$20 Minimum Wage will leave many unemployed and business closures!

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(06-24-2024, 07:26 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: The problem, as it seems to me, is that too many grown adults are content to work minimum wage jobs hoping to make a career of it. Minimum wage jobs are just that, jobs that most anyone can perform.  While many minimum wage jobs are stressful and high paced, the skill level at which to perform the basic duties is... minimum.  A lot of those people should consider expanding their skill sets to include a marketable skill that is worth substantially more than minimum wage.

There isn't enough non-minimum wage jobs for everyone to do that. Nor is everyone capable of expanding their skills sets. Think about the intelligence level of the average adult, and then realize that half of people are dumber than them.

Plus if zero adults did those jobs, everything would only be open from 4pm to 8pm during the weekdays, because the non-adults have school and child labor laws limit how many and what hours they can work. Every grocery store, restaurant, fast food, etc, would be open for fewer hours than banks.... you'd also not have enough workers as there's not enough working age kids to fill all those jobs.

Now I don't think that $20/hr isn't the answer either, because if you're increasing the wage of everyone in the chain, that's just going to increase the costs at the end and essentially wipe out the gains in wages. I do think that if someone works a 40/hr week job that they should at least be able to neither be homeless or hungry. So I have been leaning more and more towards the idea that we need a Universal Basic Income. 

Nothing that would make you be able to get the newest iPhone or Swift tickets or anything, but at least enough to offset the difference between what 160 hours of minimum wage in a month (40/hr per week x4) and how much a person reasonably needs to have a place to live and food to eat cost-of-living-wise. Perhaps enough that if you had two people combining their money that they could also raise 1 child. It would likely also replace most of the various welfare programs.

[Arturo Bandini]

(06-25-2024, 12:38 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: Not that easy. If mass raises causes inflation which surpass your raise, what have you gained? Only the government gained. Take McDonalds for instance. Let's say your wages went from $12hr to $15hr, but the costs raise anywhere from 35% to, in some cases 100%, and this same inflation effects other businesses and prices are much higher, the government is the only one who benefits in more ways than one. Not only do you pay more in taxes, but also qualify for less assistance if you require it. 

Then index the wages on the inflation. Problem solved.

[HarleyDog]

(06-25-2024, 02:46 PM)Arturo Bandini Wrote: Then index the wages on the inflation. Problem solved.

Please explain how this works without making things even worse?

[Arturo Bandini]

(06-25-2024, 02:49 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: Please explain how this works without making things even worse?

I will. Later. In french.

[Arturo Bandini]

(06-25-2024, 02:49 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: Please explain how this works without making things even worse?

Finally, I'm going to make it short because we don't have the same historic background considering our locations. 

When the 1917 russian revolution occured, it scared the shit out of every owner in the west and while the application of communism was terrible for the people living it it had incredible repercussions on european western countries. 

It raised a popular political party who wanted to increase the social conditions of workers and it made the evolution possible. 

My grandparents asked for paid vacations, they said no. It would be impossible, it would crash the economy. 


General strike : Everyone striked and guess what ? 

Paid vacations were OK. It didn't crash anything. 


Then they asked for a 45 hours week, they said no, it would crash the economy 

General strike : Everyone striked and guess what ? 
45 hours a week, it was. 



They asked for healthcare, they said no. It would crash the economy 
And so on 


And for 40, 39 and now 35 hours a week and for 5 weeks paid vacation and for retirement at 62 ( see it Macron ? We didn't like your reform ahaha ! )

Did the economy crash ? Absolutely not. 



They need you way more than you need them.

So if you are saying to me that increasing the basic wadges crash the economy, I'm not really convinced. 




We have this sentence in France : When the right goes mad, it leads to Vel d'Hiv deportation, when the left goes mad, it leads to paid vacations. 

My choice is made.