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Healthy_Pay9449 t1_j5a1y1s wrote

Reply to comment by THevil30 in Why did Sunday pay go away? by A_Man_Who_Writes

This would be better if inflation didn't exceed the raises

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THevil30 t1_j5a2n85 wrote

Well yeah but that’s a separate issue.

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A_Man_Who_Writes OP t1_j5abl17 wrote

How is that a separate issue? No one is any better off at 15 than they were at 8 many years ago. Inflation has been crazy.

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THevil30 t1_j5adgc8 wrote

Well okay first of all that statement is just false. The minimum wage went up in like 2014 or so. Inflation this year has been pretty bad at around 8% but inflation from 2014 has NOT been 80%. $15 now is just factually more than $8 in 2014 when you adjust for inflation. You can look at the CPI statistics to clearly see this.

But it’s a separate issue because the issue of “what should the minimum wage be” is separate from “should you get paid more on Sundays just because it’s Sunday.” It makes perfect sense to me to say that the minimum wage should be higher in order to account for inflation. It makes NO sense to me to say that minimum wage should be higher on Sundays and not other days in order to account for inflation. My point here is that Sundays are not special, and the inflation rate does not make Sundays any more or less special. It is simply a separate issue.

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Tacoman404 t1_j5b1n52 wrote

Sundays are special in that typically the businesses that operate the most on them are retail hence why the wage increase was given to those workers. Weekends are factually busier at these establishments requiring more work as M-F workers are shopping at them.

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ak47workaccnt t1_j5a4fqx wrote

Is it though?

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THevil30 t1_j5a57fh wrote

I mean, yes? I’d be totally down to peg the minimum wage to inflation. But adding time and a half on Sundays is def not the way to deal with it.

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A_Man_Who_Writes OP t1_j5abntp wrote

But we all know that minimum wage is going to be stuck at 15 for years.

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THevil30 t1_j5adujd wrote

The other point here is what was possible at the time. You have to remember that while we are a pretty progressive state overall we still elected Charlie Baker twice and would have done so again had he run. There is a level of “too progressive” at which point the average MA voter does get annoyed. The bargain that was struck was what could pass, and all in all it was a good bargain and one of the highest minimum wage increases in the country.

At the end of the day the politicians have to account for the will of the voters, and in MA we have a pretty good progressive base. But there are limits. This was a good deal, I’ll take the W.

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