Last week the Panera Bread store I went to had 6 kiosks for customers to self order. And they threw in a free cookie for using a kiosk (I guess this is a way for them to encourage their customers to use the kiosk rather the min wage worker to order). Ironically, it is these types of capital investments that increase productivity that allows companies to pay their employees higher wages. What previously too 2-3 workers to take orders can be done by a single person. If left alone, the market would've prefered more lower wage workers for taking orders than a single higher paid worker that helps with the kiosks. That single worker is better off but the store owner who was forced to make a capital investment that they probably would not have made and the workers who have fewer employment opportunities clearly are not.
I don't know about stepping stone, but i did work as a bagger at a grocery store for minimum wage at $5.50/hr in 2000. I was a teenager though. Don't supposed i would have stayed there long if i needed to pay the rent.
Reposted for spelling. Id be interested hearing from other EPJ readers about their work experiences. How many of yall used a minimum wage job as a stepping stone to something better? I know I did. How about you Bob or Chris?
I actually "did my own thing" at a very young age before having my first job(at minimum wage). At 10 I collected cans, at 14 I washed cars for people in an apartment complex I lived in on the weekends, my first "payroll" job was at 15 skate boarding(living in SoCal) around the apartment complex I lived in picking up garbage at minimum wage. I then transitioned to another minimum wage job at 15 as a busboy at a restaurant where I made really good money(in tips) for my age...working almost 40 hours/week while also going to school. I'd skateboard from school to the restaurant 2-3 times a week and start my shift around 4pm and work till 11pm(or later sometimes) and I ALWAYS worked both Saturday & Sunday because that's when I made the big bucks.
That 2nd minimum wage job was particularly valuable to me because I was able to buy my own car and pay for my own insurance/gas and I learned to deal with difficult people . It also helped me learn to multi task and started me on thinking about time management(which I'm still constantly refining).
My first "official job" was as a bus boy/dishwasher for a restaurant deli when I was 14 or 15 years old. This was in the late 90's, and I think I made $6.00/hour. I'm now much older, much more skilled, and am definitely not working that same job for the same wage.
My first job was minimum wage in a school office at age 14. The pay hardly mattered; gaining basic skills was far more important. But most important of all was the hugely empowering sense of agency. I can make my own money by helping other people! What good luck to learn that lesson at a young age.
I can't remember a single subject from my useless school curriculum that year but I certainly remember that job and the jobs that quickly followed: shop clerk, shop assistant manager. At 16 I was living in my own apartment (parentally subsidized) and reading economics. As a result, I never confused schooling with education. And I never stopped working, because I never wanted to.
I'm 38 now and owe my present happiness, and my children's happiness, to that early start. But today that experience is beyond the reach of many college grads, to say nothing of young teens. The reality is almost too disturbing to contemplate: entire generations are being permanently handicapped, for their own good!
I kinda did. I'd worked minimum wage jobs pretty much most of my life up to age 23. Got a part- time job at a gas station for minimum wage. That turned into a full time job when I was transferred to another gas station where I was kinda the acting manager, but not officially. Still getting minimum wage.
Found out about a security job that paid a buck or two more than minimum wage from one of the customers at the gas station. I applied for the security job, they ended up calling me and I got hired part- time with that job. When I told the gas station owner I'd found another job, he offered me to make me the official manager of the gas station and that he'd put me on salary.
Don't know what the salary would have been but I'm sure it was more than minimum wage. I begged off and opted for the security job. That paid a buck or two an hour more than minimum, but I was only working relief (covered for people that were off for whatever reason). High turnover, though, so within a year it became full time.
Not only full time but since it was a nuclear facility and the utility was worried about looking bad with NRC because of the high turnover, they also raised the pay there from something like $4.50 an hour to $10.00 an hour. Good money for the time (1980s). That actually put me into the middle class for the first time since I'd left home.
As a teen, almost all of my jobs started at minimum wage. But I almost always got a raise within a month because I proved my productivity. This anecdotally indicates that the minimum wage is a barrier to employment. If it had been higher at the time I might not have even got my foot in the door.
The free market will always surprise the do-gooders in congress.
