Isn’t there already some amount (I think it’s $2000/year so less than you’re suggesting) that companies have to pay for each non-citizen employee?
Not sure – I did a topical check but couldn’t find anything. (just not happening today; work has been too draining).
I did find this, but it doesn’t really say whether penalties are assessed currently.
http://www.american-consensus.org/topics/labor/outsourcing.html
Obviously in the old “guns and butter” econ lessons, individual states are well served by identifying a competitive advantage in a certain industry or industries, and exploiting that advantage.
Technological innovation can’t be our only competitive advantage, right? Aren’t we really, really good at building airplanes and making pizza? Maybe we should concentrate on those two things. hehe (but not really joking… not entirely)
Well, I found this for H1-B employees. Looks like it adds up to $1575 for companies with 24 or fewer employees, $2325 for companies with more than 24 employees.
http://www.usavisanow.com/h-1b-visa/h-1b-visa-attorney-services/
Even if you add them paying for families’ travel expenses to the US, that fine probably is not enough to dissuade our companies from bringing in foreign labor on those visas. There is a company here in Cedar Rapids, Rockwell Collins, that brings in a lot of labor from the Asian subcontinent.
M2CK said…
“1) many/most of the McD workers are not low income. They’re young folks being supported by parents, single people with no dependents (often sharing a home with another similar person), spouses with another income, retired people looking to supplement their income, people on disability who allowed to earn about $1000 a month w/o it hurting their benefits (which taxpayers are covering ANYWAY).”
I have noticed that this has not been true for teenagers the of the urban northeast for quite a while. I have been in McDonalds’ restaurants in the hard scrabble former industrial suburbs of Boston, various neighborhoods in and around New York City, and even in wealthy Fairfax County in Virginia. In every location the clear majority of workers whom we heretofore expected to be teenagers or very young adults, were Hispanic adults, some approaching middle age and clearly many of whom were immigrants or recent newcomers to the USA. My point is that the fry cook, cashier and general worker job at the major fast food chains are no longer for the stereotypical American teenager. That’s where much of the base of the $15/hour movement comes from; minority adults, many being Hispanic. The stereotypical “All-American Teenager” (notice the quotation marks, please) either chooses not to work, or finds herself/himself working at a mall shop or corner store that requires a bit more skill in its labor force; i.e. kids whom know how to manipulate the latest smartphone minutia or video game, or can impress a customer with his/her knowledge of fashion from Steve Madden, Australian Ugg, or Nike. That’s where the American teenage worker is today.
My point is, adults have essentially commandeered these jobs from teenagers. Even Cinema metroplexes employ older workers for evening hours these days, and certainly do so for weekend matinees. Why aren’t such folks getting a raise, too?
Meant to say …“adults have commandeered these LOW WAGE jobs from teenagers.”
LakeWashington you have hit on one of the reasons for my concern. We are importing people to squeeze young black men out of employment and that has serious consequences.
H1-B visas aren’t used to bring in unskilled workers.
GMT, as I said, I was responding to LakeWashington’s post about adults working in fast food restaurants.
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My point is, adults have essentially commandeered these jobs from teenagers. Even Cinema metroplexes employ older workers for evening hours these days, and certainly do so for weekend matinees. Why aren’t such folks getting a raise, too?
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it’s probably a regional thing and “time of day” thing. In our area, it is a lot of teens and college kids working nights and weekends, and seniors and probably single parents working during the day.
It also depends on the economy.
My daughter used to work at a cineplex, mostly teenagers from high school from this area. There were some older than teenagers but they were about 22 at most as managers, not as worker bees. Plus I don’t think a teenager get full time employment either, in bad time, the hours are reduced weekly.
On a side note:
TonkyK: The reason you couldn’t find anything on minimum wage in Sweden is because there isn’t one. McDonald’s and other fast food chains establish a collective agreement with the Hotel and Restaurant union, which regulates wages according to these tables: http://www.hrf.net/din-lon. The minimum wage is between 13 and 15 dollars. The wage is higher during “inconvenient working hours” - nights, weekends and public holidays, and instead of vacataion days you recieve monetary compensation. If you’re not working hours, the monthly salary as about 2400 dollars.
