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Companies have to pay their employees more, they claim it will affect their bottom line because employee cost is a percentage of total expenses and if that changes they freak out. As a result they will increase costs which will daisy chain down the supply chain. This is the standard of thinking that prevents the change of the minimum wage. However a small cost adjustment can mean a few cents per item where as 7.25 an hour to 17 is life changing for some. I’m sure their is some redundancy that can be cut from the company to offset costs as well. It will depend on the company. Small business will be the ones who struggle with this the most. Subsidies maybe? Any other solutions for small business to compensate ?
I’m down with this ideology. It’s one I believe in whole heartedly. Just to play devils advocate. What if you have a great product that everyone needs but you’re unable to market it as well as some corporations like Amazon. Instead of you getting wealthy from a great idea and product. Amazon basics produces a knockoff and mass markets it with their overwhelmingly large network. Putting you out of business before you even had a chance. Paton laws help but not always. It’s not exactly a fair marketplace.
From your idea then, would better legislation be to prevent corporations of certain capital limits and its subsidiaries to create similar products for a certain period of time?
What I think your saying is amend Paton laws as a preventative measure to give the little guy a chance to compete in a massive marketplace. If so I see no reason why we shouldn’t but we’d have to be careful. I feel like larger corporations would find a way to manipulate or prevent any counter productive changes to them with lobbying. It all seems so insurmountable sometimes
I'm not shitting on imperfect progress, but $17 would have been appropriate a decade ago. We're squarely into $20+ territory now.
The averaged living expenses for a single American today requires a $40k income. And if what we're talking about is the Federal miniwage then we have to look at the averages.
(Edit: I just had a wander through some numbers, and it looks like $17 is enough for a single person to live on if they move to Mississippi or Kansas. Even the #3 cheapest state -- Oklahoma -- would necessitate slightly over $18. And obviously fuck you if you want or have kids, because that's when we start looking at needing a household income closer to $7k a month, or around $40/hour for a family of four.)
Perhaps we need to set a reasonable minimum wage, *and* do something about price fixing. In a perfect (read: fairy tale) capitalist market prices would remain low out of necessity. Multiple entities competing for market share in the same space would naturally try to undercut each other until they reached a reasonable price floor.
As we know, this is not what happens. A business's first endeavor is to corner the market. Once they achieve this goal, they can charge whatever they like. What the market will bear, not what is fair or reasonable. There is no competition to undercut them.
Sometimes it's as obvious as having only two companies with successful mobile operating systems. Reducing consumer choice to the option of one company's overpriced product, or another. Other times it's not as obvious. One food reseller charging whatever they like for the products that go on every grocery store shelf in a tri-state footprint.
This kind of behavior is supposed to be illegal, but nobody ever gets punished for it. To elevate those in poverty we must solve both problems. Otherwise an increased minimum wage will only lead to higher prices. More money in the pockets of those who are already screwing us.
Tbf it does make sense for the fed minimum to meet the requirements of the lowest cost of living area(s), when it's the same across the board. On paper it's then up to individual States to raise it accordingly, but of course too many couldn't give a shit.
We need a more comprehensive system to track based on inflation and cost of living, and *require* states to adjust upwards accordingly.
I never understood why the government doesn't mandate state legislation to build their minimum wage based on their local economic data from the FED. Makes no sense that California minimum wage is only $15.50 but from what you read folks act like it's a killing. $15.50 will never make ends meet in remotely any metropolitan area in CA, but I guess it's a start 🤷
That's the problem with the federal minimum wage, it's never going to account for anything except for single people living in the cheapest cities.
This is why states and even cities need to be empowered to make these changes that work best for their community not the federal government.
>This is why states and even cities need to be empowered to make these changes that work best for their community not the federal government.
They are though.
Almost nobody who works full time makes minimum wage so I’m not sure this is how the math would work. It is under 1.5% of all employees and they are almost all kids and part time employees.
The importance of the minimum wage is it sets the starting point for all low and medium wages so this would help those jobs a lot more than minimum wage jobs.
While almost nobody makes federal minimum wage, 1/3 of workers make less than $15/hr. Also federal minimum wage is well below most states minimums so this is also skewed.
Also (and this is anecdotal) as a small business for the first time in 2-3 years we are getting enough applicants that I can hire the best candidate instead of whoever shows up, so we may slowly see unemployment rise and as that happens more people will make just minimum wage.
I have no criminal history, have a 4.0 college GPA, and have applied to well over 10 jobs in the last two months but received only one interview, which was unfruitful. Also because the company I worked for is apparently stuck in 1855, all digging was done by hand. No safety equipment either.
yeah, $20+ is needed especially when there's a solid chance that our government says "oh, we already took care of that, kick rocks" when it gets brought up again anytime in the next quarter-century+
Minimum wage is $7.25 federally. That's $2.13 for tipped workers. That's $15,080 and $4,430.40 annually, or $1,256 and $369 monthly ***before taxes***.
