Would you support a maximum wage ?

Great Debates
1

Would you support a maximum wage ($100,000 a year)?
If the left over money would turn into payback for the public in the forms of:
Health care accessible to all, higher pay to the people who deserve it most, teachers. Improved and free schools all the way up through the adult continuing education level, public works projects long overdue (Cleaning up parks, fixing roads and bridges, bringing the slums back to life), amnesty on all student loans, an end to the drug war. A long term goal would be the decriminalization of hemp and all common recreational drugs (so the hard-core addicts can get in on prescription and would not have to steal to get it, crime would go down), a mandatory class at the early high school level on one of the most important things we are all supposed to learn but it is not taught in school at all: Parenting. Election of police officers by the districts they patrol. Aid for small farmers and organic farmers, if their soil needs some rest they will become, for that period of time, either solar energy farmers or wind farmers, use NASA and the military to go up into space and bring back every corroded nuclear satellite and take it apart before they crash or crack and poison us with radiation.

Would work is the maximum wage was instituted?
C’mon, imagine how well you could live on $100,000 a year, you could live it up nice, nice house, nice car, a lot of luxuries. Hell, you could do that on $60,000. Why would anyone need more, if those paybacks were in effect?

And for those of you who are smelling “Communist” when reading this. Bullshit. Health Care for all is not a luxury, it’s a human right recognized by most of Europe and Canada.

2

Thats suppossed to read:

Would America work if the maximum wage was instituted?

3

One problem, emigration and loss of rich (and possibly necessary) people. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and maybe Britain could do very well out of this exodus. Unless you are suggesting a world government?

Certainly, anyone with a large enough amountof capital (I think it is about $750,000, or with a going business concern that will employ a certain number of people have a short cut almost guaranteed to emigration to Britain.

When marginal tax rates in Britain were 98% (yes 98%) people moved abroad, or moved their assets abroad. This was up until 1979.

If you still plan to tax people abroad at this amount, it would be interesting to see what the mean cost of renunciation of US citizenship would be- what would people need to do this- you might be surprised how small an amount would be placed on this.

4

Well, sports players might be in trouble. The poor fellows might actually have to settle for six figures a year. Awwww.

5

Settle? I’m sure the Japanese could easily afford to buy themselves a top-notch baseball league.

Are business owners going to work harder to employ more people for no additional personal gain? If they did so, would they be as deserving of more money as anyone else?

Another aspect to consider is that society would still have plenty of incredibly rich people around. These people could have assets in the form of capital, and still be able to use them with impunity. The Upper East Side of New York City cannot be afforded on $100,000 per year. It would simply become an enclave of a new aristocracy of sorts, those with capital. This plan would forever close the ranks of this class to the self-made businessman.

The already powerful are not going to be overly hurt by a wage cap. That’s not where they derive their power. I have a friend, who works hard as a computer programmer for quite a bit over your cap, only a year and a half out of college. Knowing him, and also because his pay is determined in part by the number of hours he works, for only $100,000 no matter what, he won’t work a penny more than he’s getting paid. I mean, he loves his job, but 60 hour weeks can’t possibly be something he’d do for free. So, just in him, your plan costs the economy about $40k, and more as his expected wage increases with experience.

Personally, I’d move to England or Hong Kong before it became an issue for me, but that’s a bit off in the future.

Now for the things you want to spend the money on. First is the slums, which I doubt are simply going to be brought to life just by giving them money. Next is student loans, where you want to teach responsibility to America’s newest graduates by forgiving them of their obligations. There’s the end to the drug war, which is a noble goal, but would save money overall, so it’s rather irrelevant to this plan.

Then there’ll be a high school class on parenting, on the theory that no one knows how to meddle in the lives of children like the government. Also, the selection of law enforcement by standards completely separate from ability, but we all know how the electoral process makes an honest person out of anyone. Some more money to be given away to subsidize less economic ways of getting food and power. And lastly, I think I’m going to have to ask for a cite on the dangers of our satellites, and the need to retrieve them.

-waterj2, defender of capitalism

6

Ummm…no. Neither is there the right to electricity for heat, or the right to food, or the right to the internet, or the right to unrestricted abortion, or the right to shoot your neighbor if the voices in your head tell you do do so.

If there was a maximum wage, there would be no tax base and therefore no NASA to go fetch satellites, no computers, and very few doctors to administer the health care you seek.

Please do not subject me to the Canadian (or European) health care system. I am patently uninterested in the socialist healthcare model, and firmly believe that what we have is far superior. I would rather join an HMO than move to Canada for my healthcare.

While you spout anticommunism, your idea suffers from the same flaw as communism; essentially why bother creating, innovating, and working if there is no reward?

Extremely bad idea.

There are answers for the problems you would like to solve. A maximum wage is not one of them.

