting for you.
Your "vote" is erased.
Soylent Green is people.
Votes are machines.
People give Obama way too much benefit of the doubt. At this point it is clear that he is deliberately destroying both the economy and America's standing in the world. His goal is to contain the US by weakening its military and emboldening its enemies. And a collapsing economy and burgeouning dependency class is in the political best interest of his party.
'Change You Can Believe In!'
"Shame That You Believed Him"
Higher wages are directly paid by consumers not corporations. Eliminate minimum wages ...especially for public employess!
Carl's Jr. says: come back when you got some munny and you are a bad mother.
Carl's Jr. will take custody of your children!
Fuck you, I'm eating!
It's today CEO mantra - My company can't pay a decent wage and needs to cut staff so that my company can make a bigger profit -- but we hope the OTHER companies don't do what we are doiing - otherwise no one will have jobs or money that will let them buy OUR products.
A young persons perspective.
There is work, its shit work, with shit pay, but there is work.
The problem is that its shit work, and most young people are over-qualified for that work.
You would be surprised how many young people there are that dream of nothing more than working in a factory, building cool stuff, but those jobs simply don't exist, instead the "best" a young person could ever hope for is a job that involves them sitting in cubicle shuffling meaningless paper back and forth till they are 40 years old over-weight, diabetic and sick of their life.
In a GOOD economy, a young person from ages 20 ~ 60 should of had atleast 4~7 different jobs.
My "ideal" working life would go something like this:
Ages 18 ~ 20 , work some stupid job, pharmacy stocking shelves or something
Ages 21 ~ 24 , work something a bit harder make some money to get the ball rolling, maybe roofing/construction, something that pays 40 ~ 60$ an hour
Ages 24 ~ 27, find the person you love, maybe use some of the money you hopefully saved from ages 21~24 and start a small business maybe so small that it runs out of your parents un-used garage (if you are lucky enough to have parents with a garage), with any luck that business makes enough for you to completely go off on your own expand start a family and maybe start looking at houses to buy in a few years.
Ages 30~40 You either made it at this point, or you don't stand a chance of making it, there are simply too many people in the world to compete with to get any kind of foothold at this age, but assuming you got tired of your business, maybe you would be lucky enough to get hired somewhere as some kind of administrator or supervisor (ideally on a factory floor or production line).
Ages 48~ 56, you hopefully have some investments paying off at this point, you should have a house, with the upstairs rented out providing some passive income, lets face it stocks are a joke, social security is a joke, no one is seriously going to retire on those income streams, but if you have a rental unit working with you and the tennants and economy are good you should be able to scrape some rent off.... your mortgage should be about 80% payed off at this point.
Ages 56 ~ 70, if you survived this long, you hopefully have a kid who is just finishing college and the job market looks good, maybe he will help you out for your final years.
Ages 70~75, honestly I wouldn't even want to live that long, fuck that shit, with anyluck i have a life insurance policy and I get hit by a bus and leave my kid(s) something.
That's the best scenario you could ever hope for, but generally speaking the inflation rate and central bank policy and policy of bailing out failing industries, pretty much guarantees that life style will never exist in America again.
Note: there is very little room left in todays day and age for taking vacations, and doing what you like in your final 10 years, most people wont even get to a point where they are self sufficient, things are just too expensive, taxes are too high, you can't save $$$$ in this environment even if you work your ass off, every penny you save will be eaten by rising health care costs, rising housing costs, rising food costs, rising fuel costs, god - forbid you have more than 2 kids more than 4 years apart, because then you are royally fucked financially.
Also there is a general shift that young people believe that they need to make $$$$$ NOW or they never will, the future has no real value to young people today (honestly most of them are generally hoping for a zombie apocalypse) because lets face it, thats the only chance they have of a "reset" back to a system that makes sense and works for them.
I am sorry to say it, but the old corrupt system is getting in the way of the young peoples success, it needs to die.
I would gladly work in a factory 9 hours a day, assembling machinery for 20$ an hour, but that's never gona happen because our country does not impose taxes on foreign products produced by people who make 20$ a month, even if I could work in an office for 40$ an hour instead, simply because actually producing something feels like you are valuable as a human being, opposed to pushing stacks of paper no one ever reads around.
;P
There comes a point where you are essentially destroying yourself for a profit.
America is essentially decimated economically, the only thing propping up the corpse and making it dance is a few shoe strings and the World Reserve Currency Status, which is quickly coming un-done.
A real economy is based on production, not how many currency units you can digitize into existence a day.
