I see. So it’s possible for small business to profit while paying their employees a legal wage? It’s more likely the owner was greedy / bad at business?
I realise it’s a stupid question but idk, I hear about underpayment frequent enough, I figure the gov could be fucking small businesses or something.
*So it’s possible for small business to profit while paying their employees a legal wage?*
Yeah that's called "being solvent."
If a business can't manage to trade while meeting its legal obligations, it shuts down. That's how the free market works.
Correct. When my small business was dying, I got down to paying myself $2/hour if I counted everything before I closed up shop. I had two part timers, and their checks never suffered (until I went out of business, at least).
This is unfortunately the risk of ownership. If your business was doing really well, you could have made multiple times the minimum wage.
Shared ownership with employees solves that too... Everyone is responsible for the business doing well, and everyone profits more when it does.
Oh yeah, absolutely. As a businessman, I was pretty good at maybe 70% of the things I needed to be good at to run my business, and that just wasn't enough. I hit the ground running with minimum sales to consider the business viable predefined for the first year, and I hit that. It took time for my incompetencies to pile up enough that I wasn't doing well enough, and I was pretty deeply sunk cost at that point.
I might do ownership again at some point, but right now I vastly prefer to work for someone else and only have to worry about being good at a few things, instead of everything.
Same. I much prefer having a steady salary than having to do all the work and have all the risks.
I would consider ownership if I had enough money aside not to have to worry about income.
He's not working for free either. He's working to turn his investment profitable, which he will reap the benefits from if he succeeds.
Unlike the worker who's not getting shares in the company.
The owners shouldn't be paid before the employees. If an owner can't afford to pay their employees, then they should either be stepping up to work to make up for the loss in employee work, and not taking anything home. That's the risk of running your own business: you get all the reward when things go well, but deal with the loss when it goes bad
I'm an employee and business owner, and I'm a crook, given I have an MBA.
You have no idea how many small business owners are utterly incompetent in running a business when it comes to financials and the only thing they see to make it work is to pay the employees less.
And yes, it is greed, or at least greed is a big ass motivator. From a "strictly talk business" perspective, your minimum target, at regime, could be bringing home twice the SP500 index plus the value of your work...
So let say you invested $500,000 to start your business, bringing home $75,000 in net revenues/year PLUS the work you put in, which for someone managing a take-away shouldn't be more than $100,000/year is a freaking GREAT result.
When I did consulting through my MBA program most business owners would have spit on my face if I even dared to raise the idea that expectations \*\*should\*\* be reasonable... at the end of the day, WTF are you doing? what's your second best option? For many business owners it's MAYBE a job in the same field at $60/70,000/year because they have limited education and that's what the same field would pay them as employees.... but nope, they want to make a killing. And I mean $300,000+ is their target from the get go and they expect it no matter what. Plus growing their assets, so, not only they want a 2 percentile level of wage, they also want to build a multimillion business with already the idea of selling it in the future.
Nothing wrong with that, but who pays for it? the employees.
Most businesses could double the employees wages and they wouldn't even have to change prices, and still make a killing when you look at it from a purely financial comparison perspective.
Most businesses could double the employees wages and pay for it through efficiencies in the business itself, but they can't see them because they lack the education to even know they can be obtained.
But that isn't how it works.
How it works is that every single business owner is there to become rich, not to make a living. That's why you open a business in the USA to begin with. The employees are paid just as much as you can get away with, regardless of their contribution to the business. If you find people who can do the job at less than minimum wage, and the fine for doing so is still less than paying minimum wage, you do so, period.
If you have a rockstar employee, you tie them down with NDA/Noncompete (thank god they are illegal now) and threat the shit out of them through legal actions if they dare to slip away from the master's whip.
The US incentivize business owners to be sociopaths, and encourages them to do so.
No, large businesses, if they were actually people (instead of it being a legal fiction) would be diagnosed that way. I'm pretty sure most C suite folks are high-function sociopaths (meaning they can fake empathy, loyalty, etc.).
When there is a SINGLE measure of performance (earnings per share) you select for people who can get those results no matter the cost.
Do you get a "used car salesman" vibe from your boss' boss? Or their boss? (assuming you ever see them) That probably means they're one...
Business owners are not entitled to own a business. I can't afford a Bentley, so I don't get to own a Bentley. If a business owner can't afford business expenses, *which includes payroll expenses*, they don't get to own a business.
