Quote:
Originally Posted by Kich867
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I mean I think that's going to be a challenge no matter what. The result from what you're saying suggests that there needs to be very poor people to keep prices down? But it sounds like they'd be pretty fucked regardless if they're making better wages or not.
I'd be interested to know how the cost of living interacts with the minimum wage and whether that was causal or if it had anything to do with companies like Amazon introducing high paying jobs in droves.
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So one of my areas of study way back in college was business. I took 3 semesters of econ, 2 semesters of accounting, 1 semester of marketing. Additionally after switching majors a couple times I finished with a minor in psychology, sociology/criminology and a handful of other classes related to it all.
In regards to your first paragraph; that crap has been debated since Caveman Clurg demanded two turkey legs for every five avocados. It continues today with different things and will continue until humanity ends.
As far as your second paragraph....there's definitely some correlation but how closely linked they are is anybody's argument. Amazon definitely did bring in a lot of high wage people but for Seattle this is nothing new. Microsoft made a huge pile of millionaires starting in the mid 1980's. Boeing people can become wealthy if they work with the right people/groups. Add in all the high paid scientific/medical/healthcare people and there's definitely a lot of high paid people in this area.
Before the minimum wage hike most of the $7.25 people were working for tips. The people that didn't get tips made in the $12-$15/hour range already. The people that have lived here awhile knew who was making minimum wage; we tipped fairly generously if the service was good. Example: I had season tickets to hockey. A beer was $4; everybody there simply gave the bartender $5. Ditto with pretzels. Nacho's were $8, pay $10 and let the server keep $2. Supergiant HOWEVER, the shitty/asshole bartenders/servers didn't make jack in tips so they "got screwed" by the system.
Now where the Amazon people come into this equation....most (not all, just most) are transplants. Take somebody from a part of the country/world with a low cost of living and start paying them $90k/year. Woohoo, they just won at life. The life winner goes out to lunch with their team for the first time. Each person on the team gets their bill....$20 for a burger, bowl of potato salad one one beer? Fucking ripoff man! These asshole servers are making more serving me than engineers back in my hometown! I'm going to leave them a lousy $1 tip on a $20 meal. This crap should only cost $5 back home.
There's a lot more than this very simplified explanation but this should be enough to give the general gist of what's going on here.