Earlier today, I was thinking about the situation that my fiance and I are currently in. We are stuck living with his mom because we, like many people today, are struggling to find affordable housing anywhere near where we live.
Sadly, much like the cost of food, transportation, and other every day necessities, housing costs have skyrocketed in the last 20 years. According to the US Census website (https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/grossrents.html), in the 1980's the average cost of a one bedroom apartment in my home state of Washington was about $503, about $12 over the national average for the time. Now, with the average one bedroom apartment costing $900, you'd be hard pressed to find an apartment that you could afford, with most people in the lower earning bracket bringing in less than $30,000 a year.
I and many others think it's plain wrong that companies often do not pay enough for their employees to purchase the products that they sell. I myself have worked places where I could not afford to shop; the best example would be the short time I worked as a Housekeeper for Wyndham. They paid me minimum wage starting out, and if I could clean a room in less than two hours, then I would get about $14.75 an hour, which is called earning a "peace rate" in the hotel business. But because of the fact that it was a timeshare resort, the rooms had full kitchens, two bathrooms, and they expected a VERY high standard of cleaning; I was lucky if I could do more than two rooms a day. I would never have been able to be a timeshare holder, even if I cleaned four rooms a day at peace rate.
My fiance said that it was unfair this morning, and it kind of just sparked an idea in my head. A lot of people argue over the minimum wage and what should be considered a living wage, saying that it could vary depending on what the person does. I had an idea that might work, and I kind of want to see what others think.
Obviously, there are some companies who really don't need to pay their employees higher wages; the minimum wage should be kept in place for lower tier foodservice and retail, such as dollar stores and fast food. However, I do not believe that someone working in an Apple Store should be paid the same amount as someone working at, say Dollar Tree. An Apple Store associate is selling expensive technology, and as a result brings in more for the company than most other retail associates do.
Here's what I propose. I think that we as American citizens need to agree upon an ideal method of budgeting that can be applied to any amount of income to teach in schools, so that kids grow up learning how to budget in a smart way in case their parents won't or can't teach them. This budget would not only take into consideration household necessities, rent, transportation of some sort, food and otherwise, but will also take into consideration extras as well. Then, using this budget as a basis for wages, the law should state that you should pay your employee enough so that they can afford to purchase your product(s) on a regular basis (which could be different depending on the type of product(s)) after all bills are paid.
Not only that, but I believe that we should approve a budget system for companies as well. So many refuse to take care of the important stuff first (like their employees). The law should require that a company must use monies as follows:
1.)Production costs should be first, as they are the foundation for the company; if you can't keep up production, no one gets paid.
2.)EMPLOYEES COME BEFORE EXECUTIVES. I cannot stress this enough; most companies will pay their highest grossing board members before taking care of lower tier employees.
3.) Any money left over from covering production costs and hourly and low tier salaried employee (Managers and General managers) paychecks should go to high tier and executive level employees (Executives, board members and the CEO). There should be a limit as to how low your yearly salary can go; for example, I do believe CEO's deserve good compensation as they are running a company; their salary should not drop lower than $300,000 a year, for example. If it does, then the company has grounds for laying off low performance employees, including board members and lower tier employees alike in order to compensate.
It's not a complete idea, but I figured that it could be a draft of a more well thought out financial plan. Obviously after everyone has been paid, companies can still use any excess profit as they choose, just as they do now. However, I believe that companies should be legally obligated to stop abusing the welfare system and start realizing that, without people like me working with the public and actually selling the product, then NONE of them would ever see a paycheck. We earned that money, and we deserve a good slice of the pie so that we can afford healthcare and rent and transportation and other basic necessities.
Thoughts? Ideas? Additions?
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