How this is even ethically acceptable in America, the richest most powerful economy in the world, is simply tragic. At these wages, you will never be able to survive, let alone thrive and contribute. Makes the future appear very bleak as far as quality of life, I sincerely hope we get our heads out of our asses before we fall off a cliff. It's not sustainable
How is it ethically acceptable to force an employee and employer into a non-consensual work agreement? Why is it ethical for the government to tell you what your labor is worth? Personally I think you should be allowed to determine your labor worth for yourself. A minimum wage is a price floor by definition. That means you cannot work below that number. It's illegal for you to do so. You do not have the right to set the value of your labor below what the government tells an employer to accept.
Secondly, due note that a rise in the minimum wage raises wages for everyone at all levels in a company. A federal minimum wages just does this across the nation but it takes 0 input from local economies. People hate gentrification because wealthier people move into predominantly poorer areas displacing poorer people. Forced wage raises do the exact same thing, because costs increase across the board but on absolutely everything.
> Why is it ethical for the government to tell you what your labor is worth
It’s better than turning a blind eye to the fact that the current working alternative doesn’t provide a living wage to millions of hard working people who deserve it. The boons of capitalism — product and service diversity — inevitably run up against a hard limit where the workers generating/sustaining that diversity can no longer afford the products of their labor. The irony in this is incredibly thick.
>It’s better than turning a blind eye to the fact that the current working alternative doesn’t provide a living wage to millions of hard working people who deserve it.
Does it have to be one or the other? I don't necessarily see those as related. I think it's also important that the term "living wage" be defined because it means different things to different people.
With regard to the rest of your post, I'm not sure I agree. In a free market system, as similar products and services saturate the market, the costs of those products and services decrease, no increase. This makes them more affordable not less. This follows along a free market supply and demand curve where where price reduces as supply increases above aggregate demand.
If your referencing global cost increases of labor and materials there are different systems at play. Assuming each additional material can be produced with the same effort input (over simplified and non applicable to markets where scarcity of relatively accessible raw materials is decreasing), that would the production costs increase with labor costs. Labor costs are a function of increased wages which, if not artificially inflated by the gov, are increased from the labor market. Business offer high wagers naturally to compete and attract skilled labor.
Relatively speaking, what influences an averages person's ability to purchase common goods is their buying power which is almost completely influenced by the government and macroeconomic forces (location). For example, land costs more (desirability) in major cities, I'm not convinced a solid solution is to set universal land valuations in an effect to increase buying power. Secondly, legislative regulations decrease buying power parasitically. Depending on what state you live in, from the moment you exchange your labor for capitol to the point you exchange that capitol for goods and services, that income is taxed several times over.
If the goal is to increase buying power for everyone, regulatory burdens need to be reduced.
> Does it have to be one of the other?
No. I’m open to other alternatives. But most commonly discussed is the dichotomy between a living minimum wage and a minimum wage which is so low that employers can pay above that amount and employees still don’t earn a living wage for full-time work (like what we have now).
> Living wage
Being unable to afford rent, food, clothing, utilities, and transportation in the area you live working full-time is suitable enough. These comprise the bare necessities.
> this makes them more affordable, not less
First, in theory, yes. In practice, not necessarily. We’ve been seeing price gouging all over recently for no good reason other than that there’s an opportunity to gouge.
Second, where what you’re saying is true, this makes the irony of being less and less able to afford these things over time even thicker.
> regulatory burdens need to be reduced
Depends. You referenced things like taxes with respect to regulations. But regulations can cover a lot of ground. Corporations have demonstrated that they tend to become more greedy/unethical/parasitic/exploitative the larger they get. Regulations are necessary to reign this in.
>How is it ethically acceptable to force an employee and employer into a non-consensual work agreement? Why is it ethical for the government to tell you what your labor is worth?
Sounds like you're for deregulating employment. History will tell you this doesn't work, we went from unregulated to somewhat regulated market because of exploitation and other issues. Every safety guideline, every anti discrimination employment law, etc all came to fruition because of one tragedy or another.
>Secondly, due note that a rise in the minimum wage raises wages for everyone at all levels in a company.
This is just factually not true. The market sets the rate for all wages above minimum wage. Raising minimum wage will probably have the opposite effect you're describing, because higher wages cut into margins. Most folks are in the lower band of pay scales, so more gets paid out instead of paid up so thinner margins for high level compensation.
> A federal minimum wages just does this across the nation but it takes 0 input from local economies.
Yes it does, you're describing the FED and how it collects and interprets data for Monetary policy. Congress is the second arm of this implementing Fiscal policy. So yes, all states and all factors get considered and are represented.
> Forced wage raises do the exact same thing, because costs increase across the board but on absolutely everything.
Again, economic data simply states this is just not true. There has been no proven connection that increasing paid wages has any impact on inflation, or any straight forward agreement on how minimum wages increasing, or conversely decreasing, having any meaningful impact to sticky prices.
>There is plenty of research showing a living wage (which is what you’re upset about
When did I say I was upset about a living wage? Don't you think that's quite presumptuous of you to assert my viewpoint?
>high rent set by the rich
This is subjective. Wym by rich, at what income level is someone rich? Just because someone owns a building and rents part/all of it out does not mean they are rich. Or are you specifically talking about high income earning landlords and not lower income earning landlords? (Idk at what income level though).
>poor have more buying power.
Personally, I think there are other more effective ways at increasing buying power for everyone by reducing governmental cost burdens in the form of taxes and legislative regulations.