Why even bother with an H1B. I hire out all my post-engineering work to a college graduate in the Philippines for 10 bucks a DAY, and now considering doing the same for a full time office administer. Not only is that a middle class income for them, they have universal healthcare, are GREATFUL for the employment, and unable to litigate stupid chit.
Americans are finished.
The problem is attitudes. Business shouldn't be "using" labor, it SHOULD be cooperating WITH labor. What's good for one is good for the other, their fates are intertwined.
When one side or the other decides that only its own interests matter, business will fail.
So yes, greedy unions AND greedy business owners are BOTH responsible for where we are today.
Who are you going to believe- Common Sense or MIT trained economists?
post turtle saver's sagery: " ... you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate..."
Props on this. Gonna steal it for my own but will give proper attribution. T/y man.
Dbl post deleted.
In this age of Slimy Black Power Marxism - minimum wage is now a career whereas before it was a stepping stone.
The slimy palmed apparatchiks pop big fat pimples at their desks as they ponder the great social change they can bring to this world of Marxist conservatism
Military Industrial Marxist
Marx is laughing himself silly from the tomb.
One of my Marx favorites was how capital will always be moved to the next cheap labor horizon. As soon as people start to get organized and build a decent living standard. OOPS! there it goes again.
Actually there is a Central American version of NAFTA. Corporations went in and built disposable factories, mainly with textile manufacturing and garment finishing in mind. The people were happy because they didn't have to deal drugs and shoot each other anymore. Local companies weren't so happy, because they couldn't compete on any level with the deep pockets of the corporations.
Within about a year, China went wide open and all of the business departed, as the labor force getting dirt wages and one bathroom break per day, was now competing with less than dirt wages and no bathroom breaks in China and Southern Asia.
So everybody went back to dealing drugs and shooting each other after not much more than a year.
'jobless recovery'
No
Jobless Greater Depression
Yes
Minimum-wage jobs have always been a gateway to better opportunities.
Yeah right!
For one thing, they taught me that I needed a good education so I wouldn't have to settle for low-paying work the rest of my life. Too many young people today are being deprived of even that basic lesson.
I too learned this lesson ... but making a virtue of it? Like infecting people with measles so they appreciate innoculation better. Or the guy who beat his head against the wall because it felt so good when he stopped.
These jobs are not just for youngsters anymore who will move on; they are more and more "the rest of your life jobs" for people who have an education and experience, but no job prospects. That is why there is political pressure on these minimum wages. If people need to work 60 hours a week and still collect food stamps and government assistance, they are doing worse in may way than nomads 12,000 years ago. This is pious ideological BS.
If I owned a small business in this country, I'd hire hungry middle aged workers.
The young people - ones with work ethic - as the exception to the rule.
Most are dumber than dirt. Lazy. Fat.
Twitter and Fartbook twats....
No thanks....
being a business owner, I can tell you, there are not even many of them who actually want to work. Many can make more on EBT cards and "assistance" than they can working for even $10/hr.
It fucking sick.
OK, gunna go out a VERY long limb here...and Im going to do so using the Stats that have already been made public:
a) We ALREADY have the most Non-Working group of kids 16-19 Ever, and very close in the 20-24 bracket. ALREADY.
b) We ALREADY have had 14+Million working-age population Added since 2008, and yet ALREADY ONLY broke even on the actual Number of people "Employed" - That means NO REAL jobs were added since 2008...and in fact:
c) we ALREADY know that 40-50% of all jobs "Added" since 2008 are Part-Time.
Using everything above, and knowing that on the Current path, things already wont materially improve, I say go ahead, JACK the Min Wage up to some Stupid amount, and let the cards fall where they will...Businesses CANNOT fire everyone, and they really Cant fire much of ANYONE at this stage...the Fact that we now have 14+Million working-age people ADDED to the economy, yet roughly the same Number of People actually working now vs 2008, and Knowing that 7+ Million More of those wokring njow are only doing so Part-Time tells us that Businesses are ALREADY maxing out their employee efficiency ratio.
Since 2008, rather than Hire and Spend money on employees, business have increased offshoring, and stressed workers to perform perform perform, all the While Not increasing wages, yet making more Profit than ever before...In other words, there is a greed factor by major corporations going on here. (meanwhile smaller business are taking a BEATING due to the very same things allowing Large Corporations to make blockbuster profits - a mom-n-pop barber cant offshore his haircut can they?)
At this stage, continuing on the current course will do nothing, and it may be better to simply "Break" things in a more real way to effect some sort of change AKA "CREATIVE Destruction" in a new way ...that change may cause Giants to go out of business that should have years ago, and in the wake new corporations rise up that are not ties to bondholders and shareholders, and instead pay the employees a wage that would ALLOW their employees to actually Purchase their products.
