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Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
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November 2021 #13268 Page #36
The Great Employee Wage Debate
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sign that could have appeared in any town has caused quite a stir. The message is direct: “Stimulate your ass to work—Every business in town is hiring.” For business leaders, it aptly voices their frustration when trying to compete with the younger generation’s attitudes. It also ignites debate on local and federal labor policies—does the government create disincentives to work? Or, are businesses not responding to the needs of the unemployed, not offering a living wage, and therefore deserve to fail?
Todd Drummond
When I shared this sign, I was amazed by the response: ~1+ Million View of TDC’s LinkedIn Post, Approx. 20K Likes, 1K Comments, and 1.2K+ Shares This sign is the latest instance of what I call “The Great Employee Wage Debate,” which judges the cost of labor for any business versus society’s expectations of perceived living wages.
Fact #1 – The more significant the burden on a business for all labor costs (including all
paid benefits and the labor law compliance regulations), the more expensive it is for a company to hire an employee and pay higher wages. Regardless of their good intentions, artificially driving up labor costs and labor law burdens from local and government policies will accelerate the drive to eliminate labor within every business. Here are some of the numbers: • Private industry worker compensation costs for employers averaged $36.64 per hour worked in June 2021. Wage and salary costs averaged $25.89 and accounted for 70.6% of employer costs, while benefit costs averaged $10.76 and accounted for 29.4%. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf Employer Costs for Employee Compensation– June 2021
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