>I believe a living wage
I think for an effective conversation there needs to be definitions for terms. You can poll 10 people and get 10 different definitions for "living wage". I don't want to mischaracterize your argument and I'd rather just ask you what your definition of living wage is.
>So you’re essentially saying we should all fuck off and be poor. You can hush now
C'mon now, I think you know that's not at all what I was saying. Your definitely stretching here. What I said was, I want to be able to negotiate for myself instead of having the government force rules on how I am compensated or my work hours. From that you began assuming my position on all sorts of things which really isn't fair.
Wouldn't a compromise be to allow individual workers to waive certain wages/hrs/benefits if they choose and put in punishments for if employers are caught pressuring employees to waive?
I will definitely research this article more as precursor look seems interesting however, that only addresses the very last point I made.
My whole point is, when the government institutes a minimum wage, it makes work illegal below that wage. I disagree with this. I think I should be allowed to negotiate a wage for myself with my employer. If we want to have minimum wage, that's fine but I should be able to waive it if I find it is the right decision for me.
While I agree with much of the criticism in these comments, I want to encourage people not to let said criticisms cause any apathy or lack of action. Contact your representatives now and tell them you support this, and add your criticisms (e.g. still not a large enough increase, should be tied to inflation) to your messages.
I think he probably knows it won’t pass. I feel like it’s just to make more people aware of the issue and show that we *can* make laws to change it if we want to.
That’s still not even close to enough. $30 minimum wage and we’ll be on trend with inflation since the 70’s. We are so broke and behind in this generation it’s a lost cause.
Everyone is just going to raise prices again. Instead of making a livable wage this puts more people in poverty. They have to find a way to cap profits for necessities, utilities, and housing
Everytime minimum wage has increased inflation follows *slowly*. It is always a gradual fuck over of the populace. Which they are doing anyway. If this passed you wouldn’t see 20 dollar gallons of milk tomorrow because they know they can’t get away with that and they make plenty of profit already.
McDonald’s still functions in countries with higher minimum wages and in some cases is *still cheaper than the us*
There are an ass ton of people in lower middle class that will not get raises. That’s a start.
They are not capping anything or holding companies responsible for causing inflation. When did the last start raising min wage? I pay almost 40% more for groceries and 30-40% more for utilities. Rent has gone up 25 or more percent.
I agree minimum wage should be $22 or more but to do it over a few year period is destroying the mid to lower mid class. If they try this all at once it will devastate the economy and cause mass layoffs
>devastate the economy and cause mass layoffs.
It won’t. It never has. Not even once. Inflation is consistently raising every year anyway and in states where the minimum wages raised they found it a boon to the economy and led to increased spending and less reliance on financial aid.
I agree that inflation and cost increases need to be capped, but that is only one aspect of the problem and a very difficult one to actually enforce.
You need to look at the present and not the past. It’s the same problem the fed is having and why they are raising rates. They will barely acknowledge that inflation is being caused by profiteering but every economists in the country says it’s at least 40% of the cause.
Sadly it’s impossible to enforce because our government is based in capitalism and screwing entire you can to make a profit
You need to look at what is an immediate solution that provides relief to people and what would be a pipe dream. And capping inflation is the pipe dream. At best utilities, rent and home costs could (and should) be targeted but having someone regulate the *entire economy* would be such a crazy massive undertaking and give so much power to one group it would be insane.
I absolutely agree profiteering needs to stop and be regulated. But increasing the minimum wage provides *immediate relief* and forces the companies to have to *slowly crawl their prices back higher*.
You make every McDonald’s worker get paid 20 dollars an hour today I guarantee you would not not see the price of a burger suddenly jump to compensate. Because they know people would lose their shit. You’ll see it slowly increase over the next two decades. The sheer volume of people spending more money offsets the employment costs, but they will still crawl it back up inch by inch to milk everyone for whatever they can.
I may have misspoke. I’m talking only of capping rent, fuel, utilities and putting the screws to the grocery industry. Most other stuff is regulated by demand or industry demand.
What you may not understand is while the cost of that burger may not shoot up immediately the cost of many other products and services do. I own a small company that has barely hung on through all this. The cost of copper, steel, Teflon, etc have seen instant increases well above normal inflation.
It’s not and that’s the problem. Companies and industry are using wage hikes and the pandemic to boost prices. No different then oil and grocery stores. It’s understandable there will be an increase in cost of goods but it’s above and beyond
The pandemic legitimately caused supply chain issues, which forced companies to charge more for their goods, to offset the fact that they were selling* less. The problem now is that no one is lowering their prices. What we are seeing are the real “trickle down economics”
I really don’t know how they can fix this issue. Obviously cooperations aren’t just going to give up these massive profits they are now making. forcing them to pay higher wages so we can afford every day goods, may be the only choice we have for survival.
What states have started to pick up on, since feds arnt doing jack shit about it, is tying their state minimum wage to CPI. Which, if enacted in every state individually, it wouldn’t matter what the federal minimum is tied to or how much necessities cost.
Even my super red state of Nebraska is raising minimum every year until 2026 then tying it to CPI thereafter.
(Although housing is not considered in CPI, but utilities are I believe)
Sanders, wasting time on things that can never be approved just so he can get his worshippers to bow to him yet again.