We've off-shored so much in this country and reduced the overall pay-scale for "working man" jobs to such a point, that we now cant "afford" to "buy American" en mass anymore. And raising prices for products right now will simply end up in lower sales (ask me how I know)...people have the "Groupon" and "Living Social" mentality nowdays...they also say "Such and Such down the road offers that for $20, im not paying you $25" even though its lower quality and maybe even less time or product...CHEAP ASS AMERICAN CONSUMER mentality willing to buy Cheap Chinese parts have now become SLAVE to buyinh cheap chinese shit cuz they dont "Make Enough" to buy the american made tool.
Were in a righteous catch-22 right now...and the only way I see ficing it is a way to Break it in its current form...and that is gunna require pain. Maybe the pain created by rasing the min wage would catylize some of the real changes we need. Maybe not. But going the way we have since 2008 will simply end us up with another 14,000,000 unemployed "employable age" people by 2012 that you and I will have to feed via goddamned taxes and god knows whatelse.
I own two businesses and the sad fact is, when I honestly evalaute my personal views on youth hires: too expensive and too much trouble for what an employer receives in return. The unfortunate truth is that today's youth labor pool is generally made up of spoiled little brats that have ZERO appreciation for what it takes to work hard and slowly gain a foothold in a career with the invaluable lessons learned along that path. Sacrifice? No way! Why on earth would they do that? Immediate gratification, all benefits and no cost, everything must be easy, What do you mean I can't drive a Mercedes making $15.00 an hour?.......this is my (sad but honest) impression.
Trying to figure out how to teach my kids different in the "wonder world of Disney" environment they are growing up in is a DAILY challenge.
My first job at 14 was a McDonalds QP fryer. Then a fish and chips restaurant, then a gas station, then a car washer, then a construction clean up crew, then a warehouse rack builder, then an independent insurance sales person (first tie). 22 years old at this point before I figured out college would be good. Now I am 46 and the path has been HARD, LONG, WITH COUNTLESS SACRIFICES MADE. Now I can actually afford that Mercedes.
This describes 90% of the successful business people I meet daily. They ground it out in the trenches, learning at every turn, and finally reach a point where they were "breaking even."
Curious: How many reading his really think todays youth, for the most part, have this determination and willingness to sacrifice in them? If your answer is anything other than "very few," I am certainly open to another perspective.
Yep...Ive hired some young ones...spoiled is a very good assessment. And I didnt hire at minimum wage, I hired $2-$3/hr higher, because I knew at min wage they would move on before I even had a chance to train them.
Even at $10/hr right now, I know some of the people working for me realistically need more...what does one do...own a business for free...this is where the Giant Corps have starngleholded America...they dont play by the same rules, pay the same taxes, and they sell us stuff that you and I would go to prison for if we hired those factory workers the same way.
Outta-sight, Outta Mind...Slave Labor? As long as what I buy in Costco is packages nicely, I dont care...right? Sad thing is, every last one of us is now guilty because we dont even have a choice to buy certain things made in USA...your phone...your monitor reading this on...your lightbulbs...I mean we could live in a cave, but thats pointless. Point is...WE CANNOT do the same things to make $$$$ that the big guys can and so the small business is who really gets hammered.
Lets face it, were in a massive catch-22. no good solution.
one way or another, this mess requires a break/crisis to allow it being fixed.
+1.
Your firm doesn't have Uncle Sugar to cling onto whenever you're in danger of losing it all; TBTF does. The economy MUST be strongest of the local level if jobs are to be created, and that means much larger import costs, removal of subsidies, and the willingness to allow TBTF to fail.
"Curious: How many reading his really think todays youth, for the most part, have this determination and willingness to sacrifice in them? If your answer is anything other than "very few," I am certainly open to another perspective."
If you asked a year ago my answer would have been "very few", but I'm starting to see a strong work ethic with them the more I work with them
There were two interns from a local high school who worked for a month on my farm. These kids busted their asses because they wanted to be there, loved the work, and were surrounded by people who wanted to work with them. On their last day one of them told me "I'll never forget this experience for the rest of my life". We gave them a purpose, and meaningful, albeit hard labor and they took to it.
Many of these kids are funneled through the same pipeline and whatever spark of life that was inside them was sucked out and replaced with despair/hopelessness. Give them something meaningful and support them and you'll see them work hard. However, stick them into mundane roles and watch the slacking commence.
"I needed a good education so I wouldn't have to settle for low-paying work the rest of my life. Too many young people today are being deprived of even that basic lesson"
and real life taught me a good education doesn't get you as far as a handshake, a blowjob or a good lie told with a poker-face. And it will get you lots of debt.
