▶️Sign Up For My Newsletter: http://theurbanfarmer.co/
▶️Read my blog: https://medium.com/@urbanfarmercstone
▶️Follow me on Twitter: @FarmerCStone
▶️Watch us on Instagram: @greencityacres
Buy my book here: http://bit.ly/AllinOnebook
Use this discount code for $15 off: newsub
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/curtisstonesub
Watch more from Curtis Stone: http://bit.ly/2cmcFLe
UPCOMING ON-FARM WORKSHOPS:
June 18-22, 2018 – Hemmingford, QC: http://bit.ly/JMCurtis2018
July 14, 2018 – Sweden: http://bit.ly/1daySweden
Oct 15-19, 2018 – Selmer, TN – http://bit.ly/SelmerOct15
Curtis’ website: http://theurbanfarmer.co
Support through Patreon: http://bit.ly/2h050EF
DONATE TO THE SHOW!!
$5 – http://bit.ly/2hJxHUT
$10 – http://bit.ly/2hOFgth
$20 – http://bit.ly/2gPJrmM
Donate any amount – http://bit.ly/2h0KfKw
Follow Curtis Stone:
facebook.com/GreenCityAcres
twitter.com/GreenCityAcres
Watch More Curtis Stone:
How To: http://bit.ly/2s5KDv2
Vlogs: http://bit.ly/2trBmeC
Insights From Pros: http://bit.ly/2sfJRuc
Equipment & Set-ups: http://bit.ly/2sE3s9S
Q&A: http://bit.ly/2trCE9s
Crop Videos: http://bit.ly/2rvMcUw
About Urban Farmer Curtis Stone:
Curtis Stone runs a commercial urban farm called Green City Acres out of Kelowna, BC, Canada. His mission is to show others how they can grow a lot of food on small plots of land and make a living from it. Using DIY and simple infrastructure, one can earn a significant living from their own backyard or someone else’s.
___
FARM EQUIPMENT I USE:
Everything in one place: http://theurbanfarmer.co/curtis-gear-list/
Paper Pot Transplanter: http://paperpot.co/
Caterpillar tunnel: http://bit.ly/2gItRNf
Quick Cut Greens Harvester: http://bit.ly/1W3nLGb
Knife and Tool Sharpener: http://bit.ly/29DHlos
Jang Seeder: http://goo.gl/XGvJtl
Row Bags: http://goo.gl/eI1CLp
Insect Netting: http://goo.gl/rjyimK
The Coolbot | $20 off!: http://bit.ly/2l6DhEx
___
Music by: David Cutter Music – www.davidcuttermusic.co.uk
Elon Musk makes $45,000 salary from tesla.
Yes, Elon Musk works hard. No denying that. Yes, he obviously creates value. But the hours that he works really aren't relevant to the conversation. Plenty of people working 100 hours a week make less than 50k, let alone 50 million in a year.
I see your point on minimum wage, and I respect it. At the same time, I see a lot of companies that don't invest back into their skilled workers. They can get away with this because they are often the only game in town based on where they choose to place their facilities. A lot of minimum wage, rightly or wrongly, is supposed to combat that, by ensuring that if someone does work for you that they make a minimum amount off of which they can survive. It's not a perfect solution, I'm not even sure it's the right solution, but I'm not sure what alternatives are out there for dealing with the situation. But you're 100% correct in the barrier that minimum wage creates, especially when we start talking about a small business. It's not really that much of an issue for a larger corporation, as they've grown large enough to absorb those additional costs and still make a profit. In the end, I don't think there is any one right situation that fits every business application everywhere.
Love the vids Curtis keep them coming. I know you are planning on growing way less tomatoes this coming season but how about a vid on grafting with the returns that come from it. Pretty amazing stuff from Andrew Mefferds book on protected growing has made us a now grafting tomato farm.
