[jthomas1600]

Originally Posted by JerryLove

Then you should go after this guy posting as you.

And if they said it in a memo it must be true?

Of course not.

Why does your wife's job not pay minimum wage to begin with? The same reason it doesn't pay $200,000 per year: because that's what the market dictates.

If I need to hire someone to do accounting for my business: I'm not going to pay minimum wage, and I'm not going to pay a million a year, and what taxes, unemployment insurance, etc I have to pay will be irrellevent. I will pay based on what I can get a good accountant for. No more (because I don't want to) and no less (because I need an accountant).

Don't be nieve.

Jerry, in my original post along these lines I was basically agreeing with something you said... that the employee is "paying into" unemployment. I think your term was "they made that money off the sweat of my brow" and all you've done is make non nonsensical attacks. Again, I never mentioned profits. I mentioned added expenses and while those can be related to profits it's not the same thing. Are you really saying that increased expenses have no relation to wages?


And if they said it in a memo it must be true?

It wasn't true because they sent out a memo, it was true because it happened. Minimum wage took a substantial hike and raises for that year were cut to a fraction of what they had been for all employees the previous 3 or 4 years.

[redbaron]

Jerry, I think it may be harder for small businesses to cover than it is fortune 50 places like you're working for. I'm not doing the books anymore, but I still work pretty closely with that side of the business, as well as do my own consulting so I still get the information from the state.

The unemployment tax rates have more than doubled in the last couple years, and frankly it's a huge cost. Sure if you're sitting on billions in cash who cares, but small business sometimes runs a question of hiring someone or not, due to these costs, or even laying people off. It's yet another cost that large business seems to have no issues with, but for us little guys it's crippling. Heck, my state taxes revenues on the gross, not the net. I can literally run a business in washington state and owe more in taxes than the company makes in a year.

For what it's worth I'm surprised that you guys have had such trouble collecting unemployment. For what it's worth the people that I've known who have stayed on it for as long as possible to do their own thing have been pretty wise financially and had no debt/minimal expenses. *shrug*

[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by jthomas1600

Jerry, in my original post along these lines I was basically agreeing with something you said... that the employee is "paying into" unemployment. I think your term was "they made that money off the sweat of my brow" and all you've done is make non nonsensical attacks. Again, I never mentioned profits. I mentioned added expenses and while those can be related to profits it's not the same thing. Are you really saying that increased expenses have no relation to wages?

You tied company profit/loss to raises. There is, generally, no such tie.

It wasn't true because they sent out a memo, it was true because it happened. Minimum wage took a substantial hike and raises for that year were cut to a fraction of what they had been for all employees the previous 3 or 4 years.

Correlation does not equal causation. Because they followed through on the action in their memo, does not mean that the stated cause was the real one.

Many companies have lowered or stopped raises since the recession. Many of those are showing level or increasing profitability. Essentially none are seeing higher burdens from taxes or the like. They simply know people are less likely to quit in this market.

[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by redbaron

Jerry, I think it may be harder for small businesses to cover than it is fortune 50 places like you're working for. I'm not doing the books anymore, but I still work pretty closely with that side of the business, as well as do my own consulting so I still get the information from the state.

Larger companies also have far larger employee pools to deal with.

But I'm not asserting that there are no peroblems: merely that reducing unemployment benifits, and lowering unemployment charges to the businesses, will not raise wages (in general).

[redbaron]

right, but if I have 5 employees and have to lay one off, it's 20% of my workforce. when you start looking at it as percentages, it's way more devastating to a small business than to a large one. Boeing can lay off 10,000 people and not even come close percentage wise to the kind of impact on their bottom line that it does for us with 1-2 people being let go.

[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by redbaron

right, but if I have 5 employees and have to lay one off, it's 20% of my workforce. when you start looking at it as percentages, it's way more devastating to a small business than to a large one. Boeing can lay off 10,000 people and not even come close percentage wise to the kind of impact on their bottom line that it does for us with 1-2 people being let go.

And if your costs went down you would give them all raises and pay their replacements more?

I can promise you Boeing wouldn't.