Andrew Puzder, I'm sure you're a nice guy so I'll put this as politely as possible: You're out to lunch on this issue.
The Wall St/Corporate relationship drives corporations to maximize profits uber alles. This then gives rise to outsourcing, industrial farming, and reluctance to give workers a decent wage and benefits (depending on the CEO.
The main problem is profit uber alles.
Carl's Jr/Hardees, just like all the other fast food chains, utilizes industrial farming for their needs; which takes jobs away from the people since local entities cannot compete with someone that grows and distributes produce at high volumes and low prices (largely thanks to subsidies). So while you're talking about how young people cannot find work because of X, Y, and Z, you cannot seem to put your finger on your contribution to this issue.
The secondary problem is the subsidization of large firms; eliminating risk.
Firms who are protected by Uncle Sugar destroy local businesses; thus destroying jobs and creating rising unemployment. We all know the Walmart example.
Yes Obamacare sucks, and it makes it that much harder for businesses to make a profit, and I see your argument that raising the minimum wage does the same, but the larger picture is that the corporate/federal government/Wall St. relationship is doing this, and the whole Obamacare/min. wage issues are just a small part of a larger problem.
Excellent post. I would like to add the following.
With the exception of High skilled licensed professions, there is no longer an competition for labor in the US. With millions of low skilled illegals the low wage industries such as food prep and manufacturing, farming, retail and grocery can still afford to have turnover of 50% annually and still pay the lowest wages possible. The reason - no labor competition.
In the STEM industries, millions of H1B workers from the Eu, India, China, etc., since the mid 1990's, have forever depressed or taken jobs away from American Engineers and Hight Tech professionals.
Both parties are guilty of consigning the American worker to third world status.
From what I saw with the farming (in the El Centro area) is that it's not so much no labor competition as it is a form of competition that cannot be surmounted by those who need to get paid a minimum amount to pay the bills, so they go to other professions that can meet that need because those employers won't.
So what we got is is a conundrum where U.S. citizen workers cannot find jobs, because firms hire cheap labor, because they cannot hire U.S. citizens (for the most part). Farms are trapped by the U.S. government because of contracts which tell them to grow X crop and only X crop, and if you want to grow Y crop you cannot do it on the land that grows X crop. They get paid paltry sums, which drives the need for cheap labor.
What drives it all? The general American consumer accustomed to a certain lifestyle around waste and affluence. If things are to change the general population needs to see their role in all of this. So many, in short, are their own captors because they don't want to let go of the illusion of prosperity.
I completely agree on your stance on STEM workers, and what's bad is that America is spending itself into third world status.
They only grant 50,000 H1B's per year, so 20 years = 1 million H1B's (assuming no one ever re-applied or went home). Where do you get "millions" from? Your ass?
awefully dark in the unemployment line
As dark as it is, people with true ambition and willing to tough out some sh!tty jobs still have good opps ahead.
Luck, and perserverance play a huge roll too...and with perserverance and ambition, one increases their odds of "lucking out" emmensly than those who dont.
People tend to forget being in the right place, where the right opp just happens to pop up, plays a HUGE roll in many success stories...for every successful person who made it on theri brute knowledge and effort alone, there are 2 or 3 people who "made it" because they knew the right person and place and time.
Me personally...I wouldnt want to even consider a business where I would have to be in the position of paying only minimum wage...to me, that type of business model is razor-thin profits, and bound for the floor...copasetic stye.
Lets see. I was trained by the mil as a machinist. FLED to be a mechanic. Instead became a computer programmer, because I'm THE BEST. Made a zillion buckadingdongs, but more important I got all the pussy in the world. Wore me out.
You were saying?
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
moar moni LOL
I disagree with the authors view (does it really reflect Carls jr. view or did the latter originally meant something different which was used by the author to underline his own view?) and this is why:
The price of labour is just a calculation issue and price doesn't really matter much if you're in NEED of labour. If not, a lower price 4 workers doesn't translate in durable more employments because price could easily go lower just by waiting. But beware: Usually it also translates in 'you get what you pay for´ . So once you employ some cheap new workers in an attempt to refresh your workforce (maybe because you kick out some more costly workers) you can end up with a bunch of shit quite easily.
The main issue is still: If you don't need them why pay something anyway? Especially in times where the only thing necessessary to boost profits is to bring your bucks to Wallstreet, it's so magical and easy...
Wait! Hold the phone! Here is the REAL reason for yute unemployment!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-reason-young-people-cant-200500547.html
" The problem isn't that Obama killed entry level jobs, as Puzder argues. It's that he lacks the power to enrich those entry level jobs."
