Lisa Benson for January 04, 2016

hardee

As Isaac Newton said “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Wage and price controls make substitutions in the form of automation a cheaper avenue to pursue. As always, there is no free lunch.

Factory jobs outsourced to China.IT jobs filled by H1B visa holders remotely managing a team in India.This leaves mostly service jobs at minimum wage. If these jobs continue to pay the pittance that they do, then who will be buying ANY of the products?

Plenty of times in the past fear mongering on min. wage increases has come to naught. You want a greasy, roach infested, improperly maintained machine cooking your food?

Too many employers see the minimum wage as the least, and maximum, they need to pay, by law, and do not pay more. Unless they cannot find anyone else to work for that pay scale. (que the workers who won’t be named by employers.)

try chaining min wage to CEO pay

I’ve been in the work force for a half a century and have seen several minimum wage increases. Every time one comes along the same arguments are used about it harming business. Never seen it do so yet.

Or the foreigners Obama is bringing into the USA that he has had printed, new green cards to give to the “New Workers”….-IMO the federal government has long been in violation of the Constitution by its Royal Edicts managing private businesses.The Market Place and business owners should have freedom to hire and fire and to set wages without government interference. Workers should have freedom to choose a workplace to apply to for jobs with pay schedules in line with the average wages found in the market place.-Anybody here remember what true Freedom used to be?’

Let employers decide what the minimum wage should be, and watch the minimum wage quite quickly evaporate into nothing. Hey! Disgusted American!! If the AVERAGE wage is 10 cents an hour….

Automation, artificial Intelligence, in-sourcing, and outsourcing have changed the quantity and quality of jobs. This is more of a function of capitalism in a global market, than anything our congress can comprehend. The job skills for working with automation, quantum computing, nanotechnology, etc are best done in other countries with better math and science skills. “Standardized test results appear to largely bear out those perceptions. While U.S. students are scoring higher on national math assessments than they did two decades ago (data from science tests are sketchier), they still rank around the middle of the pack in international comparisons, and behind many other advanced industrial nations.” http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/02/u-s-students-improving-slowly-in-math-and-science-but-still-lagging-internationally/

A higher minimum wage aside, if companies find that automation will work at their fast-food outlets, and it will save operating costs soon after investment, then automation will take over, and humans will be eliminated. End of story.

Lisa Benson is right. If your job is so simple that a few servo motors & an algorithm can replace you, you’re not worth keeping around.

Simply put, in the past, the technology of automation was either not available or cost-effective. At the same time, society was still requiring a certain human element. Now, that’s not so. The cost of designing, creating, purchasing, and maintaining automated systems is extremely inexpensive when compared to the cost of the labor associated with the work being done. For example, assembly lines at auto manufacturers now frequently involve a great deal of robots doing the work of people. We are now seeing that same evolution of technology moving into the cheaper segments of the market. At the same time, our society is now completely comfortable (and borderline prefers) automated interfaces. When I see an ordering kiosk, I don’t think, “Man, I wish I could talk to this fast-food worker.” I think, “Good, I can order it and it won’t get screwed up, and it’ll probably be faster.” It’s the same thing as the self-checkouts at Walmart, Home Depot, etc. Yes, there are some circumstances that need human interaction, but most of these “grab and go” type of purchases don’t NEED human involvement. So since society and technology have merged to make this possible, it’s now cost-effective to do this when these spoiled teens are demanding a $15/hr minimum wage. They want a doubling of their wage, for no improvement in the work product they are providing. From a business perspective, especially when you add in the cost of the PPACA, taxes, training, no-shows, work ethic, etc… it doesn’t make sense to retain a human work force in many of these “grab and go” industries. And as a consumer, why would I want to pay more for the exact same hamburger or french fries because people complained so loudly they got an unreasonable bump in pay that sets back the middle class wages decades? I know I didn’t get a doubling of my wages, so why should I be forced to pay more for a product because a special interest group was able to shout loudly enough to extort a wage increase that outstrips the group’s productivity value? This is simply an evolution that is being pushed forward because of the (unreasonable) demands of the “grab and go” industry workers. It was coming eventually, but they’ve simply accelerated the movement. If anyone’s to blame for this, it’s the 15/hour bullhorns for making this an issue that companies need to address. Going for maybe $9/hour would have gone without any of this being needed, but they overreached. And now they are being phased out as all obsolete equipment eventually is.

if you want to see wages for those at bottom of job skill market just close the borders [ supply and demand]