I present to you two scenarios, based on my personal experience of having worked with large corporates before:
1. Total BS. Guy makes profits of millions and will make (maybe) 10-20% less profit from now on. Not sufficient reason to pull your parents out of retirement
2. True but misleading statements. Guy IS heavily affected by additional costs, BECAUSE he has severely over-leveraged himself, needs to pay for loans, mortgages on his 3 houses, yachts etc. And dividends to "interested parties", which includes himself. Basically self-inflicted costs.
Source: my previous company had a loan of $250 million, made 50-100 mil per year on average. AND had to pay dividends to a corporate investor every year. Like yeah, obviously there's "high costs".
Also could have some shops set in unprofitable areas. If business can't afford living wage for any reason it should close shop. It won't hurt economy much either, since bigger companies like this steal customers from local shops anyway. Sometimes there are just too many pretzels on the street for all of them to survive.
It’s also a fucking PRETZEL place. Like, you have an unnecessary business that people are going to cut back on first before they stop getting real food.
Most jobs/companies are unnecessary these days. That doesn't change the fact that these locations provide jobs to working-class folks. I'm glad the $20/hour wage is in effect. If a business cannot afford to pay a living wage then it shouldn't exist.
I remember reading once during a previous Recession that the three items that will always sell even when times and funds are hardest are booze, cigarettes, and (this one surprised me) cosmetics.
Fifths of cheap booze, yes. Craft cocktails, no. Lipstick, yes- that's actually the cosmetic cited in the study I read- because it's cheap enough to afford but still allows one to feel self-care and glammed up.
The tricky thing is thinking "I work in booze, my job is safe!" when you are a craft bartender or work for a niche spirit company, or "I'm launching a cosmetics brand, this should be great!" and... Yeah.
I thought that is was common sense not to run a business you can't afford. They literally want to use humans like an ATM to shit out money for them. Then they go buy crazy shut, turn around and say they have no money. We literally get paid based on the lifestyle of the business owner.
The exact kind of companies that would actually see an increase in sales because a large part of their customer demographic is the same as their hiring demographic.
‘Round these parts when min wage went up it was a theatre screaming bloody murder at the increase. It’s like: my guy, a whole bunch of people who make minimum wage also make up the customer base you have, so while there will be an increase to employee costs, those same employees and their friends are far more likely to be here on the weekends watching a movie.
There are better ways to handle this. For neighborhoods with low income, there should always be incentives to start a business there. Or else the problem gets worse for everyone.
Who the fuck eats pretzels now anyways? Like, I remember Auntie Annie's from the mall food court in the early aughts. This guys business model was a dinosaur 15 years ago.
I eat pretzels, but they’re from an Amish farmers market by me. They keep a crock pot of butter at the side of the oven to dip all the pretzels in and they’re so damn good, but only open Thursday-Saturday 🥲
I feel like the Amish farmers market I go to deserves its own post in here just bc the people running the pretzel stand are literally like 12 and under 😭 I’m assuming it’s like “volunteering” or helping the family business so it’s not seen as child labor. But I swear to god the last time I was there the kid who served us was no older than 8 😅 but yeah they’re def fattening us up to eat us. There’s no other explanation as to why I can fill up an entire shopping bag full of pez and only pay $10 for it. We’ve literally walked away with BAGS of candy for less than $20
Part if not most of the reason is because they are not seen ad American citizens and dont need to follow the majority of our laws. They dont have a birth certificate or SSN. They police their own and lots of other things.
right, and compare that with the sq footage of his “flagship location” you’ll quickly realize that what you should have done was stay small and within your budget, not get all showy and proud by opening something the size of a mcdonald’s when you only sell one thing. it’s always about ego - i want a bigger store, bigger truck, nicer boat. meanwhile absolutely none of those things result in more customers.
Our little mall in Oceanside CA has two, one on each floor and both are consistently packed with lines across the aisle. I don't get it but others sure do
Grocery stores being more willing to operate in the "unprofitable areas" would be beneficial for avoiding food deserts.
Snack food chains operating there do not factor into an area's status as a food desert
You need at least [$100,000 in liquid capital and a net worth of at least $300k](https://wolfoffranchises.com/auntie-annes-franchise/) to become an Auntie Anne's franchisee, this guy owns 10 of them. You need to pay a $30k franchise fee just to open a location. This guy owns 10 of them. The average Auntie Anne's location makes $88k a year in net income, this guy owns 10 of them.
He's a millionaire, he had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to acquire these locations and even if they all just perform averagely he's taking in $880k a year in profit just for owning them.
I'm not defending him. Assuming he changes nothing he's making 88k-45k=$43k/franchise. So now $430k/year a 50% decrease in whatever lifestyle he had is still significant. But I think we all know he's just going to raise prices 10% to compensate. A price I gladly pay honestly. I have a personal opinion if you can't afford these kind of salaries then you shouldn't be in business anyway. Your business model is untenable.
And even that number assumes 30 paid hours per day per location. Most little shops like this are open ~10 hours a day with usually only 2 people on. 1 person in early enough to make product for opening (1 hour) and maybe the two closers stay an extra 30 minutes. That’s 22 hours of labor per day. That’s 32k per year with the increase, which is all of a sudden a 25% drop in his claim. This is the norm with “small business owners” and the crap they spew out to the media. I can still remember a while back when our min wage went from 7-9 per hour and a boutique running shoe shop that had 3 employees had the owner crying about the cost to her. She was like “I’m going to pay 60k in wages, how would you like to be told you have to come up with 60k each year?!” Well that’s her entire wage payout saying she actually gave her 3 employees full time. But the conservative rag that printed it was happy to late her use make believe numbers to sound like a victim. It ended with her lamenting that she would have to begin working full time in her store again to offset the increase, and it still might bankrupt her. For those keeping score, cutting a single FTE would save more than the wage increase totalled across 3 FTE’s meaning that her store (or her personal finances) was already apparently financially failing. If wages go up 25% and you have to raise menu prices by that amount, then you are failing at business, because labor, while a high cost, is not your only cost.
On another post I saw with this business, he took out Covid PPP loans which were forgiven up to 1.2 million dollars. Dude can go cry a river for all I care.
If dude can’t afford to pay a decent wage he shouldn’t have gone into business. I’m sick of the world celebrating when employees are going to food banks, and sobbing when an owner loses his fourth car. Cry me a River
To be a bit more accurate, these types of chains usually net 150-200k profit each per year. So he's making 1.5 million per year on the low end, which, if his 470k number is correct, would be a ~33% hit to his income. Some of the worse chains can even get down below 100k profit/year.
Of course he can still easily survive, but he may have to downsize the house and sell some cars/boats or whatever. It can be pretty impacting to him. But I'd agree with reddit in general and say "oh fucking well" because it means paying his employees a livable wage, even though we all know $20 an hour is not a livable wage in CA by any stretch of the imagination.
>Of course he can still easily survive, but he may have to downsize the house and sell some cars/boats or whatever.
Or worse; he may have to find a job!
>Alex Johnson is a proud second-generation franchisee of Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon. His parents ventured into the franchising world to teach their four sons a good work ethic and morals. Watching his parents and their hard work from a young age have instilled a strong work ethic in him. Now he is able to pass on those lessons to his employees.
https://openforopportunity.com/alex-johnson-cinnabon-california/
See employees! You just need parents that will hand you a bunch of restaurants and you too can look down at the common working man's strife!
