Tempers flared today over a $15 minimum wage story THAT TKC BROKE and the topic of Missouri Supremacy: Shouting match erupts during KC minimum wage debate
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- The Management
KC reminds me of the mouse that roared. They just love to spend other people's money
ReplyDeleteLet me try to explain this for those that failed economics. FWIW, I am the general partner of limited partnership that owns two fast food franchise restaurants in Kansas City. I own one third of the total partnership. We employ 57 workers between the two locations and our average hourly wage is just a hair over $10.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone that employs low-skill workers, we have been very mindful of actions related to raising the minimum wage around the county. Our franchisor, like most all in this business, has provided us with cost information on automated systems for speeding up the customers' experience and, in the long run, reducing franchisees' cost of doing business. I've been through the numbers as we have added healthcare costs to our overhead and I'm revisiting them again as the possibility of a 31% minimum wage increase is being discussed at City Hall.
You might look at our situation and say, "You already pay better than the proposed minimum wage". And that is true, on average. However, the distribution of wages is fairly broad -- it looks a lot like the diversified skills profile of my employees. Suffice it to say, better than 30 of my workers would get a raise if Mr. Reed's proposal were to pass the Council.
Realistically, however, those thirty will not see that raise. Three years ago, the technology aiming to replace my workers was expensive. It still is expensive but it has fallen in cost by almost 60% in these three years. Also, my actual cost to employ a worker has increased by roughly 12% during the same time due to insurance costs and other uncontrollable costs of doing business. I've done the math and looked closely at the machinery and I'm certain that I can run my restaurants with 26 employees -- 13 at each location with an investment that equates out to approximately 26 month's labor of those 31 employees left out in the cold.
Don't get me wrong. I lay awake nights trying to figure out how to make things work for all of my employees in this environment of rising costs. However, I didn't enter into this business to go into bankruptcy. I have partners and I have business loans. They expect a fair return on their investments -- and a fairly meager one at that given current interest rates.
So... in the next several weeks, if this ordinance passes, I will make the hard choice of eliminating 30+ jobs and going deeper into debt or dissolving the partnership, letting go of 57 employees, and returning my investors' money. I'm just an overworked small businessman but my story is probably fairly common among those in my position. I hope that the City Council and all of the church leaders with their collective hands out are ready to face economic facts.
The pink slimed . . . Soy stretched . . . . Corn sucrosed . . . Salt laden. . . ."burger" that was shipped from Brazil or China filled with hormones . . . .then, irradiated. . ..pulverized into goo . . .flat caked....frozen . . .then, packaged and warehoused for months when "FUTURES" dictate...YOU want to slam that crap through a tube like the drive up bank??? For Crise Sakes...What AUTOMATION are you talking about.....??? Go ahead destroy more jobs....bet you'd drop your sh*t food from a China jet...and AMERICANS . . .would still buy it . . .the ones left with JOBS!!!
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the first objective post offered in TKC in months.
Without necessarily agreeing, I am convinced that broad brush, blunt edge, solutions rarely works.
Seattle is a bogus comparison at so many levels, that I hope the proponents don't even go there.
Is this city council so stupid they can't see how this will affect business with in the city limits. To pay that kind of salaries businesses will have to raise their costs and the customers will just slip across the state line and spend their money in Kansas or the next town over.
ReplyDeleteThe same tired old grifters like Sam Mann who have done more to destroy the east side of the city than pretty much anyone else.
ReplyDeleteDon't get an education or work hard to improve yourself.
Instead DEMAND what you WANT and roll out all the lame excuses (Missouri was the last state to abolish slavery) that we've all been listening to for decades.
Don't work to learn about how city government actually works.
DEMAND to get your "fair share" because of something that took place in an entirely different state.
Don't become a part of efforts to increase public safety in your own neighborhood.
DEMAND that the taxpayers build grocery stores and community centers and fund amusements, even as the homicide rates stay at six every month.
Any status quo benefits some people, even if the great majority suffers terribly.
The real enemy is standing right in front of you.
City governments can only do what they're authorized to do by the state legislature and this is not possible under current law.
ReplyDeleteMaybe next the KCMO city council will vote to repeal gravity, but only if Gwen Grant and the Urban Summit demand it.
Can people really be this stupid?
Ed Ford Smoke Pole
ReplyDelete6:57
ReplyDeletewhy not demand the same low interest loans the banks get from the Feds for your business.
