Dude, I'm not gonna debate this with you. I think $7.25 is slave labor. If people don't want to pay employees a decent wage then maybe they should try working for that same wage and see how that works for them.
https://time.com/5876604/machines-jobs-coronavirus/ Millions of Americans Have Lost Jobs in the Pandemic—And Robots and AI Are Replacing Them Faster Than Ever
Dudette I think 7.25 is slave labor as well I don't know what that has to do with the discussion at hand. I would think we could have a more nuanced discussion than 7.25 or 15 dollars and how that affects all businesses.
I'm for raising it. It only looks like a huge jump, because the government has neglected to raise it for too long. 22 times raised in Congress history, used to be under six years we get at least one or more bumps, but last one was 2009 (over a decade) https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart Businesses are also given time to get to the new number. Some states are better than others but, without nationwide mandate, the other states just drag their feet. Min wage is for all jobs, not like child tax credits, where you have to be in a certain situation to enjoy it. Waiting this long also has implications, if people had the extra money along the way, could have lessen certain debt interests or had some of the money grow for them. It's like tax refunds, while it's nice to get it back; would be nicer if they didn't errorneously take it from you in the first place, where having the money could have gave extra interests, added investment opportunity or added liquidity.
You think small businesses are way more profitable than they were 12 years ago? For starters, labor costs haven't remained flat regardless of minimum wage. That's even more the case for small businesses that offer benefits like health care - they are probably paying a far higher percentage in labor costs than 10-15 years ago simply from that, even if they didn't raise wages. And other costs like rent and supplies certainly haven't stayed flat. I think anyone who has worked with small business knows that its generally not some magical fairy pot of gold that prints money because of cheap labor.
Productivity is an irrelevant measure for minimum wage - almost all of those gains are due to investments in technology. Anyone who uses these charts to argue for minimum wage increases either doesn't understand the issue or is being intentionally deceptive. A better measure would be minimum wage relative to the past, in constant dollars: (The chart above ends around 5-6 years ago, so it's obviously trended down a bit since, but is still around the $7-$7.10 equivalent) That said, the real argument for a $15 minimum wage has nothing to do with historical numbers, because it's waaaay higher than anything in the past. As noted above, an $11 minimum wage would match the highest we've ever had. The underlying "living wage" argument is not to compare to the past - it's that we should change the underlying system because minimum wage has never been right.
Sad state when the country is so divided by rich and poor that small business owners have to pay their workers peanuts, crappy vacation time, and little to no healthcare to stay afloat.
Im sorry, but this “slave wages” nonsense is just more terrible marketing. Not as bad as “defund the police”.
If you dedicate 8 hours a day to someone else's profit motive and barely can get shelter, basic unities and food and no healthcare, what do you call it? There are varying degrees of slavery.
Varying degrees of slavery..... yea that doesn’t minimize what slavery actually is. I have no idea about the hypothetical person’s situation. Even as someone who wants to raise the floor for entitlements, there is something presumptuous and off putting with this helplessness characterization.
OK fine. Working them for peanuts. You are right. I shouldn't have used that term. That being said, when people work 40 hrs to 60 hours a week or more and can't even afford healthcare or time off to unwind and vacation, or afford to put their kids through college, the system needs a major overhaul. This is anything but the American Dream.
Corporations and rich people have conned the majority of the USA into believing that wages cannot go higher. Think about who directly wins in that situation, it's the corporations and people that have businesses already. Not the people.
Do you understand that there will be a day that technological investments displace work and incomes for the majority of people. What do people do then, pull themselves up by their boot straps? Productivity is relevant, that increase in productivity has to pay dividends to all people, not just the small group of men who owns the machines, or our society will quite literally turn into a dystopian nightmare real quick
I'm not really sure what The American Dream is.... seems like it changes based on the circumstances.... for those in the late 19th/early 20th it was about freedom that was uncommon in a world that was shaking off kings for autocrats.... for those post WW2 it was about the spoils of a war the produced a new standard of living. Anyways... I feel like Progressives and Conservatives tend to exaggerate the past in their favor.
Which certainly makes sense in a place like Pittsburg, but what about 50 miles down the road in a rusting steel town? Raise the federal minimum wage to $10 and let states take it from there, otherwise we might get stuck in paralysis and do nothing. Meanwhile an interesting article about the plan from the Fed and Biden Admin: The Making of the Mother of All Economic Booms This was the strategy under the Trump admin and picked up by Biden's.
Well as long as we’re making sweeping generalizations, I feel moderates are lazy thinkers who can’t be bothered to pick a side because it doesn’t affect them directly.
