[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

There's a distinction to be made between a business that is profitable and could afford to pay employees more but chooses not to and a business where the model requires paying people little because there isn't sufficient revenue to cover higher costs.

I agree, but the end results are still the same for the employee.

The latter doesn't seem like a business owner who is exploiting people so much as a business owner who is struggling to generate enough revenue to cover costs and be prosperous by selling their products/services.

I don’t believe they are intentionally trying to cause hardship to an employee in this case, but again the end result is the same for the employee.

That’s not so different from employees who are struggling to find work that pays well. Employees are also participants in a market, selling their labor and time to generate revenue to cover their costs and hopefully prosper. Telling small business owners with struggling businesses that they just suck, don't deserve to be in business and should close up because they're having a hard time finding sufficient customers to generate revenue and cover their costs is pretty akin to telling an employee that they suck, don't deserve a decent job and should be out of the labor market because they can't find an employer willing to buy their labor and time at a high enough price to cover their costs.

Firstly I never said small business owners who can’t generate enough revenue “just suck”. While it may no doubt be the case in some examples, generally there are a number of other factors to consider for why a business is failing.

With that being said I disagree with comparing a struggling business owner to a low wage worker because at the end of the day no one is forcing you to own a business. Market forces need correcting to account for greed and exploitation. The problem isn’t the struggling small business owner paying minimum wage, it’s the more profitable businesses big and small who pay minimum wage when they can clearly afford to pay more. Small business owners could and should be helped with things like lower taxes or small business grants, but that doesn’t fix low wages at a business that was already in a position to pay more but doesn’t.

The way I see it there are 3 options to address low wages:

1.Increase the minimum wage. This may lead to some businesses struggling and some potential job loses but so far where it has happened the overall economic benefit appears to have outweighed the costs.

2.Introduce a UBI(This often surprises people but for the record I’m not sold on UBI being a good solution) or fund more social programs so people can afford to live off $7.25/hour. To do this we would have to increase taxes on businesses.

3.Make it easier for workers to form Unions so that at least the businesses who are exploiting workers can be addressed.

The problem isn’t figuring out which solution would work best, it’s that the overwhelming majority businesses oppose all 3 options and the most profitable ones pay millions to lobby the government to avoid having any of them become a reality.

I'm not even conservative, but I just don't get the sentiment of having no sympathy for business owners regardless of their circumstances. I agree that exploitative practices intended to leverage or expand power imbalances and profit off the suffering of others should be opposed, I just don't believe that's the nature of all businesses paying low wages. Sentiments that they just suck and should shut down their businesses seem like sentiments presented as humane while actually heartless.

I don’t disagree. One of the most generous employers I ever worked for was a small business. It wasn’t the highest paying job I ever had, not even close. But the owner did his best despite his own struggles to do what he could for his employees. His competitors were primarily massive corporations that paid their employees minimum wage but he still paid his staff more than they did despite earning far less in profits than his competitors.

If the goal is to increase wages which of the 3 options to address low wages listed above would be the most fair to exploited workers and least impactful to a good small business owner like the one in my example and the ones who are legitimately struggling?