Marley Wozniak
I’m sure most high school students want to get paid more at their jobs, at least I know I do! Amazon recently took initiative and decided to raise their minimum wage for all employees to fifteen dollars per hour, when the current Wisconsin minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. This is a substantial increase, that has potential to spark changes in the US economy.
The managing director of GlobalData Retail, Neil Saunders, believes Amazon has a better chance of recruiting workers with the higher minimum wage they offer at the company. With more people wanting to work at Amazon because of the higher pay, it lessens the amount of employees to work at other companies such as Target and Walmart. Without a sufficient amount of employees, it is harder for a business to function and make profit.
An article published by Investopedia alluded to the increase in minimum wage potentially causing inflation. They believe that when minimum wage is increased, the company will have to charge more for the goods and services they offer. This would cause a change in quantity demanded of a product. In addition, many small businesses would suffer from an increase in minimum wage because the market value and prices would increase, therefore putting them out of business (Ed Rensi).
One of the additional questions people have been asking is regarding the opportunities to move up in the company. With a starting wage of fifteen dollars per hour, will it be harder for people to get pay raises and new opportunities at Amazon? Will people even strive to go for the higher positions at the company? People are also wondering what happens to the people who have worked at Amazon for years and have just made it to fifteen dollars per hour, will their wage stay the same or increase even more to accomodate for the raises they have previously received? All these questions are things that will be answered with time as Amazon transitions into the new, and higher minimum wage.
If a company like Amazon is offering a higher starting wage, people will be more likely to work for that company. The graph below shows some of the major chains and their trends in the number of employees they have. We often think of Google as a very powerful company, comparable to Amazon- but based on the graph and their amount of employees, people obviously want to work for Amazon more. As you can see, Amazon trumps all and is on a very positive increase while other companies either maintain the same amount of employees, or slowly increase or decrease in numbers.
As Amazon changes their rates of pay, they also have the potential to change the economy. An economic change can change the way we live our daily lives, in ways such as prices of basic goods, or even job openings available. With Amazon’s bold move, the most we can do for now is wait and see how this change impacts the economy.
Works Cited
“Amazon Now Has Twice as Many Employees as Apple.” Fortune, fortune.com/2016/02/08/apple-amazon-hiring-spree/.
Investopedia. “Does Raising the Minimum Wage Increase Inflation?” Investopedia, Investopedia, 25 Jan. 2018, www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/does-raising-minimum-wage-increase-inflation.asp.
Pisani, Joseph, and Michelle Chapman. “Amazon Raising Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour for U.S. Workers.” Chicagotribune.com, 2 Oct. 2018, www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-amazon-raising-minimum-wage-20181002-story.html.
Wiener-Bronner, Danielle, and Chris Isidore. “Amazon Announces $15 Minimum Wage for All US Employees.” CNN, Cable News Network, 4 Oct. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/10/02/tech/amazon-minimum-wage/index.html.
While I am wholeheartedly against raising the minimum wage to $15, I’m actually excited to see where this pay raise for Amazon goes. Not only will it force its competitors to adapt, but it might simulate what would happen in an economy which does have a minimum wage of $15. Though, it’s good to remember that Amazon is a company that hired 75,000 warehouse bots in 2017, which would allow a pay raise like this to take place...
ReplyDeleteAmazon is slowly becoming a monopoly. Although there are alternatives to buying products on Amazon like just going to the store, the convenience of being able to get the product in 2 days and not having to leave your home is even better. The prices they are charging now is also something that puts them ahead. When you go to the store buying a phone case can cost $25 but when buying in on Amazon it costs about $10. That price difference along with the convenience puts Amazon ahead. They need more workers to keep up with their business and raising wages will definitely draw that attention. It will be interesting to see how that huge jump from $7.25 to $15 is going to affect the economy.
ReplyDeleteWith Amazon raising their minimum wage to $15 per hour, I feel as if that is going to cause Amazon to get an almost endless supply of people wanting to work for their company. This was a smart move on their part; they can afford to pay $15 per hour minimum. Being such a massive company, the last thing they need to worry about is paying their employees, and now they will have more employees wanting to work for them, which would cause the economic giant to prosper even further than it already has.
ReplyDeleteI think it is very interesting that amazon has initiated a change within their company to raise the minimum wage that people are receiving. The questions that you brought up regarding the employees who have been at the company for a long time and just got to the wage of $15/hour raise a very good point. I know that if I had been working at a company for awhile and just made it to a certain wage, and then a person who has never worked there before starts at the same rate, I would feel very irritated because they didn’t have to work as hard or make the reputation that I did, eventually possibly leading me to leave the job. I will be curious to see how this wage change affects the wages at other places, like Target, because they have to be competitive to keep employees happy so they can run their business.
