Q1 Does your organization support the new Minimum Wage Bill No ?

Transcription

1 Q1 Does your organization support the new Minimum Wage Bill No ? Answered: 46 Skipped: 2 Yes No 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Answer Choices Yes No Responses 21.74% % 36 Total 46 # Why or Why Not? Date 1 Operation cost will increase significantly specailly on labor cost. 5/11/2016 1:26 PM 2 The cost to a business is quite large during any mandated increase. The government also does not give businesses enough time to plan for and implement the change. The community should be advised and businesses should have at least a year after the mandate is effected. Each dollar Increase can cost a business $20K per year for 10 employees. 3 I anticipate that raising the minimum wage for local workers will also impact those who are not in the workforce and are on fixed income, causing additional hardships. This specifically relates to seniors on fixed income, and not those on food stamps or other public benefits. Since Social Security is not guaranteed to raise to keep pace with inflation, I feel that increasing the minimum wage will have an overall negative effect on our elderly population. Also, this wage increase recommendation seems to be following what Hawaii has done as far as amount and timing. And while we are an island community dependent largely on tourism and military spending, I don't think we can compare our economy and economic forecast to that of Hawaii. 4 We are already near this level within our organization at $9.00 an hour. The additional $.20 per hour has already been considered in our budget 5 There is a looming requirement to change the minimum salary requirement for exempt status employees. This will impact our business. For a small business, we are talking about increasing the payroll expense to over $24,000 annually. Add to this, another $79,000 to our payroll for the hour employees. We are now talking about increasing payroll to about $100,000 on top of our other expenses. 5/11/ :25 AM 5/11/2016 8:56 AM 5/10/2016 4:40 PM 5/10/2016 4:30 PM 6 We simply can not afford it. 5/10/2016 4:27 PM 7 All cost gets passed on to the consumer. Costs of goods and services will rise and follow the mandatory hourly rate increase which will adversely impact households with fixed incomes. While I do not oppose giving raises based on performance and merit, business will have to determine if their loyal customer base will still be able to afford the added cost to stay in business. Finally if anyone wants to seek higher wages they need to put forth the effort which may entail additional sacrifice of going to school and getting better educated to get the higher pay. 5/10/2016 3:54 PM 8 Talent pool do not posses the skills set which requires many hours of training. 5/10/2016 3:45 PM 9 Raising minimum wage would force us to reduce staffing levels, increase pricing for services and causes wage compression which results in low morale for tenured employees. 5/10/2016 3:17 PM 1 / 5

