South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Employment

Donita Trump Noem Employment Kristi Noem Minimum Wage Sioux Falls South Dakotans Unemployment

Living Wage in South Dakota should be at $22.50 per hour

l3wis 19Comments

I have been advocating for a long time that living wage in South Dakota, especially Sioux Falls should probably be nipping the heels of $20.00 per hour, imagine my surprise when this report came out;

This means that of the 50 states, (Puerto Rico and D.C. are not included) South Dakota is one which costs the least to survive in. But how does a $9.95 minimum wage match up to a $45,000 living wage?

Assuming a 40-hour work week, and 50 working weeks per year, a $9.95 wage comes to $19,900 per year. To match the living wage for South Dakota, the minimum wage would need to rise to $22.50/hour.

Our cost of living adjustments are also very high (notice housing);

While we have a governor who blabs about liberty and freedom and a mayor who decries ‘wage inflation’ you can tell the reality is that we lag very far behind and don’t look to their supposed leadership to help the situation. It’s time to start electing representation that wants to make changes instead of coddle the business elites, hospital industrial complex, and welfare developers.

Employment Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls

Mayor Poops now wants to be Senator Poops

l3wis 17Comments

Who says PTH can’t handle leadership? In 11 short minutes he lays it on thick of what he would do if he were Senator on the Belfrage show today. He said if he was a senator he could NOT support the Build Back Better plan because the money isn’t being appropriated correctly and will only increase inflation. This coming from a guy who spends tax dollars and covid money on TIF rebates for low wage egg roll factories, parking ramps, condos, butterflies, tennis courts, ice rinks and seating for a private non-profit movie theater all the while asking for a 30% raise. Yeah, what a fiscal conservative!

He also says that we need more childcare in Sioux Falls, But look what is in that evil BBB Bill;

The bill directs money to providing free universal preschool for all three and four year olds, which the White House has dubbed the largest expansion in education programs since the creation of public high school.

He also complains that businesses can’t just keep giving raises to compete for workforce claiming that is unsustainable and calls it ‘wage inflation’. Ok, Mayor Tightwad, what’s next, an $10 an hour work mandate? When wages go up, those workers spend more money which equals a better local economy unlike the businesses who employee these folks sending the profits back to communist countries tax free and never circulating in our local economy. He really needs to stop hanging out in his garage rearranging his medals and trucker hats and needs to take a basic econ course.

In fact the bill also has solutions for affordable housing, something he can’t seem to grasp;

Increased spending on housing affordability will go towards building more than 1 million new rental and single-family homes. The bill aims to reduce cost pressures by providing rental and down payment assistance through an expanded voucher program.

It seems Poops needs to figure out how to run a city before he aspires to be Thune Jr.

Employment South Dakotans State Legislature

While Hospital Execs walk away with millions in South Dakota nurses are paid nearly dead last

l3wis 3Comments

This of course has been going on for a very long time;

South Dakota nurses are paid the second worst, on average, in the nation.
That’s according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The average South Dakota nurse is paid nearly $61,000.
California nurses are the highest-paid.
They make, on average, nearly $121,000 a year.

Every time I hear someone bring up teacher pay, I often remind them that most middle-class professions in South Dakota pay about the same in South Dakota, dead last. Ironically, it seems exec/nurse salaries fall in line with admin/teacher pay in South Dakota. Pay those at the top as much as possible and throw crumbs to the rest of the minions.

Until we actually elect a ‘peoples’ legislature that will re-legislate employee/worker rights we will be a slave to these kind of wages. I also find it ironic that this story didn’t come out right after hospital execs walked away with millions for quitting.

Also notice that almost ALL of the bottom 25 in pay are RED STATES! I know, SHOCKER! Cheap ASS trickle down policies. It’s a good thing states like California can subsidize our nurses with Federal benefits like SNAP, subsidized housing and Medicade so the executives can walk away with millions in South Dakota.

Employment Sioux Falls South Dakotans Unemployment

South Dakota Retailers Association’s Bonehead idea

l3wis 16Comments

What a great idea! NOT!

Move to South Dakota, work at a designated retail business, and receive $1,000 cash.
That’s the premise of a new incentive from the South Dakota Retailers Association designed to address the workforce shortage in retail, restaurants, hospitality, grocery, trades and many other businesses.
Individuals from out of state who come to work in South Dakota can qualify to receive a $1,000 cash payment that would supplement any hiring bonuses or other incentives offered by an individual business.


It’s been awhile since I have taken a swipe at the SDRA, but this one is almost too easy. Who would move to South Dakota at the beginning of winter to take a no benefits part-time job that pays half of minimum wage (if you are a server) for a $1,000 bonus you don’t get for another 6 months? WTF? When I first read this, I thought maybe it was some kind of joke.

I have argued for a long time that the hospitality industry in South Dakota and across the country should offer at least a buy in to health benefits even if you are part-time. They should also offer PTO and compensate ALL tipped employees the full minimum wage. Minnesota did this several years ago and it hasn’t hurt the industry one bit, some would argue it has improved it.

As I told an elected official yesterday, “The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough hospitality workers in Sioux Falls, the problem is we have to many mediocre restaurants.” You know as well as I do that 99% of eating establishments in Sioux Falls are below average, not just on food quality, but service and price point. Maybe the solution to our problem is to have restaurants that pay their workers well ALL YEAR LONG, offer benefits and in return we will get a better experience as a consumer. But like most things in good old Sodak, it is about the greed of the business owner while the employee and the consumer are left in the dust.

Donita Trump Noem Employment Kristi Noem Sioux Falls

‘Small’ Sioux Falls Business owner says he can’t afford to pay more than $12 per/hr

l3wis 20Comments

When I hear these kind of cry baby stories I kind of roll my eyes;

While the average non-management wage was $12, “I can’t afford to pay teenagers $15 or $16 an hour – and they’re going to those jobs – unless I want to raise the price of pizzas by $2,” Porter said. “It gets to the point where it’s a whole to do for not much because it sucks all the profit out. The small guys are getting killed because we can’t afford to pay these large wages.”

Well maybe you need to charge more for your pizza and make a better pizza? Mr. Porter calls himself a small guy. That’s interesting since he owns around 6 fast casual restaurants in Sioux Falls and has a home valued at $600K. Yeah, real small potatoes.

A survey of restaurant workers done in the second quarter by Black Box Intelligence found several factors behind employees who quit their restaurant roles.

More than two-thirds of current and former restaurant workers said disrespect from customers is a factor in the labor shortage.

Nearly half said emotional abuse from managers contributed to their decision to stay or leave, with 15 percent saying they were sexually harassed by managers or co-workers, while another 15 percent said they were sexually harassed by customers.

I would agree that management in the hospitality industry in Sioux Falls is something to be desired. But that is the problem with a right to work state, business owners have full control of you as an employee instead of the other way around. This is why Noem does NOT support mandating businesses because she knows it would throw a wrench in our worthless right to work laws. This is about her protecting the ruling class NOT individual employee rights. If workers had more rights in South Dakota, ‘small’ businesses would have no problem finding workers, oh, and you really need to pay more.

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