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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Could it be that the offered wages are too low? Over a year and no takers says something about you not the workforce. But hey, kids can be payed even less, so let's make it possible to put them to work serving adult beverages. And after that we can let the be farmhands on a pot farm.
Not every employer can afford to pay more. Restaurants in particular operate on very thin margins. If the minimum wage, whether natural or legal, goes above what they can afford, the outcome isn't restaurants that pay more, it's fewer restaurant jobs.
This is just one of the many reasons why people who actually care about the poor, working or otherwise, should be transitioning away from a massive package of subsidies and entitlements that separately target an innumerable number of groups that need some kind of help (including workers whose wages are insufficient to live) and toward a single Basic Income program. In addition to being much cheaper to administer and much easier to access, it would also allow us to put the burden on those privileged individuals and entities that can actually afford to bear the burden, rather than putting up a sign that says "your business must be at least this profitable to operate".
Are you being sarcastic?
"demand" is not only willingness, but also ability to pay. If a business is going to pay employees more, it has to come from somewhere. If rents are rising and investors have other places to put their money, then it's going to have to come from the customers. And the customers don't have infinite money any more than anyone else does.
There are plenty of services that provide value to society, but don't necessarily bring in massive amounts of revenue. There's even a value to the workers themselves, the pride in providing a service to customers on need rather than having to come up with sketchy ways to squeeze yet more money out of the upper middle class. And don't forget: restaurant owners aren't rich. Most of them aren't even upper middle. Divide their take-home by the number of hours they work, and many small business owners are doing poorly, sacrificing income for the sake of running their own business. The workers need to be able to sustain themselves, but just as most of the income of the rich comes from a source other than their labor, there's no reason 100% of anyone's income has to come from their labor.
A UBI would put more money in both the worker's pocket, and their customers. Not only would it make it possible for workers to sustain themselves without breaking small businesses operating at the margin, it would also make it easier for the customers to absorb higher wages, should it become necessary.
The naivete of capitalist fundamentalism. It doesn't actually work that way. You'd know if you'd experienced anything outside the bubble you were born in.