Impact of Higher Minimum Wages on Mystery Shopping

We need a flat tax. Get rid of income tax and just make a sales tax on everything sold. In Ohio I am paying Fed. Income tax, State Income tax, City Income tax where I work and where I do shops, City Income tax where I live. I make $420 a week at my job, I bring home $280.

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Large businesses have 3 years to phase in minimum wage where small business has 7 years. SeaTac, minimum wage of $15 is here. There have been some small businesses that have closed (so $0 per hour). Some business have cut benefits..no medical, from 2 weeks to 1 week vacation, pay to park, no free bus pass, etc. The impact is going, and is, being felt by small business.

@Crickettt wrote:

You know? I TRULY don't get why nobody GETS this. Prices don't just "rise" by themselves. If a business owner is forced to pay higher wages, his social security payments rise, his workman's comp payments rise, and his contribution to unemployment rise. He has NO RECOURSE but to raise his prices for goods or services renedered. GET REAL, folks! Raising wages results in higher prices for everyone, including the workers, who are not really getting raises when their buying power goes down. Are you really so dense as to not understand that?
Sheesh..

I'm a former small business owner and hired approximately 15 to 20 employees If minimum wage had increased to $15.00 an hour, I would have either had to raise the price of the product and take the risk of a drastic reduction in business and possibly close my doors, or I would have had to lay off employees and the remaining ones would be working twice as hard. Every time the minimum wage increased, I would have to increase the wages of all my employees so they wouldn't be working next to a new hire earning the same amount. There were several times when business was slow that my husband and I would forfeit our paychecks.

What about the employees who have worked at a job for ten years and are presently earning $15.00 an hour? Will their wages increase the same amount as the minimum wage increase? At my last part time job, I was earning less than a friend who I got in about a year and a half later and her starting wage was more than mine. Upon inquiring, I was told the company's beginning wages were increased, but the present staff received no increase. This was one of the reasons I told them to take that job and shove it!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2015 03:54PM by Lorrie68.

FYI....the NJ Supreme Court in January 2015 now classifies most independent contractors to be protected under minimum wage law. Therefore any Mystery Shopping company who tries to put you to work in NJ for under $8.38/hour such as VeriTES just tried doing to me, is operating ilegally. I don't blame them fully, but also blame their major movie theater client for not providing enough pay.

Also, just to educate some of you, the Minimum Wage Law was initially enacted to provide all Americans enough money so they can survive comfortably by making at least a certain amount of money. Therefore, theoretically speaking, everyone should be able to make a living under minimum wage. Obviously this is no longer true, which is why it is essential minimum wage is increased across the country.

NJRebel1978 - Do you have a reference to that requirement for independent contractors in NJ? I tried looking it up, and all I could find was a requirement that contractors (as in contractors who bid on road projects, building projects, etc.) pay their employees the minimum wage. I didn't spot anything about independent contractors such as us. Thanks in advance for posting a reference.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

Sure. It was based on a state Supreme Court Case last January against Sleepy's.
[www.laboremploymentlawblog.com]

Basically the indep. Contractor company has to prove A, B, and C as outlined in the link. Most mystery shopping companies do give you specific directions and rules to follow regarding how to conduct your job, therefore "A" is already not followed.

Here is another great link with more details. Many MS companies also provide "training", therefore under NJ law now, employees of these particular MS companies are entitled to minimum wage benefits. The only MS companies that do NOT have to provide this entitlement are those who don't train, give no specific directions on how a job is to be performed (kind of like just telling you to fill out a yes/no survey), and allow freedom for the job to be done at ANY time. Very few, if any, MS companies operate that way. Read more here.

[www.law360.com]

NJRebel1978 - I think that you are right. In the case of MF, I think that all of the shops fail "A" since they specify days, times, hours, purchases. The GfK Big Box audits (which I have no intention of doing) seem to be totally prescriptive in how they are done. A case could probably be made for 50% (a pure guess) of the shops which I do, but the issue is how this ruling could be turned to practical advantage. Arguing for more money in advance is not the route, because they will simply not assign you. So, I guess someone needs to accumulate records of past assignments and then approach the New Jersey Department of Labor. If someone had the right records (which would involve careful and documented proof of the hours, then they might act. I don't think that any state requires employees be paid for mileage, so the total fee would probably be considered when testing against the NJ minimum wage of $8.38/hour.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

I agree totally. MS is a gray area and I firmly believe across the board that EVERYONE should be getting paid at least min wage no matter whi they are working for. I looked on the Dept of Labor site and I only found where you can file a claim regarding not being paid or not being paid minimum wage. However, you'll probably need paystubs and/or old paperwork to prove your case. Personally, I'm not out to get these MS companies in trouble for their past deeds, but it would be nice to contact the Dept of Labor just so they are aware that this major movie company (everyone knows who they are) Certified, and VeriTES among others are hiring people at $4.75/hr to do theater audits for them. The question to them can be raised whether or not it is legal what they are doing, and if not, then as MS'ers, we are informing them of what is going on. I cancelled that job for VeriTES (who probably dropped me because of it) due to the fact they wanted me to work for $4.75/hr to conduct trailer checks on all screens. At first, I thought I was getting $9/screen only to realize it was only for the first screen checked and the rest were $2.50 per screen. It would have taken me 3.5-4 hrs to check every screen! No way!

Keep in mind that these clients are million dollar companies looking to pay pennies for these kinds of audits. It's the reason why I basically stopped mystery shopping. I stick with focus groups and survey companies for extra money now. Perhaps if more shoppers stuck together and didn't take these ridiculous low paying gigs, reported them to labor departments across the country, they will finally be forced to pay fair wages for the time put in.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2015 07:56PM by njrebel1978.

@njrebel1978 wrote:

Also, just to educate some of you, the Minimum Wage Law was initially enacted to provide all Americans enough money so they can survive comfortably by making at least a certain amount of money.

Just to educate some of you who apparently think the rest of us are uneducated, and yet appear not to have a full grasp themselves, minimum wage laws were also initially enacted at a point in history when almost all jobs were held by men who were the head of a household. Any work done by school age children and women outside the home was done almost exclusively under the table and minimum wage laws did not apply. Now there are millions of jobs held by people who are not attempting to support a wife and children on $7.25 an hour. The number attempting to do that is very, very low.

I'm not saying the minimum wage should or should not be increased, I'm just clarifying where your point is invalid.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

I am satisfied with my IC status and I am satisfied with how this business works. I have no idea why those who wish to be paid minimum wage do not get a minimum wage job and be done with it.

Mary Davis Nowell. Based close to Fort Worth. Shopping Interstate 20 east and west, Interstate 35 north and south.

Historically mystery shopping has changed from companies that contracted for work from the companies who put together the surveys to independent contractor. When I started doing this 50+ years ago as a high school summer job, I was a part time, hourly employee of a local contractor who accepted a certain number of shops in our geographic area. She negotiated the price of supplying that number of surveys by phone or mail.

When I came back to mystery shopping it had moved to independent contractor status. It is not the concern of the MSPs whether you live in an area where rent is $75 per month or $1700 per month. They post jobs for what they are willing to pay and you accept them or don't. For those of us who live in an area where the cost of living is less or are in circumstances where it costs less to shop, a $15 fee may be worthwhile. If you live in a major metropolitan area where the cost of living, public transportation or parking is costly and you have both federal and state income tax (and maybe even local income tax), $15 may not be worthwhile at all. That is a system that has worked for them because in major metropolitan areas they have enough shoppers vying for the work they can get their jobs filled. There is no reason for them to change.

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Impact of Higher Minimum Wages on Mystery Shopping

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