re: Seeing a lot of restaurants are having trouble hiring workers

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Can you not practice law in MT, Counselor?

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Eh, I'll think about it. I'd rather frick around for a year and feel like I'm 23 again.

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Link?

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It could be one of either Spanish Peaks Mountain Club or Yellowstone Club - I'm not gonna say which.

I'm not moving for another three weeks or so, but I'll be in Big Sky.

The Real Impact of The Perfect Storm
• Tax Returns
• Stimulus Checks
• Unemployment Benefits

How are these 3 things going to impact business over the next 5 months in this already challenging COVID-19 market?

Prepared by Frank Pastorino – Market Vice President Employbridge

#1 - Impacts of Unemployment Benefits

• Currently, workers who were making $15 per hour are collecting 60% of their wages via unemployment benefits = $360 per week

• $360 per week plus an extra $300 per week in Stimulus benefits for a total of $660 net each week through September 2021.

• Workers also get a tax break of paying no taxes on the first $10,500 (16 weeks of tax free money).

This means the average person collecting unemployment will be earning the equivalent of a pre-tax wage of $21.50 per hour by staying home.

#2 - Impacts of Stimulus payments

• The latest round of stimulus approved on March 11, 2021 gives each person making under $75,000 per year a lump sum of $1,400 for themselves or $2800 for couples and an additional $1,400 for each child or dependent. This will further incentivize unemployed workers to stay home rather than return to the workforce. A family of 4 will receive $5600 in a one lump sum payment.

• This is equivalent to a month’s net pay for a couple making $100k per year.

• This is also equivalent to $267 in weekly net income over 5 months (equaling $8.68 pre- tax
hourly wages)

• A company’s culture and benefits may help to retain personnel but to attract a reliable and capable workforce, the wages offered must be competitive. Right now, that means competing with unemployment and stimulus money even more than it means competing with other opportunities available to hourly workers. It will “Pay” to be unemployed.

#3 – Tax Returns
• In the most recent data provided by the IRS; In 2018 the average tax refund for earnings in the $25,000 - $49,999 income bracket in 2018 was $2,608.20.

That is equivalent to roughly 6 weeks of net pay for a $15hr worker.

LINK

• This is equal to pretax wages of $4.04 per hour or $161.45 per week over a 5 month period.

Adding it all up

Per week over a 5 month period – March to September

• Weekly Unemployment- = $660
• Stimulus check for a family of 4 = $267
• Tax Return refund = $161

Total weekly after tax income = $1,088

How does all of this break down to an hourly pre-tax wage?

• Unemployment $21.50
• Stimulus check $8.68
• Tax-refund $4.04

• Total equivalent pre-tax wages to stay on unemployment for the next 5 months = $34.22

This is all to help the government bring in UBI. The more people that depend on the government, the more government expands. Sad really.

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Get what you pay for.

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Not necessarily. I find that you “pay for what you get”.

Years ago I would pay simple labor 12 instead of 10 to try to motivate them. 10 dollar people are 10 dollar people.

Here in metro Atlanta it's the same situation. The few cooks that we have where I work are working 7 or 8 days in a row at a successful business that has been open for almost 30 years. Everyone working us exhausted.

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Hate that your business be the victim of the crimes they commit that land them back in jail.

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Work release inmates are still in jail

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Hate to be that guy, but maybe, just maybe, if you’d pay them more than 7.25 a fricking hour they’d work.

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This is just ignorant. Most jobs are already paying $10, $12, $15/ hour unless it’s something like a neighborhood grocery store stock boy. As said servers make money on tips, if you are a decent server right now you should be making $25/ hour in tips on night shifts due to the increase in tables from lack of staff. Some are probably making $50/ hour fairly easily. Problem is waitstaff hours are only 4-6 hour shifts usually, harder to make good money working 25% less hours then someone working 40 hours.

2ndly, it’s due to a major swing in labor cost. Labor cost is a huge portion of many restaurants and business’s operation expenses. You increase labor by 25% and they may have to increase food cost by 50%. People are complaining those $12 burgers are now $16 already. This is why. People are complaining about the 3% CC fee, this is why.

I don’t know the solution, I went out to eat yesterday for a bday party at a shite restaurant and paid $15 for a shite burger and horrible service, we were there for 2.5 hours. They were on an hour wait at 4:30 due to a major staff shortage and we left at 7pm. Terrible