A Quote by Tom Perez

There's this notion out there - and it's a categorically false notion - that the only business model in the service industry is the minimum-wage business model. I say phooey to that. You go to a Costco store, and you see people there who've been working there for years and years. They're making $15, $20 an hour, plus health benefits.
What's so great about my business is that every day is different than the day prior. Today, the industry bears little resemblance to the one I joined 30 years ago, which is what's so exciting about it. But the one thing that hasn't changed is the notion that a successful business model is one that has the ability to respond positively to the unexpected shifts in the winds as they continue to present themselves.
The notion of public service has effectively been abandoned. Every political party now buys into business values, and into the notion that by definition business must run things more efficiently.
The minimum wage is not something that you want to stay on as a permanent basis. For example, if you have a minimum wage job, you don't stay there 20 or 30 years. You don't put your children through college working on minimum wage.
I thought at 46 years old, I've been removed from the fashion industry for 10 years. I couldn't possibly write a model's book. That's for a 20-year-old. But I could say what I want to say without chastising the industry.
It has now been over 7 years since Congress last raised the minimum wage to its current level of $5.15 per hour. Since that last increase, Congress's failure to adjust the wage for inflation has reduced the purchasing power of the minimum wage to record low levels.
We don't have a business model for health care in this country, We just have a business model for care. The way doctors and hospitals get paid is something bad has got to happen. It's a pure reactive model.
The minimum wage isn't earned only by people working at fast food restaurants and in service industry work - the average income for positions like nursing assistants, preschool teachers and paramedics are all under $15.
If the price of a burger goes up 5 cents, and the minimum wage that you have received is going up from $7.25 to $15 an hour - and there have been a number of studies that document just how much the price of a burger might go up if you increase the minimum wage. You match the costs, and the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Under the notion that unregulated market-driven values and relations should shape every domain of human life, the business model of governance has eviscerated any viable notion of social responsibility while furthering the criminalization of social problems and cutbacks in basic social services, especially for the poor, young people and the elderly.
If you have a business model that relies on customers being misinformed, you better start working on changing your business model.
The national minimum wage has not been increased in 9 years. By year's end, 21 States across America will have a minimum wage exceeding the Federal minimum wage.
The notion of people commenting on you, the notion of people saying things about you, people liking or disliking you and getting into your business, has become more of a reality for the general public over the last years, as people have dipped further into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and social media.
During Seattle's successful campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage, our opponents would sometimes roll their eyes and snort, 'If $15 is so good, why not $50?' It was a straw man argument: Nobody was proposing a $50 minimum wage; it would have been too high, and we said so.
The person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 isn't going out to eat at restaurants. They're not taking piano lessons. They're not going to the gym or the yoga studio. They're not sending mom flowers on Mother's day. What good is this person in the economy? If you raise it to $15 an hour, they're doing all of those things. And all of a sudden, not just business thrives, but small business thrives.
I'm not sure the notion of employee or job is going to survive the transition over the next couple of decades. The very notion of a fulltime job will seem as quaint in 20 years as the notion of someone getting a gold watch at their retirement in the 1950s.
I'm not a role model, nor have I ever tried to be a role model. The only thing about me as a role model is I've managed to stay here and be working and survive. For 40 years.
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