Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees
"Why do you think you are entitled to ""fairness""? In this world you get what you get. I am pretty sure your employer is not paying you for how you ""feel"" either. And by-the-way turning up on time and not leaving early is not exceptional behaviour; it is expected behaviour. Bottom line: do you add more value to your employer's business then the new hires? If so, ask for a raise, if not find a way to add more value and then ask for a raise or keep doing what you're doing and accept what you get." This is one effect of rising minimum wages: compression of lower pay tiers. The new employees might have been offered a lower starting rate than the result of your raise, but your employer did not have that option as a matter of law. The same thing happened to me when I worked retail during my college years. I agree that it is unfair however, it is what it is. With that being said, there may be several factors that you should consider: the new employees might have more experience or qualifications then you, your work performance based on your manager's perspective, and like in my situation when I worked retail, I started out as a cashier which get paid less than sales associates but when I moved to a sales associate position I still got paid less and when I got my raise I got the same pay a new sales associate would get. I suggest you suck it up and ride it through until you get a real job because in retail, in my opinion, you are expendable, if you don't like their pay they will find someone else. This question is largely opinion based but I wanted to balance out the people jumping on you. There are lots of factors that go into salary/pay, such as what you contribute to the company and whather you go above or beyond whats expected of you. I would say seniority is one factor, or at least there is a case to be made that it is important. If someone has worked 5 years for me, that is five years that I have not had to search, interview, and train a replacement. I am not a business owner but I do employ people and when someone quits its an extremely stressful process. Not having to go through that, again in my opinion, is worth a small bump in pay. I cant comment on if its fair or not. That is opinion. What is fact is that whenever a broad group of people are given a pay raise for arbitrary reasons and other employees arent, its creates discontent, it hurts morale, employees leave, and in severe cases the business becomes crippled. So Im not sure if its fair, but is it a bad idea? Generally. See here and I highly recommend going here for anyone who thinks dramatically raising pay 'because its the right thing to do' is a good idea "You didn't get laid off or have your hours cut back when the minimum wage was raised? I guess you have much to be grateful for, including a higher hourly rate. An excellent record is its own reward. When you finish your degree you will be grateful for the good habits you have established. You won't ever lose a nights sleep looking back and thinking ""I wish I didn't do the right thing."" It's sad that there isn't a more immediate reward for doing more than average, but that's life, doing the right thing over a long period of time does eventually lead to the reward you're looking for. Sometimes those rewards aren't tangible."
It did help her though, she divorced her abusive husband and raised 7 children as a maid. Her eldest daughter, My mother, graduated college, got married, and worked for NIH. Two of her sons went into the Army, another daughter went into the Navy. My parents got divorced due to my fathers alcoholism, i ended up being raised by my grandmother purely due to my mother's illness, an autoimmune illness with no defined cause. My grandmother will be passing along a very expensive house she bought that would likely have been sold years before the gentrification of the area had she not had medicaid to assist with the bills for caring for my mother. Or the monumental amount spent caring for my aunt who went blind and died from cancer. None of this process is possible without the outside help. If there are no programs for people in these situations to take advantage of, then even fewer make it out.   This is my point, there are a ton of forces that act upon you and your life, and I see others not be able to scrounge the assistance needed to deal with their situations. I spent some time going to a SOME clinic for my dentist, seeing men and women who had much worse mental disabilities than my depression, and mine was crippling and caused me to never finish college. I have known people trying their hardest to deal with situations as bad or worse than mine, that don't get the right break. I can sympathize with those who wont take their meds, because I've felt what just some antidepressants do to you, numbing you to the point that nothing matters, a cure as bad as the problem, its just other people think it looks better. I want programs to continue to exist, to be the rungs of the ladder for those trying their best to get out, no not all will, but what's the other option right now? Leave them in it? I have yet to see another path that isn't just leaving people in the shit hole that isn't always entirely their fault.   It's a big ugly problem that you can only solve piecemeal, and may never be fully solved. Some may fail by circumstance, some may fail by personal failing, but removing the ladders, removing the help wont solve anything. Um, where did I say the ends justifies the means?  What I am saying, for the tenth time now, is that these animals are born, raised and killed to be our food.  Period.  Thats it.  What does it matter if he is mean to a turkey, that is going to be eaten in a few weeks?  Its that simple.  Its our food.    What, am I not supposed to be rough with my carrots as I pull them out of the ground?  They are living, they are food, they are under the same circumstances as the turkey is.    Again, how you can eat turkey, then complain how the turkey is raised, is amazing to me.  More over, spend the energy worrying about how our food is raised on something that effects everyone, such as education or health care, both of which deserve more of our attention than a turkey, raised to be slaughtered.  Again, you are putting words into my mouth and changing the situation to meet your argument.  We are not talking about dogs in Korea, or Gorilla poaching, or gall-bladder draining.  We are talking about a turkey, that is raised to be killed.  No where did I mention ends justifying the means or anything along those lines. Let me add another consideration to the company's side of the equation.  Not only is a 401K a tool for the company to make them competitive when recruiting employees among other companies that offer that benefit, it is also a good retention tool. Most company's 401K plans include a vesting period of at least 3 years, sometimes more. An employee that leaves the company before they are vested in the plan will have to give up some % of the employer matched funds in the account. This gives employees incentive to stick around longer and the company reduces the risk of turnover which can be costly in terms of training and recruiting. This also factors into the reason why employers would rather give matching on the 401K than a simple pay raise. Some of those employees are going to leave during the vesting period anyway, and when that happens the employer got the benefit of motivating (extrinsically) the employee, but in the end got to keep some of the money. "New car loans, used car loans, and refinances have different rates because they have different risks associated with them, different levels of ability to recoup losses if there is a default, and different customer profiles.  (I'm assuming third party lender for all of these questions, not financing the dealer arranges, as that has other considerations built into it.) A new car loan is both safer to some extent (as the car is a ""known"" risk, having no risk of damage/etc. prior to purchase), but also harder to recoup losses (because new cars immediately devalue significantly, while used cars keep more of their value).  Thus the APRs are a little different; in general for the same amount a new car will be a bit lower APR, but of course used car loans are typically lower amounts. Refinance is also different; customer profile wise, the customer who is refinancing in these times is likely someone who is a higher risk (as why are they asking for a loan when they're mostly paid off their car?).  Otherwise it's fairly similar to a used car, though probably a bit newer than the average used car." Another reason this stock market is just one gigantic fabricated bubble. A combination of firing people (and not giving significant pay raises while making fewer employees do more work) to make profits seem higher and those buybacks.   People look at me like I'm crazy True, but it's still money that (in theory) could be paid to the employee instead, in the same way that the employer's social security contribution could also be paid to the employee.  Note that I'm not saying that if the law were changed, every employer would suddenly increase wages by _x_ percent; merely that these taxes all fit into wage calculations along with perquisites, salaries, overhead, etc. "i'm having a hard time understanding the argument you're making here. i think you're saying: ""if an employer is having a hard time filling positions, they don't have to raise wages because the government says the minimum wage is only 'this little.'""   if that's really what you're saying, it doesn't make any sense. what does a minimum wage have to do with not being able to fill positions because you don't pay enough?  if that's not what you're saying, could you please clarify?" The idea is that paying your employees more confers benefits that are worth the cost. Paying employees more than they produce for you is (almost) always not a good idea. However, if paying higher wages has advantages, those advantages persist or are enhanced by other companies not paying higher wages.