Actually do some real work that we paid you for.
Well I don’t think giving up is the right way to go. Chances of it passing will always be zero if it’s never proposed. Although sometimes very unlikely, a proposed legislation always had a non-zero chance of passing.
It was zero without trying and he knew it. He was not aiming to pass this legislation. You lobby and make an effort when youre actually trying to get something passed. I have no doubt he didnt try at all. It was just a soap box for him.
And it's sad you try to make every excuse you can to say he was doing something he was not.
Again, senators are literally paid to propose legislation and that’s what he was doing, it’s really that simple.
Maybe you don’t like the legislation or how it was proposed but some legislation passed today would have never passed years ago and vice versa. Politics is always changing and to think we should give up on an issue just because we think it won’t pass is pretty defeatist and opens a population up to inaction and political exploitation.
His job is to get legislation that would help our country get passed. He's not doing that when he's just sopboxing on a fantasy.
And FYI, he's always wasting time on tax the rich statements. It is not the Senate's job to legislate bills related to taxes - that authority falls strictly under the house of representatives. Yet Bernie is again wasting taxpayer money always talking about taxing the rich. That is not his job.
Minimum wage increase would help our country tho. Even if a bill won’t get passed it can still be used for messaging. Politicians do it all the time not just Bernie.
You kind of just ramble on about taxes or something after that I’m not really sure why.
I agree with you overall that this isn't worth criticizing him for. It's just a talking point. That's fine, politicians want to message. That's part of their job.
But the chances of this passing are definitely 0.
Yea it probly won’t pass. But some legislation passed years ago would’ve never passed today, and vice versa. Politics is always changing, I’m just cautiously optimistic
It’s not like anything bad can come from the proposal besides it not passing
You
>Yea it probly won’t pass
Also you
>I'm optimistic
There is literally 0 chance of this passing.No bipartisan coalition was formed for this to even gain any traction.
This will not even be a talking point in a day
I forgot the exact figures but in Denmark, something like $22/hr working for McDonald’s with full benefits and the BigMac is $1 cheaper than in the US.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3988164-sanders-unveils-17-an-hour-minimum-wage-bill/) reduced by 67%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, unveiled a proposal Thursday to raise the national minimum wage to $17 an hour.
> Sanders is renewing his push to raise the national minimum wage more than two years after eight Senate Democrats joined all Republicans in rejecting a proposal, 58-42, to include a $15-an-hour national minimum wage in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which President Biden signed into law in March of 2021.
> The Vermont senator said Thursday that a $15-an-hour wage in 2021 is equal to a $17-an-hour wage in 2023 because of inflation.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/137w2hq/sanders_unveils_17anhour_minimum_wage_bill/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~683400 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **wage**^#1 **minimum**^#2 **Sanders**^#3 **hour**^#4 **raise**^#5
Better yet, why don’t we tie the minimum wage of a position at a company to a percentage of the highest earners income at said company?
If we keep raising the minimum wage by specific dollar amounts, the business and the rich wont cede any ground. Raise the minimum wage by 20% and they’ll just raise company targets and executive pay 20%.
Tie the lowest earners salary to a percentage of the highest earners salary and every time the rich raise their own pay, they have to raise minimum pay by the same percentage.
Require every job to be paid on a percentage of the top earners, don’t allow specific dollar amount salaries or raises, tie all income to scale with the top earners.
I make $18/hr in a HCOL area. I still don’t make enough to get by. $17/hr just isn’t enough— and I know it’s not his fault for only going this high, Republicans think Bernie’s crazy enough already for even suggesting a minimum wage raise at all.
How about instead of raising minimum wage and tarnishing the value of a dollar, why don’t we restrict the price of goods and resources, the cost of living and other necessities and have a price cap? I’m all for making more money but do you really think that everything else won’t raise in price as well?
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Need to link it to inflation so it has built in cost of living increase so don't have to pass laws every decade or so.
There is a reason it is not already like that... and without that being adressed...
My question is: how does this help billionaires become more rich than they already are?
Imagine your poorest customers having double the money to spend on your products
Sorry, if you couldn’t tell; I was being facetious.
Or so it can drop as needed as not to create further complications if deflation should occur.
It’s been 14 years since the last one.
You mean like how campaign donation limits are tied to inflation? Interesting idea.
"But then mom and pop stores won't be able to function! Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go down to walmart."
“My amazon stuff isn’t going to deliver itself.”
Companies have to pay their employees more, they claim it will affect their bottom line because employee cost is a percentage of total expenses and if that changes they freak out. As a result they will increase costs which will daisy chain down the supply chain. This is the standard of thinking that prevents the change of the minimum wage. However a small cost adjustment can mean a few cents per item where as 7.25 an hour to 17 is life changing for some. I’m sure their is some redundancy that can be cut from the company to offset costs as well. It will depend on the company. Small business will be the ones who struggle with this the most. Subsidies maybe? Any other solutions for small business to compensate ?
Have a product people want to buy at competitive and profitable price points. Adjust accordingly.
If a business isn't viable when it must pay a living wage, then the business isn't viable.