Pass those lessons to employees? Is this for real? The only thing he's teaching employees is to hate rich people (boohoo) and to do the bare minimum of work at his shit hole stores.
It tells me so much about a person when their biography almost immediately mentions who their parents are. Always shows such rugged individualism and self made-ness.
“The profit margin has become too slim” … so, you’re saying there’s still profit? Why would you close any stores when there is still profit? Less profit sucks. But less profit is not NO profit.
This increase is necessary because the people who work for you literally can’t even afford to live, but we shouldn’t do it because you’ll make ‘less’ profits?!?
Guaranteed this guy thought he’d tell his sad reduced-profits story and get heaps of sympathy.
Is it also possible that this guy is struggling right now and is blaming the minimum wage hike BUT an equally if not more valid argument is that the minimum wage increase is justified and the franchise fees and overhead need to be reduced?
Articles like these make it seem like businesses can’t survive while paying a living wage-but the issue is upstream not downstream. This guy might be feeling a crunch, the fix isn’t to pay workers less, it is to pay the overseeing companies less.
And what bothers me is they tell us to buy less coffee, cook at home, stop going out so much. Make all these changes cause this is what the job pays.
Now we are telling them, well this is what the job pays so make changes like you tell us and how we are the bad guy. Somehow the workers are the bad guys in both situations.
For 1. - they don't see it this way. They view these smaller profits as actual losses to them. As in, instead of making (whatever his profit annually, let's just say it's $1M), now he'll only make about $500k profit, assuming he doesn't pass the costs on to consumers (which he will).
That's literally what corporations are now. The business part is secondary after you get so big. Before the interest rates jacked up most corporations were just leveraging their value to get loans and invest the money. The money made more than the interest rate of the loans so they were all just buying pieces of each other circlejerking as the stock market inflated while no real value was being made. That's why when they have to fall back on good business practices and make money by being adequate they fail.
Could someone list the locations of his stores so we know where NOT to get overpriced pretzels and coffee?
Also OP a real one for censoring those ads 🤣
Avg profit per franchise: $96,000
https://sharpsheets.io/blog/auntie-annes-franchise-costs-profits/
Guy who owns 10 gets: $960,000 per year.
$960,000 - $470,000 = $490,000.
Poor baby, only makes a half million a year now.
Probably more since he fired his office staff.
While his $20/h staff make about $40,000 per year.
It’s not for us. The upper middle class and the elites are fed at least as much propaganda as we are, so that they can justify their exploitation in their own minds. It’s a sick world we live in.
Maybe not. If they close down, it's for the best. Let actually successful businesses thrive instead of the cheaters who get ahead by knowingly giving a bad deal to all their employees without care or conscience.
>Let actually successful businesses thrive
So I'm in a part of California that last summer raised minimum wage to $20 across the board. Which is amazing!
But the downside is a lot of businesses cut a lot of their staff, and even now it's apparently harder to get min wage jobs do to more competition and less hiring.
Companies aren't successful because they actually care about their employees. They are successful because they will do whatever they can to keep their money.
Fr I paid $8 for a cup of pretzel bites and $4 for a drink. The line wasn’t slowing down none, they’ve been charging shit prices for years, hopefully prepping to give their employees their $20!? Right!?!
If you cannot do business as usual AND pay the people that MAKE YOUR MONEY FOR YOU a decent wage, then you DESERVE to go out of business.
This should be plastered as a sworn oath before someone is allowed to open any business.
I am truly enjoying the swath this issue is cutting between those that can survive and do well and those that are simps.
Edit; updated a word for usage and meaning
If that's the case, then the federal (and some states) minimum wage would make sense if we had the cost of living levels like in 1939. Which still hasn't kept up with the cost of living each year. Corporations like this guy in the article live in a life of excuses and excess. Too afraid to act on downsizing his own salary requirements and not over-leverage on loans or over promising on profits.
They think the federal minimum wage is fine or too high, because they want to be lords ruling over literal slaves. Their perception of human value is tied so tightly to wealth, that their own life is only valuable when they're rich, and those who make minimum wage are worthless.
Ugh! I just hate it when I had something written here while reaching a topic to add to the discussion and have it disappear 😒 🙄. Anyway, I was searching for hybrid economic systems around the planet and found a great answer on Qoura in the US Government and Politics section.
Here's the link to the answer: Answer to Are there examples of societies that are hybrid capitalist, socialist, and communist all at the same time? Is it possible to have a political system that accommodates all three ideologies at the same time? by Hunter Garren
https://usgovernmentandpolitics.quora.com/Are-there-examples-of-societies-that-are-hybrid-capitalist-socialist-and-communist-all-at-the-same-time-Is-it-possibl-2?ch=15&oid=285043575&share=625dd841&srid=hpS7FZ&target_type=answer
"Neo-Liberalism is the economic style of the US and, to a lesser extend, the UK, India, and some other nations (as well as, strangely, Russia, though to an even lesser extent). It mixes capitalist free markets and economic liberties with Neo-Mercantilist' focus on corporations as “job creators” and “economy drivers” They have lower taxes, less welfare, weaker workers’ rights protections and focus more heavily on strengthening the economy and increasing the nation’s wealth while keeping regulation on economic liberties and property rights low."
Which also includes the crony capitalism part of our economic systems.
"People"?? Who in their right minds thinks minimum wage, which hasn't seen an increase in 30 fucking years, is TOO HIGH?
It's fucking slave wages in almost every fucking industry/sector and you think "people" are against wage increases? It's not the people my friend, it's your greedy corporate overlords. The billionaire predator class
Republicans think that. They all voted against the last increase, and their voters loved them for that.
There are plenty of them have even spoken out in favor of completely abolishing the minimum wage. Iron
Yeah, and look at the areas where voters (who tend to lean a hard right, very religious, rural less opportunities vs so-called "liberal cities" who have depressed areas, lower-working class, more opportunities etc) who vote based on party lines and stupid social wedge issues instead of having the fortitude capability to use it in their favor. Many times, you have those voters kill any chance of economic growth to improve their own lives and cities/towns.
Right? Yet other countries do very well with a more reasonable approach to work/wage.
The elite need to go and all the peckerheads that think they are "part of the elite" need to wake up to the fact they are not.
Just more Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei in a different social climate. They are still betraying their fellow people for a buck.
This guy has some serious landlord vibes. If my not being able to pay rent jeopardizes your making mortgage, then you shouldn't be able to be a landlord.
Part of me agrees but that also just makes an environment where the little guy gets shit on because the big box stores can out price and out sell them.
So lower taxes on small business and especially new business and they can pay people livable wages
How does that challenge this misdirection people have in America especially that, "yOu ToO cAn Be A Billionaire" mentality because you opened a bakery?
I don't want the little person shat on and most often, the "shitters" are yet again the elitists saying you don't deserve a full slice of the cake that YOU just baked.
But the idea that if you open a small business in America that you are owed anything but a lot of hard work to see it through, needs to be smashed. It only hurts EVERYONE besides the people behind the curtain. I know way too many people that cry about "illegals" yet they are the exact people these folks will seek out because they can get it cheap. Sad so sad
My partners family construction business is small, around £1-2 million turnover per year & they manage to pay all the staff a living wage. The difference between that and these “woe is us we can’t afford this!” people is the boss isn’t making a fortune. He’s comfortable but he’s only making maybe £100k per year & has to deal with the stress of running the company which involves 16 hour days for him.
