Should the Minimum Wage Be Increased to $15?

If people living in expensive areas have to move to cheaper ones (and can afford it) they will drive up prices in the cheaper areas and they won’t be cheap anymore. Plus things like infrastructure and schools in the cheaper areas would be stressed. So not a great idea.

Is that really true though? There are plenty of places in the U.S. where the population has been declining. It seems to me they could easily absorb a few more people moving in.

Neither do I. In fact, in the very post that you just responded to, I said:

If she wants to stay in NYC, then sure, probably some sort of group home. If she doesn’t mind moving to a lower cost area, then she should be able to have a place to herself.

I guess that is where we differ. I don’t really see having low earning potential as being “on the bottom rung of society.”

So, should someone get more if they are unable to work due to disability, but not due to there not being a job that they are qualified for?

Kinda the whole point of UBI is getting rid of inefficiencies and perverse incentives that come with means testing and other types of decisions like that.

Wasn’t meant as a jab, just talking about hunting the small animals that live in those areas for food.

I’ve never been a fan of the race to the bottom that always comes about when the lowest common denominator becomes a major factor.

And if those places that they can afford on $1000 a month don’t have access to jobs or educational facilities that would make one more qualified for the jobs that are available, then you are not giving a basic income, you are giving a substandard existence.

Neither am I. But middle class starts in the $40k range, over 3 times what your proposal is.

Right, which can actually be substantially lower than your proposal, if our objective is to give people the absolute minimum that they could use, in the cheapest areas of the nation, to eek out a pathetic existence.

You’re assuming that that isn’t the intended outcome.

I’d note, if you want to see how generous we are as a people look at the maximum amount you can be eligible for if, for no fault of your own, you are totally disabled and not capable of meaningful employment.
Oh, and $200 a month for groceries . . . see how long that lasts.

The UBI discussion is interesting from a theoretical standpoint, but there’s no way it would be implemented in America unless things change massively. Social programs like the ACA and SS are under constant attack. Increasing taxes is politically dangerous. There is a strong attitude that welfare programs are just meant to be short-term solutions to bridge a person to self-sufficiency. It doesn’t seem like UBI could be implemented in any sort of meaningful way. And as far as I know, no country has UBI. If much more socialist countries don’t do UBI, it’s not going to happen here.

If a serious UBI discussion were happening maybe the first place to start would be Social Security and its ‘’‘welfare’’’ programs SSI and SSD.
But I’m not hearing anything about making the people that are forced to eke out a life under those programs lives in any way better.

What kind of life is it if you are the loss of a roommate away from eviction?

Some workers will get paid a little bit more. This will not increase the cost of production by nearly the actual increase in MW.

Prices only need to raise by a few percent of the MW increase, assuming that the owners maintain their profits, but you also make an unsupportable assertion that “people” have more money to spend, when the majority of the spending is done by people who make fairly more than MW, and will not be affected by it. If you make $75 an hour, then MW going from 7.25 to 15 doesn’t give you a pay raise.

Owners will probably split the difference somewhere between raising prices and taking less profit.

No, but they buy land, they buy companies, they buy labor. They buy all of the things that are necessary for the production of goods and services, and then take a profit off of it. That profit that they take is what increases the price of goods and services more than the labor that goes into producing them.

That was becuase there was no incentive to increase the capacity for producing goods and services, as there was not an increasing demand for them. So, rather than investing in new companies or equipment, money in the stock market just started being invested as it was the only place to invest.

If people have money to purchase goods and services, then money needs to go into increasing the capacity to produce those goods and services, rather than just being parked in paper.

It already is. You can’t rent an affordable place really anywhere that is a place with jobs and services.

One of the things that these wealthy people have bought with all this money is real estate. They buy up all these houses that go into foreclosure, and then rent them out. This puts an upward pricing on buying homes, as well as rental properties. This is something that is happening now, most of the wage is going right out of their paycheck. While I don’t disagree that something should be done to help to control rent prices, the idea that landlords will increase their rent as MW goes up, since they’ve been increasing rent even when MW doesn’t go up, seems a rather non-productive argument.

Well, you take it from the places where it accumulates, and move it to where it gets used.

IMHO, tax policy should be primarily about ensuring that the economy is in good shape by making sure that money doesn’t end up consolidated too much. The economy is driven by the act of money moving, and it tends to move upward. Leaving it all at the top makes the economy as a whole less effective.

But, short of tax policy, the way to get that money back out is by paying the people at the lowest more. Personally, I feel I am doing my part as my employees all came from the lower end of the economic spectrum, and my clients are almost entirely in the top 1% of that spectrum.

That would be interesting, but I’d have to think about it more.

I am making that assumption with the poster than I am currently engaging with, yes. I hope that that is not the case.

As to those against MW increases or UBI proposals, I do agree that that is the intended outcome.

