As for work outside store hours: sure, there is some. But it's not a restaurant where you have to sterilize everything in the kitchen. It's a bookstore. At most you have to sweep the floors, maybe re-shelf some misplaced books, and shelf the newcomers. It's not a tremendous amount of work that has to be done before opening or after close.
Even for those who work 10 years for a company, like Borderlands has?
I also don't think you've run retail operations at any sort of scale, given your comments.
Why? Just because they make ~$12/hr? I have employees making $15/hr (lowest we pay) who have 2-4 weeks of PTO plus flex days, and I don't consider myself exceptionally generous.
Yes, if the employer is paying the minimum wage my guess is they are also paying for the minimum number of hours.
From the blog post: "by way of example, once the final wage increase rolled out in 2018, we would have been losing around $30,000 per year"
EITC is a much better way to redistribute this wealth and it puts money in the people's pockets who need it most.
From the post.
And they couldn't sell anything in addition to books? Or change their selection to reduce their overhead? Or buy/sell used books?
I don't know, I'm not them. But "we can't raise those prices, and we couldn't lower our expenses" always sounds like a bit of a copout.
They do that. In the bookselling business, these are called "sidelines". Borderlands has several, including postcards, greeting cards, small gifts, journals, local art, etc. They've tried many others as well that haven't been profitable for whatever reason (which they then have to eat the cost of.) New sidelines are a gamble for that reason.
> Or change their selection to reduce their overhead?
This is an oversimplification, but selection doesn't involve overhead in the usual sense because unsold books can be returned to the publisher. Anyway, their focus on sci-fi/fantasy and mystery books is a large part of what makes them special and beloved, rather than just another generalist bookstore.
> Or buy/sell used books?
They do that.
> I don't know, I'm not them. But "we can't raise those prices, and we couldn't lower our expenses" always sounds like a bit of a copout.
I've been to several of their sponsor meetings and spoken with the owner on a few occasions. Alan is very open and transparent about the bookstore's finances. If I recall correctly, because of the way publishers eat of the cost of unsold books, the store's expenses are dominated by labor and rent in that order (with utilities and credit card processing fees a distant 3rd and 4th). Everything else is basically rounding errors in the store budget. It's like trying to cut the Federal Budget without touching healthcare entitlements or defense - there's no way to make a meaningful dent. See also: Amdahl's Law.
When labor makes up about half of your costs, changes to the minimum wage affect you disproportionately compared to many other kinds of business.
Is it, though? Isn't it what kills freemium websites?
A) Minimum wage increases helps everyone overall by increasing the wage floor.
B) Increases in minimum wage are correlated with greater disposable income, even when put into context with inflation and goods prices increases (basically price of goods may go up a little, but labor wasn't a large portion of their cost to begin with).
Here are some articles after a brief search: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/05/25/warren-b...] [http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=25936] [https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/04/02/mi...] - a little either or but EITC does more to amplify small increases to minimum wage than the opposite.
I do think the minimum wage should be increased but by a more reasonable amount and then track inflation every five years or something. I just think EITC is a much more targeted tool. Additionally, raising minimum wage doesn't help if most of the jobs are automated away but EITC still helps.
You make several statements I can take issue with, but the most interesting is to imply that if someone else makes more money, other people are devalued.
I think that's an interesting argument in a world where executive compensation has grown continually, and workers income has decreased, while GDP has continued to shrink. http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth-ann... (click max, then trend under the bar graph button)
I urge you to look at the non partisan Congressional Budget Office's discussion of a federal minimum wage hike. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/44995
Separately, there is a separate question of the (many) consequences or raising the minimum wage. A lot of smart people think that EITC and other programs are a better way to redistribute wealth. I happen to agree. If a small business has to raise prices, that doesn't generally affect the upper middle class and wealthy. They don't tend to shop at Walmart.
They claim this will cost them an additional $30,000/year. Let's consider that. Assume that their employees are all current minimum wage employees (otherwise they would not be affected). Given that they're open for 8 hours/day (which works out to 56 hours/week), it would mean that their additional cost would be an additional $3500/employee; so an additional cost of $30000 means they have 9 employees working all the time. Anyone who has been to Borderlands (and I have been a few times) can see that they do not have 9 employees all the time. Max I've seen are about 4. It's a bookstore, not an oil change place!
In any case: whatever floats their boat. If sponsorships help them stay afloat, so be it. But they shouldn't blame the minuscule wage increase for their woes.