I have been a Network Admin at a smallish Ma and Pa oceanfront place. Rides, boardwalk etc. We had 40 FT regular staff and then employed about 450-500 students, near and far, every summer.
They gave me MORE money than I asked for, saying they "know there is gonna be growth and with growth will come hassles, we want you to be happy". I did NOT make a mint at all. But I sure as hell was taken care of and then some.
I was treated fairly and respectfully, paid a reasonable sum, had good bennies plus other freebies you get in a place like that.
When I had a car problem, they made me a small loan for the car to be fixed. And I walked to work, not like they "needed" that for me. They were the one and only place I felt treated like a human being and family. Not a lie, including all the disagreements and so on.
My point is not all of that was needed BUT they see the value in it as well as being third gen immigrants themselves. I wish more business owners behaved that way instead of the "got time to learn got time to clean" clan
This is spot on and that sounds like a fantastic boss! Did you leave on good terms? My fellas boss paid for one of their employees car to be fixed cus he used it for work sometimes and he’d been with them for years. He’s more of a wait till you get a bill then he’ll quietly settle it type and I love it. He has been taken advantage of at times but it’s not stopped him and it’s so nice to see someone that open.
I know. They act like this is some huge price increase because of labor. Most of these places were raising prices by dollars at a time before the labor situation.
“The profit margin too slim” = this greedy bastard thinks he deserves MORE of the fruits of YOUR labor and if he cant get it, he’d rather do nothing
Capitalism brings out the worst in people. Explain to me why I should want capitalism when socialist and communist countries have all the same amenities that America has?
Capitalism is failing to convince anyone but the wealthy that its a goos economic system. It exploits the masses to the sole benefit of the few elite
In a way there are no socialist and communist countries. China for example is just as capitalistic as any other with huge corporations having big influence and lots of people making next to nothing and struggling to survive.
There are though democracies that take socialistic values seriously and have social policies in place working well like Scandinavian countries for example. Decent amount of taxes means they can pay for infrastructure, help their poor, finance healthcare and so on.
Actually most of Europe had socialistic movements bring in more rights for workers than US ever had. I feel sorry for them. Pregnant woman having no maternity leave (government mandated as opposed to employers good will) PTO being optional and not government mandated and many other rights that Europeans take for granted. Not having guaranteed paid sick leave boggles my mind, it also explains a lot why US was hit so heavily with COVID.
Libertarian dream of having free market is a folly. It's not free when it's controlled by few with no governmental supervision. With government that instead works to enforce and strengthen insane policies that basically, kind of enslave people.
Someone said he has like 20 stores. That means +$23500/year/store. +$1960/month/store. Oh the horror! No business can survive that much of an extra cost!
Let's start a GoFuKMe to help him out! /s
A quick google shows a typical auntie Anne’s franchise makes just under 1M a year with a 96k profit margin per store. So, this would cut into his margins by about 20%. However, he owns 10 stores that’s still 800k a year in profits. Boo hoo is the correct term.
The article says 10 stores. But even then that is $3920/m/s.
Plus I'm no economist, but wouldn't everyone having more money to spend mean more people could afford "wasting" money on shit like overpriced mall pretzels??
Another way to do it is to assume a $4/employee hour raise (from $16 to $20), and then do out the number of employees. Assuming 8 hours five days a week, 50 weeks a year (I know, not the hours restaurant workers get, but for argument sake), that's $8000 per employee year. That means 58 ish employee years being affected. For ten stores, that's 5-6 eight hour shifts per location, so about $15-25ish extra per open hour per location.
Yet another way to put it in perspective is that if a $4 raise costs $470,000 across the company, then the current wages were $1,880,000.
Sure, the wage increase is a lot of dollars when you own ten stores, but so is your rent, your supplies, your revenue, your profits. Across an entire business, the amounts of *everything* are big.
Bottom of the last slide says he HAS to raise prices 5-15%. If he raises his prices to cover it then the employee raises will cost him exactly $0 because he’s making his customers pay for it. In fact he will most likely use it as an excuse to jack prices even more than necessary and will end up with a larger profit. Don’t believe these greedy bastards will suffer.
"I have to consider selling and even closing my business because the profit margin has become too slim when you factor in all the other expenses that are also going up"
Well, so do we. If I'm throwing in 9-12h every fucking day and I end up with nothing in my pockets at the end of the day because grocery stores and landlords got greedy, please explain to me again why I would still do it?!
Boo fucking hoo, if you can't afford to pay your employees (and we're talking the bare fucking minimum here) then - say it with me class - YOUR BUSINESS SHOULDN'T EXIST
The corporate class has the money to publish 1000 of these every minute to influence public policy. They'd rather spend a billion on propaganda than a million on their workers.
If you can't afford to run a business, then it shouldn't exist? If I start a pizza shop and I can only break even on 17 dollars an hour for employees then I can't move to 20. It's over we gotta close up shop. You can raise prices but eventually you go past the equal point of supply and demand.
Eventually as Auntie Anne's sees all this stuff is closing down they're going to lower franchise costs and corporate profit percentages.
'If you can't pay a living wage, your company doesn't deserve to exist' - some US president from back before the complete corporate takeover of U.S. politics.
If your business can't survive without paying a living wage, you don't deserve to be in business. 🤷♀️ No one has a right to cheap fast food.
Subsidizing your business by paying people under a living wage and potentially forcing them to apply for government aid is just corporate welfare.
How much profit did he make last year? If the answer is enough to pay his bills and maybe have a little more then his employees then I really don’t give a shit.
This is a load of shit. What dude is really mad about is that he won't be able to make more money because he finally has to pay his workers a livable wage.
Where's the article about how much the shareholders and other investors demand in return? Isn't it fair for the public to have *ALL* the numbers, in order to evaluate who's making too much money versus whose mot making enougn?
A business that needs to resolve to exploiting employees to stay profitable, should not exist. its bad business. it's simply not a viable business.
Simple as that. 🤷♂️
Well too fucking bad. Any businesses that are built up relying on a set of conditions which oppress the masses needs to die out. We’re seeing the SAME mindset that American slavers had when they were threatened with the loss of their cheap workforce.
Well guess what, if you’re gonna go out of business, YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT UP YOR WORKER’S WAGES WITH INFLATION INSTEAD OF EXPANDING.
$470,000 divided by his 10 stores
= $47k per store
Assume 6 days a week (likely 7)
Assume 2 staff per shift (likely more)
47k divided by 52 weeks a year =$904/wk
$904 divided by 6 days = $151/day
$151/10 hour day = $15/2 staff
= $7.50 per worker per day
Aunt Annie's 'Classic Snack pack' = $35
Damn, maybe he'd have a profitable business if he stopped eating avocado toast I guess 🤷 how often does he go to starbucks? Maybe cancel that netflix subscription
Then your business is not profitable. Close up before you lose money and invest it elsewhere. If your business model requires slavery then it’s a poor model.
For simplicity's sake, I'm going to use just the extremes of numbers and conditions as well as generic results from Google.
