Movie Theaters Fear Hike in Minimum Wage: ‘That Would Kill Us’

[Elegiac]

underline - its literally one and the same. one causes the other. companies prioritize profits, therefore ANYTHING that cuts into those profits? will be adjusted until profits are back.

higher wages cut into profits. therefore, they compensate by employing fewer people. mandatory medical insurance cuts into profits. therefore - full time hours are cut so that they no longer have to provide insurance.

are you expecting for profit companies to develop conscience now? is THAT what this is?

Not really, no.

It's just mildly hilarious how you don't see that all of your complaints are literally the arguments people use for minimum wage. The profit motive incentivizes wages going to zero in the absence of regulation.

what real world evidence YOU have to show that companies just gird their loins and NOT fire people so they end up with NO salaries whatsoever?

I dunno, the fact that every minimum wage hike in history hasn't been followed by a spike in unemployment? Zzzz.

[Endus]

underline - its literally one and the same. one causes the other. companies prioritize profits, therefore ANYTHING that cuts into those profits? will be adjusted until profits are back.

higher wages cut into profits. therefore, they compensate by employing fewer people. mandatory medical insurance cuts into profits. therefore - full time hours are cut so that they no longer have to provide insurance.

are you expecting for profit companies to develop conscience now? is THAT what this is?

The point is that this is just capitalism in action and really doesn't have anything to do with minimum wage increases.

what real world evidence YOU have to show that companies just gird their loins and NOT fire people so they end up with NO salaries whatsoever?

https://cepr.net/documents/publicati...ge-2013-02.pdf

That's my go-to source. A lot more available here; https://www.businessforafairminimumw...cause-job-loss

Basically, it comes down to whether you want to believe the hypotheses of people with an Econ 101 grasp of theory and who thus believe they know EVERYTHING, or if you want to look at actual data, actual economies, and see if there's a correlation.

Because there isn't one. Unemployment doesn't dip when minimum wages rise, not in the long term at least; there's sometimes a short-term blip as business owners fuck around and don't adapt to the wage increase in their business model appropriately.

If minimum wage increases led to unemployment, you'd see a correlation between the two, and there is no such correlation in the data. Some of the lowest unemployment levels have occurred at the points where the minimum wage was the highest.

That's the thing with hypotheses. You've got to test them, against data, and if the data doesn't bear them out, you need to discard them as faulty.

[Biglog]

Movie theaters are already hurting like all entertainment businesses from the pandemic, so it's kind of a loaded title. You could say, movie theaters fear popcorn suppliers will increase wholesale prices to theaters 5%, that would kill us.

Be more upfront that it's a conservative attack on any minimum wage increase, rather than cherry-picking the hardest hit industry from a 100-year pandemic to try to make a weak argument.

[Witchblade77]

The point is that this is just capitalism in action and really doesn't have anything to do with minimum wage increases.



https://cepr.net/documents/publicati...ge-2013-02.pdf

That's my go-to source. A lot more available here; https://www.businessforafairminimumw...cause-job-loss

Basically, it comes down to whether you want to believe the hypotheses of people with an Econ 101 grasp of theory and who thus believe they know EVERYTHING, or if you want to look at actual data, actual economies, and see if there's a correlation.

Because there isn't one. Unemployment doesn't dip when minimum wages rise, not in the long term at least; there's sometimes a short-term blip as business owners fuck around and don't adapt to the wage increase in their business model appropriately.

If minimum wage increases led to unemployment, you'd see a correlation between the two, and there is no such correlation in the data. Some of the lowest unemployment levels have occurred at the points where the minimum wage was the highest.

That's the thing with hypotheses. You've got to test them, against data, and if the data doesn't bear them out, you need to discard them as faulty.

I have actualy found data - more then one study but i'm going to link MIT one https://economics.mit.edu/files/9497. "not significant" amounts to about 0.7% increased unemployment primarily among low skilled and/or younger workers (number from another study that specifically covered increases of 2000) - your cashiers etc - which also happens to be people working at movie theaters, your concession workers, your ticket sellers. might not seem like much - less then 1%, but when you convert it into actual people its over a million.

is it overall worth it? depends on how you look at it. is the whole world going into preventive measures to reduce covid deaths which are relative to total population ALSO less then 1% - worth it? absolutely, yes. that less then 1% is millions of people. which is why I'm iffy on federal minimum wage increase, even spread through the years - without decent provisions for those who ARE going to be negatively affected.

moreover... even if we assume that the net of jobs gained vs jobs lost is going to be neutral (which it won't be, not entirely as history shows)? it will still likely result in a loss of most of the movie theater industry. again, are you ok with it? you have a right to be. I'm just saying that industry being concerned about dying due to last straw of increased wages - is not coming out of nowhere. it WILL affect them negatively it WILL very likely kill finish the job that combination of streaming and covid related changes like entire slate of blockbuster movies going directly to streaming services - started.

