re: The Real Fear of $15/hr Min Wage

Especially when priority is given over different demographics and genders.

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I’m no expert on fiscal policy or UBI.

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You didn’t need to tell us this.

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Someone like Milton Friedman basically wanted to eliminate all welfare and replace it with cash payments and stimulate the economy.

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People would choose between $1k/month and their current welfare program. Economic growth from people spending their money and a few other minor taxes would pay for the program.

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What exactly do you think welfare is? They currently give out cash that people can use at their discretion.

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Another way to pay for UBI would be a wealth tax. It is estimated that $12k a year to every American would cost $3t. Bernie Sanders says his wealth tax (1% on every dollar earned over $32m and progressively increasing) would raise around $4.5T whilst a Wharton study found that it would raise around $3T. This would easily cover UBI. If What Sanders claims is correct then we'd have $1-1.5T left over this could returned to working and middle class americans through tax cuts.

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Bernie is not correct. And why do you keep assuming anyone wants UBI in any shape or form? The easiest hole to poke in your dumb arse plan is what makes you think anyone would be satisfied with $12k a year? We would be having the same conversation as we are now (raising the minimum wage = raising UBI) on an ongoing basis. Except now these people aren’t working at all for it. Oh and they will exclusively vote democrat because that is who is pushing this

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a bit disruptive that the democrats continually try to coerce voters with taxpayer money.

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But shouldn’t anyone in the US that has a 40/hr work week be able to at a minimum be able to pay for the basics such as food, shelter, and clothing?

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What are they doing during those 40 hours? Are all jobs equal?

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I’m talking about basic human needs.

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The people advocating for this aren’t

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Can you honestly tell me you can live on 7.25/ hr? That’s 1160 a month before anything taken out. Take out rent food health insurance and gas to get you to a from work. Or if you can use public transportation that’s a plus. I don’t think a car would be very feasible at that pay bu the time you pay for maintenance on a crappy car and insurance

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You can’t. That’s why you work more than 40 hours a week...that’s why you perform well and quickly move past minimum wage..that’s why we have earned income tax credits etc (you didn’t include that in your calculations).

Decreasing taxes is the way to go, not increasing the min wage.

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Can you honestly tell me you can live on 7.25/ hr?

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Maybe can I put my kids to work? Child labor laws are so antiquated

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It's 15 years out

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More like 15 months. I think a lot of people are misunderstanding how the "cost" will be passed to the customer. There's obviously the monetary aspect, but not a lot of people seem to be talking about the time aspect.

If the store doesn't have the ability to keep staff at $15/hr, then they'll cut staff and make the consumer do most of the service stuff (self checkout, place your order on the touchpad or use the app, know your exact measurements because our fitting rooms are closed, etc.) So it becomes more of a burden for the customer to go to the store because of increased prices and decreased convenience, so they'll flock to the big chains.

And side note, while small businesses are squeezed by the economic impact of a $15 minimum wage, I guarantee Amazon (who's already excited about getting rid of the little guy) will gladly be hosting most of the apps made by small businesses trying to stay afloat. So Amazon gets to kill its competition and take their money while doing it.

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The Real Fear of $15/hr Min Wage

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So a year into a pandemic when thousands of small businesses either closed or suffered major economic setbacks, Joey wants to increase taxes and raise minimum wage to $15 an hour. So businesses who couldn’t pay their bills are now going to have to pay more in taxes and if they were paying employees minimum wage, they now have to pay employees basically double that? Not only will businesses shut down but employees who were making $10,$11, or $12 may now lose their jobs because businesses simply can’t continue to pay higher taxes, more to employees, and possibly only work at 50-75% capacity? I would love to see Americans make $15 an hour, but I simply don’t see the majority of small businesses able to sustain this. However, the good thing is we did get rid of the mean guy in office and should be getting $1400 to pay the bills for the 11 months that Americans were forced to shut down.

This won’t help low income families... they will see cut hours and Price of Goods will increase in price.

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I’m not advocating for people to sit at their home all day getting handouts. But if the US is really the greatest nation wouldn’t you think the greatest nation allows you to work an honest 40 hrs a week to have basic needs? Because guess what if you don’t provide that you will give it in the form of food stamps, housing assistance, child care assistance, etc. is it the worse thing in the world to actually let people have some pride and be able to support themselves?

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Labor prices were largely already above minimum wage. Hell, even illegal labor pays more than minimum wage here.

The market was fine.


LINK
"In 2019, 82.3 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 392,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 1.2 million had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.6 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.9 percent of all hourly paid workers.

The percentage of hourly paid workers earning the prevailing federal minimum wage or less edged down from 2.1 percent in 2018 to 1.9 percent in 2019. This remains well below the percentage of 13.4 recorded in 1979, when data were first collected on a regular basis.

Workers under 25 make up one-fifth of hourly-paid workers. However, they make up about two-fifths of those paid the federal minimum wage or less."

So, 40% of minimum wage or less jobs are entry level jobs taken by kids.

There's no problem that needs to be solved by raising the minimum wage. You'll just create new problems.