CNN report concerning price hikes on Diapers.

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Return on Investment. This is very complicated and leaves out a number of things that can change and that have other value besides the money. I think the system of government that we have leaves out a lot of things that are of value. Like a woman invests 9 months of her life and possible health problems later to have a baby and then she invests 18 years, more or less, and even more if she provides more education for the child. She provides for that child in countless ways and and the child turns out to be a bum. Her ROI is poor, but has the investment been in vain? Think about it. The outcome of our most valuable investments have little to do with money. So why do we value money so highly? Does anyone have the answer? Or am I off track here? You all have some good thoughts about all this talk and I appreciate the input. As I mentioned I'm not an economist.

Now I'm thinking - Okay so her child is a bum and he may wind up costing the community money. So having a child is a gamble and so is investing money in anything. I don't know, my thoughts are getting out of hand!

As Newbie2this said, the big corporations have a lot of wiggle room. Small businesses have a whole different way of dealing with these increases. I do greatly admire any person who attempts to start a business.

 

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Been there, done that. My Min wage in 1962 was under 90 cents/hour - and it went a heck of a lot further, and no way I could have lived independently on that in a big city suburb (My mom's). My rent in a very small farming/college town in 1967 was $35/month (!!!). 2 bedrooms, one for the baby. The cockroaches were so bad, we moved to a different apartment for $45/month - and some of the town thought we were being cheated, at that rent. (!!!) [My wife was upset when she saw the "creepy-crawler" baby try to eat a cockroach. Imagine that.] Combined water & sewer? 50 cents a hundred weight (A farm country measure. If i remember right, farmers got 5$/hundred weight for grade A milk, and at 98 cents a gallon for milk in the store, milk was about 350$ per hundred weight. A & P grocery stores made 3% profit that year, so who the heck got the difference?) Not the farmer, not A & P.
We couldn't afford disposable diapers, so went with actual cotton - and didn't replace until they were absolute rags. You could improvise a diaper out any old cotton, too, although we managed not to have to - somehow. An old diaper became a "spit-up" cloth or a window washing rag. At a fee of 2 cents per check, we paid cash, mostly. If we had it. That baby's over 50, now. I made $286.86/month, pre-tax, in boot camp when I got drafted in 1971. The "Exchange" saved us. We never did get service-housing - never lived where it was available, but she was a teacher, by then.
So what the he** do people do when they have to buy adult diapers, or even "just" pads, today, on minimum wage or less? So you go to the Salvation Army, buy old cotton clothes, and cut them up into adult diapers? Yeah, right. How the heck does "economics" justify that? If the McDonald's worker can't get $15/hr because "prices everywhere will go up", how justified? If the worker need 3 jobs at a time and never has time for the kids, is that justification for not getting a minimum wage, is that justifying not giving them a decent living wage? I don't know what rent is in a farming community, now, but I know what it is in non-farm country.
And now prices on adult diapers are going up.
We're Seniors on fixed, limited income. Try to find a doctor that accepts Medicare in our area. Good luck. Affording pads and adult diapers is not impossible, but in the future?
You got an answer?

 

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@ritanofsinger : Ya this is very true, but when it comes to "Big Business" they don't think of anything else other then the Money, there "ROI", if they were to give there employee's a raise of2 or 3 % it would have to come out of there pocket or raise the retail price to cover the difference, and you know there not going to give up anything.

@AlasSouth : Ya everything was not only cheaper in our day but also a "fair" price. ya know if I am not mistaken technology was suppose to make things cheaper not just easier, like 2 cars in every garage, average work week would be less and make more money, everything, life was suppose to be better and cheaper.

 

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I know where I live, that workforce entry level jobs are occupied by the people that should have moved up and on, leaving no jobs for the young just starting out people, I pumped gas and washed windshields in the late 60's and early 70's those jobs are just gone, now you have people that have no choice or don't want to make a choice,,, flipping hamburgers at a fast food joint, it is just too easy as compared to starting at the bottom of a block crew humping cement blocks and shoveling sand, they want to go right to the top block layers position making top money or nothing at all. (example of personal knowledge)

 

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When we talk about Min Wage no one or very few talk about automation. With every dollar the cost of unskilled labor increases the greater the insentive for businesses to automate it. That self serve kiosk at your local mcdonalds probably costs $15k with a $1000 a year service contract (ballpark guess based on having read tons of IT RFP and quote docs). A few years ago when the average fast food worker got $7 an hour and no benifits the restersunt could employ say 40 ppl (accounting for shifts and days off) now at $15 with all kinda of pressure for sick time, parental leave etc, it just makes those kiosks not only more attractive, but essencial because you can only afford to employ say 26 to 30 ppl now.price increases have limits

 

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We are losing track of the point. So employers can automate, less (or zero) employees. Raise prices (because they can and we can't let the CEO make less than $320,000/year before perks, now can we?) No one on minimum wage can afford their products or services.
It's a cycle. The little businesses go out of business and they can't compete, can't afford the "automated" machines & services. Assume that the Minimum Wage kills off their ability to hire workers.
How many of my friends and neighbors have gone under during the pandemic? My momma didn't teach me to count that high.
Now the workers can't afford the products, can't get jobs since there are no jobs left that will let them survive - or just survive.
It's not like incontinence is going to disappear. So who is going to be able to afford diapers, enough of them to keep the big businesses who make them in business?
It is now a vicious cycle.
So what do we all become? In Russia, (and all over Europe), they were called Serfs. Okay, okay. In some places they were called slaves. I'm old enough to know what that led to. We had drills - hide from the atom bombs under the school desk 'cause the Commies were coming to get us. (Or, as we kids called it, Bend Over and Kiss Your A** Goodbye).
We can go back to the good old days - and just let them starve. But don't kid yourselves. Did you think you were middle class and immune from that?
How are we going to solve the problem of being able to afford diapers, in this global economy we have created?
I'll ask again:
You got an answer?