Alright, fuck Republicans, I’m onboard with that.
Living wage, I’m onboard with that too.
Fuck landlords as well, I’m waay onboard with that.
How about we raise minimum wage, but also regulate the hell out of several sectors so that the wealthy don’t just consume whatever we raise it to with obscene inflation, otherwise what’s the point?
I had to scroll to the bottom to see this. This is what happens every time the wage increases. No point in increasing the wage when everyone else increases the price. Can’t agree with your statement more.
The prices are rising without a matching increase in wages. The increase in wages has no significant impact on the increase in prices.
It’s just about chasing a never ending profit that’s higher than last quarter’s profit. It was never about inflation, it’s the cancer that is unregulated capitalism.
Okay, but when you’re done griping about the inefficiency of humanity, we have some immediate solutions to immediate problems and all we need is some people to be on board and participate in good faith.
Did you just make a bunch of shit up pretending I said it?
No, I accused you of griping about the inefficiency of humanity. I’ll add some commas to make it easier for you.
Then you wouldn’t mind quoting me and explaining your moronic self. Show me where the bad comment hurt your feefees.
If there truly were no point then it wouldn’t have so much opposition from the wealthy.
You mean those guys who raise the price afterwards?
There is no correlation between wage increases and inflation. Firms will charge consumers the highest number that they can to reach supply:demand equilibrium already, if they could charge more then they would regardless of how much poor people get paid.
The actual effect of wage increase is a negative correlation with wealth concentration and a higher money velocity, and in some cases a lower number of jobs, but the good outweighs the bad.
Do you have a source for these findings? Because the last 20 years I’ve lived through minimum wage increases, each time it led to the increase in the cost of living.
Ah yes, all of those federal minimum wage increases in the last 20 years. The many great examples such as the raise to $7.25 in 2009 and also the uh… erm… No, that’s it, actually.
Then the average Price of Goods fell for the next 3 consecutive years. Also, the inflation rate from 2005-2009 was 13.24% while the rate from 2008-2012 was 8.77% according to that same consumer price index data, you can use a calculator for it HERE.
So either Wage Increases decrease inflation and cause prices of goods to fall, or it has no measurable effect in the face of many factors which do actually affect those things.
I’m simply asking for a source and your reaction is to be a dick? Smooth. Also, you’re only referring to the federal wage increase. States have had their own minimum wage increases throughout the years and each time, the cost of goods would rise, causing the boost in minimum wage to fall flat eventually - and that’s what the original guy was referring to.
Those guys who raise the price regardless of what happens.
Yeah, those guys - which is why there should be a limit on what those guys can and cannot do. Which is what’s being discussed.
Increasing the minimum wage is being discussed.
Pretending that inflation is caused by wage increases as an excuse to never raise the minimum wage is what Republicans do.
No, I responded to someone’s comment within this post, and that’s what is being discussed. And they, and myself, are for increased minimum wage, he said it plainly and I said I agreed with him. I also agreed that we should have restrictions placed to prevent the rich from increasing prices on everything else just because the wealthy know that everyone got a base raise. I never said inflation is caused by a wage increase, you came to that conclusion on your own. Republicans also dislike restrictions on the wealthy, which it sounds like you’re not a fan of it either…are you a Republican?
No need to increase prices if you convert all employees to perma-lancers and then eventually outsource the labor to another country.
Also, this article is written by a Wall Street trader and frequently says things like “A strong cohort of economists believe a national minimum wage increases inflation.” I’m not sure if this is the slam dunk you think it is. I’m not even against raising the minimum wage, but worker protections have to be done at the same time or else something’s got to give, and it’s not going to be profit.
Just tie minimum wage to inflation
If you do that you will give even more incentive for the government to underreport inflation.
Also inflation usually measures consumer prices. Ever wonder how education, healthcare, housing, and most other major expenses can increase significantly faster than inflation? This is why.
If your rent goes up, its not inflation. If the cost of chips goes up it is. Tie it to a better metric.
I guess we’d need a better system for measuring real inflation then
Check prices against things that can’t be created through clicking a button. Like gold, prime beach front properties, art, etc.
It’s crazy that inflation doesn’t take these things into account.
We gonna let passage of broader more difficult to pass reform be a prerequisite for increasing the minimum wage?
Sounds like making the perfect the enemy of the good to me.
if you want affordable housing we need to de-commodify it and get the investors out. no more airbnb, no more one investor group owning 10s of thousands of single family homes. Dumping regular people’s money into this system, even if we give them a bunch extra, is only gonna drive prices even further up. The necessities of living are not speculation opportunities for the ultra rich.
Right, I hate when people ask me if I want to buy a house to invest or to live.