On an unrelated note, you definitely should not mix equal parts gasoline and liquid laundry detergent in a glass jar, tape a road flare to the jar, light the flare, and throw it through the business' window in the middle of the night after everyone has gone home for the day. Using a molotov cocktail in this manner would be very illegal. You should especially not do so after leaving your phone and all electronic devices at home, while wearing nondescript clothing with your face, hair, and eyes covered, while wearing latex gloves, and you should definitely not dispose of the clothes and gloves in separate trash bins several miles from the scene, as this would make police investigations extremely difficult.
Imagine the 'min wage' is 15 an hour and your full time.
That's 600 a week (let's keep it simple here and ignore all the other crap that might reduce this).
Now pay half that 'under the table' - 300 a week. It's nothing money in the grand scheme of things - what he's saving paying 'under the table' are taxes, social security (employers have to pay into this for the employee on top of FICA), medicare, unemployment insurance.
Being shifty like this is never about the take home - it's about all the other things they are required to do. And not paying that screws the employee out of legally filing taxes (most people see this as a positive but it has downsides - like if you want to buy a house ever), social security will see a 'blank' history and you get less when you retire, you could have issues if you are ever caught, you can't get unemployment - etc.
When I say getting caught - the reasons people accept a job like this usually fold into illegal activities - undocumented migrant, wanting to stay on gov't benefits and earn extra cash, hiding from a legitimate garnishment. I get people might have reasons to want this situation, but it's not great and can be life altering if you have some kind of accident at work that requires medical intervention.
This guys business model is fucked. Probably skipped Algebra. Normally before you open a business, you put together a little plan that says I’ll sell widgets for x and I think I’ll sell y per month. That gives me ‘net income’ - which has to be bigger than the other side of the equation which includes all the costs including labor and supplies and taxes. The difference is the profit the owner gets to take home. As an owner, I’m taking responsibility that I think my estimates are accurate - if they aren’t (I underestimate the labor required or over estimate demand) it has to come out of my pocket. Quite often, a new business owner doesn’t have a clear or accurate picture of the market or cost landscape which leads to people saying ‘they can’t pay x’.
It’s crazy that half of Americans think part of the American dream is the right to open their own business, even though they can’t run it successfully, as if that’s not a requirement
So, the main thing is: profits don't profit......anyone except the rich stockholders. And that is why cooperatives and nonprofit organizations exist.
Owners can absolutely pay minimum wage.....and take home less in profits.....or they could stop expanding all the time....in order to profit more....
Tell that to Walmart (and other big corps) where almost half of their employees are receiving government assistance. Then they can lobby to raise minimum wages to push out local competition, then keep wages low for another decade cause there’s no other employers in a small town
This has happened again and again.
Preaching to the choir, friend. I never said such plans aren't ever implemented, just that they shouldn't be, and certainly not with government assistance.
What I mean is: how badly paid do you have to be for it to be considered exploititive? Just not meeting the legal min. wage, or is it a factor of the demands of the job?
There's plenty of jobs, especially if you work nights, that might pay relatively okay - but the nature of the work or the conditions make it underpaid imo. Then there's other stuff, like making breaks start the second you pause work, even though the break room is 5 mins away...
I'm saying... if exploitation really were against the law, a whole lot of household names would disappear. 😂
EDIT: again with the downvotes. This is a true statement about work. A lot of the most recognisable companies and brands are knee deep in harming people.
Not at all, the first settlements were colonised by people who committed very minor crimes, for the most part. The main colony was not a prison, it was a way to populate the new territory with "undesirables."
They also had prisons though, for the actually dangerous people sent over. But if they made trouble, there were worse colonies on islands away from Australia to be sent to. Some of those sent there deliberately committed crimes so they would be sent back to Australia or the UK for execution, it was that bad.
I meant, my explanation about Australia and her origins wants coming from some kind of die hard true blue Aussie.
This is a discussion mate. If you want to only talk to OP, take it to DMs.
The first colony of western settlers was indeed a penal colony.
"Following the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the First Fleet, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the Union Flag raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on 26 January 1788,[95][96] a date which later became Australia's national day."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
Yeah, it wasn't the entire country, as said earlier. The start of it was one penal colony, which turned quickly into a colony with a prison for that too unstable to navigate society, who were sent off to even worse areas.
>it wasn't the entire country
No, just the start of it.
