Minimum Wage? Self-Service Pays $0 Per Hour... With Absolutely No Benefits
Minimum Wage? Self-Service Pays $0 Per Hour...
With Absolutely No Benefits
BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, FEB 06, 2021 - 13:30 Authored by Ethel C. Fenig via AmericanThinker.com,
As Parker Beauregard proved once again yesterday,
when preening politicians force businesses, in this case grocery store workers
in Long Beach, Calif., to pay their workers higher wages - for the workers' own
good, of course - the workers lose.
Indeed,
just about everyone loses. Except the politicians.
In this case, the grocery store workers lost
their jobs. The residents in the neighborhoods where these
grocery stores were located lost the convenience of having reliable, well
stocked grocery stores serving a wide variety of fresh food close
by. The city lost the tax revenue the stores
generated. The residents of the city will lose money or services
because the city will have to charge higher taxes or reduce services to
compensate for lost tax revenue. The remaining stores will increase
prices to cover their increased labor costs.
Indeed, so the only winners will be the politicians, who will
pat themselves on the back as they compliment themselves for their own
wonderfulness.
Something
similar is occurring in my city, hundreds of miles from Long Beach,
Calif.
When the minimum wage increased, a local grocery chain, Target,
Home Depot, and a number of other stores reduced the number of full-service
checkout lanes and 10 items or fewer checkout lanes while greatly
expanding the self-checkout lanes.
Boom! Many
of the cashiers lost their jobs! The baggers, many of
whom were (warning: P.C. speak ahead) developmentally delayed and were placed
in these jobs through a coordinated effort with the company, neighboring
schools, and social workers, lost their jobs. Instead, now, with
multiple closed-circuit cameras overhead, one worker, enjoying newly increased
pay, supervises the multiple terminals, watching as shoppers scan, bag, and pay
for their items, helping out when necessary.
The
situation is similar in nearby fast food restaurants. Yes,
those fast food restaurants, so often scorned by the elite, once provided an
introduction to the world of work for low-skilled people, students, and new
immigrants. But that was then, and this is now. And now
these opportunities for those who so desperately need them are diminished as
higher labor costs give owners no choice but to replace order-takers with
touchscreens and introduce self-pick-up instead of servers.
Touchscreens
pay for themselves within a few weeks.
And they don't call in sick.
And the
newly jobless quickly discover that $0 per hour doesn't buy much.
But the politicians and labor leaders keep their inflated
salaries — well above the minimum wage — so they don't care.
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