Food for thought :eyebrow:

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

...Employers are letting the government (i.e. taxpayers) make up for the inadequate wages but for any small business they aren't in a position to do better....

Just curious as to why you think this. Is there evidence?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Forbes...

Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published to coincide with Tax Day, April 15.

Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups, made this estimate using data from a 2013 study by Democratic Staff of the U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce.

“The study estimated the cost to Wisconsin’s taxpayers of Walmart’s low wages and benefits, which often force workers to rely on various public assistance programs,” reads the report, available in full here.

“It found that a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.”

Americans for Tax Fairness then took the mid-point of that range ($4,415) and multiplied it by Walmart’s approximately 1.4 million workers to come up with an estimate of the overall taxpayers’ bill for the Bentonville, Ark.-based big box giant’s staffers.

Here's a state by state breakdown.pdf
That's just walmart, the little guy use that model too.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Forbes...

Here's a state by state breakdown.pdf
That's just walmart, the little guy use that model too.

I call Bullshit - thats just an opinion piece ...
"Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups, made this estimate using data from a 2013 study by Democratic Staff of the U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce."

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by classicman

I call Bullshit - thats just an opinion piece ...
"Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups, made this estimate using data from a 2013 study by Democratic Staff of the U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce."

It is very hard to nail down exact figures on any of this. It seems to me that this isn't accidental. Despite what Tony is saying about douchebaggery, I don't see why there is a connection between someone's being "a visionary" and commanding a huge salary. I think Sanders is somewhat of a visionary and he isn't insisting on making a ton of coin. Wealth and usefulness to society are not correlated. If it were plumbers and trash collectors would live in mansions. The real function of Huge corporations isn't about being a visionary beyond coming up with visions to kep the company and its shareholders obscenely rich. A pretty narrow vision. Not only can't they see the forest, they can't see the trees for the leaves.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by classicman

I call Bullshit - thats just an opinion piece ...
"Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups, made this estimate using data from a 2013 study by Democratic Staff of the U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce."

Of course you do, because the numbers came from the Democratic staff. How does it compare to the numbers from the Republican staff? [silence]chirp chirp chirp[/silence] Oh that's right, the Republican staff doesn't give a shit about education and workforce.
A friend volunteers at the Food Bank on Cape Cod. Fully half the people coming in have been given a sheet by their employers listing the Food Bank, Welfare offices, Food Stamp(SNAP) services, Charities, Child Services, etc, so they can survive without getting a living wage.

It is very hard to nail down exact figures on any of this.

Very true, it's impossible to nail down exactly how badly we're getting screwed with the rabbit's warren of loopholes and moving targets. That's why it all estimates and averages, so it may be only 5 Billion or maybe 10 billion. We only know it's Billions, and it ain't right.

I hear plumbers are on the way up.

Plumbers have an advantage. Car breaks, buy a new one, no money down, 72 easy payments. Tooth breaks, chew on the other side until you can scrape up enough to buy a pair of pliers. Plumbing breaks, you need him right now. Of course the plumber's overhead has skyrocketed too, just insurance can run $hundreds a week.

And so, the marketplace of humanity: it's a terrible, cruel system, but nobody has figured out a better way.

But we had a better way in 1955, and we know what's changed in law and attitude.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

But we had a better way in 1955, and we know what's changed in law and attitude.

Well said.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Just curious as to why you think this. Is there evidence?

For now, I'll just base this on my personal experience as a small business owner and an employee at various small businesses over the years.

an example might be your business; are you able to pay your receptionist $45,000 a year?

A CEO making 500 times the average salary of his workers, not the lowest paid worker, is probably in a position to take less money for himself, let's say 10 times the average, and use the remaining 490x to either increase all his employee's wages or perhaps to create more jobs. I'm not advocating wealth distribution, but suggesting that raising the quality of life of the group would actually raise the QOL of the CEO rather than diminish it.

(see long spoon parable)

In some ways the greed is a higher stakes version of the crab in a bucket phenomenon.

My point is that unless employers pay a living wage to employees, the government has to take up the slack and small business owners are usually not making the kind of money where they can pay employees 45-65k a year. Most of the small business owners I know in this area are not making that much.

I also think it would be possible to pay workers a living wage in this country if we didn't send all our jobs overseas. My position is, if your workforce is not based in the USA, and your corporate offices are not in the USA, then yours is not an American company and therefore not entitled to any type of government subsidy, tax relief, or any other type of benefit and you are subject to import tariffs and so on.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

A CEO making 500 times the average salary of his workers, not the lowest paid worker, is probably in a position to take less money for himself, let's say 10 times the average, and use the remaining 490x to either increase all his employee's wages or perhaps to create more jobs.

This idea survives because it's appealing, but when you look at it:

McDonald's payroll is $4800000000 and the CEO is paid $7300000 (over 600% of average worker salary) So he could only increase McD payroll to $4807300000 by forgoing his own compensation.

If the CEO of McDonalds did his job entirely pro-bono and personally wrote a check to every McDonald's employee at the end of the year, dividing his expected salary evenly to each and every one of them, that check would be for five dollars.

However. If that CEO did an outstanding job? Raises for everybody, a hundred thousand new jobs a year. If that CEO did a shitty job? Cuts, losses, pain.

So. Can another $million get the board somebody who understands the industry, finance, marketing, accounting, who can anticipate major trends, make the best decisions? Absolutely worth it, if your goal was more money and better jobs for all. You would make that tradeoff and spend that money every single time if you were deciding how management compensation should operate.

[xoxoxoBruce]

If the previous CEO wasn't cutting it, not doing the job he was paid for, which I assume is why they got the current CEO, he was being overpaid.
Why should the current CEO get more money than the last guy was getting to do what they expected the last guy to do?

Oh wait, lemme guess. Because the circle jerk culture of the 1% club says major CEOs should get a shit ton of money more than they're worth to keep up the justification for the rest of the club to get a shit ton of money. And who hires the CEOs and sets their pay grade? The board of directors which make up another chapter of the 1% family, the fuck-the-working-man club.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

This idea survives because it's appealing, but when you look at it:

McDonald's payroll is $4800000000 and the CEO is paid $7300000 (over 600% of average worker salary) So he could only increase McD payroll to $4807300000 by forgoing his own compensation.

Small math problem to call to your attention:

600% is six times the avg. salary. The report shows the CEO is making six hundred times the average salary. I don't know the # of McD's employees, but remember the stores are franchises and I don;t know if there is a distinction between franchise employees and McD's corp employees. Judging by the 11k figure, I'd say it's the former.

Still, as you point out that would only mean 600 more minimum wage jobs, but I suspect the effect of a small cadre of people holding 90% of the marbles makes for a shitty game of marbles. The effect of diminishing the wage gap would have a more profound effect on society as a whole than can be reckoned by looking at a single metric.