All of the Minimum hourly wages in Gabrielle Olya’s 25 June 2021 article, “Costco, Amazon and 16 Other Companies That Raised Their Minimum Wage to $15 (or More) — Some major companies now offer a minimum wage of $20/hour.”  (https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/jobs/18-companies-raised-minimum-wage-to-15-or-more/) are a lot higher than I would have guessed.  

For me, Ben & Jerry’s stood out. After all, who hasn’t thought about how scooping super premium ice cream in a hip environment could be fun?  Yes, free “quality control” samples too 😋 

Ben & Jerry’s Case Study:

$18.13 MINIMUM wage in 2020. 

Often, I find that middle class and higher professionals — without having given much thought to it — associate the Minimum Wage for a business and/or job as the wage of substantially all of that Company’s “front line” workers. However, $18.13/hour is the Ben & Jerry’s wage for their Least experienced, Lowest-level worker (think high school sophomore), who is located in the Lowest cost of living Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop market (think Louisville, Oklahoma City, Detroit, St. Louis, Nashville, etc.). 

$18.13/hr is before overtime (typically, 1.5x wage). Further, at Ben & Jerry’s, starting on the 7th consecutive day of work, hourly employees receive 2.5x pay.  Yes, Minimum $45.33/hour for scooping ice cream. 

As Unilever PLC is the parent company, Ben & Jerry’s provides a lot of employee benefits such as family PPO health insurance and 401K match. After all, healthy employees are productive employees, and nobody wants to be eating store brand cat food in a Florida trailer park during their “Golden Years” or retirement. But I think you get the point. 

While there are too many demand and supply-side drivers and other factors for this short blog post, here are several to consider when thinking about your Company: 

• Demand for and market prices of end products and services

• Worker experience / expertise / degrees / tech skills

• Price and availability of non-human inputs such as Company-provided productivity technology (e.g., profession-appropriate computer, technologically-enabled office (skyscraper variety or home office), Bloomberg terminal, smartphone, etc.)

• Technology as substitute for or complement to labor

• Number of competitors

• Government regulations (e.g., legally mandated $15 minimum wages, double FICA taxes on contractors, etc.)

• Number of workers with required and/or desired experience/expertise/degrees/tech skills

• Globalization

• Geography / cost of living

• “Insider / outsider” theories (higher wages for employees and tenure and lower wages for contractors)

• Monopsony power and lack of information on wages such as companies that make worker sharing of their individual wages taboo

How does your Company stack up next to a delicious summertime cone with two scoops of Cherry Garcia, served by an employee who could possibly be compensated more than you? 

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#$45IceCreamScoopingWage 🍨