Rapidly Changing Times

Rapidly Changing Times

Once upon a time opportunity was everywhere.  You hardly needed to strain your brain to figure a way to multiply your money. Today with the internet and business globalization, not only do you compete in your town, city, county and State, but now you are competing with people that can get by with $200 dollars per year income, and less somewhere in the world.

Some of the hottest businesses today were not around 10 years ago, Facebook and Twitter.  Some very prominent corporations of ten years ago are either gone or on the way out.  One example ENRON, one of the top 10 corporations in the country failed in 2001.  At the time of collapse ENRON had 62 Billion in assets. Another thing that is disappearing quickly out of this country is “Made In America” label.

Even small businesses (the back bone of our economy) have become dependent on China production to increase profits, and chances for success.  We are on a nasty merry-go-round. I am not arguing for or against, but there is currently a successful effort to increase minimum wage to $15 per hour.  In some areas of the country that is as much as 30% increase and more.  The fast food corporations are not going to absorb the labor increase of as much as 100%.  The additional costs will be passed on to the consumer.  Personally I don’t think that a hamburger is worth the present price (cost), but I certainly wouldn’t pay twice as much or more for the same product. 

 

The food chain will react with a domino effect further damaging the economy.  I can tell you from my experience in the workforce that even when a very hard working individual is deserving of an increase within his existing job assignment, he/or she don’t get that raise.  The reason is simple; within the rigid pay structure of a bureaucracy, to increase the pay of one individual within a group of 300 employees in the same pay bracket, would create discord in the least and bankruptcy at most.  In the just mentioned example the 299 workers not getting the increase could join together and demand equal pay (or even file a lawsuit).  So if you increase the one employee by $100 per month, results of your good intention could be an added production cost of $29,900 per month, or $358,800 per year, and that is just in one department, and within one pay bracket.  In case it sounds unbelievable to you, my son works for a company that employs 250,000 employees worldwide.

Who makes minimum wage? ~ By Drew DeSilver9

·       The controversy over Washington, D.C.’s “living wage” ordinance, which may prompt Wal-Mart to pull out of as many as six new stores planned for the city, has drawn new attention to those near the bottom of the nation’s wage ladder. The ordinance would require large, non-union retailers to pay their workers above the District’s $8.25-an-hour minimum wage. But who are minimum-wage earners, exactly?

·       Perhaps surprisingly, not very many people earn minimum wage, and they make up a smaller share of the workforce than they used to. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last year 1.566 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour; nearly two million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others), for a total of 3.55 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.

 

Don’t think for a minute that anyone presently earning $12 per hour will stand still for a fast food worker to go from present $8 per hour, to $15 per hour and not ask for a raise or switch jobs.  Of course the domino will continue to fall.  A bad example might be that the CEO of the corporation might also want to double his compensation to maintain the gap between those that have and those that don’t.  The best is yet to come….