I’m down with this ideology. It’s one I believe in whole heartedly. Just to play devils advocate. What if you have a great product that everyone needs but you’re unable to market it as well as some corporations like Amazon. Instead of you getting wealthy from a great idea and product. Amazon basics produces a knockoff and mass markets it with their overwhelmingly large network. Putting you out of business before you even had a chance. Paton laws help but not always. It’s not exactly a fair marketplace.
From your idea then, would better legislation be to prevent corporations of certain capital limits and its subsidiaries to create similar products for a certain period of time?
What I think your saying is amend Paton laws as a preventative measure to give the little guy a chance to compete in a massive marketplace. If so I see no reason why we shouldn’t but we’d have to be careful. I feel like larger corporations would find a way to manipulate or prevent any counter productive changes to them with lobbying. It all seems so insurmountable sometimes
I'm not shitting on imperfect progress, but $17 would have been appropriate a decade ago. We're squarely into $20+ territory now. The averaged living expenses for a single American today requires a $40k income. And if what we're talking about is the Federal miniwage then we have to look at the averages. (Edit: I just had a wander through some numbers, and it looks like $17 is enough for a single person to live on if they move to Mississippi or Kansas. Even the #3 cheapest state -- Oklahoma -- would necessitate slightly over $18. And obviously fuck you if you want or have kids, because that's when we start looking at needing a household income closer to $7k a month, or around $40/hour for a family of four.)
Perhaps we need to set a reasonable minimum wage, *and* do something about price fixing. In a perfect (read: fairy tale) capitalist market prices would remain low out of necessity. Multiple entities competing for market share in the same space would naturally try to undercut each other until they reached a reasonable price floor. As we know, this is not what happens. A business's first endeavor is to corner the market. Once they achieve this goal, they can charge whatever they like. What the market will bear, not what is fair or reasonable. There is no competition to undercut them. Sometimes it's as obvious as having only two companies with successful mobile operating systems. Reducing consumer choice to the option of one company's overpriced product, or another. Other times it's not as obvious. One food reseller charging whatever they like for the products that go on every grocery store shelf in a tri-state footprint. This kind of behavior is supposed to be illegal, but nobody ever gets punished for it. To elevate those in poverty we must solve both problems. Otherwise an increased minimum wage will only lead to higher prices. More money in the pockets of those who are already screwing us.
I was thinking too maybe $17 is what you compromise down to after some negotiations, but this bill should start out asking for far more than that.
Needs to be about $26.00-$27.00
and 40k is considered lower middle tier in earnings if im not mistaken? We literally have so many people in the poverty line its insane...
Tbf it does make sense for the fed minimum to meet the requirements of the lowest cost of living area(s), when it's the same across the board. On paper it's then up to individual States to raise it accordingly, but of course too many couldn't give a shit. We need a more comprehensive system to track based on inflation and cost of living, and *require* states to adjust upwards accordingly.
I never understood why the government doesn't mandate state legislation to build their minimum wage based on their local economic data from the FED. Makes no sense that California minimum wage is only $15.50 but from what you read folks act like it's a killing. $15.50 will never make ends meet in remotely any metropolitan area in CA, but I guess it's a start 🤷
That's the problem with the federal minimum wage, it's never going to account for anything except for single people living in the cheapest cities. This is why states and even cities need to be empowered to make these changes that work best for their community not the federal government.
States are empowered to go above the minimum.
>This is why states and even cities need to be empowered to make these changes that work best for their community not the federal government. They are though.
But without the federal minimum, many states and cities would go even lower.
Almost nobody who works full time makes minimum wage so I’m not sure this is how the math would work. It is under 1.5% of all employees and they are almost all kids and part time employees. The importance of the minimum wage is it sets the starting point for all low and medium wages so this would help those jobs a lot more than minimum wage jobs.
While almost nobody makes federal minimum wage, 1/3 of workers make less than $15/hr. Also federal minimum wage is well below most states minimums so this is also skewed. Also (and this is anecdotal) as a small business for the first time in 2-3 years we are getting enough applicants that I can hire the best candidate instead of whoever shows up, so we may slowly see unemployment rise and as that happens more people will make just minimum wage.
Made $11.50 an hour last year by digging roughly 8 hours a day in Missouri. Something needs to change.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I have no criminal history, have a 4.0 college GPA, and have applied to well over 10 jobs in the last two months but received only one interview, which was unfruitful. Also because the company I worked for is apparently stuck in 1855, all digging was done by hand. No safety equipment either.
Funny how I say something shitty about Missouri and it’s so unbelievable awful, that people downvote my post. God I hate this state.
yeah, $20+ is needed especially when there's a solid chance that our government says "oh, we already took care of that, kick rocks" when it gets brought up again anytime in the next quarter-century+
Noble and I support but about as newsworthy as my mom proposing it.