also, and this is from personal experience in NYC, so your mileage may vary. but I remember response of small businesses I've encountered and worked for back in those days to higher wages. under the table pay. my experience is primarily with small scale retail, cause that's where my first jobs were, but back then? I did take lower paying jobs, cause they were under the table, off the books. I wasn't the only one. only reason I even knew it was an option was because this was the information given to me as to how to get some extra money for my family to help us get on our feet - without losing welfare benefits, which were crucial for us at that time, but also still not enough to actualy cover all of the expenses and feed a family of 4.

I know i'm rambling, I've been thinking about this the entire day, and I almost decided not to respond because person I was linking data to - wasn't even reading it. but here we are anyways. there will be people who will benefit from minimum wage increase. there WILL be, absolutely. there will ALSO be people who will be hurt by it. some of those people will be business owners. and some will be workers. the data is there. if you think that its worth it for its net benefit? that's fine. I'm just reminding that there IS also a cost there.

P.S. capitalism in action has EVERYTHING to do with wages. because for time being, we are living in a capitalist society so it will respond in a capitalist fashion.

[Endus]

P.S. capitalism in action has EVERYTHING to do with wages. because for time being, we are living in a capitalist society so it will respond in a capitalist fashion.

And here's the big caveat;

Not everyone can work. There's non-zero unemployment as it is.

Thus, society can do one of two things;

1> Plan to support those who do not work financially, such that they do not suffer hardship, or
2> Insist that human suffering is a necessity of the societal system.

I lean towards #1, and don't have any problem pointing out that #2 is pretty much just nakedly evil. And yet, that's capitalism, baby.

Edit: And here's a tip; those "hurt" by any reduction of employment wouldn't actually be hurt by that lack of employment, they're hurt by the lack of support from society. The idea that one must work is pretty much exactly what the term "wage slavery" means. A system whereby capitalists get all the benefits of a slave system without having to take any of the responsibility for the maintenance of the enslaved workers.

[Muzjhath]

the thing is... supermarkets seem to employ a lot fewer actual people and the ones that they still employ, have increased workload to compensate for higher salaries. every supermarket has self checkout with one harried employee running around, assisting people with issues. registers are still there. but most of them are closed most of the time and half the time the only reason they are still there is because it costs too much to remodel. there is starbucks with a single barista in one of the supermarkets in my area where some of the registers used to be.

I live in Sweden. We do not have this discussion. And our worst paid employees are paid far more than US minimum wage.
Even here self-checkouts have been springing up. Mostly because of popular demand. In a lot of cases many stores haven't even dropped that many employees. Most of their employees do stuff more efficient than sit at the check-out all the time, even if one of the service check-outs is always open.

Self-check out isn't a minimum wage thing. It's a development thing. And a store that fully goes self-check out and removes service check out will probably lose some customeers.

[Glorious Leader]

Mike Stoklasa will be pleased.

And Jay baumann

- - - Updated - - -

underline - its literally one and the same. one causes the other. companies prioritize profits, therefore ANYTHING that cuts into those profits? will be adjusted until profits are back.

higher wages cut into profits. therefore, they compensate by employing fewer people. mandatory medical insurance cuts into profits. therefore - full time hours are cut so that they no longer have to provide insurance.

are you expecting for profit companies to develop conscience now? is THAT what this is?

what real world evidence YOU have to show that companies just gird their loins and NOT fire people so they end up with NO salaries whatsoever?

that hypothetical is non partisan study the link for which i got from a very left leaning news source, btw. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...ckage-n1257077

No one expects for profit companies to develop a conscious. Ergo capital should be disciplined by regulation if need or by any sort of counter veiling force unions for example. Yea they have to take a hair cut and their gonna have to take it voluntarily or be forced into it.

[ifrah]

Gaming arcades aren't so much of a thing any more since home entertainment is what it is today. Same, to at least some degree, will likely bite the cinemas too, or should it be said that the jaws are closing quite well already. Minimum wage hikes as the scapegoat is what you'd expect to hear from the owners.

On a purely subjective side note, comparing the quality of mainstream movies to whatever non-movie content available today, I'm not surprised the appeal is fading, regardless of the pandemic. Would I rather watch a 1.5 hour montage of special effects, and/or a masterpiece whose only achievement was to have a previously horrendously discriminating (for whatever reason, artificial ones included) cast replaced with whatever was the FotM this time, was filmed in Xinjiang to lick CCP's arse when there's the option of tuning in for another episode of a series from Netflix, Amazon Prime, whatever stream service you use, or even some free content from YouTube?
Not saying there wasn't crap movies back in days, because there was - lots of them, but back then the alternatives were limited to say the least. Cinema worthy releases have never come in numbers, and the threshold for that worthiness is climbing.