Bitch, I can barely afford one and if I could buy multiple, I wouldn’t because I’m not a piece of shit.
hard same. I’m just tryna actually have something at the end of a lifetime of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars just for the privilege of remaining alive. But the people who already have most of everything are like “Why shouldn’t I have all of this guy’s money and the house?” Swear to God we’ll only have to eat one of them and the rest will fall right back in line.
No more AirBNB for entire properties… If you need to rent out a room a few nights a week to get by it shouldn’t be a problem banning those does a disservice to people who want to take a vacation without be thousands of dollars in the red, and for home owners and renters strapped for cash. Plus it would give hotels clear monopoly status, and reduce choices for basic accommodations for travelers.
if you want affordable housing we need to de-commodify it
How would you implement that?
A combination of taxes to the point it’s slightly less lucrative than other forms of investing.
We need to remove mortgage backed securities as well housing shouldn’t be part of a portfolio… I am really hating how properties in in demand areas is allowed to sit and decay. There are many properties in Manhattan that have done nothing for decades. There also needs to be fewer regulations with regard to what can be done with them. I really wouldn’t mind a decent Japanese style pod hotel if the price was like $10. An old office building would do well for that.
Mortgage backed securities are a huge part of the mortgage market. Without them it would be more difficult to get a mortgage as there would be less liquidity in the market. The low rates caused a problem though, because investors sought better returns than 1-2% and bought real estate directly.
I always find it strange when people call for more government intervention to fix problems that government intervention created.
I find it strange people find Thatcherisms to be witty.
Government isn’t a monolith, nor are the parties that run it.
Government isn’t a monolith, nor are the parties that run it.
Indeed, big government is a behemoth where one hand doesn’t know what the other does and it doesn’t think past the next election cycle. Do you think that replacing parts of the brain can change anything about that?
If we’re using the brain as a metaphor, I would say don’t listen to the voices that are telling you that having a brain is the problem.
I’m not sure housing is even a commodity currently. Commodities tend to be interchangeable and generally are affordable or low margin. None of those is true with housing currently.
You’re kind of right, but housing is definitely used as an investment vehicle for rent seekers nowadays.
Investment and commodity are different things. You can invest in commodities, but it’s different than investments in the stock market.
Sprinkle in some Gay Communism in the form of public housing.
This is the correct answer. If minimum wages go up, the price of everything you buy with those wages increases as well, including housing. There’s artificial scarcity in housing right now because of investment firms and property management firms.
wages drive inflation but it’s not 1:1 and it does tend to benefit low earners.
When the minimum wage is not livable, you subsidize their employers with your taxes.
It’s not the minimum wage people should get. It’s the minimum we’ll accept
And “blue no matter who” means we accept people who think it doesn’t need raised
The alternative to not voting blue in general elections is not socialism, it’s republicans.
No it’s not, it’s taking control of the party back from the people that only care about donors.
It’s a private organization, but they haven’t always had the keys, it’s like a HOA.
When it’s good, no one cares who’s in charge, so shitty people sneak in.
The shitty people make things shitty, people accept it because the shits stacks up slowly.
Then one day they’re tired of it, and they have to wait till the next HOA board vote to replace them.
It’s not as easy to replace the people leading the DNC, but it’s doable.
So if 3rd party is something you think can’t happen, are you working on fixing your own party? Are you fighting to replace them?
Do you know any of their names without googling?
You seem to be getting down voted a lot for this comment, but I absolutely agree. The long term solution is to fix the DNC by replacing the corporate schills with progressives. In a city in NH in 2016 we were able to completely replace the local Democratic party with our people. It’s not even that hard, like 50 people vote in those elections.
Everyone should find out who runs their local and state Dems, and start working to replace them if they are garbage. Once the local and state chapters are taken over it won’t be hard to take the DNC
Except the party wants as little turnout as possible in the general
It’s why they started saying Biden was the winner a good 5 months before the convention and only a handful.of.primaties had happened.
Its why the stole NH’ delegates for voting progressive.
If people could show up and say who they want for president, then theyd vote down ballot tok.
The Dem party isn’t for us, it’s to take advantage of us
But it wasn’t always, and doesn’t have to keep being that way.
But I’m barely old enough to remember when it wasn’t
They certainly only want people who are going to vote for them to turn up.
I’m not sure what you mean by stole NH delegates.
I wish more people would vote down ballot. Rs almost always vote top to bottom of the ticket, Ds tend to only vote for names they’ve heard of. That’s why Republicans have taken control of so much local government. Democrats need to win the presidential race by a huge margin for enough of it to trickle down to local stuff.
Yes, the current DNC is there to work for the rich, just like the RNC. If we took over the party though, we could make it do whatever we wanted.
