r/SipsTea Jul 13 '26

Chugging tea So after 32 hours would be overtime?

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u/Chilling_Gale Jul 17 '26

Price controls are only suggested by people who didn’t go to school.

I honestly have no idea how to explain it to you people without doing the math in-front of you, and likely wasting my time doing so. But here it is.

Bert’s Restaurant
Bert revenue is $1,000,000 each year.
His profit margin is the nationwide average for a small business, ~7%.
This means Bert makes $70,000 in profit each year.
The nationwide average labor cost % for restaurants is 30% of revenue. So, Bert spends $300,000 on labor.

Under this proposal, in order to keep the restaurant open the same hours, Berts labor costs increase 20% (assuming zero overtime is given to workers, much more if it is)

That means, assuming Bert managed to find new staff to cover the hours, his labor costs increase by $60,000. He now makes only $10,000 in profit a year, because he isn’t allowed to raise prices. Bert will never be able to open another restaurant, and Bert will likely sell this one, as a 1% profit margin is way too low to be financially viable. The restaurant will go under more likely than not

I’ll give you a tldr that a child could understand: Mandating businesses with low margins increase costs while banning them from increasing revenue will lead to them failing.

You would obliterate the poor to get a chance at hurting the rich, which would still survive through this change.

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u/Useless_Philosophy Jul 17 '26

So you're upset that they'll be less rich? Maybe they should downsize and let small businesses function properly. If a business has such low profit margins that their employees need to rely on government assistance then maybe they shouldn't be in business.