Mininimum wage should be 7.26.
A 3 bed 2 bath home should be 80k.
A week of groceries should be 60 dollars.
A semester of university should be 2500 dollars.
Most jobs should not be minimum wage.
Employers should be giving profit share bonuses.
Millionaires and billionaires should be paying a higher percentage of taxes.
A massive percentage of our public trust should not be going to Israel.
The fact that this number $7.25 exists anywhere regarding wages (local, state, federal) is mind boggling.
I wish I knew the answer to this, but I don’t think a dollar amount floor on labor in fiat currency is it. That’ll just find a new equilibrium in a devalued currency.
I don’t write this because I disagree with the sentiment. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment.
But wealth isn’t about dollars. It’s about assets. For day to day living, it’s about real estate.
I just wrote out a whole bunch of thoughts but I don’t think they’re applicable to the topic.
Maybe do things like:
Unoccupied residential real estate is taxed at some obscene percentage of assessed value.
No individual may own more than ten living spaces (apartments are a need, and somebody’s got to own them)
Entities (looking at you black rock) may not own residential real estate.
REITS are absolutely off the table.
Water is a public good and Nestle can get fucked
Student debt and medical debt are capped at some percentage of income formula.
And to get really crazy, instead of minimum wage, employers must demonstrate that employees can afford two bedrooms with no more than twenty five percent of gross wages.
I’m drinking beer and watching rich people ride horses. These are casual thoughts without citation and are not intended for academic review or criticism.
new equilibrium in a devalued currency
No this has been thoroughly disproven. the total amount of dollars doesn’t change, it just moves from the wealthy back to the workers. Raising wages doesn’t cause inflation, corporations raising prices does, so raising the minimum wage is just one piece of it. The myth that raising wages causes inflation is argued that more money for workers creates more demand for commodities which raises the prices, but again, the total amount of currency doesn’t change. You’re not going to buy 7 cartons of eggs just because you make more money, and spending it doesn’t make it more scarce. You’ll buy as much as you need for the week just like last week, except now you don’t have to choose between food and going to the Dr.
Real economic inflation or deflation is caused when the amount of currency doesn’t match the amount of production. Or to simplify, money is representative of something that was produced, and can be exchanged for commodities; and the whole money supply is representative of the whole productive capacity of a nation (or issuing body). Paying people more doesn’t lower production, it would theoretically stay the same though experiments have proven that productivity increases. Raising wages raises the amount of money that businesses make because there is more money in circulation, it isn’t just sitting in accounts collecting interest. Increase in demand actually drives hiring more workers.
Lots of nice ideas in your post but none of it are demands that bring workers together to organize and fight for what they deserve, we have to hope that some politician will give it to us. Fighting for wage increases does mobilize workers, and it has only ever been organized mobilizations of workers that have driven economic changes under capitalism.
I think you forgot that corporations are people too, thanks to the utterly inestimable contribution to your society of your “supreme court”
I’d vote for you
And to get really crazy, instead of minimum wage, employers must demonstrate that employees can afford two bedrooms with no more than twenty five percent of gross wages.
Stuff like that always backfires. You lose the businesses altogether, now nobodies got nothing.
I believe the standard counter to that is that if you can’t meet that standard then you either shouldn’t have employees or you shouldn’t have a business
That’s a brain dead retort, utilized by people that don’t think, just repeat ideas they heard elsewhere and barely understand. Note, I ain’t saying that to you in particular. Brings to mind the rent controlled buildings standing vacant in NY, because it’s below input/maintenance to rent out.
Tying the minimum wage to inflation is a good strategy. Combined with a method to keep the executive class from exponentially lapping the labourers, you’d have the makings of a nice first world nation.
The road to getting there isn’t enjoyable though. Just go with the flow, and one day these problems will be irrelevant.
The government already intentionally understates inflation through changes to the CPI, this would just further incentivize them to understate it even further.
You’re right of course. I suppose in an idealistic world, elections would be publicly funded, with no methods of outside money to take influence over candidates and therefore policy. A utopian dream perhaps.
Nope. They said no to $15… so it doubles to $30 an hour now. Say no again shitters
Imagine what the world would be like if it were managed by people who didn’t regard their role implicitly as mismanagement
My manager: Tough shit
Minimum wage in 1938: 25¢/hour.
Minimum wage in 2024: $7.25/hour.
In 86 years the US federal minimum wage has gone up seven dollars.
Inflation adjusted, that’s $5.54 vs $7.25. That’s a 30% increase, on top of triple or quadruple digit increases in every expense…
What is even crazier is that while the minimum is not tied to inflation the amount one may donate to political parties is tied to inflation.
Huh.
The federal government really did just give up on any actual changing of minimum wages and it’s very insane that that is the case.
You say “should” like we don’t keep electing all the politicians who don’t give a crap about wages.
Correct