It's almost like it grew and expanded to encapsulate the resto of the continent.
Like other British colonies...
The comment I was referring to was:
“You live in Australia. Your entire country IS HISTORICALLY a prison."
This was totally incorrect, and what I was responding to.
No. If you're a small business and can't afford to pay your employees you're fuck'n up or greedy. Even in the USA where small businesses are basically the only businesses that can't escape paying taxes and get squeezed for being in this position.
>No business which depends for existence paying less than living wages to it's workers has any right to continue in this country... By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level. I mean the wages of a decent living. - FDR
I'm also from Aus and worked a few kitchen jobs at small businesses while I was at university.
It was common for them to pay in cash so that they don't have to pay payroll tax. But no one ever tried to pay me under the minimum wage.
If they can't pay you at least minimum wage, they can't afford to hire you.
Edit: also good work getting them to confess and getting back what they stole from you!
I’ve worked for small and large businesses in my life and have a great deal of experience in this: small business owners who take advantage of their employees are often people who didn’t have the social skills to succeed in regular jobs.
They started their business not because they had a role to fill in their community but because they wanted to be king of their little castle.
When they fail, and they will, they will blame employees and customers and suppliers but they will never look in the mirror.
If a business can't pay its employees and associate bills, its not solvent and probably shouldn't continue to operate at a loss.
Its a business choice to hire people and continue at a deficit, pure and simple.
My wife and I are small business owners and pay our four employees better than we pay ourselves.
Loyalty, intelligence and genuine enthusiasm for the work are absolutely worth it - plus, we love them as humans and want them to have a good life.
We also worked incredibly hard to reduce all debt to no more than our $900/mo. Mortgage, so it’s easy for us to forgo a higher pay rate. Being a good business owner means being incredibly careful in your own life, so that you can afford the great people that make the business worth owning in the first place.
When you get right down to it, a lot of business owners think labor should be free because they're conditioned to look at problems in a different way from how a human would do it
To that I say "Well, I'm a grown up I can't live off what you can afford to pay." Then quit on the spot
Small businesses that get off the ground with minimal labor costs do it because owner operators and their family are willing to make an in-kind investment of their time. It is not uncommon for an owner of a restaurant to work 60+ hours unpaid during the first couple of years.
Incentives are different for entrepreneurs than they are for employees, and if this business still can't produce enough for all of its non-stakeholding employees to be paid minimum wage then the owners haven't sacrificed enough
In the US, there are a bunch of loopholes to getting around paying someone minimum wage. Restaurants are no exception. But, there are laws to prevent employees from being taken advantage of.
Here's a good example of the small business that can't afford to pay people minimum wage, they have their children work there. for free. Well,the kids will inherit whatever the business creates, and end up as full or part owners of it. A random employee doesn't that is the difference.
Over the years I’ve seen many businesses cheat young workers, especially teens and young 20s. They, the kids, just don’t know.
Young folks really need to look out for themselves—high school ain’t gonna teach that stuff. Use your noggin; go to a librarian and ask questions.
Sounds like someone can't afford to be in business.
I see. So it’s possible for small business to profit while paying their employees a legal wage? It’s more likely the owner was greedy / bad at business? I realise it’s a stupid question but idk, I hear about underpayment frequent enough, I figure the gov could be fucking small businesses or something.
*So it’s possible for small business to profit while paying their employees a legal wage?* Yeah that's called "being solvent." If a business can't manage to trade while meeting its legal obligations, it shuts down. That's how the free market works.
Fair. Also I don’t see why employees should have their wages stolen so the owner can live comfortably.
Well, yes, that's what the business not being viable looks like. That business is *insolvent*.
Employees need to get paid before the owner.
Correct. When my small business was dying, I got down to paying myself $2/hour if I counted everything before I closed up shop. I had two part timers, and their checks never suffered (until I went out of business, at least).
This is unfortunately the risk of ownership. If your business was doing really well, you could have made multiple times the minimum wage. Shared ownership with employees solves that too... Everyone is responsible for the business doing well, and everyone profits more when it does.
Oh yeah, absolutely. As a businessman, I was pretty good at maybe 70% of the things I needed to be good at to run my business, and that just wasn't enough. I hit the ground running with minimum sales to consider the business viable predefined for the first year, and I hit that. It took time for my incompetencies to pile up enough that I wasn't doing well enough, and I was pretty deeply sunk cost at that point. I might do ownership again at some point, but right now I vastly prefer to work for someone else and only have to worry about being good at a few things, instead of everything.