Wow…seriously? The minimum wage racist? Their is a small bakery in Ontario and they fully support the minimum wage going to 15 dollars an hour. You claim you aren't cheap… if you can not afford a minimum wage ( a living wage) then you shouldn't be in business. Their are companies that fixed bread prices for years! But they can not afford a minimum wage? A company that stored over 400 million dollars in an off shore bank account! But they cry that they can not afford an increase in the minimum wage. Can you live on the minimum wage? Maybe you should try it for awhile. Is this how you reward you're workers? A poverty wage?? If they end up sick and at the hospital, it's people like you that are the problem with all this nonsense . If you can not buy good food and get sick you end up at the hospital. It's costing all the taxpayers…loads of money because you can not eat properly. You go on and on about training people costing you money. If you are paying low wages workers will not stay and you have to train over and over…costing more money in the long run. Why not pay a living wage to begin with?? https://neuvoo.ca/salary/grower/ontario/ other growers can afford to pay their employees more what's you're problem?
I think pay is otter nonsense. I was in the US Army and until you make at least E6/SSG your going to be below the poverty line.
Where its pays off is the benefits that they either discourage you from using or make it so you don't have enough time to do it.
If you can overcome that though. We get online access to every digitized book own in a public library, unlimited medical (if you can convince them), all kinds of education opportunities and at least supplemented housing and food.
There is more to a job than just pay and you don't pay more taxes on benefits.
If I can figureout how to start my business I plan on increasing benefits before increasing pay, unless I hire them as individual contractors.
those countries without a min wage are on average the lowest paid on average. (with local adjustments)
I'm sure having a minimum wage has made it difficult for some smaller business to compete in ways but on the other hand, don't you think mega-corporations would use no minimum wage laws as a method to pay people poverty wages and line CEOs pockets? In my personal experience living in Colorado (where the minimum wage has risen dramatically for the past couple years) and being a young guy with "low value" I've had no issues getting a job whatsoever unemployment is extremely low here. Not here to argue or take away from your points at all just offering my perspective on this! Much Love, thanks for all the great videos.
I have been trying to get a job at a local urban farm for a while but they at least have no trouble finding adequately experienced people (which I am not). After seeing this video I got the idea to ask the farm for a one month unpaid employment. I can afford to not get paid for a month and this is the only way they will take me in so why not? I want to learn so bad.
And lots of gratitude to you, Curtis. Your comments are spot on. Advantage US Vets Inc (AUV)
[yes,, a non profit…we'll talk about "that" soon] is struggling to set a reasonable/living salary/wage structure
for new hires [unemployed vets]. Your stair-steps make sense. Really helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, thats why you started by planting trees at 8$/h for the governament right? Great value that you had there… Love your videos, just keep with that or go to Politics.
I also want to thank the original OP for continuing to provide the public with "free" training and information on urban farming. It has really expanded my perspective on revenue sources and self-sufficiency. Keep them coming!
Great Suggestions. We paid some temporary help "by the pound". 1/4 Of what the crop sells for. One 10 year old that wanted to help picked beans and earned up to $20 / hour. We got more value for his time than we did for some other help.
You're right on wages
People who are arguing that the minimum wage should be higher need to learn some basic math skills. Let's say you have a farm where you have a gross profit of around 100k a year, and your net profit is 50k. Honestly there are probably many small businesses who net much less than that. You decide you either need or want to hire a worker, which in many cases you will eventually have to have workers in order to scale your business. So you think the minimum wage should be $15 or more? Really? 15x 40 (hours a week) x 52 (weeks in a year)= $31,200. Subtract that from your net profit of 50k, you end up with $18,800 dollars. So the employee that you hired will make $12,400 more dollars than you did as the business owner. Does that make sense to you? …alright, so you need to scale your business to make it financially viable to have employees. Wait a second though, you're going to need employees to help you scale the business! Well I guess you think the barrier to entry to having a small business is to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars in net revenue.
Use your critical thinking skills and it's very easy to understand what Curtis was saying about pricing people out of the market. There is pretty much zero chance that it's worth it to pay someone that kind of a wage in a small business because in order to pay someone this 'livable' wage you are talking about you basically have to pay yourself an 'unlivable' wage. Even in the case of corporations or chains it is pretty impractical. Say the minimum wage somewhere goes from $7.50 to $15.00. Now hiring an employee to do relatively unskilled work has literally double the impact on the profit margin on the company. There are many people who would love to have a job, and are willing to do manual labor type jobs, but they can't find steady work because it simply isn't worth the money you have to pay them. I've paid people to help me with one off projects around my homestead like putting up fencing and barns/shelters money that would definitely equate to less than minimum wage here (North Carolina), and at the end of the day I am pretty sure I still overpaid.
