>If they have a small mom and pop company that cannot pay workers at least $50,000, then they need to go out of business.

wow, this site really does skew toward coastal cities in the US doesn't it? $50k a year is a high end white collar salary enough to buy a (often significantly) better than median home on a single salary and enough to be considered in the upper 25% income for most of the places I have lived.

I think one of the biggest problems in politics in the US is that we have such a diversity of experience and needs in this country and most politicians (and perhaps voters) think that the solutions that are best for their local area are actually good for the whole country - when in most cases the experience across millions of people and thousands of miles from rural to dense urban is so different that almost no nation wide solution is very good.

It's not a coastal thing, its just "any major city" thing. 50k is not enough salary to buy a better-than-median home in any of the major Texas cities (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio). It might have been enough in El Paso, but probably not since the recent housing bubble.

Sure, not everyone lives in a major city. It doesn't make a lot of sense for a line cook to make $50k in Victoria or Amarillo. But in these places, they are not being paid the ~25-30k which could be equivalent to about $50k in the city (which still isn't enough to buy a house). They are being paid $7.25 an hour and the tips aren't so good.

You totally miss the parents point, which is that most restaurant workers are barely paid enough to rent and eat, to make the point that the US has a diversity of CoL.

This does not skew at all towards the coastal cities. In the coastal cities, even a two income home, with both people earning $300,000 cannot even afford a home. $50,000 would be a joke of a joke.

First thing: let me ask you this...are you a business owner and have a vested interest in keeping wages down? Or maybe your parents or friends are business owners and you sympathize with them?

This is not about whether it is a coastal or rural issue. It is about a fairness issue.

No matter what city, rural or urban, if a business owner owns 10 locations and is making $1.5 million per year, let's just say for example, and he or she is paying $7.25 per hour for a total of $14,500 per year, and with zero health insurance, only offering 30 hours per week in order not to provide benefits that they do have for full time employees, and treat employees like sh-t, F them. I don't care if $14 is a lot in a rural area. That's not the point. I know you want it to be the only point to argue, because maybe it in your best interest to argue only that point.

However, even if it is only politically/philosophically your point, like maybe you are a libertarian or something, your viewpoint is probably that employers are free to offer any wage, and employees are free to accept it or not. Well, what is happening, is that employees are not accepting in droves. And this is causing business owners to say, "No, we don't mean free offer and acceptance, what we means is we say that in order for us to not seem like the total c-nts that we are, but now that people are taking us up on that and not accepting our offers, we want to cry like the whiny b-tches that we are and complain about how people that should be working for us, are not, and now we can't make $1.5 million while paying them $14,500 per year." That's what this is really about.

And there are a lot of other false arguments. That "the owner took the risk and is entitled to the reward." Fine. Ok. Great. Do the whole thing yourself then. Perfectly fine. Go to it dude, or dudette. Knock yourself out.

Or, sometimes people say that the money is "all on paper", another shitty argument. Jeff Bezos only takes an $80K salary, and is taxed only on that. Most of his wealth is "all on paper." So, you (not you you, but those who say it is paper wealth, I don't know if you do) are telling me, seriously, that if Bezos goes into a bank, and the banker knows it is Bezos, and Bezos applies for a loan to buy a $10 million home, that the banker says, "No, you only have a salary of $80,000." That is because the "paper wealth" is actually collateral, as are all the equipment, inventory, real estate, etc. Same as any business owner.

Another fallacy is "the business owner can't re-invest if they pay out larger salaries and provide more jobs." Yeah, right. With their multi-million homes, and vacations to Gstaad, Switzerland and safaris to Africa. I haven't seen Jeff Bezos do one god damn thing with his $200 billion, except keep trying to drive his employees wages down and trying to keep them from unionizing. Yet, HE doesn't want to keep HIS salary down, and recently bought a $150 million home in Los Angeles.

And, yet another fallacy, "business owners pay 80% of taxes." Who give a fluck? They should pay a lot more. You think this is ridiculous and communist? You have been brainwashed by the all-pervasive media. If one is into MAGA - Make America Great Again - or a libertarian, or whatever, you have to realize that if you turn back the clock, for most of the 20th century, tax rates on the wealthiest in the highest tax bracket was from 70% - 90%. It changed in 1986, when Ronald Reagan got it reduced to about 35%. And that is about the exact time that the rich started getting richer and poor started getting poorer.