[prwraith]

All these businesses claiming it's not affordable lol. Then you check the markups against their overhead.

What is really being said is, our executives can't take a paycut to just be slightly richer than god rather than richer than 10 gods put together if we raise minimum wage by 6 goddamn dollars.

Just another bullshit scare tactic by people refusing to lower profit so that people don't have to struggle to live.

[PC2]

All these businesses claiming it's not affordable lol. Then you check the markups against their overhead.

What is really being said is, our executives can't take a paycut to just be slightly richer than god rather than richer than 10 gods put together if we raise minimum wage by 6 goddamn dollars.

Just another bullshit scare tactic by people refusing to lower profit so that people don't have to struggle to live.

They can't cut executive pay because then the executives would leave for other better jobs and theaters would only be able to hire second-rate business leaders at a lower pay rate.

[Elegiac]

They can't cut executive pay because then the executives would leave for other better jobs and theaters would only be able to hire second-rate business leaders at a lower pay rate.

Any executive that refuses to pay their workers a living wage is second rate by default. Sorry sweaty.

[TigTone]

A bit off topic.

Companies complain about paying fair wages but they still have the horrible practice of hiring just enough part timers and a few managers on salary and squeeze them to run a store until they burn out. Then rinse and repeat.

How would that problem be solved?

[PC2]

Any executive that refuses to pay their workers a living wage is second rate by default. Sorry sweaty.

The living wage wage doesn't mean anything because the living wage is always the current wage plus 3-5 more dollars. It literally wouldn't matter if everybody was getting $15 per hour because then they'd immediately say "I'm not truly living, gimme more".

[TigTone]

The living wage wage doesn't mean anything because the living wage is always the current wage plus 3-5 more dollars. It literally wouldn't matter if everybody was getting $15 per hour because then they'd immediately say "I'm not truly living, gimme more".

So what ? If they want that then they need to get better jobs.

The point of a living wage is to make sure people can have housing and water/food without having to work more than one job.

And it’s not a living wage if you are also on state/fed benefits.

[Elegiac]

The living wage wage doesn't mean anything because the living wage is always the current wage plus 3-5 more dollars. It literally wouldn't matter if everybody was getting $15 per hour because then they'd immediately say "I'm not truly living, gimme more".

You're correct, because if the minimum wage had actually kept pace with productivity it would be in the realm of $24 an hour.

Moreover, living wage is in fact calculable, so shove of with that "the living wage doesn't mean anything" nonsense.

[Draco-Onis]

The living wage wage doesn't mean anything because the living wage is always the current wage plus 3-5 more dollars. It literally wouldn't matter if everybody was getting $15 per hour because then they'd immediately say "I'm not truly living, gimme more".

I think the point is to have giant corporations pay their workers enough to get by, you do realize that we spent trillions in welfare because of this right? Your tax money is basically subsidizing Amazon well I should say even more since we pay them with the tax code some more.

[PC2]

You're correct, because if the minimum wage had actually kept pace with productivity it would be in the realm of $24 an hour.

Moreover, living wage is in fact calculable, so shove of with that "the living wage doesn't mean anything" nonsense.

Anything is calculable when you make a formula with subjective weightings. Anyone can make their own formula based on whatever numbers they feel are appropriate.

[Elegiac]

Anything is calculable when you make a formula with subjective weightings. Anyone can make their own formula based on whatever numbers they feel are appropriate.

Cool, if you'd actually read the link I posted rather than replying with nonsense you'd see that the wage weightings are actually derived from median expenditures on a per-county basis.

There's nothing "subjective" about it beyond you finding the basic dignity of other humans a matter of opinion.

[PC2]

Cool, if you'd actually read the link I posted rather than replying with nonsense you'd see that the wage weightings are actually derived from median expenditures on a per-county basis.

There's nothing "subjective" about it beyond you finding the basic dignity of other humans a matter of opinion.

Yes it is subjective. Believing that wages should be based on the median expenditure is absurd and is itself a subjective belief. There's nothing objectively correct about setting wages based on the median.

[Elegiac]

Yes it is subjective. Believing that wages should be based on the median expenditure is absurd and is itself a subjective belief. There's nothing objectively correct about setting wages based on the median.

Once again, you're just broadcasting you didn't bother reading any of the evidence and are kneejerk responding. Lol.

Like I said; if executives that don't pay their employees a living wage are second rate and shouldn't be executives.