I know the popular sentiment here is that if a business can’t afford to pay workers living wages they don’t deserve to be open. I agree that businesses should pay living wages but what happens when these mega corporations DO fall in line and offer tuition assistance and living wage and healthcare and other perks and so on? In other words, if/when the baseline gets raised significantly, as is the goal, it will be even easier for the big guys to crush small businesses and the gap will grow and grow.
Like flash forward to when mega corporations realize they can make up for lost margin with an increase in volume, which has already been the case.
A small business will have no room for error. When they are starting out and money is tight and they make one misstep that will be a death knell if they have to compete by offering health insurance and tuition to any and all employees if that’s what the mega corp down the street is doing. Any business without economies of scale will fail.
Eventually corporations will just own every store front and we won’t need tuition assistance when you can just go to Amazon University or McDonalds state and learn just what they want us to.
The government, unfortunately, seems to be the only solution. Make tuition free or close to it, make healthcare free, essentially put a cap on wealth, etc. I don’t really know for sure. Higher pay is necessary because the mega corps that control prices are turning up the dial. The money is a construct. I don’t know that focusing on pay isn’t just a bandaid on bullet wound.
Hopefully this is coherent. I’m with everyone but I’m just concerned where the boat is headed with what I’m seeing.