I would certainly like to see that increased. We, as a people, sometimes suck.

Improving the economic and infrastructure conditions in the cheapest parts of our country is a good thing especially if its done because of an influx of people and jobs. This is quite possibly the best way to redistribute wealth in our country.

Ehh, I’m not sure I agree but I also don’t see a $500 dollar per month apartment in Mississippi as a crazy reach for someone making $1,000 per month. It’s a splurge but totally their choice.

Sure, that was probably bad phrasing and I’m happy to substitute your prefered term for the poorest people in a country.

Yup. One is a choice the other is random. If you’re not qualified to work at burger king and you’re not disabled then you should spend part of that $1,000 on whatever is preventing you from what would be a minimum wage job today.

What are you talking about this isn’t means testing. I’m saying that if a doctor says you need a wheelchair then they should be able to prescribe you a home that your wheelchair will fit in. If you are blind they should be able to prescribe you a home that allows dogs. In both cases those cost more money and a UBI system shouldn’t be equipped to give people more money for those things but the definition of disabled should involve some care by a doctor of some sort and it is easy for a doctor to make health care decisions.

In this specific case I don’t understand why. You’ve already agreed that San Francisco and Aspen should be nice to haves. I picked $1,083 and $350 based on the poverty line in the US today so that no one would be below the line. This isn’t a race to the bottom in a cardboard box sense or 25 people to an SUV but a metric that says people below this point are in poverty. As a country that should be something to strive for. If it means that the poor people on the coast in California need to move to get out of their local poverty I’m OK with that and as I said above it would do a lot of good to the rest of the country to spread out our population more.

Just like we’re talking about in the immigration thread people moving to an area bring jobs with them to a certain extent particularly when they have money. They will need to buy food and clothing and basic supplies at a minimum. So a hundred people move to Flagler, Colorado and add 20% to the population of the town. They will need somewhere to buy those essentials that we’ve provided them the money for. Since the current population has jobs this increased demand will cause jobs to be created that can be staffed by the new residents. Once they have a job over the top of UBI they will probably want something fun like a movie theater which will require more jobs. In the end as @Voyager points out the town will get more expensive but that will be a good thing for the town and the people in it.

Most people on UBI aren’t going to want to sit around all day and will get jobs but if the local meat packing plant goes out of business they will still have the money to survive and it won’t destroy the community they’ve built or their personal lives.

My proposal would have a family of four earning ~$34K per year that’s is no where near 1/3 of $40K. I think you are confusing a single person with a household.

Maybe. People are certainly surviving in poverty today but I don’t see you picking a number so at this point my proposal make much more sense than yours.

Housing is a problem all of its own, which is why I like the idea of housing vouchers, rather than just giving money and hoping its enough for them to pay rent.

And I’m all for micro-housing for these vouchers, especially if you want to live in a higher demand area. You don’t need a whole lot of space, you don’t need tons of amenities. What you need is a safe and secure place to call your own.

I’ve had quite a number of roommates, and it’s not just a concern of lack of privacy, but a lack of security. I’ve had plenty of roommates that didn’t steal from me, but I’ve had too many that have.

I usually use the term marginalized.

Yes, but what about when Burger King stops hiring because they have replaced everything with automation?

Sure, you can spend part of that $1000 on a college degree to get a white collar job, but that’s actually not enough. That’s why I prefer a UBI that makes sure that all your needs are met, so that you can concentrate on learning a new skill, if that is what you want to do.

If you barely have a high school diploma, it’s going to take a whole lot more than what you are offering in order for people to be qualified for the jobs of tomorrow.

And disability is not just about needing accommodations for living, it is also about not being able to work. If all you are qualified for is manual labor jobs, but you cannot physically stand on your feet for more than 2 hours a day, then you aren’t getting more money for wheelchairs or whatever it was you were talking about, you are simply not able to do the jobs that you are qualified for.

That’s why I said “and other types of decisions likes that.” It is easier to have a single standard that fills all the necessary gaps than to do peicemeal as needed.

That’s not in the slightest what I was talking about. I am talking about someone who is in an accident, and can walk, but cannot stand for hours at a time. I am talking about someone who has some level of mental disease or development issue that makes them unsuitable for the workplace. I not talking about the accommodations that they may need in housing arrangements.

Yes, but you entirely miss my point. My point is that you are saying that if you cannot work, then you are not entitled to have any dignity, that you should be happy if we find you some rat infested hole to shove you into with a dozen strangers.

Because what you said was that we should adjust it to the lowest common denominator. San Fran and Aspen are nice to haves. Being forced to the backwoods of some shithole shouldn’t be something anyone has to endure.

The poverty line is a bit on the low side. It is where people are no longer able to afford any sort of quality of life under any circumstances.