2 10 Hotel industry or any company in the service industry is labor intensive. With the Japanese market shrinking and the instability of the Korean market to fill in the drop in Japanese visitor arrivals, increase in minimum wage would lead to possibly reduction of staffing for the hotel to stay in the black. This would mean hiring would stop or at the worst case hotels would have to do reduction in work force. Hotels cannot increase their ADR at this point because Guam has to stay as a competitive destination and there are more hotels than visitors arriving. "Guest Houses" have as well started to rise and may be additional competition for hotels. 5/10/2016 2:58 PM 11 Financial considerations 5/10/2016 2:56 PM 12 Although it would be great to increase the minimum wage, it seems impractical to have such a substantial increase over a short span of time. The average annual merit increase in most companies is approximately 3%. Going from 7.25 to 8.25 was an increase of 23.8%, 8.25 to 9.20 will be an increase of 11.5% and 9.20 to will be an increase of 9.8%. Additionally, the increase would mostly affect the new or entry level employees. Employees that have been with the company worked years to reach a certain income and now this bill is proposing an increase which would bring new employees to the same pay level as employees that have been with the company for much more years. We support an increase in wages. However, it would be more advantageous to increase the wages of skilled labor workers or specialized positions. An increase in specific wages will make the potential labor force strive for more. Whereas increasing the minimum wage merely sets low goals because it sends a message that education or specialized skills are not necessary to receive a decent income. 13 There has to be a greater understanding of the impact overall (small and large businesses). There is a misunderstanding on the benefits increasing of wages would be. There many pros and cons to the increase, and most important we need to be able to completely understand the negative impact. We should not compare ourselves to the mainland and/or other industry. There are many factors that make us 100% different in how we do business. 14 Raising the minimum wage will mean for our organization reduction of hours and the possibility of a hiring freeze. This can also mean if the minimum wage is to go up the price(s) of what we offer in our organization will have to increase. An economic study needs to be done before we can even cater to increasing the minimum wage. 15 the minimum wage is the starting rate for someone who enters the workforce with no experience. As the person gains experience, continues with his/her education and training, that individual then progresses in their career and with that comes a better paying wage. For my organization, the increase in minimum wage will still cost my company thousands of dollars because of wage compression. I have employees who are making more than minimum wage, but should the increase happen, I will have trained employees make very close to someone who comes to work for my organization with zero experience. It will cause internal moral issues as well because those employees will resent that new employees will be making the same with no experience. 16 It does not benefit anyone. It doesn't get people out of poverty and it doesn't stimulate the economy. It hurts the local small businesses who have 2 to 19 employees; note that 71% of businesses on the island have 2-19 employees. This bill hurts our very own small business entrepreneurs. 17 we need to wait until the study is done before we do anything on wages. We just had an increase last year and nobody really knows the effects of that. further it will make it harder for individuals to enter the workforce especially those with little or no skills and young people just out of high school. this is just a political ploy to get more votes. 5/10/2016 2:37 PM 5/10/2016 2:37 PM 5/10/2016 2:32 PM 5/10/2016 9:40 AM 5/9/2016 8:08 PM 5/9/2016 5:31 PM 18 N/A 5/9/ :39 PM 19 The result of the study is imperative to make an inform decision on the impact to the island. The legislature and the Governor should hold the Department of Labor accountable for it's failure to conduct the study as mandated. 5/9/2016 9:10 AM 20 Only if the Goverment pays their contract on a timely manner. Otherwise, No. 5/9/2016 9:09 AM 21 Well, I think that everyone deserves an increase especially since there is a steady show of inflation in Guam. I have employees living paycheck to paycheck. I think its time for another raise to assist those families that need it the most impact has not been reseaarched adequately. - election timing appears to motivate the wage proposals each time rather than thoughtful economic necessity studies. 23 the timing of proposed increases are too quick to be implemented. It would financially damaging for our organization to impose these increases. The impact on the island small businesses would also be even more damaging as I am certain would close these small businesses down. A more gradual approach in terms of the length of time it would take to impose the increases would be a much better approach. 5/9/2016 8:17 AM 5/7/2016 7:32 AM 5/7/2016 7:09 AM 24 I have no problem with increasing the minimum wage but this is too soon after the exempt status changes. 5/7/2016 6:59 AM 2 / 5

3 25 We don't have enough information to determine if it is necessary. What % of the minimum wage earners rely on this amount solely to support their family? For example: Is this is a second job to supplement another job that earns above minimum wage? Are they students or single families living at home? Are they spouses and this is the second household income? What happens to the employees just above minimum wage? These are employees who have probably earned increases due to hard work and seniority. An increase to minimum wage will bring them back, or near, to minimum wage level. Increases to minimum wage do not result in increases to other levels of employees, but they will see the higher costs of goods that result from a minimum wage increase. 26 Inflation will be a major problem here in our Island. A major effect of inflation is the damage it can do to the pocketbooks of average workers. Wages and salaries can lag cost of living increases, making families struggle to keep up as the price of everything form cornflakes to tuition increases faster than the take-home pay they receive from employers. 27 Increasing the minimum wage will not address the issues its proponents allege it will address. Its better to provide incentives for the business community so that the businesses can provide the wages the employees deserve. Increasing the minimum wage without increasing the productivity and skills is just another form of welfare. Call it what it is. 28 Damaging to Guam Economy to give a 22% pay raise without the receiver of that raise creating any more value to the Economy. It would be reasonable however, to give a somewhat more than a cost of living raise--say 7% raise 29 we are still dealing with wage compression issues resulting from the January 2015 increase. we could handle a SMALLER increase in 2017 (25 cents???) but not such a large increase. The 2015 increase ate up our entire merit increase budget for that year: this meant that some people received huge raises, but everyone else got nothing. If the minimum wage rate were increased as proposed, then the same thing would happen. In fact, we may need to cut benefits and start charging for the free meal we give our associates. 30 The hike of minimum wage will affect the raise of our entire pay scale which we cannot afford. To offset, we have no choice but to reduce our workforce. 5/6/2016 8:21 PM 5/6/2016 6:58 PM 5/6/2016 5:49 PM 5/6/2016 5:46 PM 5/6/2016 5:41 PM 5/6/2016 5:28 PM 31 Our company simply can not afford the proposed minimum wage. 5/6/2016 5:15 PM 32 Because we're not greedy and care about our people. 5/6/2016 5:01 PM 33 The increase will cause wage compression for our small business. 5/6/2016 4:59 PM 3 / 5

4 Q2 How many employees in your organization? Answered: 27 Skipped: More than 250 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Answer Choices Responses 11.11% % 4 4 / 5

5 More than % % 13 Total 27 5 / 5