Saturday, 16 January 2021

This Biden $15 An Hour Minimum Wage Chatter

 What started yesterday is this talk from the Biden-camp that in the first month or two....he'll have a package to send to the House.....to redraw the minimum wage in the US.....to $15 (currently at 7.25 on the national scale).

The likely path?  A lot was left out of this story.  I suspect you'd see a $2 rise in 2021, with a second rise in 2022, and the final rise by the end of 2023.  

So you take the Burger King whopper XL menu and throw it up on the board.  $9.49 for the burger, fries and Coke.

You can go and figure that with the $15 standard....the menu has to go up to $11.99.  But you aren't really finished, because there's the sales tax increase (9.5-percent there in Nashville).   So between 25 to 30 cents will be added onto the bill....making it fairly close to $12.30.  

Taking your spouse, and two kids out?  Even if the kids go for the regular men items....the man-hour cost went up, and the local sales tax with it.....it's near $45.  Would you pay that?

In most locations....sticker-shock would occur.   I would imagine around one-third of customers would start to consider their options.  

But why just limit your vision with fast-food?  Over at your Piggly-Wiggly....probably one-third of the 'help' are making absolute minimum-wage as a start-up job.  The folks with five years?  They are probably up around $10 to $12.  You would probably notice with sales tax included....your weekly $100 cost at the grocery is going by spring of 2022 to around $112.  

Will people just accept the trend and higher cost?  Or will they step back and limit their purchases for a year or two....trying to rectify this in their mind?

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