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Comment by holler | Hacker News Reader

ok but how much would a sandwich cost?

If you compare menu prices at fast food chains in areas with high minimum wages (i.e. Seattle's $15) vs areas with low minimum wages, (i.e. the US's federal ~$8) the cost of items is higher but not as high as you might think.

You can see some comparison data here, or find other sources (I don't have any bookmarked to dig up, I last did the research on this a few months ago...) https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/why-big-m...

That's just a wage increase from a single point in the supply chain. With a national minimum wage increase, all of the incremental wage incremental wage increases get passed to the consumer.

Or perhaps deceases the waste and abuse of the corporation. Maybe they don't do the executive island getaway or have the company condo in the Swiss alps.

They'll jack up the prices for any reason, don't get me wrong, but it's not because they have to pay people more. It's because they see it as an excuse to pay themselves more.

New Zealand prices for Subway, after converting currencies are more or less the same as American prices (+/- $.50 - the ingredients are slightly different)

The people controlling the price of the sandwich are also the ones who want to pay their workers less.

We shouldn't cower and run at the thought of the bosses using strategies to fight back by comically jacking up their prices and then cynically blaming it on the government.

It's to be expected.

Beware a lot of shady employment practices going on in the low-wage sector of NZ, always people getting busted for paying lower than min wage to foreigners. I've personally never seen a kiwi working at either Subway in my city, and i get it quite often.

More than it does now, but since wages are only a small part of the costs people would still be better off.

According to this [1] (first thing I was able to find, no clue how accurate): Another major cost for McDonald’s is payroll and employee benefits. These account for 36% of its company-operated restaurant expenses.

I don't know in what world a third is "only a small part". The same article mentions According to PayScale, the average worker in the fast-food industry makes $8.50 per hour. Increase that to $44 and you end up with a much more expensive burger.

[1] https://marketrealist.com/2019/11/how-mcdonalds-wages-major-...

Why is this comment gray? Is it wrong?

The article you link fails to mention that McDonald's also spent about 8.5 billion on stock buybacks and dividends in 2018, which would have been enough to give every one of their 210,000 employees an extra 40,000 dollars that year on top of what they already made that year. Not quite $44 an hour, but a hell of a lot better than minimum wage - and the company wouldn't need to spend a single extra cent or raise any prices in order to do it.

From the 2018 annual report: https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/gwscorp/nfl/inve...

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