Exactly, Sally should be getting a piece of the business if the business can’t afford to actually pay her what the law requires and she’s worth.

The carrot of dangling profitability still doesn’t excuse a lack of common sense when running a business. If you can’t handle it, you should start over and rethink it. I’ve had to do it at times. It’s how you actually learn to improve something instead of repeating the same mistakes or digging a hole too deep.

Yep. My dad owns a small business. During a downturn, he could no longer afford to pay his only full-time employee a fair wage and cover his health insurance (not even required by law), so he helped the guy find another job. My mom, his longtime business partner, pitched in a bit more until things picked up again. My…

If your new business isn’t making money, that’s not your employee’s fault, and they shouldn’t be the ones hurt by it. Take out more loans, cut your own life style, do whatever you need to, but don’t act like it’s an excuse to pay your workers shit.

Any that one that says they work at a mid sided publisher on the west coast, and earns 40k a year. 40k on the west coast?!? Why don’t these companies pay their workers a living wage? Where can you live on the west coast for 40k, unless its out in the boonies?

And, much of the time, the money is there. The business owner is just whining about not getting rich fast enough.

These salaries are criminal and inexcusable. I’m so tired of creatives being treated like this. Creatives do such valuable work - and it’s hard work to boot. Creative professionals deserve to be valued at the same level as accountants.

That excuse only works if the chef is has equity in the business. Otherwise you’re working slave labor wages to fund someone else’s startup.

Exactly. And with the shitty hours there’s no way to have a second job. For a while I was working low paying “creative” jobs in NY and I commuted 2hrs both ways from Philadelphia because I couldn’t afford to live there so I just stayed in my family home. Needless to say my social life was non-existent for those 3…

I feel like this is a death sentence for small business owners.

WTF, Lucy’s job sounds easy and fun as hell *and* she can afford a trip to Italy at the ripe old age of 24??? Give me some of that.

Annie*, 23, is a publishing assistant at a major book publishing house in New York who makes around $36,000 a year with overtime, and receives good benefits.