this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Work Reform

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[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 35 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Just for perspective here,

1000 * $15/hr = $15,000 / hr

$96,000,000 / $15,000  / hour = 6,400 hours

6,400 hours / 40 hours / week = 160 weeks

160 weeks / 52.17857 weeks / year = 3.0663929655412174 years

They could afford to keep those employees on for another 3 Years with that amount.

[–] QualifiedKitten@discuss.online 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Was it baristas that were laid off or office workers? Minimum wage for their corporate headquarters is a bit over $20/hour, and I'd suspect very few corporate employees are making only minimum wage.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

That might be fair, but "laid off" has the sort of vibe to it that they didn't get to choose between minimum wage and no job. Also, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and the minimum wage in Washington state, where starbucks HQ is located is $16.66 so yeah definitely would have to rework the math based on location of the layoffs.

[–] QualifiedKitten@discuss.online 2 points 5 hours ago

Agreed, just trying to point out that if the laid off employees were corporate, not retail, the $15/hr assumption is probably pretty low. If retail, those could be spread across the country, and $15/hr is probably pretty generous. Starbucks HQ is in the city of Seattle, which has an even higher minimum wage than the state (I think $20.76/hour now?).