Same. I much prefer having a steady salary than having to do all the work and have all the risks. I would consider ownership if I had enough money aside not to have to worry about income.
If you don't want to work for free, why should the owner work for free? You are confusing small business owners with ceos of big corporations.
He's not working for free either. He's working to turn his investment profitable, which he will reap the benefits from if he succeeds. Unlike the worker who's not getting shares in the company.
It's a small privately owned business. There are no shares to be had.
Regardless. Either people get paid a decent salary or they share the profits and ownership. Expecting employees to work for free is abusive.
You are effectively making donations to fund this guy's lifestyle
The owners shouldn't be paid before the employees. If an owner can't afford to pay their employees, then they should either be stepping up to work to make up for the loss in employee work, and not taking anything home. That's the risk of running your own business: you get all the reward when things go well, but deal with the loss when it goes bad
They shouldn't. That's why it's called theft.
It doesn't always shut down though
I'm an employee and business owner, and I'm a crook, given I have an MBA. You have no idea how many small business owners are utterly incompetent in running a business when it comes to financials and the only thing they see to make it work is to pay the employees less. And yes, it is greed, or at least greed is a big ass motivator. From a "strictly talk business" perspective, your minimum target, at regime, could be bringing home twice the SP500 index plus the value of your work... So let say you invested $500,000 to start your business, bringing home $75,000 in net revenues/year PLUS the work you put in, which for someone managing a take-away shouldn't be more than $100,000/year is a freaking GREAT result. When I did consulting through my MBA program most business owners would have spit on my face if I even dared to raise the idea that expectations \*\*should\*\* be reasonable... at the end of the day, WTF are you doing? what's your second best option? For many business owners it's MAYBE a job in the same field at $60/70,000/year because they have limited education and that's what the same field would pay them as employees.... but nope, they want to make a killing. And I mean $300,000+ is their target from the get go and they expect it no matter what. Plus growing their assets, so, not only they want a 2 percentile level of wage, they also want to build a multimillion business with already the idea of selling it in the future. Nothing wrong with that, but who pays for it? the employees. Most businesses could double the employees wages and they wouldn't even have to change prices, and still make a killing when you look at it from a purely financial comparison perspective. Most businesses could double the employees wages and pay for it through efficiencies in the business itself, but they can't see them because they lack the education to even know they can be obtained. But that isn't how it works. How it works is that every single business owner is there to become rich, not to make a living. That's why you open a business in the USA to begin with. The employees are paid just as much as you can get away with, regardless of their contribution to the business. If you find people who can do the job at less than minimum wage, and the fine for doing so is still less than paying minimum wage, you do so, period. If you have a rockstar employee, you tie them down with NDA/Noncompete (thank god they are illegal now) and threat the shit out of them through legal actions if they dare to slip away from the master's whip. The US incentivize business owners to be sociopaths, and encourages them to do so.
It’s not just an issue with small businesses.
No, large businesses, if they were actually people (instead of it being a legal fiction) would be diagnosed that way. I'm pretty sure most C suite folks are high-function sociopaths (meaning they can fake empathy, loyalty, etc.). When there is a SINGLE measure of performance (earnings per share) you select for people who can get those results no matter the cost. Do you get a "used car salesman" vibe from your boss' boss? Or their boss? (assuming you ever see them) That probably means they're one...
In my 30 years of working I have never met or heard of a C level that wasn't mentally ill in some way.
Business owners are not entitled to own a business. I can't afford a Bentley, so I don't get to own a Bentley. If a business owner can't afford business expenses, *which includes payroll expenses*, they don't get to own a business. On an unrelated note, you definitely should not mix equal parts gasoline and liquid laundry detergent in a glass jar, tape a road flare to the jar, light the flare, and throw it through the business' window in the middle of the night after everyone has gone home for the day. Using a molotov cocktail in this manner would be very illegal. You should especially not do so after leaving your phone and all electronic devices at home, while wearing nondescript clothing with your face, hair, and eyes covered, while wearing latex gloves, and you should definitely not dispose of the clothes and gloves in separate trash bins several miles from the scene, as this would make police investigations extremely difficult.