Verry informative.
That person who you hire is taking a risk by working for you at minimum wage, putting wear and tear on their joints and muscles, and what happens when you find a way to automate their task? You will most likely have to fire them, "downsize". "Let them go" because it will be more efficient to automate than keep a human around who requires breaks and health insurance and so on. They just wasted time with your company. Just giving you another reality perception from the employee side.
Stick to farming and you are great. Your minimum wage views are simplistic and uninformed.
Minimum wage is only a bad thing if it were applied to a ethical market system like Mutualism, it's a necessity however in a Capitalist system because the principles of capitalist private property allow for unethical economic situations such as owners paying workers less than the value that they produce above the amount needed for maintenance/utilities.
Minimum wage laws KILL job opportunities. If you want to have less of something the best way to do that is to make that something more expensive. Like jobs. That should have been learned in Economics 101. There's fewer jobs at $15 an hour precisely because of those terrible minimum wage laws. Which are just another left wing something for nothing scam…
But yet Elon viewed his launch on a screen instead of being there on-site….. My good had to throw a bone at the world's theatrics. Great video, and glad I ran across your channel….. About to start in Central Alabama, will vlog and create a YouTube channel as well….
Completely agree about minimum wage– thank you!
if you ask me, a good starting wage is $4.2 million per hour, nobody will snub their nose at that, not even you. But as a employer I would say as low as possible legally while still being competitive to rivals in the area with the same skillset.
Your initial question was "what is a good starting wage" not "what is a fair one"
isn't Canada due for another recession in 2018, batten down those hatches because it looks to be a good one
Curtis,
I agree whole heartedly with the whole minimum wage thing. I started out at the bottom of the totem pole in a major company with only a high school education before you were born at $211 per month.
Ended up as middle management and survived multiple reorgs, downsizings, etc….when they were letting go of people with MBAs. Why because the company realized I brought value to the company to a much greater degree than what it cost them with salary and benefits otherwise I would have been let go just like those MBA's so today I'm enjoying my retirement and watching educational videos like yours courtesy of my efforts over the years.
Keep up the good work.
Regards
Bill
So I’ll put it like this because I 100% agree with your wage and pay standards.
I’m in the American Navy (So Military).
I’m a E-3 (Rank level, Which means Enlisted Tier 3 or known as a Seaman) married, own a home and 2 cars and work my ass off; all at 21 years old.
I work 100+ hours a week roughly 7 days a week and 15-17 hours a day which totals around 112-120 hours a week.making sure my systems are working at all times and helping others and making sure everyone is doing well and no issues are found.
This being said my pay scale reflects this: $4.00 give or take an hour. Do I think this is adequate? YES.
The military has instilled in me that if I want to make more, do more, get more responsibility and Qualifications if I work my ass off and get noticed. To benefit my Career (if I make this my career) I have to show my Employers (The Government) that’s it’s worth them to promote me (after I take exams and Board for it) and to let me branch out and develop my Professional Future be that with College Courses, Special Talents in g he work force, etc.
This is so true. I have ecperienced the same. Started at the base position in a company and did my job to the best of my ability without complaining and worked up to be #2 person at my store.
I don't think Elon spends time with his kids, and i wouldn't prone that bastard to much knowing how he doges tax that could HELP finance FARMERS , schools,etc etc
Anyways that aside I do agree with you, some people come with 0 knowledge to some jobs expecting to have some good $$.
I have started working at 16 doing a apprenticeship , did as much hours as all other adults, knowing legally i wasn't allowed to work late nights .
I was paid 350€/m due to my age and the legal restrictions that where supposed to be applied.
Second year I was paid 450/m
Once i finished i was re hired at 1450€ net /m doing EXACTLY the same thing.
I left after 2 months they screwed me over to much.
My point is I am willing to work for cheap if it's to learn and gain knowledge but there was a point where screwing over apprentices draws the line .
I'm ranting here I hope people understand that I'm trying to say.
Now I'm 28 and I am willing to be paid minimum wage to learn a new job , but y don't expect to stay at that lvl if I work as well or better as others that are paid more.