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Why do they think this is A GARGUATUAN issue. its a silly issue.
Give a min wage worker more and they will spend more. Growth issues solved..............lol.
You are making the incorrect assumption that all business owners are rolling in cash, this is not the case. Forcing business to shell out double for their payroll expense would tank many businesses or force owners to cut back on number of employees. The ones that still have a job will have more to spend with, but there will more without a job. It is only a silly issue to those who have never employed anyone.
The government has been trying for inflation for a while and all their stimulus programs have failed, they have only added to the debt. Their next plan is an artificial wage inflation. The idea is two pronged
If companies are forced to pay people on the bottom rung a certain wage, they will be forced to increase prices on products and services. They hope this will spread throughout the product line
If companies are forced to pay people on the bottom rung a certain wage, they are hoping that people on the next rung will demand higher wages too, and so forth. Wage inflation is what they are really after.
These arguments have a much better chance of succeeding if the world economy followed suit. Companies have to keep prices at a point to compete globally these days. They will likely just make do with less staff in a lot of cases. Also, some jobs may be able to be done cheaper with automation or outsourced.
The government knew they could not get the populace behind such an act of desperation on its economic merits so they went for the morality angle. They matched average living costs with minimum wages and exclaimed how can anyone live like this. It worked. They got enough people behind it and it became an election item.
What will the outcome be? I don't know. I am pretty sure in the end, the rich will be the largest beneficiary. If inflation does indeed rise as they hope, those with stuff, real estate etc, win because they have the stuff. If we go into another recession (or further plunge in the current recession), the rich will win because they always win when in recessions because they are the only ones with resources to buy more stuff as the prices fall. The only difference is how much further will the poor fall behind. This last recession, which we really are still in, cleaned them out and did a lot of damage to the lower middle class. Shall we take the rest of the middle class with them? Also, we will be having a discussion on how the 1% owns everything and wondering how did that happen.
I live outside of Seattle where some of this "nonsense" regarding $15 minimum wages started (as far as I know).
The issue is that it's becoming ever increasingly expensive just to afford housing here. I don't even own a home, I own a 1860 sq ft condo and it's valued at around $600k. 1500 sq ft "starter" homes go for about the same price. Unless you live in SF, LA, Boston, DC or NYC spending $600k for a ho-hum condo is crazy. Single individuals making the $9-12/hour simply couldn't afford real estate where I live and most couples with the same wages couldn't either. So people advocating $15 minimum wages aren't looking to simply spend more on just anything. In many cases they're looking to just remain solvent in our ever increasing COL.
That's the rationale where I live and it's certainly a valid concern. However like what previous posters have said, I'm not sure how it would work out on the employer's side of things or the ramifications on the whole. Going to $15 is a huge jump. I feel like it sorta came out of nowhere. I can only imagine doing anything different would be better if it was done gradually.
But what I am tired of is vilifying and politicizing the issue.. that somehow wanting to make our greatest cities more affordable and housing fairer is somehow just a "leftist" issue. It's not... in fact, in many ways what's happening in Seattle is the kinda issue that Trump would love to talk about. One of the YUGE (that's "huge" Trump style!) issues Seattle is facing is that it's literally being bought up by a ton of cash-heavy Chinese investors trying to hide their wealth from their Communist government. Up until recently the Chinese were mostly focused on Vancouver, CA (although there had been growing interest in Seattle from the get go). Then they implemented a hefty foreign investor tax and it's forcing the Chinese to look at Vancouver's American neighbor just a few hours south of the border: Seattle. So what's happening is that the competition for housing, any housing, isn't even necessarily local competition. In a way it makes a more solid argument for Trumps position: our jobs are leaving the country, but our land is foreign owned.
You are making the incorrect assumption that all business owners are rolling in cash, this is not the case. Forcing business to shell out double for their payroll expense would tank many businesses or force owners to cut back on number of employees. The ones that still have a job will have more to spend with, but there will more without a job. It is only a silly issue to those who have never employed anyone.
Yeah, increasing the min. wage is going to crush the little guy and have little impact on the huge guys. Why do you think a company like Walmart was pushing DC for an increased min. wage? They know they can absorb it across their 5k+ locations much better than a small 30+ store grocer can. Hell Walmart is already starting people at several dollars above min. wage. They would love to see all their competition forced to do the same.
America has to be the only country in the world whose people argue for LOWER wages. We could make the minimum wage $0.01 an hour and it wouldn't make you people happy.
They'll say "minimum wage workers need to get better jobs.". But how do they get them? They have to get education. A minimum wage job will not even pay for community college. Plus, tuition rises 10% per year, including at community colleges, while minimum wage has not increased since 2007.
So they ask for free tuition, and you say "they should get a job."
They go into debt, then ask for debt relief, and you say "they're moochers."
They were not properly prepared so they don't finish college but you say your taxes are already too high so the schools go under funded, leaving students unprepared. Colleges offer remediation but now it's even more classes students have to pay for.
States decrease their appropriations so they can cut taxes to get your vote. Tuition rises again.
Do you see the vicious cycle here?
We will either raise wages or lower people's costs.
What we are witnessing is the effects of too many workers and not enough jobs. Not on just an American level but at the global level. We are being kicked down the rung to compete with the overseas sweatshops. The jobs that can't be outsourced are being filled with cheap immigrant labor. The jobs problem is driving down wages is driving wages up in places like china and mexico, so that's good.
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