I mean in the US, of course. I think it should be. Some people argue that they would have to increase prices, that inflation would just increase, and so forth. But as I said in another thread, rich people have disgusting amounts of money. Please don’t contradict me on this.
In fact, as I said, Bill Gates even recently gave away most of his money, because, folks, he just doesn’t need it. Prove me wrong by all means, if it’s not true.
No people just below the rich people on top, have to squabble over the scraps. But the people at the very top, at least, clearly don’t need all that money. Again, prove me wrong.
@kayaker That’s just an expression, of course. If you read the rest, you know I am inviting, even encouraging, people to hold different views, and contradict me if they want .
The problem with your logic is that it isn’t the Bill Gates of the world that will be impacted by any inflation generated by a $15 minimum wage. Those two things have little to do with each other.
But yes, the minimum wage should be increased. $15 is a great target number, but if we can only get $10 or $12 we need to take it. It should also be indexed to inflation in perpetuity. For my lifetime, the minimum wage has sat at a pittance, gotten a bump to not what it should be that takes a few years to completely take effect, and then sits at that rate until congress acts on it again. Just index the darn thing annually.
As of December 31, 2019, the Gates Foundation held about $47 billion in assets. Bill Gates himself supposedly has a net worth of more than $100 billion. So it seems he’s still wildly wealthy even after giving away a huge amount. And even if he took a vow of poverty and gave the foundation all of his money, that just means a private foundation, without any outside control or oversight, would have more money than most governments. That’s scary.
BTW, this has nothing to do with whether the minimum wage should be increased.
Remember the economic recovery after the collapse of 2008-9 – the recovery where the gains overwhelmingly inured to the wealthiest Americans ?
By definition, that created/s upward pricing pressure and inflation as all those dollars chase scarce goods.
But why do we never hear about the inflationary effects of mountains of cash winding up in the hands of the 1% or the 0.1% ? Why is it only apocalyptic when The Lowest Paid Workers In The Country might make a couple extra bucks per paycheck ?
I agree the answer to #1 is Yes. The trouble is, you can’t raise it without specifying an amount. And that’s tricky, because $15 or any other particular amount goes way farther in some locations than in others.
That’s one of the reasons states or municipalities can and should have a different minimum wage. But the federal floor does need to be higher. (And again, it needs to get indexed…this is a constant issue that we are continually wasting political time and bandwidth on - fix it so at least while we talk about that floor not being sufficient, the the minimum wage does not go DOWN every year in terms of real dollars).
The argument that Bernie Sanders made the other day in favor of raising the minimum wage is that there are some number of people working full-time jobs at the minimum wage who need welfare assistance or food stamps to get by. In effect, the employer’s low wage is being subsidized by the taxpayers.
Not quite sure. I would prefer an unconditional basic income that covers living expenses and then no minimum wage.
This would allow entrepreneurs to gain access to cheap labour and allow people who desperately want extra spending money to earn it by flipping burgers for $5/hour. This would allow people to start businesses that might normally not be viable, but hopefully beneficial to society.
As the parent of a young adult living at home, and even when mine were teenagers, a living wage would have still been nice for them - there is no way they could go to high school, work 10 hours a week, and pay for cell phones, car insurance and have pocket money on $8 an hour.
One issue with a high minimum wage today is that the ability for retail to use automation is more viable than ever. A business can enable touch-screen ordering systems, self-scan checkouts, robotic stocking systems, robotic burger flippers, etc. In the past it wasn’t really possible to automate the many tasks performed by an employee, but that’s not the case anymore. Now it’s often a financial decision of whether to fill a role with an employee or a machine. If employees start to cost more, then automation becomes a more financially viable solution. Looking to the past to see how employment changed when minimum wage was raised may not be applicable today. Rather than the cashiers now making $15, what instead might happen is that the cashiers are laid off and replaced by a touch screen ordering system.
I was actually coming from the point that there are not many who can subsist on the current MW. But as to your point, I don’t know that it is necessary for them to be able to afford everything on a 10 hour work week.
That’s more inflation of expectations than costs. I didn’t have a cell phone, and even now, you don’t have to have a thousand dollar pocket computer with a $100 a month bill. I use a $10 flip phone, on a $20 a month plan.