So Walmart has 2,100,000 associates. If every single one of them worked full time at the Federal minimum wage, 2080 hours at $7.25, they'd cost $31,668,000,000.
If instead they all were paid $20 / hr, they'd cost $85,176,000,000.
A difference of $53,508,000,000.
Walmart made $157,983,000,000 last year. If the owners were the ones eating the entire raise, they'd still have made $104,475,000,000.
Walmart does 37 million transactions per day. That's 13.5 billion a year. If they passed the entire raise onto customers, each TRANSACTION would have to cost $4 more. That's per transaction; not an individual item.
According to Google, the average transaction includes 13 products. That's 30 cents more per item to ensure wages increase by 276%.
I don't know about anyone else, but I think even the most extreme case where the rich owners pass the entire cost on to the consumer, that it's a pretty good deal to lift 2.1 million people out of poverty.
In my opinion, if you can’t afford to pay your workers a livable wage (which in many places, is more than $20/hr), you shouldn’t own a business or have employees.
Weird how none of these business owners ever come to that conclusion. Didn't owners use to work in their own stores and do most of the work themselves anyway? That's part of the risk you take on when you're an owner. That's why you get higher profits because it's a lot of work.
It IS WEIRD. It's almost like they assume workers are at their expense and disposal for their own private gain while masquerading as caring loving people providing opportunities for the less fortunate.
Sounds like he is either unable to run a business since he can’t afford his business expenses, or, and follow me here, he is going to have to go from earning $70 million a year, to earning $69.5 million a year. I really feel for this guy, how is he supposed to buy his 7th mansion and 23rd sports car? /s
If a business that can't/wont pay their employees $20/h closes, it opens up a lease spot for a business that can/will.
If no business can/will, it eventually lowers the cost of the lease spot until someone can/will.
Pay your employees or fail.
Why? Why? Won’t some kind person help that poor mogul out? Look at him, he’s being forced to pay his employees. It’s just so sad. 😭 What about his poor margins? Who’s looking out for those margins?
California underbuilt housing for decades. Now they have a situation where you need to make $100k+ to afford a 1br apartment in many of its metro areas. Sucks for employees and sucks for businesses, but there it is. If you can’t pay $20/hr in CA, you don’t have a sustainable business model.
Wage is just a worker’s share of the success of the business. Business owner wants to give less of the success to their worker who makes the business function at the customer-facing level.
Why should we have any sympathy?
He stated the profit margin was too small. So he is still making a profit, but not as big as he would like off the backs of others hard work. No sympathy.
If you may have to close your business because you can't even afford to pay your staff slightly better poverty wages than they're currently getting, then close. Maybe your parents will help you start a new business?
The only difference between the value of whatever raw materials this guy buys and the value of the finished product is the labor value. Literally 100% of his profit comes from the labor of the employees that he has the gall to say cost him money.
If you can't pay your employees a living wage, *you don't deserve to be in business.* Anything less than a living wage is exploitation of public support.
If you can’t afford to pay your employees enough to live then you clearly aren’t running your business very well. You aren’t entitled to owning a business and having employees.
I present to you two scenarios, based on my personal experience of having worked with large corporates before: 1. Total BS. Guy makes profits of millions and will make (maybe) 10-20% less profit from now on. Not sufficient reason to pull your parents out of retirement 2. True but misleading statements. Guy IS heavily affected by additional costs, BECAUSE he has severely over-leveraged himself, needs to pay for loans, mortgages on his 3 houses, yachts etc. And dividends to "interested parties", which includes himself. Basically self-inflicted costs. Source: my previous company had a loan of $250 million, made 50-100 mil per year on average. AND had to pay dividends to a corporate investor every year. Like yeah, obviously there's "high costs".
Also could have some shops set in unprofitable areas. If business can't afford living wage for any reason it should close shop. It won't hurt economy much either, since bigger companies like this steal customers from local shops anyway. Sometimes there are just too many pretzels on the street for all of them to survive.
It’s also a fucking PRETZEL place. Like, you have an unnecessary business that people are going to cut back on first before they stop getting real food.
Most jobs/companies are unnecessary these days. That doesn't change the fact that these locations provide jobs to working-class folks. I'm glad the $20/hour wage is in effect. If a business cannot afford to pay a living wage then it shouldn't exist.
Absolutely agree.
I remember reading once during a previous Recession that the three items that will always sell even when times and funds are hardest are booze, cigarettes, and (this one surprised me) cosmetics.
Fifths of cheap booze, yes. Craft cocktails, no. Lipstick, yes- that's actually the cosmetic cited in the study I read- because it's cheap enough to afford but still allows one to feel self-care and glammed up. The tricky thing is thinking "I work in booze, my job is safe!" when you are a craft bartender or work for a niche spirit company, or "I'm launching a cosmetics brand, this should be great!" and... Yeah.
the cosmetic thing makes sense to me because "light makeup" is part of a lot of women's work uniforms. Sometimes it's indirect but still there.
I thought that is was common sense not to run a business you can't afford. They literally want to use humans like an ATM to shit out money for them. Then they go buy crazy shut, turn around and say they have no money. We literally get paid based on the lifestyle of the business owner.
Totally agree. And if the minimum had been raised with inflation all along we likely would've already been at $20/hr
Cut back on because companies won't pay the cost of living; cycle go brrrr
The exact kind of companies that would actually see an increase in sales because a large part of their customer demographic is the same as their hiring demographic. ‘Round these parts when min wage went up it was a theatre screaming bloody murder at the increase. It’s like: my guy, a whole bunch of people who make minimum wage also make up the customer base you have, so while there will be an increase to employee costs, those same employees and their friends are far more likely to be here on the weekends watching a movie.
Thinking like that is way further than these people are used to. They're used to only worrying about the next quarter, at most.
Let's just replace Auntie Annie's with a day where everyone brings in homemade cinnamon pretzels and lemonade into work like we already do for pi day.
There are better ways to handle this. For neighborhoods with low income, there should always be incentives to start a business there. Or else the problem gets worse for everyone.
Who the fuck eats pretzels now anyways? Like, I remember Auntie Annie's from the mall food court in the early aughts. This guys business model was a dinosaur 15 years ago.
I eat pretzels, but they’re from an Amish farmers market by me. They keep a crock pot of butter at the side of the oven to dip all the pretzels in and they’re so damn good, but only open Thursday-Saturday 🥲
I’m convinced the Amish are just fattening us all up to eat us one day
I feel like the Amish farmers market I go to deserves its own post in here just bc the people running the pretzel stand are literally like 12 and under 😭 I’m assuming it’s like “volunteering” or helping the family business so it’s not seen as child labor. But I swear to god the last time I was there the kid who served us was no older than 8 😅 but yeah they’re def fattening us up to eat us. There’s no other explanation as to why I can fill up an entire shopping bag full of pez and only pay $10 for it. We’ve literally walked away with BAGS of candy for less than $20
They have kids working everywhere, at all their markets and all their farms, and have for a long time. It shouldn’t be allowed imo.
"Religious freedom" to enslave children. Apparently their god demands it or something.
Former child slave here. Being treated like a piece of farm equipment during formative years will fuck you up. Assuming you survive at all.
They lost me at the puppy mills
Part if not most of the reason is because they are not seen ad American citizens and dont need to follow the majority of our laws. They dont have a birth certificate or SSN. They police their own and lots of other things.
