162 points

To save people from having to squint at the small text; top chart is measured in seconds, bottom chart is measured in days.

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15 points

Hero!

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6 points

Thanks. I didn’t even bother, knowing that would frustrate me

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48 points

This infographic has a very big and obvious flaw: wages are not the only cost of a company.

If a company covers its wages costs in 1 day it doesn’t mean that it’s pocketing the remaining 363.

Instead of revenue, they should use wages+profit. This way we can see which companies take what part of the generated value for themselves.

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25 points

That “flaw” you pointed out is the point of the infographic. It is literally just to visualize the proportion of revenue paid to employees. No one is saying that the rest of the revenue is straight up profit, I cannot even imagine how you came to that conclusion.

The revenue vs profit aspect is also difficult to measure. An example as to why is Amazon claimed it made no profit for years, because it reinvested all of the revenue it gained in addition to revenue that paid for operating costs. Are you going to believe Amazon’s claim? Most people would argue they did profit, and that reinvestment is still profiting, but that’s not how things are often measured.

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8 points

Well, one could argue that since this community is called “work reform”, the point of this infographic is to make workers aware of how much more companies would pay them. This infographic does not accomplish that.

If your company buys a chair for 1000€ and you sell it for 1001€, the company got a revenue of 1001€. You cannot ask more than 1€ to be paid to you for it though, since the company would be losing money. That’s what is called a profit margin.

This infographic shows companies from a wide range of sectors, and a wide range of profit margins as if they were comparable. You cannot compare the wage/revenue ratio of a supermarket to a tech company, since they operate at different profit margins.

You can compare wage/(profit+wage) ratio though, as it measures which part of the pie goes to the workers and which to the company, and that is universal.

It is true that it’s hard to measure “profit”, but that fact doesn’t make this infographic any better.

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16 points

Even profit is manipulated and funnelled back into “growth”.

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2 points

And we can pretty much double the numbers by what it actually costs to employ someone vs. what they are paid.

Want nice things like healthcare and other benefits, worker’s comp, unemployment insurance and the like?

Worked at a small payroll firm for 5-years. I was the IT manager, so not like I’m an expert, but I had a lot of questions and worked closely with payroll and accounting. Very eye opening.

If you get paid $15/hr., you probably cost the company $26-29/hr. And we had small clients like churches, restaurants, convenience stores, thrift shops, places paying shit wages and shit benefits. I make ~$80K with stunning benefits, so I figure my company’s actual cost to keep my ass in the seat is maybe $200K?

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1 point

Well, I think I’d rather see total employee compensation, rather than strictly wages.

I think mixing profit in would muddy the waters of what it’s showing, but salary+healthcare+other benefits would show it’s intent a little better.

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40 points

Revenue? Profit? EBITDA? Without a definition for what “make” means, this is useless, and verges on propaganda.

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48 points

Says right at the top of the chart. The 3 data points are 2022 revenue, revenue per second, and average salary.

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19 points

My fault for not being able to read teeny tiny gray text on a white background, I guess.

Anyway, comparing revenue to worker compensation isn’t really very useful. Payroll comes out of that revenue, as does every other cost of doing business. Compare payroll to profit, or to executive compensation, if you want to make a point. Yeah, worker compensation sucks, but just comparing it to “the biggest number we could find” doesn’t mean anything.

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9 points

Also these numbers are going to be higher for bigger operations.

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-16 points

Yeah, you’re right, there’s no wealth gap problem, why even bother talking about it?

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14 points

I checked for Walmart. It is revenue.

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38 points

It’s revenue not profit but anyway…

Fun fact from this is The Home Depot receives revenue of an average worker’s salary in roughly 3 bars of “The Home Depot Song”

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19 points

I don’t think it says profit anywhere? It says 2022 revenue in the legend for the companies, and the annual personal salary is revenue too because it needs to be spent on living expenses.

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3 points
*

Conflating “to make money” with “revenue” instead of profit is the iffy part for me… I apologize for not being clear about that.

At the risk of entering pedant territory, the idea of “making” the money is by doing something that would cause a person to pay more than before. If acquiring the “before” and the act of adding value incur costs, then to me, the “money made” is the revenue less those costs.

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18 points

That’s fine? Payroll is an expense, it does come out of revenue. Profit is what’s left over after they pay everyone else.

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5 points

Please see my reply to the other commenter, my issue is with “making money” being conflated with revenue.

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2 points

There’s a Home Depot song? Like a radio jingle?

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37 points

I tried this for Twitter and got a divide by zero error.

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Work Reform

!workreform@lemmy.world

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

Our Philosophies:

  • All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
  • Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
  • Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
  • We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.

Our Goals

  • Higher wages for underpaid workers.
  • Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
  • Better and fewer working hours.
  • Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
  • Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.

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