How the Minimum Wage Affects Restaurant Hygiene

Re:How the Minimum Wage Affects Restaurant Hygiene by gaius on Saturday September 16, 2017 @01:21PM (#15265549)

By and large those who oppose it are not evil for the sake of evil but concerned that the alternative is not a higher minimum wage but no wage at all as workers in unskilled jobs are replaced by self-service or automation. McDonalds is already doing it. The answer is using technology as a lever to help people do higher-value-adding work and incentivising people to upskill into those jobs after a brief period at entry level. Not raising the level of entry level so high that it pulls the ladder up.

I say this as someone who started working before the minimum wage even existed, at a fraction of what it was when it was introduced.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How the Minimum Wage Affects Restaurant Hygiene by wolco on Saturday September 16, 2017 @01:44PM (#15265658)

I don't believe raising rates will have the damning effect of pushing automation where it is already not going.

A few years ago I saw my first self grocery checkout and the self ordering machine at a&w or the machine to buy tickets at a movie theatre. These things were coming before and shouldn't be part of the discussion where we assign it as the outcome of the wage increase.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How the Minimum Wage Affects Restaurant Hygiene by 35bge57dtjku on Saturday September 16, 2017 @02:08PM (#15265787)

The people who complain about it seem to be owners who just complain because complaining is free and any they are against increase whatsoever: http://www.workingwa.org/sky-aloft/2015/tom-douglas

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How the Minimum Wage Affects Restaurant Hygiene by gaius on Saturday September 16, 2017 @02:45PM (#15265998)

We have the situation in the UK where people on minimum wage get top-ups via the welfare system which makes no sense, I'd like to see an increase sufficient to negate that, because it's just taxpayers subsidising businesses! But £15/hr for unskilled work can't be justified. £9-10/hr is probably about right.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How the Minimum Wage Affects Restaurant Hygiene by TheAdamAndChe on Saturday September 16, 2017 @01:59PM (#15265743)

> The answer is using technology as a lever to help people do higher-value-adding work and incentivising people to upskill into those jobs after a brief period at entry level.

Ideally this would happen, but those jobs just aren't opening up for most of the country. Socioeconomic mobility is on the decline[1], and like I showed already, the lower class is growing considerably. The ladder is already being pulled up & automation (and outsourcing) is already occurring, regardless of the current minimum wage.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...

[ Parent | on HN ]