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A comment on It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage. Parent comment

Re:It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers right... by prepend on Monday September 06, 2021 @11:01AM (#28434333)
You wouldn’t notice, but many millions of people would. This is pretty established economic theory of supply and demand curves. Are you arguing that increasing prices doesn’t decrease demand?

Why do you think companies don’t just raise prices by $1, since jimmaswell won’t even notice it or care?

I’ve never heard that increasing minimum wage will be the end of small business, I’ve just heard that it will be incrementally harder to put those wages and number of jobs at the low end of the wage increase will go down. (And that’s what happens) Again, that’s a supply and demand thing.

Are you arguing that prices don’t have an impact on purchases? Again, how do you explain companies just increasing prices arbitrarily? What do you think stops them from doing this?

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Re:It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers right... by Sylamore on Monday September 06, 2021 @06:18PM (#28438740)
We used to go to Red Robin at least once a month. It would cost us about $30-35 to feed all 3 of us before tip. We stopped going regularly and recently went back on a whim. Our bill was for $60 for 3 burgers and (non-alcoholic) drinks, still before tip. Nevermind that they were obviously running on a skeleton crew. I can go to a fancier place like cowfish/bad daddies for a better burger and better experience that actually costs less, or go "cheap" to five guys or culvers or freddies.

I'm not sure what their reasons are for raising their prices so much compared to 5-6 years ago, but it will probably be a long time before we go back, the prices are just too high compared to other options.

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Re:It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers right... by jimmaswell on Monday September 06, 2021 @12:38PM (#28435421)
Small price changes don't necessarily always impact purchases, as in the example of the diner the other poster gave. You also wouldn't pass up a gum stick if it was 57 cents instead of 56, and you wouldn't buy more if they were 10 cents. There was a term for this in my economics class but I don't remember, essentially elasticity of demand is not always a perfectly continuous function in reality. Somewhere like Wal Mart might have the price figured out perfectly by their team of researchers but probably not most non-chain restaurants.
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