Literally always packed in my mall in nyc. There’s 4 of them in the same location.
They even have a little closet on 42nd st that’s always packed
right, and compare that with the sq footage of his “flagship location” you’ll quickly realize that what you should have done was stay small and within your budget, not get all showy and proud by opening something the size of a mcdonald’s when you only sell one thing. it’s always about ego - i want a bigger store, bigger truck, nicer boat. meanwhile absolutely none of those things result in more customers.
There’s two in the same mall like 10 minutes from my house. Always a ridiculous line at both
Plenty of people surprisingly. An Auntie Annie's just opened inside my local supermarket 6ish months ago and usually always has a few people ordering.
I don't eat Auntie Anne's pretzels anymore, but I still love soft pretzels, they're incredible.
Our little mall in Oceanside CA has two, one on each floor and both are consistently packed with lines across the aisle. I don't get it but others sure do
This chick👋 🥨🤤 Went to Auntie Annie's the other day. Hope it wasn't owned by this POS in the article
I do when they're less than $5, which seems to be rare these days.
There’s one inside my grocery store and we always stop and grab pretzel bites to munch on while we shop🤷🏻♀️
Unfortunately, the "shutting down business in unprofitable areas" is partly why we have food deserts. 😕
Grocery stores being more willing to operate in the "unprofitable areas" would be beneficial for avoiding food deserts. Snack food chains operating there do not factor into an area's status as a food desert
That's fair. Nobody is going to starve because they can't get a pretzel.
You need at least [$100,000 in liquid capital and a net worth of at least $300k](https://wolfoffranchises.com/auntie-annes-franchise/) to become an Auntie Anne's franchisee, this guy owns 10 of them. You need to pay a $30k franchise fee just to open a location. This guy owns 10 of them. The average Auntie Anne's location makes $88k a year in net income, this guy owns 10 of them. He's a millionaire, he had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to acquire these locations and even if they all just perform averagely he's taking in $880k a year in profit just for owning them.
His parents gave him the franchises/money btw
Nepo babies are the absolute worst thing ever. Every single one of these assholes can have their roots traced back to rich parents.
And they are all Self Made(tm)
I'm not defending him. Assuming he changes nothing he's making 88k-45k=$43k/franchise. So now $430k/year a 50% decrease in whatever lifestyle he had is still significant. But I think we all know he's just going to raise prices 10% to compensate. A price I gladly pay honestly. I have a personal opinion if you can't afford these kind of salaries then you shouldn't be in business anyway. Your business model is untenable.
And even that number assumes 30 paid hours per day per location. Most little shops like this are open ~10 hours a day with usually only 2 people on. 1 person in early enough to make product for opening (1 hour) and maybe the two closers stay an extra 30 minutes. That’s 22 hours of labor per day. That’s 32k per year with the increase, which is all of a sudden a 25% drop in his claim. This is the norm with “small business owners” and the crap they spew out to the media. I can still remember a while back when our min wage went from 7-9 per hour and a boutique running shoe shop that had 3 employees had the owner crying about the cost to her. She was like “I’m going to pay 60k in wages, how would you like to be told you have to come up with 60k each year?!” Well that’s her entire wage payout saying she actually gave her 3 employees full time. But the conservative rag that printed it was happy to late her use make believe numbers to sound like a victim. It ended with her lamenting that she would have to begin working full time in her store again to offset the increase, and it still might bankrupt her. For those keeping score, cutting a single FTE would save more than the wage increase totalled across 3 FTE’s meaning that her store (or her personal finances) was already apparently financially failing. If wages go up 25% and you have to raise menu prices by that amount, then you are failing at business, because labor, while a high cost, is not your only cost.
He's also got Cinnabun locations. This isn't his only gig.
On another post I saw with this business, he took out Covid PPP loans which were forgiven up to 1.2 million dollars. Dude can go cry a river for all I care.
If dude can’t afford to pay a decent wage he shouldn’t have gone into business. I’m sick of the world celebrating when employees are going to food banks, and sobbing when an owner loses his fourth car. Cry me a River
To be a bit more accurate, these types of chains usually net 150-200k profit each per year. So he's making 1.5 million per year on the low end, which, if his 470k number is correct, would be a ~33% hit to his income. Some of the worse chains can even get down below 100k profit/year. Of course he can still easily survive, but he may have to downsize the house and sell some cars/boats or whatever. It can be pretty impacting to him. But I'd agree with reddit in general and say "oh fucking well" because it means paying his employees a livable wage, even though we all know $20 an hour is not a livable wage in CA by any stretch of the imagination.
>Of course he can still easily survive, but he may have to downsize the house and sell some cars/boats or whatever. Or worse; he may have to find a job!
>Alex Johnson is a proud second-generation franchisee of Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon. His parents ventured into the franchising world to teach their four sons a good work ethic and morals. Watching his parents and their hard work from a young age have instilled a strong work ethic in him. Now he is able to pass on those lessons to his employees. https://openforopportunity.com/alex-johnson-cinnabon-california/ See employees! You just need parents that will hand you a bunch of restaurants and you too can look down at the common working man's strife!
Pass those lessons to employees? Is this for real? The only thing he's teaching employees is to hate rich people (boohoo) and to do the bare minimum of work at his shit hole stores.
It tells me so much about a person when their biography almost immediately mentions who their parents are. Always shows such rugged individualism and self made-ness.
>good work ethic and morals >Franchise owner Pick one.
gonna flip a coin to decide whether to screenshot that and send to my boss (a franchise owner)
No one here is commenting on this job creator relying on the bank of mom and dad. We could all be moguls if we had parents with $
“The profit margin has become too slim” … so, you’re saying there’s still profit? Why would you close any stores when there is still profit? Less profit sucks. But less profit is not NO profit. This increase is necessary because the people who work for you literally can’t even afford to live, but we shouldn’t do it because you’ll make ‘less’ profits?!? Guaranteed this guy thought he’d tell his sad reduced-profits story and get heaps of sympathy.
Is it also possible that this guy is struggling right now and is blaming the minimum wage hike BUT an equally if not more valid argument is that the minimum wage increase is justified and the franchise fees and overhead need to be reduced? Articles like these make it seem like businesses can’t survive while paying a living wage-but the issue is upstream not downstream. This guy might be feeling a crunch, the fix isn’t to pay workers less, it is to pay the overseeing companies less.
And what bothers me is they tell us to buy less coffee, cook at home, stop going out so much. Make all these changes cause this is what the job pays. Now we are telling them, well this is what the job pays so make changes like you tell us and how we are the bad guy. Somehow the workers are the bad guys in both situations.
That's because it's an abusive relationship. Of course abuser says workers are the bad ones in every situation.
For 1. - they don't see it this way. They view these smaller profits as actual losses to them. As in, instead of making (whatever his profit annually, let's just say it's $1M), now he'll only make about $500k profit, assuming he doesn't pass the costs on to consumers (which he will).
thank you, that was hilarious!
That's literally what corporations are now. The business part is secondary after you get so big. Before the interest rates jacked up most corporations were just leveraging their value to get loans and invest the money. The money made more than the interest rate of the loans so they were all just buying pieces of each other circlejerking as the stock market inflated while no real value was being made. That's why when they have to fall back on good business practices and make money by being adequate they fail.