ReplyDeleteIf this minimum wage increase will increase the amount of employees at Amazon, I wonder if other companies will start to increase their minimum wage too. I know Target currently has a minimum wage of $12, but if raising the minimum wage to $15 will get them hard-working and solid employees, will they raise it more? Companies don’t want to raise it too high because then they might start to lose profit, but does gaining more hard-working employees make up for that?
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting move for amazon as an incentive for people to work here. I do think though that this may be some sort of move to become a monopoly. As you said, this may run other companies out of business, resulting in basically only Amazon left in the race; there will essentially be no more competition left. Do you think that this a legal/ethical move made by Amazon? Personally I think it is both legal and ethical, but the ethics part is more self focused on Amazon alone, not with other companies in mind. I feel like this was a bold move by Amazon.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting thinking about the other workers who have been making more, and what will the adjusted salaries look like for these employees, or will there be any? There definitely should be adjusted salaries for employees who have earned their way up to higher amounts of pay, because if Amazon starts of those workers back at $15 an hour, it’s somewhat disrespectful. Even if these employees were not originally making $15 an hour, but more than minimum wage, then they should be earning adjusted wages to match that.
ReplyDeleteWith the fact that Amazon is raising the salary, this could be good but also very bad because of some who are still making minimum wage is going to get mad/jealous and could start up something which would not be good. There’s a reason why the government hasn’t been raising the minimum wage and let’s hope this doesn’t spark/start any problems in America. Also, they may have to then raise the salary as you said for those of who that have been working there for a while and if they don’t do that, there goes even more anger. Plus, this could screw over other businesses since people will leave them to go work at Amazon and make more money, so that could also destroy the economy. There are many more negatives from the way I see it than positives.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post I was intrigued to learn more about what factors may begin to initiate when Amazon transitions into this new minimum wage at $15. One of your points that really stuck out to me as the reader was the question, what happens to the employees that have been working there already? Will these workers also gain this new minimum wage and add it to there previous wage (that they have probably been increasing over the years) or will they be put at the same spot as all the others. Will this impact other companies to do the same with their minimum wages to keep their employees from moving on over to Amazon, or will the entire nation transition as well to keep the economy stable?
ReplyDeleteAmazon is increasing their minimum wage because they need more employees. Like you said, people want more money. Only a percentage of people really care what their job is, they just care about what they get paid. Even if they like the job they already have, they might turn to Amazon because it's a better pay. I think the company is smart for this, but is it causing them to lose money?
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic because we always talk about raising minimum which is a bad thing but we really didn't think of one big company raising the minimum wage which we would think that is would be a good thing but it isn't. like you said the products they sell would increase in price and smaller business would lose profit and even maybe go out of business. Then stabilize the if one company has a higher minimum wage and the rest of the country is $7.25 would would have to increase the minimum that it would just keep on happening over and over again and it won't stop because people are just so greedy in the end.
ReplyDeleteAmazon can only go up. With the increase in trechnology they have utilized throughout their company and the high demand for their products, it is understandable that they are able to increase the wage of their employees to $15/hour. That will set them apart from other companies. As more poeple will want to work for Amazon, they will have a larger pool of candidates to pull from. That way they can pick the best people for the job. I am interested to see where this will lead and how it will affect surrounding comapnies.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting because there has been a lot of talk about the morality of such a low minimum wage in recent years. Minimum wages used to be able to pay tuition, support a family, etc., but now, due to inflation and the lack of increase of minimum wage a long with it, the ability to live off of minimum wage is nearly impossible. However, the rise of minimum wage throughout the country could have detrimental effects on small business owners that cannot afford to pay their employees that much, and could lead to significant inflation as well. Tony Evers, the Wisconsin Governor elect, is in favor of increasing Wisconsin's minimum wage to this degree, and I'll be interested to see how this plays out.