ReplyDeleteLast week the Panera Bread store I went to had 6 kiosks for customers to self order. And they threw in a free cookie for using a kiosk (I guess this is a way for them to encourage their customers to use the kiosk rather the min wage worker to order). Ironically, it is these types of capital investments that increase productivity that allows companies to pay their employees higher wages. What previously too 2-3 workers to take orders can be done by a single person. If left alone, the market would've prefered more lower wage workers for taking orders than a single higher paid worker that helps with the kiosks. That single worker is better off but the store owner who was forced to make a capital investment that they probably would not have made and the workers who have fewer employment opportunities clearly are not.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about stepping stone, but i did work as a bagger at a grocery store for minimum wage at $5.50/hr in 2000. I was a teenager though. Don't supposed i would have stayed there long if i needed to pay the rent.
DeleteReposted for spelling.
ReplyDeleteId be interested hearing from other EPJ readers about their work experiences. How many of yall used a minimum wage job as a stepping stone to something better? I know I did. How about you Bob or Chris?
I actually "did my own thing" at a very young age before having my first job(at minimum wage). At 10 I collected cans, at 14 I washed cars for people in an apartment complex I lived in on the weekends, my first "payroll" job was at 15 skate boarding(living in SoCal) around the apartment complex I lived in picking up garbage at minimum wage. I then transitioned to another minimum wage job at 15 as a busboy at a restaurant where I made really good money(in tips) for my age...working almost 40 hours/week while also going to school. I'd skateboard from school to the restaurant 2-3 times a week and start my shift around 4pm and work till 11pm(or later sometimes) and I ALWAYS worked both Saturday & Sunday because that's when I made the big bucks.
DeleteThat 2nd minimum wage job was particularly valuable to me because I was able to buy my own car and pay for my own insurance/gas and I learned to deal with difficult people . It also helped me learn to multi task and started me on thinking about time management(which I'm still constantly refining).
My first "official job" was as a bus boy/dishwasher for a restaurant deli when I was 14 or 15 years old. This was in the late 90's, and I think I made $6.00/hour. I'm now much older, much more skilled, and am definitely not working that same job for the same wage.
DeleteMy first job was minimum wage in a school office at age 14. The pay hardly mattered; gaining basic skills was far more important. But most important of all was the hugely empowering sense of agency. I can make my own money by helping other people! What good luck to learn that lesson at a young age.
DeleteI can't remember a single subject from my useless school curriculum that year but I certainly remember that job and the jobs that quickly followed: shop clerk, shop assistant manager. At 16 I was living in my own apartment (parentally subsidized) and reading economics. As a result, I never confused schooling with education. And I never stopped working, because I never wanted to.
I'm 38 now and owe my present happiness, and my children's happiness, to that early start. But today that experience is beyond the reach of many college grads, to say nothing of young teens. The reality is almost too disturbing to contemplate: entire generations are being permanently handicapped, for their own good!
I kinda did. I'd worked minimum wage jobs pretty much most of my life up to age 23. Got a part- time job at a gas station for minimum wage. That turned into a full time job when I was transferred to another gas station where I was kinda the acting manager, but not officially. Still getting minimum wage.
DeleteFound out about a security job that paid a buck or two more than minimum wage from one of the customers at the gas station. I applied for the security job, they ended up calling me and I got hired part- time with that job. When I told the gas station owner I'd found another job, he offered me to make me the official manager of the gas station and that he'd put me on salary.
Don't know what the salary would have been but I'm sure it was more than minimum wage. I begged off and opted for the security job. That paid a buck or two an hour more than minimum, but I was only working relief (covered for people that were off for whatever reason). High turnover, though, so within a year it became full time.
Not only full time but since it was a nuclear facility and the utility was worried about looking bad with NRC because of the high turnover, they also raised the pay there from something like $4.50 an hour to $10.00 an hour. Good money for the time (1980s). That actually put me into the middle class for the first time since I'd left home.
As a teen, almost all of my jobs started at minimum wage. But I almost always got a raise within a month because I proved my productivity. This anecdotally indicates that the minimum wage is a barrier to employment. If it had been higher at the time I might not have even got my foot in the door.
ReplyDelete