I purchased girl scout cookies today after I finished work at an over 55 community .
The latest of endless laments at that over 55 community is how all the retirees are about to suffer when the minimum wage rises to $15 an hour. Prices across the board will “sky rocket” they cry.
The over 55 community I spend my work days at is actually inhabited by two groups . Group one are the above mentioned retirees and group two are barely over 55 but still working . Seems that both groups are terrified of this increase of minimum wage . One group feels its going to drive the price of everything up so high it will diminish their retirement income. The other feels it will diminish the value of what they get paid now.
When I first started my little business in 2013 there was a call for raising minimum wage to $9.75 per hour and as I employed workers I endlessly fielded the question …
” What are you going to do Rich, when minimum wage goes up to $ 9.75. per hour ? “
Simple answer to that query was …. “nothing”. Fact was I couldn’t get any one to come to work for $11.00 per hour so I wasn’t quite sure why I should be afraid of a demand to pay employees $9.75 .
So here we are , eight years later and as of January 1st minimum wage here in Florida just jumped another nine cents to the outrageous heights of $8.56 …. every single hour. And yet again it doesn’t effect me one whit as I can’t lure anyone to work every day at $ 15.00 . And neither can the local Target store that is offering a $15.00 an hour to start while every business in town is touting “Help Wanted” signs .
I’m thinking that the retirees that are so frightened of of increasing prices don’t leave their condos often. Because if they did they might have noticed prices have been leaping hard for the past three years. In fact , last year I purchased two boxes of Girl Scout cookies and shelled out $ 8 bucks .
This year the sweet young thing glared me in the eye and demanded $11.50
How do I blame that on an increase in minimum wage that hasn’t even happened yet ?