And what if that is where the jobs are? If the only jobs are available in places that the cannot afford to live in, then you are just preventing them from being able to do the jobs that you say that they should get.

Not when they don’t have the money to buy these these things.

Have you heard of Amazon?

And none of this will be automated, of course.

Right, but that’s just the point, those jobs won’t be readily availible.

If it is all people on UBI at poverty rate that moves into this town, what is going to happen is that rent will be 90% of their income, and they will barely squeak by on affording food.

That’s still less than the very bottom of middle class.

I guess that’s part of it, as I’m not just talking about families, but individuals as well.

Well yeah. That guy sleeping in the gutter is surviving, but mere survival shouldn’t be the goal here. The ability to live in conditions that allow someone to actually improve themself is, IMO.

That’s because I have specifically said that the majority of UBI should come in the form of vouchers, rather than in the form of money. Everyone should be able to have a roof over their head that is safe and secure, clean and free of infestation, even if it is minimal in size and amenities. Everyone should have access to up to 3000 calories a day of nutritious, if bland food. Everyone should have access to quality healthcare, education, communication, and basic entertainment.

Yes. People should be self sufficient. Which is why removing barriers to employment is an increase in net productivity. Legislation that in essence declares some folks are too low market value to ever be employed officially is bad legislation. And it’s not even like we are in some way reducing general human misery if working for a wage below minimum wage is miserable. We, through our collective purchases and behavior, contradict what we claim we value when we buy the products and services created by sub minimum wage labor. All we do is outsource that “misery”, pollution, and other negative externalities.

Legislation that, in essence, prevents soulless vultures from exploiting some of the powerless among us to the extent that the rest of us must subsidize said vultures in order to minimize the suffering of said powerless and maximize profit for said vultures – blaming it all on ‘market forces’ in the process – may be necessary and important legislation.

Funny thing about that is that the legislation you claim accomplishes that does nothing of the sort. All it does is destroy the ability of one group to find legitimate employment while shifting that demand for labor to robots and to foreign workers. That’s why I say minimum wage is a feel good policy. That’s why I am against counterproductive wage floors and for targeted social assistance.

One set of policy shifts manufacturing and services to machines and off shore. The other allows people to earn their market value and receive assistance if necessary.

Now obviously, my opinion on the subject isn’t going to become the majority opinion any time soon. But populism and discontent with the structure of the economic and political system doesn’t arise in a vacuum.

I’m not sure there’s any compelling evidence of this.

That’s not a race to the bottom that American workers should ever win, or that we as a nation should ever want them to win.

Most people’s bosses lie awake at night dreaming about how they can outsource all their labor or shift it to automation. As the cost of automation continues to decline, you can blame the shift on the lowest-paid worker, but they were always in the crosshairs of big business.

The Internet had more to do with offshoring businesses than any other single factor.

No, it arises when people are unable to make ends meet, even if they are working full time.

And far too often (I won’t take a stab at % frequency, nor is it critical) the problem is corporate executives with dreams of unimaginable wealth, often via IPO.

At any given time, most execs are aware of the climate for IPO, and the metrics that those in their industry must hit in order for that IPO to be successful.

And if the only thing in the spreadsheet that matters is that EPS figure, then you back out to everything else, and you keep wages intolerably low.

Where you otherwise have no end of choices to be affluent and live a very cushy life, while paying everybody a truly fair wage.

This isn’t true of all businesses, obviously, but of a significant percentage, I would argue.

So you not only have historically unprecedented wage ratios, but you also have no end of people cashing out via the IPO jackpot.

One material difference between many facets of today’s capitalism and the plantation mentality that I referenced upthread: plantation owners didn’t traditionally view their businesses as assets to be pumped-and-dumped like stocks, but rather to be grown, to produce increasing revenue, and to be handed down from generation to generation.

Maybe if net asset value were a more significant part of the plantation economy, they would have beaten their slaves even more brutally.

Maybe.

But … I know … The Free Market.

Got it.

There are two sides to that equation though. Minimum wage doesn’t even address one side of it.

Interesting map. It seems to me that many of the places declining in population are remote (like northern Maine) or rust belt. Remote places with low populations can afford an influx less than most.
The very high cost place where I live seems to be still growing, a lot.

Infrastructure improvements take a long time, while housing prices go up immediately. Plus, the influx of people to these low cost places are going to be those with low incomes, and therefore they won’t increase the tax base very much. I can see local governments holding off on expensive new schools to serve a population who could move away as soon as the prices go up.

I live in a place where things have gotten a lot more expensive, and it isn’t great for a lot of people. Current residents who rent are going to see increases without increases in income. Ditto for other prices. Ditto for the tax increases to fund new infrastructure.
You also have the danger of a Las Vegas situation, where tons of people moving in due to low prices resulted in massive overbuilding and then a crash.