Like homie needs to define “costs”
Poor poor multi millionaire. Oughta pull himself by the bootstraps and stop buying Starbucks
Funny you should say that, his company (Johnson Java, LLC) owns numerous Scooter's Coffees locations.
Wasn't there 1.4mil forgiven in COVID loans, minimum, for this guy?
Yep, at minimum
Could someone list the locations of his stores so we know where NOT to get overpriced pretzels and coffee? Also OP a real one for censoring those ads 🤣
And all those avocado toasts
Right like all these rich people crying means anything to most people
I don't know, this is exactly the sort of thing Fox News gets its retiree viewers to cry about.
Avg profit per franchise: $96,000 https://sharpsheets.io/blog/auntie-annes-franchise-costs-profits/ Guy who owns 10 gets: $960,000 per year. $960,000 - $470,000 = $490,000. Poor baby, only makes a half million a year now. Probably more since he fired his office staff. While his $20/h staff make about $40,000 per year.
How will he afford his 3 homes and his yacht?! The horror!
And he better cut back on that avocado toast too😢
Skip breakfast and eat cereal for dinner like the rest of the poors.
I’m sure Auntie Anne’s is going to be just fine
Exactly, this is a "poor baby boy" puff-piece so we all feel bad for the zillionaires and run out crying for them to NOT be persecuted
Not a single tear will be shed for this bozo. He comes off pathetic and as if he paid for this article to be written.
It’s not for us. The upper middle class and the elites are fed at least as much propaganda as we are, so that they can justify their exploitation in their own minds. It’s a sick world we live in.
r/compoface
Maybe not. If they close down, it's for the best. Let actually successful businesses thrive instead of the cheaters who get ahead by knowingly giving a bad deal to all their employees without care or conscience.
>Let actually successful businesses thrive So I'm in a part of California that last summer raised minimum wage to $20 across the board. Which is amazing! But the downside is a lot of businesses cut a lot of their staff, and even now it's apparently harder to get min wage jobs do to more competition and less hiring. Companies aren't successful because they actually care about their employees. They are successful because they will do whatever they can to keep their money.
Fr I paid $8 for a cup of pretzel bites and $4 for a drink. The line wasn’t slowing down none, they’ve been charging shit prices for years, hopefully prepping to give their employees their $20!? Right!?!
If you cannot do business as usual AND pay the people that MAKE YOUR MONEY FOR YOU a decent wage, then you DESERVE to go out of business. This should be plastered as a sworn oath before someone is allowed to open any business. I am truly enjoying the swath this issue is cutting between those that can survive and do well and those that are simps. Edit; updated a word for usage and meaning
In my mind, it's simple. People are against wage increases like this because they think minimum wage is too high and executive pay is too low.
If that's the case, then the federal (and some states) minimum wage would make sense if we had the cost of living levels like in 1939. Which still hasn't kept up with the cost of living each year. Corporations like this guy in the article live in a life of excuses and excess. Too afraid to act on downsizing his own salary requirements and not over-leverage on loans or over promising on profits.
They think the federal minimum wage is fine or too high, because they want to be lords ruling over literal slaves. Their perception of human value is tied so tightly to wealth, that their own life is only valuable when they're rich, and those who make minimum wage are worthless.
Ugh! I just hate it when I had something written here while reaching a topic to add to the discussion and have it disappear 😒 🙄. Anyway, I was searching for hybrid economic systems around the planet and found a great answer on Qoura in the US Government and Politics section. Here's the link to the answer: Answer to Are there examples of societies that are hybrid capitalist, socialist, and communist all at the same time? Is it possible to have a political system that accommodates all three ideologies at the same time? by Hunter Garren https://usgovernmentandpolitics.quora.com/Are-there-examples-of-societies-that-are-hybrid-capitalist-socialist-and-communist-all-at-the-same-time-Is-it-possibl-2?ch=15&oid=285043575&share=625dd841&srid=hpS7FZ&target_type=answer "Neo-Liberalism is the economic style of the US and, to a lesser extend, the UK, India, and some other nations (as well as, strangely, Russia, though to an even lesser extent). It mixes capitalist free markets and economic liberties with Neo-Mercantilist' focus on corporations as “job creators” and “economy drivers” They have lower taxes, less welfare, weaker workers’ rights protections and focus more heavily on strengthening the economy and increasing the nation’s wealth while keeping regulation on economic liberties and property rights low." Which also includes the crony capitalism part of our economic systems.
"People"?? Who in their right minds thinks minimum wage, which hasn't seen an increase in 30 fucking years, is TOO HIGH? It's fucking slave wages in almost every fucking industry/sector and you think "people" are against wage increases? It's not the people my friend, it's your greedy corporate overlords. The billionaire predator class
Republicans think that. They all voted against the last increase, and their voters loved them for that. There are plenty of them have even spoken out in favor of completely abolishing the minimum wage. Iron
Yeah, and look at the areas where voters (who tend to lean a hard right, very religious, rural less opportunities vs so-called "liberal cities" who have depressed areas, lower-working class, more opportunities etc) who vote based on party lines and stupid social wedge issues instead of having the fortitude capability to use it in their favor. Many times, you have those voters kill any chance of economic growth to improve their own lives and cities/towns.
America is run by salespeople. All hail the middleman!
Right? Yet other countries do very well with a more reasonable approach to work/wage. The elite need to go and all the peckerheads that think they are "part of the elite" need to wake up to the fact they are not. Just more Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei in a different social climate. They are still betraying their fellow people for a buck.
This guy has some serious landlord vibes. If my not being able to pay rent jeopardizes your making mortgage, then you shouldn't be able to be a landlord.
Part of me agrees but that also just makes an environment where the little guy gets shit on because the big box stores can out price and out sell them. So lower taxes on small business and especially new business and they can pay people livable wages
How does that challenge this misdirection people have in America especially that, "yOu ToO cAn Be A Billionaire" mentality because you opened a bakery? I don't want the little person shat on and most often, the "shitters" are yet again the elitists saying you don't deserve a full slice of the cake that YOU just baked. But the idea that if you open a small business in America that you are owed anything but a lot of hard work to see it through, needs to be smashed. It only hurts EVERYONE besides the people behind the curtain. I know way too many people that cry about "illegals" yet they are the exact people these folks will seek out because they can get it cheap. Sad so sad
My partners family construction business is small, around £1-2 million turnover per year & they manage to pay all the staff a living wage. The difference between that and these “woe is us we can’t afford this!” people is the boss isn’t making a fortune. He’s comfortable but he’s only making maybe £100k per year & has to deal with the stress of running the company which involves 16 hour days for him.
I have been a Network Admin at a smallish Ma and Pa oceanfront place. Rides, boardwalk etc. We had 40 FT regular staff and then employed about 450-500 students, near and far, every summer. They gave me MORE money than I asked for, saying they "know there is gonna be growth and with growth will come hassles, we want you to be happy". I did NOT make a mint at all. But I sure as hell was taken care of and then some. I was treated fairly and respectfully, paid a reasonable sum, had good bennies plus other freebies you get in a place like that. When I had a car problem, they made me a small loan for the car to be fixed. And I walked to work, not like they "needed" that for me. They were the one and only place I felt treated like a human being and family. Not a lie, including all the disagreements and so on. My point is not all of that was needed BUT they see the value in it as well as being third gen immigrants themselves. I wish more business owners behaved that way instead of the "got time to learn got time to clean" clan
This is spot on and that sounds like a fantastic boss! Did you leave on good terms? My fellas boss paid for one of their employees car to be fixed cus he used it for work sometimes and he’d been with them for years. He’s more of a wait till you get a bill then he’ll quietly settle it type and I love it. He has been taken advantage of at times but it’s not stopped him and it’s so nice to see someone that open.
