About minimum wage

[johan]

The margins being low means jack shit unless those margins are unavoidable and directly related to wages, -necessitating- an increase in price.  It seems like there may be a non-insignificant amount of bullshit being peddled here as a distraction, part and parcel of minimum wage fear mongering.  I don't even know what we're talking about until I can see the industry, specifically.  

I have already given a fairly detailed example. But you have to chosen to disregard it. So you can be a dick and call it bullshit all you want. But I know what I know about my industry. If you don't want to believe me, you don't have to. I lose zero sleep over what you believe. 
Here is what I know. In trucking the two largest costs every year are fuel and wages. Which one is higher than the other changes over time, but each of them are far and away the highest percentage of operating costs in trucking every year. Here is what I also know. Competition in trucking is fierce which means margins are often extremely slim. No, not always slim in all cases. But more often than not, they are slim. Trucking as an industry has an extremely high turnover rate (75%-120%/yr) and an extremely hard time finding new hires.
And driver wages in many markets are currently in the range of the what is being proposed for the new minimum wage ($12-$15/hr). Where I live, trucking companies lose drivers to manufacturing jobs with similar pay all the time. That happens every day, right now.
And now we're talking about taking not just every minimum wage job, but every job that currently pays anything up to the $11/hr range and mandating that all of those jobs will have to pay very similar to what lots of local trucking gigs and many over the road trucking gigs currently pay. 

To me, that adds up to higher wages for truck drivers. I know you disagree with that and you've given your reasons to support your opinion. To that I will only say I do not believe you understand the trucking industry nearly as well as you think you do. 

And as I've said, if I have to raise wages by more than a buck or two (and I believe I would) I will most definitely have to raise the rates to my customers. And when trucking rates go up, the prices of lots of things go up. 

You can believe me or don't. I could give a fuck. I know what I know and I know a $15/hr minimum wages equals higher prices for nearly everything.