27 Jun 2023 9:35 pm
Classic economists about all agree that the minimum wage is inefficient and causes job losses.razoo » 19 Jun 2023, 6:13 am » wrote: ↑ $17.50 per hour is $33,000 per year thus $35 per hour is $66,000 per year which would eliminate the need for food stamps for a ton of people.
What's wrong with that?
And $66,000 a year would push up economic growth which is a good thing.
What's wrong with that?
If CEO's would cut their salaries by 50% and eliminate golden parachutes the cost of goods would not increase
paying workers $66,000 a year.
In other words, let’s say there’s a little fast food joint that has ten employees at $10 an hour and the payroll is a thousand dollars an hour.
Raise the wage to $12.50 and suddenly the owner’s labor costs go up 25% and his sales won’t keep up. If he raises prices he sells less volume, and he’ll need fewer workers.
I think it’s important for us who don’t believe in Q Anon and stolen elections and Kenyan births and other MAGA fairy tales to never, ever, even a little bit stray off into left wing fantasies.
I believe in a minimum wage. If you didn’t have one there’d be a permanent underclass worse than we already have now. People would set up businesses on a business model of $5 an hour. But the minimum wage needs to be based on a per cent of the average wage.
All of my life, the Labor Department has published each month an average wage for USA workers.
Last month it was $28.75 an hour.
And at least since I was in high school fifty years ago, the standard percentage of the average wage that minimum wage advocates (not Trumpies or other such troglodytes) has been from a low of 40% to a max of 60%. One half is a good median.
The minimum wage should be gradually raised to $15 an hour on the federal level, then indexed at one half the average wage thereafter.
And even that will cause pain. It always has caused pain, to raise the minimum wage.
But far, far more important is to prevent the MAGA crowd from ever gaining a trifecta in power again.
Every decent thing you’ve ever believed in will be gone, if they ever hold the power to destroy it.
They’d repeal all minimum wages and eliminate the Department of Labor tomorrow, if they only could.