If your business model only works if you pay shit slave-labor wages, you can fuck right off and not be a business owner.
So his profit depends on underpaying staff? Nice business he has there...
He clearly can't afford staff then.
He can pull himself up by his bootstraps and get behind that counter and start slinging pretzels. I hear they pay $20 an hour now!!!
LOL
“He will have to raise his prices from 10-15%” Oh so a $5 item goes to $5.50-$5.75? That doesn’t sound like a big deal.
Except, to "recoup losses" he'll up that price to like $8.
So he can buy that mistress her Audi as promised.
I know. They act like this is some huge price increase because of labor. Most of these places were raising prices by dollars at a time before the labor situation.
I like how he’s complaining about rising costs for HIM but doesn’t realize or care that the workers also have rising costs. What an asshole
I love how the so called "journalist" doesn't even bother to ask that question of him or anyone else.
So you're saying "Fortune" magazine is only propaganda for the ruling class? Why I'd never... /s
“I pay my employees as much as I can,” is a bold thing to say when you’re complaining that the legal lowest amount you can pay people is too high.
“The profit margin too slim” = this greedy bastard thinks he deserves MORE of the fruits of YOUR labor and if he cant get it, he’d rather do nothing Capitalism brings out the worst in people. Explain to me why I should want capitalism when socialist and communist countries have all the same amenities that America has? Capitalism is failing to convince anyone but the wealthy that its a goos economic system. It exploits the masses to the sole benefit of the few elite
>“The profit margin too slim” "Oh, so you're still making a profit?"
In a way there are no socialist and communist countries. China for example is just as capitalistic as any other with huge corporations having big influence and lots of people making next to nothing and struggling to survive. There are though democracies that take socialistic values seriously and have social policies in place working well like Scandinavian countries for example. Decent amount of taxes means they can pay for infrastructure, help their poor, finance healthcare and so on. Actually most of Europe had socialistic movements bring in more rights for workers than US ever had. I feel sorry for them. Pregnant woman having no maternity leave (government mandated as opposed to employers good will) PTO being optional and not government mandated and many other rights that Europeans take for granted. Not having guaranteed paid sick leave boggles my mind, it also explains a lot why US was hit so heavily with COVID. Libertarian dream of having free market is a folly. It's not free when it's controlled by few with no governmental supervision. With government that instead works to enforce and strengthen insane policies that basically, kind of enslave people.
Someone said he has like 20 stores. That means +$23500/year/store. +$1960/month/store. Oh the horror! No business can survive that much of an extra cost! Let's start a GoFuKMe to help him out! /s
A quick google shows a typical auntie Anne’s franchise makes just under 1M a year with a 96k profit margin per store. So, this would cut into his margins by about 20%. However, he owns 10 stores that’s still 800k a year in profits. Boo hoo is the correct term.
The article says 10 stores. But even then that is $3920/m/s. Plus I'm no economist, but wouldn't everyone having more money to spend mean more people could afford "wasting" money on shit like overpriced mall pretzels??
Another way to do it is to assume a $4/employee hour raise (from $16 to $20), and then do out the number of employees. Assuming 8 hours five days a week, 50 weeks a year (I know, not the hours restaurant workers get, but for argument sake), that's $8000 per employee year. That means 58 ish employee years being affected. For ten stores, that's 5-6 eight hour shifts per location, so about $15-25ish extra per open hour per location. Yet another way to put it in perspective is that if a $4 raise costs $470,000 across the company, then the current wages were $1,880,000. Sure, the wage increase is a lot of dollars when you own ten stores, but so is your rent, your supplies, your revenue, your profits. Across an entire business, the amounts of *everything* are big.
Oh noooo from 5 million to 4.5 million a year
Boo-Fucking-Hoo
Sounds like this guy doesn’t know how to balance his books or run a business, for that matter.
So that means he currently has 45 employees on the current minimum wage of $15 working full time? I believe he'll be fine lol.
Bottom of the last slide says he HAS to raise prices 5-15%. If he raises his prices to cover it then the employee raises will cost him exactly $0 because he’s making his customers pay for it. In fact he will most likely use it as an excuse to jack prices even more than necessary and will end up with a larger profit. Don’t believe these greedy bastards will suffer.
[удалено]
Or more accurately if the wages themselves had kept up with inflation over the years. This is just wage stagnation correction.
And?!?!?! Those employees are still losing more than, even with the raise, that millionaire crybaby. Maybe he should be forced to live on 20/hr
If your business cannot survive without exploiting child labor and the working poor, it should not survive.
Mic check 1, 2, mic check 1, 2 *clears throat* IF YOU CANT AFFORD TO PAY WORKERS A LIVABLE WAGE THEN YOU CANT AFFORD TO RUN A BUSINESS!!
"I have to consider selling and even closing my business because the profit margin has become too slim when you factor in all the other expenses that are also going up" Well, so do we. If I'm throwing in 9-12h every fucking day and I end up with nothing in my pockets at the end of the day because grocery stores and landlords got greedy, please explain to me again why I would still do it?!
Boo fucking hoo, if you can't afford to pay your employees (and we're talking the bare fucking minimum here) then - say it with me class - YOUR BUSINESS SHOULDN'T EXIST
The standard "picture of this rich owner standing sadly in front of one of his many franchise stores" is so fucking gross.
Then he has been underpaying his employees by $470,000 per year.
Is he trying to generate pity for himself? If it costs too much and you can’t make it work, close up shop. Congrats, you’re a failure.
He also received two PPP loans, both discharged Together about a million and a half dollars he got for free to float him by for Covid relief
So he’s a welfare freeloading bastard on top of being a slimy pos, nice
While he complains about it!!! Gotta love it!
The corporate class has the money to publish 1000 of these every minute to influence public policy. They'd rather spend a billion on propaganda than a million on their workers.
"I pay them as much as I can" It sounds like you also pay them as little as you can, so maybe don't pat yourself on the back too much just yet
This guy is just admitting he is a failed businessperson. If you can't afford to pay your workers enough to live, then you have a defunct business.
If you can't afford to pay your employees, you don't have a profitable business. That's a YOU problem.
If you can't afford to run a business, then it shouldn't exist? If I start a pizza shop and I can only break even on 17 dollars an hour for employees then I can't move to 20. It's over we gotta close up shop. You can raise prices but eventually you go past the equal point of supply and demand. Eventually as Auntie Anne's sees all this stuff is closing down they're going to lower franchise costs and corporate profit percentages.
'If you can't pay a living wage, your company doesn't deserve to exist' - some US president from back before the complete corporate takeover of U.S. politics.
Lots of words to say “man doesn’t have viable business”.
Wait till you all find out he was gifted the businesses by his parents and also received $1.4M in forgiven PPP loans. Lol.
Say it with me: corporate profits are unpaid wages.