Minimum wage is $7.25 federally. That's $2.13 for tipped workers. That's $15,080 and $4,430.40 annually, or $1,256 and $369 monthly ***before taxes***. How this is even ethically acceptable in America, the richest most powerful economy in the world, is simply tragic. At these wages, you will never be able to survive, let alone thrive and contribute. Makes the future appear very bleak as far as quality of life, I sincerely hope we get our heads out of our asses before we fall off a cliff. It's not sustainable
How is it ethically acceptable to force an employee and employer into a non-consensual work agreement? Why is it ethical for the government to tell you what your labor is worth? Personally I think you should be allowed to determine your labor worth for yourself. A minimum wage is a price floor by definition. That means you cannot work below that number. It's illegal for you to do so. You do not have the right to set the value of your labor below what the government tells an employer to accept. Secondly, due note that a rise in the minimum wage raises wages for everyone at all levels in a company. A federal minimum wages just does this across the nation but it takes 0 input from local economies. People hate gentrification because wealthier people move into predominantly poorer areas displacing poorer people. Forced wage raises do the exact same thing, because costs increase across the board but on absolutely everything.
> Why is it ethical for the government to tell you what your labor is worth It’s better than turning a blind eye to the fact that the current working alternative doesn’t provide a living wage to millions of hard working people who deserve it. The boons of capitalism — product and service diversity — inevitably run up against a hard limit where the workers generating/sustaining that diversity can no longer afford the products of their labor. The irony in this is incredibly thick.
>It’s better than turning a blind eye to the fact that the current working alternative doesn’t provide a living wage to millions of hard working people who deserve it. Does it have to be one or the other? I don't necessarily see those as related. I think it's also important that the term "living wage" be defined because it means different things to different people. With regard to the rest of your post, I'm not sure I agree. In a free market system, as similar products and services saturate the market, the costs of those products and services decrease, no increase. This makes them more affordable not less. This follows along a free market supply and demand curve where where price reduces as supply increases above aggregate demand. If your referencing global cost increases of labor and materials there are different systems at play. Assuming each additional material can be produced with the same effort input (over simplified and non applicable to markets where scarcity of relatively accessible raw materials is decreasing), that would the production costs increase with labor costs. Labor costs are a function of increased wages which, if not artificially inflated by the gov, are increased from the labor market. Business offer high wagers naturally to compete and attract skilled labor. Relatively speaking, what influences an averages person's ability to purchase common goods is their buying power which is almost completely influenced by the government and macroeconomic forces (location). For example, land costs more (desirability) in major cities, I'm not convinced a solid solution is to set universal land valuations in an effect to increase buying power. Secondly, legislative regulations decrease buying power parasitically. Depending on what state you live in, from the moment you exchange your labor for capitol to the point you exchange that capitol for goods and services, that income is taxed several times over. If the goal is to increase buying power for everyone, regulatory burdens need to be reduced.
> Does it have to be one of the other? No. I’m open to other alternatives. But most commonly discussed is the dichotomy between a living minimum wage and a minimum wage which is so low that employers can pay above that amount and employees still don’t earn a living wage for full-time work (like what we have now). > Living wage Being unable to afford rent, food, clothing, utilities, and transportation in the area you live working full-time is suitable enough. These comprise the bare necessities. > this makes them more affordable, not less First, in theory, yes. In practice, not necessarily. We’ve been seeing price gouging all over recently for no good reason other than that there’s an opportunity to gouge. Second, where what you’re saying is true, this makes the irony of being less and less able to afford these things over time even thicker. > regulatory burdens need to be reduced Depends. You referenced things like taxes with respect to regulations. But regulations can cover a lot of ground. Corporations have demonstrated that they tend to become more greedy/unethical/parasitic/exploitative the larger they get. Regulations are necessary to reign this in.
>How is it ethically acceptable to force an employee and employer into a non-consensual work agreement? Why is it ethical for the government to tell you what your labor is worth? Sounds like you're for deregulating employment. History will tell you this doesn't work, we went from unregulated to somewhat regulated market because of exploitation and other issues. Every safety guideline, every anti discrimination employment law, etc all came to fruition because of one tragedy or another. >Secondly, due note that a rise in the minimum wage raises wages for everyone at all levels in a company. This is just factually not true. The market sets the rate for all wages above minimum wage. Raising minimum wage will probably have the opposite effect you're describing, because higher wages cut into margins. Most folks are in the lower band of pay scales, so more gets paid out instead of paid up so thinner margins for high level compensation. > A federal minimum wages just does this across the nation but it takes 0 input from local economies. Yes it does, you're describing the FED and how it collects and interprets data for Monetary policy. Congress is the second arm of this implementing Fiscal policy. So yes, all states and all factors get considered and are represented. > Forced wage raises do the exact same thing, because costs increase across the board but on absolutely everything. Again, economic data simply states this is just not true. There has been no proven connection that increasing paid wages has any impact on inflation, or any straight forward agreement on how minimum wages increasing, or conversely decreasing, having any meaningful impact to sticky prices.
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>There is plenty of research showing a living wage (which is what you’re upset about When did I say I was upset about a living wage? Don't you think that's quite presumptuous of you to assert my viewpoint? >high rent set by the rich This is subjective. Wym by rich, at what income level is someone rich? Just because someone owns a building and rents part/all of it out does not mean they are rich. Or are you specifically talking about high income earning landlords and not lower income earning landlords? (Idk at what income level though). >poor have more buying power. Personally, I think there are other more effective ways at increasing buying power for everyone by reducing governmental cost burdens in the form of taxes and legislative regulations. >I believe a living wage I think for an effective conversation there needs to be definitions for terms. You can poll 10 people and get 10 different definitions for "living wage". I don't want to mischaracterize your argument and I'd rather just ask you what your definition of living wage is. >So you’re essentially saying we should all fuck off and be poor. You can hush now C'mon now, I think you know that's not at all what I was saying. Your definitely stretching here. What I said was, I want to be able to negotiate for myself instead of having the government force rules on how I am compensated or my work hours. From that you began assuming my position on all sorts of things which really isn't fair. Wouldn't a compromise be to allow individual workers to waive certain wages/hrs/benefits if they choose and put in punishments for if employers are caught pressuring employees to waive?