In 1965, CEOs in the US earned 20 times more than the average worker but by 2015 it had risen to 300 times.

The issue is a lot bigger than just what the pay is. It is about income inequality. If you don't like it to be on that topic, and how it should be only about what is 'affordable', hey, that is just your opinion, as well as the business owners, too, conveniently.

But, employees are entitled to their own opinion, and that is that business owners who don't share in the wealth can go f themselves.

And, for the little place that goes under because can't afford to pay, well, raise your prices to cover it. If that means that you have to raise the price of pasta in your restaurant from $15 to $40, then do it. But, that is hilarious, because the owner would want to just take that as well, and not pay the employees a dime of it. And if they can't raise prices to cover costs, including investing in employees, then it is the capitalist way - go the f out of business. You suck at business. You are not providing a great dining experience that customers will pay more for.

And, the more mid-sized business owners who ARE making millions per year, they also won't pay the increased prices and increased revenue to employees, in order that they can buy their yacht or whatever. Or a bigger house so that their vain spouse can brag about it at cocktail parties.

But again, let the owner do all of the work himself. That's fair enough, if employees won't work for those low wages any more, be they in rural or urban areas, whether or not they can buy a low-end house or not. Business owners can just suck a big one if they are greedy, like most are. Tax them at 90% at the top tax rate. AND, that includes wealth, like stock. Let them sell it off to pay 90% taxes, so Bezos would owe taxes of $160 billion. And again, this is not me being a socialist or communist, but what actually happened when America actually was great, from the 1918 to 1985.

> If they have a small mom and pop company that cannot pay workers at least $50,000, then they need to go out of business

why? if people choose to work there it's consensual, if they don't then sure but they don't need to. and what's wealth inequality look like when we're left with corporations and chains owning everything? when small mom & pops can't compete or even get off the ground.

That is what I'm saying. Employees are NOT choosing to work, because income disparities are too high. For most of the 20th century, tax rates were from 70% to 90%. It changed to around 35% in 1986 after Reagan passed an act setting it this low. And that is when the rich started getting richer. In 1965, CEOs were making 20 times more than the lowest paid worker. Now it is 300 times more.

I say that employees should not go to work for corporations and chains, either. F them all.

I have some sympathy if the mom and pop if they barely make any money, but there are some mom and pop places out there where the mom and pop own 10 locations, which is not huge, compared to chains. But they are making $1.5 million in income per year, all the while they are making sure that employees don't work more than 30 hours per week so that they don't have to pay benefits, no health insurance, treat them like crap and not dignity. I know that all businesses don't do this, but probably 95% do, even though I have no citations for this. But I rarely read about those companies who do. And don't say many do, but nobody hears about them. No way.

And again, for the person making $5,000 per year, who cares if they go out of business. They are NOT doing it right. It is only logical that they should get a janitorial job, or work in a stock room for $30,000 per year. It's just logical. And, with making $5,000 per year, their restaurant is probably filthy, bathrooms filthy, substandard ingredients, dirty kitchen, sh-tty chairs and tables, indifferent wait staff and cooks. Again, not every single one. But if you're making $5,000, that sure is the way to bet.

Furthermore, if there are only companies like Amazon making all the sales, then that is a monopoly, and it should be broken up. Monopolies are the bad part of capitalism, and is why the government should break them up. That is what they did with AT&T in the 1980s and telecommunications really took off after that.

You are using a straw man argument.

> But if I see that they have 10 restaurants and make $750,000 per year, well, f the f out of them. But, business owenrs, show me your financials. You don't want to? Fine. Do it yourself. But I'm not going to work for $18,000 with zero benefits, while you're making $750,000. You say your contributions is worth more? Good. Do it yourself. I, and everyone else, don't accept that wage anymore, so do it yourself and go out of business, and you won't get that $750,000 per year anymore anyways.

How did the owner get 10 restaurants? They likely started with one and carefully scaled up over time as they could afford to, each time taking on risk that they fail and wind up with less than what they started despite all the effort. The business exists to benefit them, not to provide a place for people to work, that's a consequence. One reason employees make less than owners because there's less risk involved. They show up and do a job in exchange for money. Most employees have no equity in the business.