ReplyDeleteThis is really well written, nice job! I agree with the statements you make in here. While the wage increase is enticing for prospective Amazon employees, there are some possible downsides to this as well. When a firm chooses to pay their employees more, that is less money spent on supplying the products they sell, and by supplying less, then can generate less revenue. However, since Amazon is really the only company of its kind, they pretty much have a monopoly in that industry since all the buying and selling of products goes through them, as well as some delivery now. If prices do rise because of their minimum wage increase, they really won't have any less customers, so it shouldn't affect them too much.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely agree with you when I say that I would love to be paid more at my job! I also heard about this and I am very happy because this is only a couple pennies out of Jeff Besos' pocket but a great improvement for their current and prospective employees! You certainly brought up a good point about existing workers and how will Amazon accommodate seniority and higher positions and I think that is fair because there is more value in the person who has worked 5 years and has gotten 3 raises as opposed to the new employee just starting at the new minimum wage. I wonder what you could have expanded upon if you had analyzed this a little more and maybe looked in on Amazon plans to make these accommodations and how that would affect their company as well!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGetting paid more is what an employee looks for in their job, however Amazon is an empire and has the money to pay for the employee's wages however other smaller companies don't have the resources that Amazon does to pay their worker's more money. In a few years, the economy will grow and wages will increase along with that but for now other states and companies have taken the same initiative that Amazon has taken. I think that it will improve the economic increase for our country.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to me how we just wrote an essay on how changing the minimum wage can effect the economy and now we see companies raising their wages. For Amazon, this is a very bold move and it will effect the company as a whole in good ways and in bad ways. To me, this is a good move for Amazon especially for the workers. I like how you mentioned that the higher positions will also be receiving a raise. Though this means that Amazons profits aren't going to be as high, they have basically monopolized the industry so for them this won't have as large of an affect as you might think. It will be interesting to see if other companies follow.
ReplyDeleteI love the topic! However I don't think that when just Amazon raises their minimum wage to $15 it doesn't cause inflation because that means the new minimum wage for all companies would raise minimum wage that then would cause inflation. I do agree that now more and more people are going to want to work at Amazon so they may quit other jobs, this could harm other companies in that they struggle finding people that want to work at theirs. Amazon is nearly coming a monopoly, but is it right now? Will this move finally make Amazon a monoploy. Was this move done to eliminate other threats in their competition. I think with this move by Amazon they are going to become a monopoly.
ReplyDelete-Lukas Zabel
While for most businesses, a minimum wage increase would greatly impact how they do business, Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world. Jeff Bezos has nearly $100 billion, and Amazon has been coming under fire recently for mistreating their workers. A wage increase would hardly harm Amazon or the economy, and the workers would have more reason to stay there.
ReplyDeleteLuke Lochner
ReplyDeleteI think that with Amazon’s higher minimum wage it will cause more people to want to work at amazon over Walmart or Target. The majority of people want to be paid more but it isn’t a good idea to give them the higher pay. Amazon is already a monopoly and they are able to afford to pay people more at their company. The ripple effect will be the fact that Walmart and Target will not be able to compete and will start to become irrelevant. It isn’t unfair what Amazon is doing, it is very smart. It is a good way for them to get rid of competitors in a way that only they can.
This is very interesting as I commonly hear about how it is great to work for Amazon. Not only do they have the need for a lot of employees, but they also pay good! You bring up some great points regarding the topic. If I was working for Amazon, and I had worked there for a large amount of time, I would expect my wage to be increased if I was already at 15 dollars an hour. If I would get paid the same amount as a new employee after the wage increase, I would question why I worked so hard to build a reputable reputation. I am interested to see how this wage change will affect Target or Walmart as they only pay around 11 dollars an hour. That being said, if they don’t increase their wage to compete, it is very possible that they will be at a loss of employees and struggling.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to hear about this large increase in Amazon's minimum wage, as most companies, even those with a similar amount of wealth, don't bother raising pay to that extent. However, I've noticed that Amazon enjoys being a very innovative business and acting in sometimes a shocking manner with each new initiative taken. It's one of the characteristics that keep people talking about, using, supporting, and being interested in them, which has kept the company strong and unsurpassable for years. It goes to show that making interesting decisions can often be very beneficial from a business standpoint, and there's no doubt that even more people will be attracted to Amazon as an employer after this event.
ReplyDeleteI agree that everyone wants to make more money as well as the economic changes that come along with people actually making more money. Amazon, having a large part of the market, have a good amount of price control for their goods and services. I know recently the price of a Amazon Prime membership went from $99 to $119. Although there is a jump in $20 I am certain that Amazon will still have plenty of prime customers because many use their service on a regular basis. With this, how much will the company suffer or gain from the increase in wages?
