It looks like we agree on this completely. If you hire an unskilled worker
at minimum wage and give him the opportunity to increase his value by being
more productive or learning a skill that is in demand, it will be beneficial
to both you and the employee. Any successful company does this today, if
not, his competition will eat him alive and he will lose all of his good
people and very soon be out of business.

Now, what if a person does not want, or does not have the ability to learn a
skill that will increase his value, should he be given salary increases
automatically. Suppose he has a drinking or drug problem can not do a
skilled job, but is able to carry bricks or mortar. Should you refuse to
hire this person, because you know he will never be worth more than a
minimum wage worker? Or should you except the fact, that there are some
people who will never be able to do a job that pays more than minimum wage,
and accept the fact that you will need someone to do that job. If he
becomes more productive at doing the unskilled labor, it will be worth it to
pay him more, because you want him to work for you and not someone else.




"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
What do you recommend doing for unskilled people working for such low
pay?
If you just keep raising the minimum wage, they will not have any reason
to
learn a skill.

A recommendation based on experience:

When I ran businesses where I had a lot of employees, (well sort of "a
lot"-
had about 65 once), there were always a few entry level jobs that paid
minimum
wage. I guaranteed my commission sales people minimum wage, but they also
understood I guaranteed they'd be putting their desk in a cardboard box if
they
didn't nearly always exceed mini-wage by a substantial amount.

A business organization thrives as it brings its people up, not as it
holds
them down.
The kid that hires on as a mini-wage lot boy shuffling cars around and
picking
up trash will hopefully prove to be a good employee that you train to
become a
higher-wage detailer or lube rack technician. If not, you dismiss him and
replace him with somebody that can help the organization grow. No
reasonable
business person wants an employee who is so marginally productive that it
makes
no sense to pay more than $7.15 (current mniwage in our state) per hour.

When a guy says, "I can't afford to pay my help more than $7.15 an hour",
he's
really stating, (IMO) that he's a lousy manager and unable to motivate his
people to be productive. Business is all about getting rich, but in its
best
form it is also about enriching others along the way.

The guy who thinks he's got the world dicked because his $7 an hour
employees
produce $30 an hour gross profit is usually lucky to rise above lower
middle
class himself. Give me a $15-25 an hour guy who can produce $100 an hour
any
day over a miniwager who can barely justify his nothing salary. I'll take
as
many hundred dollar bills (that I can buy for $25@) as I can get, and
thank you
very much. :-)