It's the banks screwing us all.
Good point 9:04.
ReplyDeleteStill, 6:57 is dead on the money. It will kill jobs for low skilled workers. You can punch in YOUR OWN ORDER AT BURGER KING!!
Here is something else, if the minimum wage goes to 15.00 in the near future, it will actually attract more skilled workers and AGAIN, kill jobs for those folks taking orders and flipping burgers.
It is a hell of a bad idea and is so typical of government over reach that destroys the free market and kills jobs, and creativity.
Funny, Michael Mahoney will report on this 'ish but will not report on facts and conflicts against Jermaine Reed.
ReplyDelete8:15 PM
ReplyDeleteYes, people are really that stupid.
They voted Jermaine in office didn't they, even after being disqualified to run? He got in on a fluke.
Sly James - remember him?
Teresa Garza was close to winning a counsel seat before some brave soul outed her and caused her disqualification.
People believe whatever they see and hear on television, in gossip, in passing; even if the facts are overwhelmingly in conflict with what is being said. It's the reason we have the type of City governance we do - and why a particular segment of the Kansas City population is always on the losing end.
"They should have been here today".
ReplyDelete- Sam Mann
Fact check, the City of Kansas City does a terrible job of alerting constituents, especially Jermaine Reed and Melba Curls, on when public issues are up for public debate in a public setting. Notice that Council Chambers was completely empty with the exception of a handful of extortionist Black (and wanna be Black) Baptist Ministers. The absence was due to lack of information - and dare I say leadership from Reed/Curls.
Reed's aid sends out email blast about pretty much everything else but fact is, if you're NOT apart of URBAN SCUMMIT, Reed believes you're no citizen of the Third District. The 20 people that attend Urban SCUMMIT functions amount to primarily out-of-town con men looking for their turn at the public trough. Urban Summit signs up the next convict (headed by the main convict, James Tindall) and the rest is history.
Not one of those Baptist preachers owns a business of their own.
Do I feel bad for Shaneika with 8 kids and 5 baby daddy's? Yes, but is minimum wage of $10.00/hour really going to help her? No, it's not.
Here's why:
First, $10,00/hour x 40 hours/week for 52 months is only $20,800 - still below the federal poverty line.
What Shaneika needs is a job training program, a life coach, day care and education and psychological counseling. Perhaps, that's the program Reed needs to focus on. Giving her $10.00/hour job does nothing but enhance her problems.
You'd think that after attaining a degree in political science, being hugged up on Congressman Cleaver and spending four years on the City Council, Reed would have a better understanding of income, economics and the needs of the community. He doesn't but con men get rewarded with favor and influence all the time in this country without recourse.
Sweet land of liberty!
657. It's not about economics it's about votes
ReplyDeleteWho the fuck is this "Sam Mann" asshole?? That hair is absurd and his manner is demented. Send this little, fuck back to the playground...
ReplyDeleteOk, I just Googled this Mann asshole and guess what, he IS an asshole! A certified, "preacher" asshole. Never had a real job in his whole life....just preaching on how wonderful NIGGERS are and how we should bow to them, every chance we get. No, asshole, you go on back down south...
ReplyDeleteAgain, I don't think working at McDonalds or Burger King was meant for adults, It's usually a TEENAGERS first job.
ReplyDeleteWho the fuck made the city ghetto rats the State legislature? Every fucking time KC gets it's fingers into business it turns out to be a disaster. The greeday bastards just had to chum up to developers and build Zona Rosa. In the end all they did was put the largest mall in the metro out of business. They just had to build sports stadiums and ended up with a shitload of low paying service jobs and a big black hole for tax payers. They just had to build night clubs at the P&L. Look at what the mess has turned into. Then you have the train station, the jazz district, the black ass ball museum and lets not forget the mess the trolly is going to be. If the city really wants to make life great for folks in KC how about keeping up the sewer systems, water supply, electrical grid, streets paved and handling the basic city services before deciding they are fucking business geniuses. God Damn elected ass hats and bureaucrats are a fucking nemeses in this town
ReplyDeleteSoon , Kansas City will "Mirror" the City of Detroit !!
ReplyDeleteBankrupt, Extremely High Crime rates and Ghetto buildings everywhere, its comin' !!
and they wonder why ???