the impact a $15 per hour minimum wage on the trucking industry

This says it all... LOL!

“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.

“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”

 

Well, the reason Walmart drivers now make 80k a year is that their drivers sued over not making a minimum wage for every hour they spend away from home. Hell, I’m part of a class action suit against Swift for not being paid minimum wage while training lol.

But do I want a federal minimum wage? No.

 

You can't have it both it ways.

 

She's almost at that mind blowing moment where she finally realizes where all the money for these projects comes from

This is what happens when jobs become automated/obsolete and you have a PM who opens the border to every single person who wants to come in. I was told that by 2050, 80% of today's jobs won't exist. I guess they need to come up with some kind of universal income or else 80% of the population would be flat broke.

 

This is the root of the problem. Fix the value of your currency, and everything else will fix itself.

 

And what are you thinking?
Most of us workers are making next to nothing while the CEO's and stockholders are raking in record profits and living like royalty, and yet the working peasents complain that they themselves are making...too much?

Quit listening to the baloney that you are being fed by the rich, corporate owned mind-control media; MSN, CNN, Fox News, NPR..... all of it. Period.

Here's the real deal... if wages go up, the companies do not go under, nor are they impacted negatively; it's simply that the couple of really, really rich guys at the top make only $40 million per year profits for themselves instead of $60 million.

 

My young friend was working in Radio repair shop. The kid is a whiz of electronics and they would only pay him $11 per hour while charging $90 per hour for CB repairs. Yes it was a place to work until a fair paying employer scooped him up.
Businesses not going under for wages...goods and services cost may rise but hardly noticeable

 

That is a tad bit different, we are under different guidelines. Guidelines and laws that need to be addressed. What these MEGA carriers get away with is criminal, along with other smaller outfits and their lobbyists. First step is to shut down the borders/immigration, we need a moratorium, and eliminate the visa holders that are flooding many once well paying occupations. These foreigners do drive rates and wages down, which gerrymanders the job markets. Then the equipment, get the dam EPA out of trucking. Right now, Trump is on the right course. Fixing immigration, cut regulations and lower corporate taxes are the correct direction to go.

 

And that right there is where your whole argument goes to pot. You act as though businesses are sitting on a pile of cash to start handing out once the government demands it, but that money has to come from somewhere. Labor is typically already one of the biggest expenses a company has, and when that labor expense is artificially raised by an arbitrary increase to the minimum wage, that is paid for with cuts elsewhere, such as the employees who through their hard work and skills at their job were due a raise until the government demanded that money be set aside for the unskilled worker. The other way the increased labor costs are dealt with is that they trim the fat...getting rid of some employees, so rather than $7.50/hour to sweep the floors they get $0. They do that because as long as they minimize the increase to the labor expense, they can minimize the price increases passed on to their customers. How often would you go out to eat if a simple cheese burger cost $20, and a medium pizza cost $35? You wouldn't. They can only raise prices so much before they lose customers.
The only people who see an increase in their own wages tied to a minimum wage increase are those who are below the new minimum (and DON'T lose their job) as well as those with union contracts that are in some way tied to the minimum wage (providing those businesses can afford the increased labor costs...otherwise, they close up shop or move those jobs to another country).