[andagainagain]

A local union factory relatively recently started hiring like crazy a few years back. Their wages were higher than every other job in the area, and the same thing happened. Within a year a job that WAS offering $10.50 and saying that they were generous started offering #$12... then $13.50... then $14. Now they're also offering a few hundred dollar bonus as well.

[CapitalistCartr]

Making it obvious they could have afforded that before.

[minitoar]

I don’t understand this argument. I could afford to pay more for most services but I don’t unless I have to.

[sangnoir]

> I don’t understand this argument.

It counters a common argument against minimum wage increases. The argument goes "Small businesses can't afford raises. If they are forced to pay their employees more, they will go bankrupt, leading to unemployment, and low wages are better than unemployment, so you shouldn't raise the minimum wage"

[minitoar]

Makes sense. I feel like both of these arguments are oversimplifications.

[Sebguer]

Are you a company? You are an individual and paying for things comes from the money that you earned with your own labor.

A company's money comes purely from extracting value from its workers. It then tries to return as little value as possible to the people who created that value, in order to reward its owners.

[missedthecue]

"A company's money comes purely from extracting value from its workers"

This is really hard to believe because it's pretty observable that labor isn't the only input to production. If that was truly the case, why would anyone work for a company? Why not go work for yourself and skip the middle man?

The truth is because production not only needs labor, but it needs capital, land, and entrepreneurship as well. Labor is only one component, and a decreasing one relative to years gone by. (For instance, the US auto manufacturers make more cars now then ever with fewer employees tham ever)

[nitrogen]

Has there been any effect on downstream prices of the goods and services offered by those companies, or has it all been pure gain for the workers?