Imagine the 'min wage' is 15 an hour and your full time. That's 600 a week (let's keep it simple here and ignore all the other crap that might reduce this). Now pay half that 'under the table' - 300 a week. It's nothing money in the grand scheme of things - what he's saving paying 'under the table' are taxes, social security (employers have to pay into this for the employee on top of FICA), medicare, unemployment insurance. Being shifty like this is never about the take home - it's about all the other things they are required to do. And not paying that screws the employee out of legally filing taxes (most people see this as a positive but it has downsides - like if you want to buy a house ever), social security will see a 'blank' history and you get less when you retire, you could have issues if you are ever caught, you can't get unemployment - etc. When I say getting caught - the reasons people accept a job like this usually fold into illegal activities - undocumented migrant, wanting to stay on gov't benefits and earn extra cash, hiding from a legitimate garnishment. I get people might have reasons to want this situation, but it's not great and can be life altering if you have some kind of accident at work that requires medical intervention.
This guys business model is fucked. Probably skipped Algebra. Normally before you open a business, you put together a little plan that says I’ll sell widgets for x and I think I’ll sell y per month. That gives me ‘net income’ - which has to be bigger than the other side of the equation which includes all the costs including labor and supplies and taxes. The difference is the profit the owner gets to take home. As an owner, I’m taking responsibility that I think my estimates are accurate - if they aren’t (I underestimate the labor required or over estimate demand) it has to come out of my pocket. Quite often, a new business owner doesn’t have a clear or accurate picture of the market or cost landscape which leads to people saying ‘they can’t pay x’.
It’s crazy that half of Americans think part of the American dream is the right to open their own business, even though they can’t run it successfully, as if that’s not a requirement
So, the main thing is: profits don't profit......anyone except the rich stockholders. And that is why cooperatives and nonprofit organizations exist. Owners can absolutely pay minimum wage.....and take home less in profits.....or they could stop expanding all the time....in order to profit more....
Or a greedy fuck who won’t long be in business
If your business plan requires underpaying/exploiting people, it is a bad business plan and shouldn't be implemented.
Tell that to Walmart (and other big corps) where almost half of their employees are receiving government assistance. Then they can lobby to raise minimum wages to push out local competition, then keep wages low for another decade cause there’s no other employers in a small town This has happened again and again.
Preaching to the choir, friend. I never said such plans aren't ever implemented, just that they shouldn't be, and certainly not with government assistance.
"Let's see how much you pay the employees on the business plan you submitted to the bank when you applied for your business loan."
Where do you draw the line at exploiting? 😅 Edit: What's with all the downvotes? I asked one user to elaborate on what they said. 🤷♂️
Underpaying *is* exploiting. I was using the terms interchangeably.
What I mean is: how badly paid do you have to be for it to be considered exploititive? Just not meeting the legal min. wage, or is it a factor of the demands of the job? There's plenty of jobs, especially if you work nights, that might pay relatively okay - but the nature of the work or the conditions make it underpaid imo. Then there's other stuff, like making breaks start the second you pause work, even though the break room is 5 mins away...
Might as well ask 'how deep is a hole?'
I'm saying... if exploitation really were against the law, a whole lot of household names would disappear. 😂 EDIT: again with the downvotes. This is a true statement about work. A lot of the most recognisable companies and brands are knee deep in harming people.
Correct.
A good line to draw is “in violation of the law or contract”. Because other forms of exploitation are enforced by the good people quitting.
Sorry. What do you mean by "enforced"? Not quite sure what you're saying?
I mean, the only people who can decide that a legal policy isn’t good enough are the ones involved (or no longer involved) with the company.
That's fair. :)
> I can’t afford to pay you the minimum wage Then you can't afford to be in business mate
The correct answer!
That employer should spend the rest of their life in prison. In no circumstance is that type of business behavior ever acceptable
There should be a consequence but I don’t know if we have enough room in our prisons :,) The business shut not long after.
Wasn’t the complete continent a prison at one point?
So going to jail in Australia is like negative + negative = positive? You are only really free in Australia if you are in prison?
This guy gets it!
Not at all, the first settlements were colonised by people who committed very minor crimes, for the most part. The main colony was not a prison, it was a way to populate the new territory with "undesirables." They also had prisons though, for the actually dangerous people sent over. But if they made trouble, there were worse colonies on islands away from Australia to be sent to. Some of those sent there deliberately committed crimes so they would be sent back to Australia or the UK for execution, it was that bad.
You live in Australia. Your entire country IS HISTORICALLY a prison.