What the hell does that mean? Add a high minimum wage to the Obamacare costs, and that would miraculously create entry level jobs?
I always thought it was because the boomers who can't retire are clogging up the drain to the point where new water just overflows the container.
But why can't they retire? "SEDITIOUS THINKING SEIZE HIM!"
I would of thought there are plenty of jobs for making Bullets, it must be the biggest industry followed by McDonals.
Eat takeaway and kill people that's all Americans do, that's how people view Americans around the Globe.
What the fuck is a "Mcdonals" moron?
And which country do people think better of?
grading on the curve, the people in the U.S. are still way above average..
though the trend isn't good..
While I'm strongly against raising the minimum wage because it will make America less competitive and slow job growth, I concede the debate is destined to continue until it is raised. I hereby state without a doubt, the minimum wage will go up! Polls show a majority of Americans support this idea.
It is my feeling that many people believe the myth this will put more money into the consumers pocket and create economic growth. They fail to recognize it will also spark inflation while reducing opportunity. New twist and wrinkles are being added by the White House and supporters of this increase every week. Expanding the number of workers eligible for overtime pay is another attempt to push this along. Unfortunately much of the impact and pain will directly fall upon small business the real creator of jobs. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-minimum-wage-will-go-up-right...
What is Carl Jr's? I have never seen one.
Fast food restaurant, similiar to Mcdonald's.
I only use fast food restaurants for the restroom when I am travelling. Wouldn't consider eating in one.
The bottom line on labor: Make something less expensive and businesses will use more of it. Make something more expensive and businesses will use less of it.
That's why fighting the natural economic course of deflation is stupid. Falling prices will cause people to buy more stuff & buy stuff they wouldn't even consider in an inflationary episode.
Andrew Pudzer is a putz, a sewer rat type of person who never heard of the words "noblesse oblige." This guy, a lawyer naturally, started out at the top of Hardees and treats his fellow Americans as "untermensch," subhumans fit only to stand on their feet all day working behind a counter preparing and selling super high cholesterol fried food. Many of the posters here who are his cheering section should take an overdose of their medications so they will no longer be a burden on society. Mr. Pudzer will thank you for ending it, Pudzer doesn't like anyone who is not of his ruling class.
you mean he doesnt like our lord , obama. racist
http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/Eugenics.pdf
As always, it's useful to know how something got started. Search for minimum wage in the linked document.
what page? Bad eyes on some of us. how about professional courtesy?
Yeah, ACA favors immigrants at the expense of suppressing wages, and maybe provides work (minimum wage) for fixed income people that lost their ass in 2008 & ZIRP
Give starters better wages and they will buy MORE of everything-including Carl's Jr Hamburgers-that will help the economy and small business too
I don't think people with better wages eat the shit served there.
He's spouting more 'old-economy steve' bullshit - more education leads to better jobs?
Not really - have a look on linkedin - you get ridiculous number of similar applicants for every job opening.
If anything, we have too many "educated" .
He should be welcoming higher minimum wages as it will make capex on automation relatively cheaper for his business. These 'mcjob' ceo's have no vision and want to maintain the status quo. Higher minimum wages will start to separate visionary companies that can utilize automation and leverage technology and those that cling to old business models.
Furthermore your remit is to peddle shit that proles eat and end up raising health care costs for everyone in society. I give zero fucks about what you have to say Puddy.
they are debasing the currency no min wage will be enough.
There was a movie made about Carl's Jr., called Fast Food Nation. It's a pretty good flick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYg0l2M9Hcg
You are an unfit mother! Your children will be placed in the custody of Carl's Jr.
You guys are idiots. Couple things:
1) in the "old america" you all seem to pine for, a single unskilled laborer could support a family. So you're telling me you want the '50s back... just not that part of it?
2) the shit-paying retail/service jobs that used to go to high school kids are now being held by adults trying to support said families. The high-paying blue-collar jobs are gone and won't come back. Do you really think there will ever be enough skilled labor jobs to go around? You're kidding yourself.
3) a college degree is no longer a guarantee of a job.
Bottom line: the middle class in America was not just made up of educated professionals, but also a large body of well-paid blue-collar workers. This was a product of the age of cheap energy, which is not coming back. You can elect anybody you want, regulate/deregulate as you like, you're not getting the old America back. We're living one last gasp now as the fed blows up one more bubble... once that pops it's over. The next step is probably some form of feudalism.
Our non enforced immigration laws sure don't make finding a job for our young people any easier.
Oh, and now this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-4LU79qbU