In other words, by cutting worker hours, the Sanders campaign elected to provide fewer “services” in the form of campaign activities. In practice, this will likely mean fewer rallies, less travel, or fewer television ads.
Sanders reacted the same way any real world business man would react if he wanted to stay in business.
https://mises.org/wire/bernie-sanders-shows-us-how-minimum-wage-hike-hurts-workers
The Washington Post reported last week that some workers on the Bernie Sanders campaign for calling for a wage increase to a the equivalent of 15 dollars per hour. This, of course, is the hourly rate which Sanders has long pushed for in legislation and on the campaign trail.
But that’s more than what many Sanders employees make per hour.
Many campaign workers are salaried, so the problem lies in the fact that total campaign salaries, when calculated on a per-hour-worked basis, come out to less than $15 per hour. Many employees work around 60 hours per week — as is often typical for full-time workers on a presidential campaign.
As reported by the Des Moines Register,
For a staffer working 40 hours a week, [the typical campaign salary] comes out to about $17 an hour. But 40-hour workweeks on presidential campaigns are rare.
So, some Sanders employees have complained they aren’t earning a “living wage” and have demanded Sanders raise wages immediately. Recognizing the bad optics of the situation, Sanders apparently began looking for a way to raise the per-hour wage.
But how to do it?…
So what is Sanders’s solution?
Not a Raise in Terms of Total Income
According to the Register:
Sanders said the campaign will limit the number of hours staffers work to 42 or 43 each week to ensure they’re making the equivalent of $15 an hour.
It’s not really an increase in total earnings for workers, of course, although workers do now have time to work a second job. Workers won’t be getting any closer to that “living wage” they keep talking about, but by cutting hours for salaried workers, the campaign can claim it raised hourly wages. The move is a masterstroke of cynical public relations.
There are a couple of things we can learn from this.
First of all, we learn that Sanders is not willing to put his money where his mouth is. He’s not willing to use any additional portion of his personal wealth to supplement worker wages.
He is willing to cut back on campaign activities to raise the per-hour wage. In other words, by cutting worker hours, the Sanders campaign elected to provide fewer “services” in the form of campaign activities. In practice, this will likely mean fewer rallies, less travel, or fewer television ads.
The Long Term Effects
Ironically, in the longer term, this may nonetheless turn out to represent a very real pay cut for campaign workers by reducing their employment options moving forward…
The result will be concentration in the industry: smaller and less-capitalized firms will go out of business. Larger firms will gain even more market share. Ultimately, consumers will pay more as a small number of firms can then raise prices more easily. And workers will have fewer options among potential employers — and this will mean wage compression at all levels above the mandated minimum.
Thus, not only will a minimum wage hike mean fewer products and services offered per firm, it may also mean fewer firms providing products and services.
It’s debatable, of course, whether or not the Sanders campaign provides a “service” many people want. But by cutting back on total hours in order to pay higher hourly wages, the Sanders campaign is illustrating what private firms must do whenever government regulators and legislators raise costs: they must become less competitive.
The result is workers working less, firms offering fewer services, and smaller start-ups losing out to bigger competitors.
Unfortunately, Sanders is unlikely to learn anything from the experience.
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