7

To be clear, Tbea, Canada does not have socialized medicine - it has socialized medical insurance, which in practice is quite different.

Mercutio, you’re forgetting that there are more forms of compensation under the sun than you thought possible, and far more ways to work around a wage cap than could ever be controlled by any government. A CEO could have a salary of only $1 a year; then he lives in a company house, drives a company car, and has discretionary access to an expense account that covers every need and luxury he can imagine.

Your scheme is lovely and utopian and terribly naive. Until you explore how such a cap would distort the economy, it’s wishful thinking: for starters, see Cecil’s column on how much income tax the rich actually pay.

George Orwell proposed in The Lion And The Unicorn something slightly more workable - a wage range of, say, 100 to 1. The highest earner in society could earn no more than 100 times the lowest, which in practice becomes setting the minimum wage at 1% of the highest (leaving aside obvious anomalies like whatever baseball player just signed a contract for $250 million). It would leave earning power open-ended, but would drag the bottom up with it.

8

Would you support a maximum wage ($100,000 a year)?

I wouldn’t. Note, however, that such a cap would directly affect me, so I’m biased. I’m guessing, but don’t know for sure, that you’re also biased in that you don’t ever see yourself as being affected by this particular cap.

C’mon, imagine how well you could live on $100,000 a year, you could live it up nice, nice house, nice car, a lot of luxuries. Hell, you could do that on $60,000. Why would anyone need more

Uhh, have you ever tried putting kids through college? I have one in college and one heading there shortly. Tuition just for the one is $35,000 per year, and shortly I’m expecting to be shelling out $70,000 per year just for college tuition. (This isn’t assuming top-tier colleges - basically any private college seems to run $30k / year or over.)

Kind of puts a crimp in that $60,000 luxury status, huh? :slight_smile:

**Would America work if the maximum wage was instituted? **

IMHO, no. For one thing, the talented folks who keep the country running would have less reason to do so. For another, they have other options (moving elsewhere, accepting compensation in other ways - such as stock options or perks (I’d cheerfully accept scholarships for the kids), retiring early, or just flat out not bothering to put in those 60 hour weeks).

A long term goal would be the decriminalization of hemp and all common recreational drugs

Oh well, as long as you’re taking my money away for a good reason… :slight_smile:

9

Why do we need a maximum wage to do that? Decriminalization would save $17 billion per year at the federal level alone, and then there is the potential to make a significant amount of money through taxation.

The high school I attended offered parenting as an elective.

10

Maybe it’s different where you live, but where I live, I can assure you (from firsthand experience) that you’re wrong.

Granted, if everyone were capped at $100k, the price of houses might very well go down. There would no doubt be lots of consequences from such a cap - some would be good, a lot would be absolutely disasterous.

As somebody pointed out above, that cap would make it very hard for anyone new to join the ranks of the wealthy. That seems very lame to me.

Also, consider that many working-class people make their livings serving people with high incomes. Boat-builders; landscapers; nannies – all of these people would have their jobs jeopardized.

As someone who has been through many many mandatory classes, I can tell you that there is very frequently a big gap between intent and reality in mandatory classes. Nevertheless, I suppose that if executed properly this might have merit, even without the “salary cap.” Perhaps a few states should consider it.

11

Yes, but not a fixed figure. Negative income tax schemes have already been proposed by economists to tax anyone who makes over poverty line by half, and give it directly to those who make less than pverty, by half as to not dilute incentive to work. I think, however, that medicine is key. Humans need to insert themselves into the birthing arena to make sure all plans to distribute resources are not wasted on breeding incentives for poor people. Free education is the centerpiece to all plans. Notice that one cannot scam-abuse free education, or free health-care. They pay for themselves in prevention (together) and lower cost per-person while maximizing productivity. It is foolish not to employ them. It lets you know who is really in charge of any particular $ociety. The way to high-tech feudalism is not to brainwash people, but to limit their sources of knowledge and force them to struggle to survive.

12

Would I support a penalty on prosperity, ingenuity and talent (which is all this whole scheme boils down to)?? Certainly not…in fact the whole idea makes me rather nauseous

What gives YOU the right to make that decision for someone else? Rather presumptious, I would say.

Come to think of it, I actually smell “communist” AND “bullshit” here. I’d prefer to keep the system we have right now, thank you very much. As for using the term human right…no right can be derived at the cost of another man’s (as “free” health care and “free” education" no doubt are)…the only right we have is to live our lives as we see fit without infringement from others.

Ugghh…not very good choices, wouldn’t ya say? :slight_smile: England being under the thumb of those incompetent Blairites and Hong Kong’s dubious semi-autonomous status unfortunately disqualify themselves. Personally, my choice is New Zealand…where the libertarian revolution is going to take place :slight_smile:

13

Nope. That’s why I (a typical Massachusetts bleeding heart pinko liberal) didn’t vote for Ralph Nader. Among other things, of course.