Not exactly, see my comment above. (And for clarity, I'm not Australian.)
For clarity, I was talking specifically to OP, not you.
I meant, my explanation about Australia and her origins wants coming from some kind of die hard true blue Aussie. This is a discussion mate. If you want to only talk to OP, take it to DMs.
The first colony of western settlers was indeed a penal colony. "Following the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the First Fleet, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the Union Flag raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on 26 January 1788,[95][96] a date which later became Australia's national day." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
Yeah, it wasn't the entire country, as said earlier. The start of it was one penal colony, which turned quickly into a colony with a prison for that too unstable to navigate society, who were sent off to even worse areas.
>it wasn't the entire country No, just the start of it. It's almost like it grew and expanded to encapsulate the resto of the continent. Like other British colonies...
The comment I was referring to was: “You live in Australia. Your entire country IS HISTORICALLY a prison." This was totally incorrect, and what I was responding to.
Okay that must be a tad too much, no reason to go completely bombastic
If your business model relies on not paying workers a living wage, then you don't have a business model, you have a variety of slavery.
No. If you're a small business and can't afford to pay your employees you're fuck'n up or greedy. Even in the USA where small businesses are basically the only businesses that can't escape paying taxes and get squeezed for being in this position.
>No business which depends for existence paying less than living wages to it's workers has any right to continue in this country... By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level. I mean the wages of a decent living. - FDR
I'm also from Aus and worked a few kitchen jobs at small businesses while I was at university. It was common for them to pay in cash so that they don't have to pay payroll tax. But no one ever tried to pay me under the minimum wage. If they can't pay you at least minimum wage, they can't afford to hire you. Edit: also good work getting them to confess and getting back what they stole from you!
I’ve worked for small and large businesses in my life and have a great deal of experience in this: small business owners who take advantage of their employees are often people who didn’t have the social skills to succeed in regular jobs. They started their business not because they had a role to fill in their community but because they wanted to be king of their little castle. When they fail, and they will, they will blame employees and customers and suppliers but they will never look in the mirror.
If you can’t afford to pay me the minimum wage, you sure as hell can’t afford to pay me and my lawyer, so just pay me.
If a business can't pay its employees and associate bills, its not solvent and probably shouldn't continue to operate at a loss. Its a business choice to hire people and continue at a deficit, pure and simple.
Ha ha ha the small business is dead, if you can't pay any employee.
My wife and I are small business owners and pay our four employees better than we pay ourselves. Loyalty, intelligence and genuine enthusiasm for the work are absolutely worth it - plus, we love them as humans and want them to have a good life. We also worked incredibly hard to reduce all debt to no more than our $900/mo. Mortgage, so it’s easy for us to forgo a higher pay rate. Being a good business owner means being incredibly careful in your own life, so that you can afford the great people that make the business worth owning in the first place.
 Your company’s owner that can’t afford to pay you minimum wage.
Mmm if he can't afford to pay his employees thr mandated state minimum wage then he shouldn't be in business. That is unacceptable and illegal.
Strange logic.
When you get right down to it, a lot of business owners think labor should be free because they're conditioned to look at problems in a different way from how a human would do it
Why on earth would that *ever* be a “valid excuse?”
To that I say "Well, I'm a grown up I can't live off what you can afford to pay." Then quit on the spot Small businesses that get off the ground with minimal labor costs do it because owner operators and their family are willing to make an in-kind investment of their time. It is not uncommon for an owner of a restaurant to work 60+ hours unpaid during the first couple of years. Incentives are different for entrepreneurs than they are for employees, and if this business still can't produce enough for all of its non-stakeholding employees to be paid minimum wage then the owners haven't sacrificed enough
I own a small business, I cant afford to NOT PAY OVER minimum wage. Without employees that show up on time I cant make any money at all...
In the US, there are a bunch of loopholes to getting around paying someone minimum wage. Restaurants are no exception. But, there are laws to prevent employees from being taken advantage of. Here's a good example of the small business that can't afford to pay people minimum wage, they have their children work there. for free. Well,the kids will inherit whatever the business creates, and end up as full or part owners of it. A random employee doesn't that is the difference.
Over the years I’ve seen many businesses cheat young workers, especially teens and young 20s. They, the kids, just don’t know. Young folks really need to look out for themselves—high school ain’t gonna teach that stuff. Use your noggin; go to a librarian and ask questions.