If you want to become a big shot owner making hundreds of thousands then you need to do it yourself and put your capital at risk, become a partner, or get a loan. There's no guarantee it will pay off but there's incentive to, which is why people do it. If there's no incentive or it's not great enough and the risk won't be taken. That means less people opening or expanding businesses, which leads to less opportunity for workers as there are less demand for their labor, and less wealth for society as there is less stuff to spend money on.

If you're not comfortable with the risk of being an entrepreneur and someone is willing to pay more for the same labor you're well within your rights to work for someone else.

> How did the owner get 10 restaurants? They likely started with one and carefully scaled up over time as they could afford to, each time taking on risk that they fail and wind up with less than what they started despite all the effort.

I don't know what point you tried to make, but it's completely irrelevant if the business owner scaled things very carefully, blew all his YouTube money on restaurants all at once, or inherited his family business. How the business came to be is totally irrelevant.

The only relevant point is how employees are treated, and if it is fair or not. If not, and this is the key point, why should anyone continue working for a business that abuses and exploits them?

Are they paid fairly or a slave wage? Can employees live on their paycheck or do they need food stamps to get by? And are employees expected to endure hardship just to finance their bosses' careful or reckless expansion strategy?

What we're seeing is people answering those questions with a resounding "no". There are far better things in life than work yourself to death to feed a "very carefully scaled business" that earns the owner a small fortune.

People exist for reasons other than validate someone else's business model, and there is more to life than working shifts for peanuts at a "carefully scaled business".

10 restaurants would be 100 employees. $50,000 for 100 employees is sustainable according to you? The owner would be in the red by over $4 million every year

Then all owners need to raise their prices while protecting their profit margins.

Or alternatively, fine, do it that way, but look at the owners' financials and wealth (not just income). If they are making $1.5 million per year, then lower that to $100,000 per year and get gold health insurance for employees, have employees work 40 hours per week instead of jaded sh-tty owners only scheduling less than 30 hours so they don't have to pay benefits and employees have to work 2 jobs, have them not treat employees like sh-t. That also works for me.

In 1965, CEOs made 20 times (2,00% more) the lowest paid worker. Now it is 300 times (30,000% more) than the lowest paid worker.

For most of the 20th century, the tax rate for the wealthiest was 70% to 90%. And this was NOT only during the war years. It was around there from 1918 to 1985, when the top rate was lowered to around 35% and stayed there since. That is about the exact time that the rich got richer, and everyone else stayed about the same, or went down, due to inflation.

And if you say that the owner took all the risk to start the business, fine, cool. Let them do all of the work without employees. I'm good with that.

What you say is yet one more specious argument to pay employees less so that owners can buy more yachts and bigger houses. But fine. Do all the work in 10 locations, all by yourself. Good. And good bye.

I agree with you and the solution is to have them pay minimal wage + a % of profit sharing.

That does not work for me. The owner can just pay himself a $1.5 million salary that erases any profits, just like the movie industry is so adept at doing. They can also start other companies, and buy stuff from the other corporations in order to suck out any profits. Or maybe suck out enough so that have the smallest profit to share, and then take the money out from the other paper corporation and give themselves that money through that corporation instead. This is pretty basic business stuff. Apple Corporation, for instance, takes all of their profits and puts it into Braeburn Capital in Reno, Nevada, in order to avoid California franchise taxes, and other states as well, which has over the years, been billions and billions that would have gone to those states. California has 8 or 10% business taxes for example. Nevada has no business taxes. I think Braeburn has $150+ billion in it, or something like that. Then, of course, it can take that money and shove it out to countries with no taxes at all, so they pay no federal taxes at all, though techniques like the "double-Irish with the Dutch sandwich", which is an actual name of a scheme that corporations use. IP tax avoidance is another example - you sell all you IP (intellectual property) rights to a coporation set up in the Cayman Islands. The corporation in the USA or other countries then have to pay for the IP rights to sell those products, so they pay out to a legitimate company in the Caymans all their profits.

This is why there is a push for a global tax.

Anyways, the point is that there are a ton of ways to reduce or eliminate profits. If I was a business owner making $4 million profits, I'd reduce the profits so that each employee made an extra $1,000 to 50 employees for $50,000, they won't be squawking and bitching and are happy, or a little bit better, about the piddling amount.