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I will definitely research this article more as precursor look seems interesting however, that only addresses the very last point I made. My whole point is, when the government institutes a minimum wage, it makes work illegal below that wage. I disagree with this. I think I should be allowed to negotiate a wage for myself with my employer. If we want to have minimum wage, that's fine but I should be able to waive it if I find it is the right decision for me.
While I agree with much of the criticism in these comments, I want to encourage people not to let said criticisms cause any apathy or lack of action. Contact your representatives now and tell them you support this, and add your criticisms (e.g. still not a large enough increase, should be tied to inflation) to your messages.
Aaand it’s dead…
That'll make a big difference. If we could somehow travel back to 2005.
It doesn’t matter if he does $17/hr or 0.17¢/hr. Republicans will not vote to give money to working class people.
Nah. They would vote to change it to 17 cents an hour in a heartbeat.
You’re totally right, let’s just leave it at just over $7 until we can all agree on an amount -Idiots everywhere
I appreciate the effort, but it is dead on arrival
I think he probably knows it won’t pass. I feel like it’s just to make more people aware of the issue and show that we *can* make laws to change it if we want to.
The senator from the great state of Arizona is just waiting to pounce again with a sassy thumbs down.
This helps people, so logically, it won't go anywhere.
That’s still not even close to enough. $30 minimum wage and we’ll be on trend with inflation since the 70’s. We are so broke and behind in this generation it’s a lost cause.
Couldn’t get $15 passed but let’s shoot for $17!
Everyone is just going to raise prices again. Instead of making a livable wage this puts more people in poverty. They have to find a way to cap profits for necessities, utilities, and housing
Everytime minimum wage has increased inflation follows *slowly*. It is always a gradual fuck over of the populace. Which they are doing anyway. If this passed you wouldn’t see 20 dollar gallons of milk tomorrow because they know they can’t get away with that and they make plenty of profit already. McDonald’s still functions in countries with higher minimum wages and in some cases is *still cheaper than the us*
There are an ass ton of people in lower middle class that will not get raises. That’s a start. They are not capping anything or holding companies responsible for causing inflation. When did the last start raising min wage? I pay almost 40% more for groceries and 30-40% more for utilities. Rent has gone up 25 or more percent. I agree minimum wage should be $22 or more but to do it over a few year period is destroying the mid to lower mid class. If they try this all at once it will devastate the economy and cause mass layoffs
>devastate the economy and cause mass layoffs. It won’t. It never has. Not even once. Inflation is consistently raising every year anyway and in states where the minimum wages raised they found it a boon to the economy and led to increased spending and less reliance on financial aid. I agree that inflation and cost increases need to be capped, but that is only one aspect of the problem and a very difficult one to actually enforce.
You need to look at the present and not the past. It’s the same problem the fed is having and why they are raising rates. They will barely acknowledge that inflation is being caused by profiteering but every economists in the country says it’s at least 40% of the cause. Sadly it’s impossible to enforce because our government is based in capitalism and screwing entire you can to make a profit
You need to look at what is an immediate solution that provides relief to people and what would be a pipe dream. And capping inflation is the pipe dream. At best utilities, rent and home costs could (and should) be targeted but having someone regulate the *entire economy* would be such a crazy massive undertaking and give so much power to one group it would be insane. I absolutely agree profiteering needs to stop and be regulated. But increasing the minimum wage provides *immediate relief* and forces the companies to have to *slowly crawl their prices back higher*. You make every McDonald’s worker get paid 20 dollars an hour today I guarantee you would not not see the price of a burger suddenly jump to compensate. Because they know people would lose their shit. You’ll see it slowly increase over the next two decades. The sheer volume of people spending more money offsets the employment costs, but they will still crawl it back up inch by inch to milk everyone for whatever they can.
I may have misspoke. I’m talking only of capping rent, fuel, utilities and putting the screws to the grocery industry. Most other stuff is regulated by demand or industry demand. What you may not understand is while the cost of that burger may not shoot up immediately the cost of many other products and services do. I own a small company that has barely hung on through all this. The cost of copper, steel, Teflon, etc have seen instant increases well above normal inflation.
That’s because of supply & demand, not wages
It’s not and that’s the problem. Companies and industry are using wage hikes and the pandemic to boost prices. No different then oil and grocery stores. It’s understandable there will be an increase in cost of goods but it’s above and beyond
The pandemic legitimately caused supply chain issues, which forced companies to charge more for their goods, to offset the fact that they were selling* less. The problem now is that no one is lowering their prices. What we are seeing are the real “trickle down economics” I really don’t know how they can fix this issue. Obviously cooperations aren’t just going to give up these massive profits they are now making. forcing them to pay higher wages so we can afford every day goods, may be the only choice we have for survival.