ReplyDeleteAmazon raising their prices is just another thing that they have people's heads turning for. You brought up a good point when you were talking about this increase how it affects amazon's competition. Even without selling anything better, cheaper, or new, they were able to make it harder on other companies, because with less employees to go around, other business in general will just suffer. So even though amazon pays more per employee, it still has a lot of added benefits. I think since such a well known company like this changed their minimum wage, does that mean other companies will soon start to follow suit? I think other companies, even ones that don't compete with amazon are going to start to feel pressure to increase their minimum wage. It's like when apple brought the notch to the iPhone X, a lot of other brands of phones started to incorporate the notch as well. I liked your topic, and this writing piece!
ReplyDeleteThis is a bold move from Amazon, and even though they are a large and rich company, the amount of employees is also large. With more and more beginning to work for them, it could start to add up. This seems like an implicit way to undermine other companies such as Google to increase profits from an efficiency standpoint as their employee count raises but also from the public standpoint as more customers would like to buy things from there due to their policies. This raise could go two ways; one, it could cause places such as Google, Walmart, Target or others to begin raising their minimum wage to keep up in the market, increasing their costs of labor and decreasing their profits. Now with online markets, this can seriously hurt clothing companies or grocery stores as they are already beginning to struggle as evident by the closing of Sears, and Boston Store. The second outcome can be when the novelty of the whole situation runs out and Amazon is left paying higher labor costs with the same income as before, potentially leading to layoffs or closings.
ReplyDeleteMany of the companies that you mention are also doing other things to try to gain employees such as having casual dress codes and really good insurance to try to get more employees. How far can they take these employee benefits before they start being worth too much? Although they are going to be getting more employees, they could be wasting money on things for their employees rather than on advancing their production and creating new products.
ReplyDeleteI almost wonder if the increase in minimum wage will have an opposite effect on Amazon than what they’re expecting or hoping for with this change. The demand for jobs at Amazon will increase, forcing employees to sift through more resumes and give more interviews. With a larger audience of people applying for a job at Amazon, there will be a wider variety of skill levels on both spectrums which could either be good or bad. Also, I think this change might cause Amazon to become less efficient as they move away from specialization and into overcrowding as their workforce has been continuously growing throughout the years.
ReplyDeleteWith this wage increase that over doubles the minimum wage pay for employees of Amazon, obviously as you have expressed, more workers are going to be enticed to look for a job opportunity with Amazon over other competitor companies. With that being said, it seems that Amazon may becoming more and more of an Oligopoly and even may be moving towards a Monopoly as it is taking over the market share in the industry. This is very good for the company however, may make consumer choice limited over a long period of time if Amazon's wage raise causes competitors to go out of business.
ReplyDeleteRaising the minimum wage was a good choice by Amazon. This gives workers an even bigger incentive as to why they should work there, instead of competing firms. In all honesty Amazon seems to be becoming a Oligopoly. In the future, possibly a Monopoly. Although this may be a good thing. This could hurt Amazon in the long run because a raise in pay, could lead to overcrowding and create inefficiencies in the business.
ReplyDeleteI agree that more people will now desire to work at Amazon (rather than some of its competitors) due to the company's increased wages. However, I wonder if Amazon will actually hire more people because with their new "minimum wage," the demand for a job at Amazon will greatly outweigh the supply, thus causing a shortage. Additionally, as you mentioned, with this increase in the cost of inputs, Amazon may have to increase their prices of goods to compensate. This could potentially decrease sales due to the law of demand, however, if the demand for Amazon goods is relatively inelastic it may not have a negative affect on the total revenue of the company. Therefore, I agree with you that only time will tell the true impact of this change to the Amazon company.
ReplyDeleteAs much as all of us would love a minimum wage price increase, economically it isn’t a smart decision. My hunch is as you predicted, people won’t strive for a higher position, unless another incentive is added. Smaller businesses will struggle to gain employees and sell their items, because they don’t have as much money as Amazon does. Amazon is very much like a monopoly, as we’ve discussed in class, and because of that, they will still gain profit with increasing the minimum wage. There are very few websites that sell pretty much everything, and that’s why Amazon can raise their employee’s wages. They have enough money to give everyone that raise, while still earning money off of their goods.
ReplyDeleteI would say everyone would love to get paid more than minimum wage, but if we raise the minimum wage from 7.25 to let’s say 15 an hour than many people would want to get the same job. But how would that help out the company if too many people want to get the job? If there’s too many people that want to get paid more, then there’s a chance that you might get scheduled as much as you would getting paid 7.25.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. I've never really thought about how increasing the minimum wage could be bad for some people in the company. Some of the questions asked in the post got me thinking a lot. I believe that a company like Amazon won't necessarily have to increase the prices of their products due to the crazy cash flow that they have coming into the company every day.
ReplyDelete