Saturday, October 6, 2018

Unemployment 3.7%: Great for workers bad for companies

Why?

It means you are sure to get a job if you are employable somewhere. But, it also means that companies cannot pay workers slave wages anymore because no one will fill those jobs at all.

So, you are seeing Amazon's minimum Wage now at $15 an hour nationwide. IN California you are seeing In N Out Burger employing high school and college kids with $16 an hour entry level jobs. So, people making $7 an hour around the country are saying to themselves "why not quit this job and get another for $15 to $16 an hour elsewhere.

Part of this is cost of living. For example, in California you cannot rent a room along the coast often for less than $800 to $1000 a month. So, because of high rents California has to have higher wages or people starve even working full time.

But, if you are someplace like Portland, Oregon you might still rent a 2 bedroom apartment for $1000 or less per month compared to California coasts barely renting a room in a house for that per month. And in Texas or other states it might even be more reasonable than Portland. I was talking with friends planning on moving back to Texas who were saying that for $1200 a month they could rent a 3 bedroom 3 bathroom house. So, minimum wages are a lot about how expensive it is to rent a house wherever you are in the U.S.

Also, conditions like the ones we have now tend to lead towards inflation. When there aren't enough workers wages have to rise. When wages have to rise, then prices have to rise. When prices have to rise everything costs more: Inflation.

So, it is pretty obvious we are entering an inflation cycle and when that happens a recession isn't far behind.






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