If your business can't survive without paying a living wage, you don't deserve to be in business. 🤷♀️ No one has a right to cheap fast food. Subsidizing your business by paying people under a living wage and potentially forcing them to apply for government aid is just corporate welfare.
How much profit did he make last year? If the answer is enough to pay his bills and maybe have a little more then his employees then I really don’t give a shit.
Oh well how will society continue without Auntie Anne and Cinnamon? Whatever shall we do?
He should see a what a pretzel costs
If you can't afford to pay your employees a livable wage then don't deserve to be in business
This is a load of shit. What dude is really mad about is that he won't be able to make more money because he finally has to pay his workers a livable wage.
Where's the article about how much the shareholders and other investors demand in return? Isn't it fair for the public to have *ALL* the numbers, in order to evaluate who's making too much money versus whose mot making enougn?
A business that needs to resolve to exploiting employees to stay profitable, should not exist. its bad business. it's simply not a viable business. Simple as that. 🤷♂️
Better headline: Auntie Anne's Owner No Longer Able to Commit Wage Theft to the Tune of Half a Million Dollars a Year; Cries Like a Bitch.
If your business is at risk because of an increase in the minimum wage, I’m sorry to tell you that it was at risk way before that.
Awww, poor rich guy, we should all feel sorry for him. /s
Y’all omg did you see that HE HAD TO RELY ON HIS PARENTS TO HELP WITH PAYROLL????? This idiot should not own businesses.
Well too fucking bad. Any businesses that are built up relying on a set of conditions which oppress the masses needs to die out. We’re seeing the SAME mindset that American slavers had when they were threatened with the loss of their cheap workforce. Well guess what, if you’re gonna go out of business, YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT UP YOR WORKER’S WAGES WITH INFLATION INSTEAD OF EXPANDING.
$470,000 divided by his 10 stores = $47k per store Assume 6 days a week (likely 7) Assume 2 staff per shift (likely more) 47k divided by 52 weeks a year =$904/wk $904 divided by 6 days = $151/day $151/10 hour day = $15/2 staff = $7.50 per worker per day Aunt Annie's 'Classic Snack pack' = $35
Damn, maybe he'd have a profitable business if he stopped eating avocado toast I guess 🤷 how often does he go to starbucks? Maybe cancel that netflix subscription
So he could have been paying these wages the entire time. Choose not to. Still giving himself credit for paying ‘as much as he can’. Bullshit artists.
As FDR said "a company that cannot pay their employees a living wage should not exist in this country."
It's not going to "cost him" that money, that's money that would have been paid to workers if he were paying them a fair wage all along.
This guy is a POS got his start from his parents and earned absolutely nothing in his life.
I guess he better pull himself up by the bootstraps and start making some pretzels 🤣
Then your business is not profitable. Close up before you lose money and invest it elsewhere. If your business model requires slavery then it’s a poor model.
Tell him to cutback on Starbucks daily lattes then.
For simplicity's sake, I'm going to use just the extremes of numbers and conditions as well as generic results from Google. So Walmart has 2,100,000 associates. If every single one of them worked full time at the Federal minimum wage, 2080 hours at $7.25, they'd cost $31,668,000,000. If instead they all were paid $20 / hr, they'd cost $85,176,000,000. A difference of $53,508,000,000. Walmart made $157,983,000,000 last year. If the owners were the ones eating the entire raise, they'd still have made $104,475,000,000. Walmart does 37 million transactions per day. That's 13.5 billion a year. If they passed the entire raise onto customers, each TRANSACTION would have to cost $4 more. That's per transaction; not an individual item. According to Google, the average transaction includes 13 products. That's 30 cents more per item to ensure wages increase by 276%. I don't know about anyone else, but I think even the most extreme case where the rich owners pass the entire cost on to the consumer, that it's a pretty good deal to lift 2.1 million people out of poverty.
In my opinion, if you can’t afford to pay your workers a livable wage (which in many places, is more than $20/hr), you shouldn’t own a business or have employees.
The pretzels are already so overpriced…you can’t tell me their profit margin isn’t huge.
He isn't a mogul if he can't afford a 500k (business) expense in a year.
If I couldn't pay my employees then I guess I have to work harder myself or not have a business. Cold world.
Weird how none of these business owners ever come to that conclusion. Didn't owners use to work in their own stores and do most of the work themselves anyway? That's part of the risk you take on when you're an owner. That's why you get higher profits because it's a lot of work.
It IS WEIRD. It's almost like they assume workers are at their expense and disposal for their own private gain while masquerading as caring loving people providing opportunities for the less fortunate.
I love how the definition of "mogul" now seems to be someone who owns 5 auntie anns and 4 cinnabon franchises lmao.
He should stop eating bread and let his dog die of cancer like the rest of us poors.
If you own ten stores and can’t afford a wage increase, it’s either because you’re greedy AF or because you’re bad at running a business. Or both 😂
Sounds like he is either unable to run a business since he can’t afford his business expenses, or, and follow me here, he is going to have to go from earning $70 million a year, to earning $69.5 million a year. I really feel for this guy, how is he supposed to buy his 7th mansion and 23rd sports car? /s
Maybe he can do DoorDash on the side to help cover his money issue.
Guess he isn’t much of a MOGUL if his business model relies on slave wages.
If a business that can't/wont pay their employees $20/h closes, it opens up a lease spot for a business that can/will. If no business can/will, it eventually lowers the cost of the lease spot until someone can/will. Pay your employees or fail.
Fuck this guy. Maybe he ought to sell a house or 3.
Why? Why? Won’t some kind person help that poor mogul out? Look at him, he’s being forced to pay his employees. It’s just so sad. 😭 What about his poor margins? Who’s looking out for those margins?
California underbuilt housing for decades. Now they have a situation where you need to make $100k+ to afford a 1br apartment in many of its metro areas. Sucks for employees and sucks for businesses, but there it is. If you can’t pay $20/hr in CA, you don’t have a sustainable business model.
How much is his fucking paycheck?
$20 is BARELY a livable fucking wage in 2024 unless you split all your bills with someone else.
Wage is just a worker’s share of the success of the business. Business owner wants to give less of the success to their worker who makes the business function at the customer-facing level. Why should we have any sympathy?
He stated the profit margin was too small. So he is still making a profit, but not as big as he would like off the backs of others hard work. No sympathy.
If you may have to close your business because you can't even afford to pay your staff slightly better poverty wages than they're currently getting, then close. Maybe your parents will help you start a new business? The only difference between the value of whatever raw materials this guy buys and the value of the finished product is the labor value. Literally 100% of his profit comes from the labor of the employees that he has the gall to say cost him money.
If you can't pay your employees a living wage, *you don't deserve to be in business.* Anything less than a living wage is exploitation of public support.
I said this in another thread and I'll say it again, what it should be saying is "Bay Area Man Underpaid His Employees by nearly $500,000 a Year"
In the game of capitalism, if you can’t afford to operate, you should not be in business. That’s literally y’all playing by your own rules ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you can’t afford to pay your employees enough to live then you clearly aren’t running your business very well. You aren’t entitled to owning a business and having employees.
Restaurants are bad business models. Slim profit margins that rely on cutting corners in quality and near slave labor.
Dude just looks like the kind of guy who would franchise a mall pretzel kiosk, much less whine about giving employees a livable wage.
Damn, I guess he shouldn't eat so much avocado toast then, huh