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Thank you for the information. This is similar to how Denmark’s agreement works.
Back on the home front, I read that Los Angeles County recently approved a $15 per hour minimum wage by 2020 for all of it’s 100,000 workers in the county and matching the city of Los Angeles’ lead. Surrounding counties are mulling over a raise in their minimum wage with some expressing uncertainty and others reluctant to go up to $15 per hour.
Here’s another group riding on the gravy train and about to be moving on up the corporate ladder…23,000 hotel workers in New York City had their trade council approve a new agreement starting in 2019. Every year up to 2025, the workers will be given a $1.00 per hour pay increase (I won’t say earn), so that by 2025 a housekeeper will be making nearly $40 per hour along with FREE family health insurance.
That’s $83,200 per year, and I’d hope for a box of Swiss chocolates, tickets to a Broadway show, and a stuffed teddy bear on my pillow every night when I stay in a NYC hotel. 
Well, that’s sort of what QE was supposed to do. What else would you have proposed be done?
Good for them. Just think of all the taxes that they paid! We should strive for many more companies with multi-billion dollar profits.
But see, that’s the thing, they are not. Mickey D’s paid plenty of taxes on its 'Profits".
But back to the minimum wage. I still can’t understand why folks are using MCDonald’s as an example. IMO, its a bogeyman.
Only 5% of McDonald’s restaurants in NYC are company owned. In other words, 95% are local franchisees, and not much different than the local pizza owner, selling a 'slice".
Similarly, ~100% of Burger King restaurants in NYC are franchisees, locally owned and operated.
McDonald’s franchise owners in NYC and NY State will soon be caught between a rock and a hard place. Company-owned stores just raised starting wages to $9.75 and their employees will earn paid time off and be eligible for tuition assistance.
So the franchise owner hears the $15 per hour clock ticking while noticing sales are declining and food costs are rising. Do they risk raising prices and lose more customers to competitors? Can they trust the company to look out for them when it’s crunch time? Who in their right mind would buy a McDonald’s franchise for close to a million dollars outlay with all of these problems? What happens if all fast food workers unionize?
It will be interesting to see what happens when the dominoes fall one by one over the next several years.
Here’s an article about SeaTac, WA’s experience with a new $15/hour minimum wage:
I hadn’t thought about the free time factor which benefits families and children in many ways. Some workers will be able to quit second jobs or buy cars to get back and forth to work or school.
A UMass Study of NY’s fast food industry estimates the $15 minimum wage increase will increase fast food wages by 1 billion dollars in 2021, or 12% of sales. The study paints a rosy picture of life after 2021 for both franchisees and their workers. But what about the workers in Binghamton, NY earning average wages of $16.05 today? They will probably be making around $17.00 in 2021. Won’t they feel they should be making much more than a worker in Burger King?
airport travelers (thru Sea-Tac) are economically sticky, and generally much less price senistive than I would guess fast food buyers are…
No, it is called a monopoly, and has nothing to do with price sensitivity of the consumer. There is nowhere else to get food or services because one cannot conveniently leave the airport. A monopoly simply allows higher process to exist, regardless of the consumers’ price sensitivity. And of course they are economically sticky, if there is nowhere else to go.
“A UMass Study of NY’s fast food industry estimates the $15 minimum wage increase will increase fast food wages by 1 billion dollars in 2021, or 12% of sales. The study paints a rosy picture of life after 2021 for both franchisees and their workers. But what about the workers in Binghamton, NY earning average wages of $16.05 today? They will probably be making around $17.00 in 2021. Won’t they feel they should be making much more than a worker in Burger King?”
Let me assure you that workers in Binghamton making $16/hour today have the luxury of knowing that their homes will be even more worthless in 2021 then they are now. So, where else in the country are there people who can say that? And by 2021 residents of the entire area may be able to experience the toxic plume that homes in Endicott float on because those fumes are free to migrate. It is a free country after all! Living in the city with just about the most intractable poverty in the country is served up with loads of other goodies. Got University? Yes and more!