Min Wage Vs Tech

[GURPS]

Two months after its wage hike, Amazon opened a store featuring “cashierless checkout technology” in Washington state. As customers who visit the Amazon Fresh store “Just Walk Out” with their items, the building’s technology will automatically track the products and charge the user’s Amazon account. The store will also feature Alexa kiosks and Amazon package pickup.

McDonald’s likewise began pioneering voice-automated drive-thrus in the Chicago area. Executives expect that the technology will appear across the United States within the next five years.

Both firms’ seemingly contradictory actions — raising wages while preparing the technology that will soon enable mass layoffs — perfectly reflect federal analysts’ warnings about the labor market distortions caused by minimum wage hikes.

For instance, a recent study from the Congressional Budget Office proved that although President Biden’s $15 minimum wage plan would increase salaries for 900,000 Americans, it would leave 1.4 million unemployed.

In keeping with the decades-long trend of technological unemployment, the embrace of low-cost technology — accelerated by legislative pressure to raise wages — will continue to displace American workers.

Large Businesses Are Using Technology To Dodge Minimum Wage Hikes

 

[stgislander]

They just need to learn to code.

 

[Clem72]

I don't know about McDonald's, but Amazon had several of these "just walk out with the items" stores well before the pandemic and the wage hike.

 

[GURPS]

Amazon tracks warehouse workers' every move because Jeff Bezos thinks people are inherently lazy, report says


Bezos believed that workers' desire to perform well decreased over time and that an entrenched workforce was a "march to mediocrity," Niekerk told The Times.

"What he would say is that our nature as humans is to expend as little energy as possible to get what we want or need," Niekerk told The Times.

He pointed to a short-term employment model that doesn't provide employees many opportunities for advancement and to the way Amazon used technology to keep workers on task. Amazon doesn't guarantee wage increases after a worker's first three years, the report said, as a way to oust employees who might become too comfortable at Amazon or turn "disgruntled."

 

[GURPS]

More Hidden Costs in the Fight for $15

Written by academics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Cornell and the University of Washington, the paper looks at 2015-2018 data from an anonymous “chain of fashion retail stores.” All the locations had the same brand, but 45 were in California (where the minimum wage went up), and 17 were in Texas (where it didn’t). During the period examined, California’s wage floor rose to $11 an hour from $9, with one citywide minimum reaching $13.50. Texas kept a flat $7.25.

The rising minimum wage in California didn’t significantly affect the number of hours worked per store. What changed, as the company apparently tried to keep its labor costs down, was who worked those hours. “As the minimum wage increases by $1,” the authors say, “the number of workers scheduled to work per week increases by 27.7%, and the hours assigned to each worker decrease by 20.8%” For the average employee earning $11 an hour, losing that much time on the clock would translate to a wage reduction of 13.6%.

 

[GURPS]

A minimum wage hike could mean smaller paychecks


A new study by professors from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Cornell University, and the University of Washington found that when a retail chain in California raised its minimum wage, it hired more people but gave fewer hours per person. In essence, people who already had jobs saw their hours cut, making them less likely to be eligible for benefits, and experienced reduced “consistency of weekly and daily schedules.”

The researchers reported that as the minimum wage increased by $1, “the number of workers scheduled to work per week increases by 27.7%, and the hours assigned to each worker decrease by 20.8%.” The researchers reported that, in California, the number of average hours per worker per week fell from 24 to 19 hours. As a result, the average Californian minimum-wage worker saw a wage compensation drop of 13.6% in spite of the wage increase.

This new research examined data from 2015 to 2018 supplied by an unnamed “chain of fashion retail stores.” In the research sample, 45 stores of the fashion retail brand were in California (home to a minimum wage hike), and 17 were in Texas (no hike).

 

[GURPS]

EMPLOYEES SAY MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE IS NOT ENOUGH TO PAY BILLS


Even with the minimum wage increase, employees are still saying that it's just not enough.

Daniel Veale, an employee at Sy's Pizza, said he's had a hard time making ends meet on minimum wage, even though he works two jobs.

"I'm working two jobs, started working them in the middle of the lockdown-- so not much locking down happened," Veale said. "Even then, I'm still 16 hundred behind, and I don't know how I'm going to pay that."

Studies show that consumer prices nationwide are going up right now.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Western region of the United States, food prices went up 0.5 percent for the month of May. Over the past year, they jumped 3.3 percent. The same data shows gas prices rising 49.5 percent over the last year—and 3.2 percent for the month of May.

"I don't know anything about the economy, but this isn't working," Veale said.




Min Wage will NEVER Be Enough .. wages go up, prices go up

 

[Clem72]

Min Wage will NEVER Be Enough .. wages go up, prices go up

Food sure feels like it has gone up a lot more than 3% during the lockdown. Also, I doubt minimum-wage affected the cost of gas much.

 

[GURPS]

Walmart Just Made A Huge Announcement



Walmart just announced plans to remove all human cashiers from stores and go fully self-checkout by the end of this year, Positively Osceala reports.

According to the country’s largest employer, the chain’s 10,000 stores will feature exclusively self-checkout and/or “Scan & Go” by the end of 2021. Wow–we wonder how this will impact its employees!

As we know, many retail and fast food chains accelerated their contactless payment technologies amid the coronavirus pandemic last year.

The retail juggernaut announced on its website that it was currently testing a store with 34 registers lining the edges of a wide-open store. The registers are equipped with a green light that alerts store associates to available checkout lines. The lanes will be open all the time. Wow–it does sound like it will move people through the checkout process faster!

The company asserts that the process will be manned by humans.

“At first glance, the new area may look like it’s just a bunch of self-checkout registers. But ask any associate, and they’ll tell you it’s a full-service checkout experience,” Matt Smith with corporate affairs said in a June 30th statement.

 

[vraiblonde]

“At first glance, the new area may look like it’s just a bunch of self-checkout registers. But ask any associate, and they’ll tell you it’s a full-service checkout experience,” Matt Smith with corporate affairs said in a June 30th statement.

Sure, because instead of having six cashiers they can pay one babysitter for six self-checkouts.

It's pretty interesting how many people don't understand how things work. That's probably why they only make minimum wage.

 

[GURPS]

Well to be honest these people do not think much past the end of their noses

UNION Troll - YOU Deserve $ 15 Bucks an Hour

Non Critical Thinking Leftist - I Deserve $ 15 bucks and Hour

Business ....

1. Goes Under [ Transporter and Sapidus would say good riddance they were poorly run ]
2. OK - Now you get 25 hrs instead or 35 - 40
3. You are replaced by Technology.