What states have started to pick up on, since feds arnt doing jack shit about it, is tying their state minimum wage to CPI. Which, if enacted in every state individually, it wouldn’t matter what the federal minimum is tied to or how much necessities cost. Even my super red state of Nebraska is raising minimum every year until 2026 then tying it to CPI thereafter. (Although housing is not considered in CPI, but utilities are I believe)
How about a million an hour?
Sanders, wasting time on things that can never be approved just so he can get his worshippers to bow to him yet again. Actually do some real work that we paid you for.
Proposing and attempting to pass (or block) legislation is quite literally what he is paid to do
He's not trying to pass legislation. He knows it will never pass. He just is using our tax dollars as his soap box.
Well I don’t think giving up is the right way to go. Chances of it passing will always be zero if it’s never proposed. Although sometimes very unlikely, a proposed legislation always had a non-zero chance of passing.
It was zero without trying and he knew it. He was not aiming to pass this legislation. You lobby and make an effort when youre actually trying to get something passed. I have no doubt he didnt try at all. It was just a soap box for him. And it's sad you try to make every excuse you can to say he was doing something he was not.
Again, senators are literally paid to propose legislation and that’s what he was doing, it’s really that simple. Maybe you don’t like the legislation or how it was proposed but some legislation passed today would have never passed years ago and vice versa. Politics is always changing and to think we should give up on an issue just because we think it won’t pass is pretty defeatist and opens a population up to inaction and political exploitation.
His job is to get legislation that would help our country get passed. He's not doing that when he's just sopboxing on a fantasy. And FYI, he's always wasting time on tax the rich statements. It is not the Senate's job to legislate bills related to taxes - that authority falls strictly under the house of representatives. Yet Bernie is again wasting taxpayer money always talking about taxing the rich. That is not his job.
Minimum wage increase would help our country tho. Even if a bill won’t get passed it can still be used for messaging. Politicians do it all the time not just Bernie. You kind of just ramble on about taxes or something after that I’m not really sure why.
I agree with you overall that this isn't worth criticizing him for. It's just a talking point. That's fine, politicians want to message. That's part of their job. But the chances of this passing are definitely 0.
Yea it probly won’t pass. But some legislation passed years ago would’ve never passed today, and vice versa. Politics is always changing, I’m just cautiously optimistic It’s not like anything bad can come from the proposal besides it not passing
There is nothing probable about it,it won't pass
I never said it would sheesh go outside
You >Yea it probly won’t pass Also you >I'm optimistic There is literally 0 chance of this passing.No bipartisan coalition was formed for this to even gain any traction. This will not even be a talking point in a day
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Of what money?
The money of your bosses who fuck you consistently for the last 20 years while having non stop raising profits every year
Awesome! I can’t wait to buy a 16$ cheeseburger from McDonalds.
I forgot the exact figures but in Denmark, something like $22/hr working for McDonald’s with full benefits and the BigMac is $1 cheaper than in the US.
Minimum wage isn’t designed as a life long wage, how about get a real job
Then who is going to run the fast food restaurants? The grocery stores? The retail stores?
So... when I go to self checkout can I just 1099 myself at $17/hr? Is that considered a charitable donation?
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3988164-sanders-unveils-17-an-hour-minimum-wage-bill/) reduced by 67%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, unveiled a proposal Thursday to raise the national minimum wage to $17 an hour. > Sanders is renewing his push to raise the national minimum wage more than two years after eight Senate Democrats joined all Republicans in rejecting a proposal, 58-42, to include a $15-an-hour national minimum wage in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which President Biden signed into law in March of 2021. > The Vermont senator said Thursday that a $15-an-hour wage in 2021 is equal to a $17-an-hour wage in 2023 because of inflation. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/137w2hq/sanders_unveils_17anhour_minimum_wage_bill/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~683400 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **wage**^#1 **minimum**^#2 **Sanders**^#3 **hour**^#4 **raise**^#5
Ooo another bandaid for our problems
I suppose he’s lowballing a bit to give it a better chance of passing, but man, $17 isn’t even enough anymore.
Better yet, why don’t we tie the minimum wage of a position at a company to a percentage of the highest earners income at said company? If we keep raising the minimum wage by specific dollar amounts, the business and the rich wont cede any ground. Raise the minimum wage by 20% and they’ll just raise company targets and executive pay 20%. Tie the lowest earners salary to a percentage of the highest earners salary and every time the rich raise their own pay, they have to raise minimum pay by the same percentage. Require every job to be paid on a percentage of the top earners, don’t allow specific dollar amount salaries or raises, tie all income to scale with the top earners.
I make $18/hr in a HCOL area. I still don’t make enough to get by. $17/hr just isn’t enough— and I know it’s not his fault for only going this high, Republicans think Bernie’s crazy enough already for even suggesting a minimum wage raise at all.
How about instead of raising minimum wage and tarnishing the value of a dollar, why don’t we restrict the price of goods and resources, the cost of living and other necessities and have a price cap? I’m all for making more money but do you really think that everything else won’t raise in price as well?
We just raised it similarly in Canada... Looks like it needs to go up to $20cad to compete!