I wouldn’t. At least not past the first $100,000 that I made.

Are you kidding? My family pulls in about $120,000. We live comfortably. We own 3 cars for 3 drivers. A 98 bottom of the line Chevy truck, a 92 Ford Taurus that we bought used for $7000, and an 87 Chevy Celebrity that is valued by the Massachusetts RMV at $300 for tax and insurance purposes (I got it free from my grandmother).

This summer, I, a computer science student at a major university, worked a job that would have paid me, had I continued full time, $40,000/year. This was an entry level position available to a non college graduate. In fact, I had only had 1 year of college at that point. It was an OK job, but certainly nothing that I could support a family on in my area.

The average cost of a 2 story Cape style 3 bedroom/2 bath/4 room house in my city, on a quarter acre of land, is about $200,000. The average rent on a studio apartment in the city of Boston is approaching $1000/month, and is MUCH higher for a REAL apartment that one could raise a family in. Gas prices are approaching $1.60/gallon, and the MBTA just increased their fares so that a monthly pass now costs $140 to get from my town to North Station. My parents are paying $12,000/year, after the financial aid that I’ve recieved, for my education. They’re definetly paying on the low end of the scale, thanks to the academic scholarships that I’ve recieved. My city is ranked somewhere in the MIDDLE of Massachusetts towns in the greater Boston area for cost of living, so it’s fairly typical.

$100 Grand is a good amount of money. It’s a comfortable amount of money. But it’s certainly not enought to afford “all kinds of luxuries” or “a nice car.” It’s enough so that money isn’t ALWAYS an issue. It’s just sometimes an issue.

14

And just what is the point of this cap? Are you going to tax anything over that amount 100%, or are you just going to make it illegal to pay someone more than that?

This is another one of those 60’s hippie “It sounds good when you think of it after commisserating all night about the evil rich after eating several peyote buttons” ideas. I’m guessing that most people way over on the left who REALLY think about this stuff think this idea is completely nuts.

15

**

What leftover money? I don’t see why companies would simply start paying all of their other employees a lot less money. This is a really really silly idea.

I don’t recognize it as a right. You don’t have a right to health care, housing, or life at the expense of someone else.

Marc

16

100,000 maximum wage cap for lawyers and congressmen. :slight_smile:

17

for the shear bizarreness of being on the same side with Sam Stone and Rugby Man! (Disclaimer: Not saying I agree with everything they say here…But I am on the same side of this debate.)

Such a completely-confiscatory scheme is just unworkable and undesirable. There are various problems: Who decides what the reasonable maximum is? Does it depend on the cost of living where people are?

Besides, it would create huge problems in the labor market, brain-drain of talent to elsewhere, and lack of any financial incentive for people to work harder than that fixed maximum income.

Of course, this is never going to happen, so it is really kind of silly to argue about—it’s a straw man. The question is not really one of whether we should go to some hair-brained (or is it “hare-brained”?) extreme, but in which direction we should be moving with our taxation system … toward or away from a more equitable distribution of wealth? This, of course, is where I majorly part company with the likes of Sam and the Man. We both think that we are too far in the direction of one of the extremes; we just disagree on which extreme that is!

Do I think Bill Gates should not be allowed to have over a certain amount of his ludicrously high wealth? No. Do I believe that society at large has a right to a “cut” of the earnings that he makes within the society and that there should be some real progressivity in what that cut is? Absolutely.

18

Well, I’m just as shocked myself :slight_smile:

Although I suppose that we have different arguments against it…yours is more the pragmatic end while mine is more moral outrage :slight_smile:

19

I don’t think there should be a maximum wage. If someone earns a large amount of money, then good for them. It’s not anyone else’s place to say they’re not entitled to it. I don’t earn big bucks at the moment, but I certainly don’t have anything against people who do. What right does anyone have to decide how much someone can earn?

Even if someone’s earnings are ridiculously high for the occupation they’re in, that’s decided between the employer and the employee. It may be OTT sometimes, but if someone wants to pay a massive salary to someone, they have every right to do so. For lack of a better expression, if you don’t like that, tough.

As for left-over money after the maximum wage level going to healthcare and the like, don’t assume that it automatically raises everyone’s standard of living. Here in the UK, our National Health Service, paid for by our high taxes, still has 2-year waiting lists for some operations. Not much fun if you’re a little old lady needing a hip replacement. Add to that the fact that we have to pay for any drugs prescribed to us, and it’s not hard to see why many of us still take out private healthcare plans regardless. Government-funded healthcare sounds like a good idea in theory - in practise, you’re better off paying for it out of your own salary.

20

Thank you!!! :slight_smile: It’s certainly nice to hear from someone who has to actually live through it to say how poor government health is!!!