I’m not sure what you mean by stole NH delegates.
…
When the party took away NHs say in the Dem primary for something only their Republican state government can control.
I mean. Technically NH Dems could violated state law to keep the DNC happy like they asked, are you saying that’s what they should have done?
Because the most common sense explanation is they were made NH kept rejecting moderates like Clinton and Biden.
If we took over the party though, we could make it do whatever we wanted.
Which is what I’m saying to do, and if you haven’t noticed, the more we vote “blue no matter who” the more conservative candidates we get.
Because the DNC thinks anything left of republicans have to vote for them. From that misguided assumption. The party keeps moving right
It’s not working, it’s never worked, and to keep trying it would be fucking insanity.
Yet here we are.
If we are really willing to sacrifice anything to stop trump, why won’t Joe Biden and the DNC sacrifice anything they want?
Why do millions and millions of voters have to vote for someone they don’t want? Why can’t we run someone that agrees with the party platform and will work towards?
The party isn’t the important part, voters are. No matter how much either party tells you differently.
A general election is still about votes
If your idea of taking the party back is “voting independent in the general” I think you have absolutely no idea how elections and parties work. You’re throwing your vote away. You wanna change the party? Run in or work for local elections. Build from the bottom up, not the top down.
Or just whine and throw your vote away.
Or just whine and throw your vote away.
What is hard to understand about this?
The way to get the most votes is a younger progressive candidate.
How is saying the party should get as much votes as possible “whining”?
Is it because a younger progressive candidate isn’t who you want?
Tough shit
40% of the electorate is gen Z or Millenials.
And the majority of over 45 wants trump
You’re arguing against doing what the bulk of the Dem party wants, but some how I’m the one whining for wanting better than a coin flip chance to deal with trump anymore?
What the fuck is the logic you’re using for this shit?
No it’s because voting for a progressive third party candidate in the general election for federal office
- doesn’t work
- benefits republicans
- is the prevailing wisdom of people like you
It’s mastubatory whining. You get to claim that anyone who cares about actual outcomes is somehow less pure than you while you are absolved of any of the responsibilities of your vote. You wanna pretend voting third party for president helps? Bully for you. It fucking doesn’t help progressives, it helped Trump get elected and it will do it again.
You get to claim that anyone who cares about actual outcomes is somehow less pure than you
That’s not the discussion.
The discussion is a younger more progressive candidate is what the base wants, so why aren’t we giving it to them?
40% of this electorate is either Gen Z or Millenial.
And over 45 years old is going to trump.
So why isn’t the DNC going after all those voters so that we can beat Trump?
Stop thinking about if you’re right and how people under 40 are “whining” and start thinking about the best way to beat Trump:
Running a popular candidate. Whether that means Biden starts listening to his voters and becomes more popular, or running someone less than 20 years over retirement age.
I just don’t understand the logic of:
This demographic wants progress, but fuck em we control the party so they have to vote for us. It would be crazy for us to give them what they want and guarantee victory. So we’ll call them babies and blame them when our unpopular candidates loses.
If moderates are the “adults in the room” why are they the ones who won’t entertain the idea of voting for something a little different they want if it guarantees victory?
Why not just do that?
it doesn’t need raised
Wow, I hate this fucking grammatical diarrhea.
except democrats dont care either
start building a new system now.
We don’t have a minimum wage in Sweden. Wages are mostly dictated by negotiations between employers and unions.
Unions are important.
thats also the reason the ones in power hate them so much!
unions are definetly part of the solution.
Yeah. We have an ongoing thing between Tesla and IF Metall, with a bunch of other unions backing them up. Tesla refuses to sign collective labour agreements, and they’re penalising strikers by taking away stocks they’ve earned. It’s hardly surprising that Tesla doesn’t want to adhere to the Swedish model.
if they dont want to attend to the workers demands in sweden they can get fucked.
Fight for a better system but still vote democrats. Voting for the lesser evil gives you the lesser evil.
i agree, but at the point a genocidal maniac is the lesser evil, its way past time.
If young adults consistently and reliably voted at all, we wouldn’t be in a position choosing between this and seeing what “Israel should finish the job” means.
in my country voting is mandatory for everyone over 18, and we mostly suffer through the same problems as you when it comes to politicians. i wish it were as simple as getting more people to vote.
That has mostly been the case in US politics since the founding. You gotta play the hand you’re dealt though.
you’re gonna wanna skip the polls and start buying arms now if that’s your plan
Imagine my surprise when the election comes and goes, one way or another, and these online revolutionaries continue to do… nothing of substance. Just like 4 years ago, and the 4 years before that, and…
see the university protests and unionization if you want an example in the us. we are organizing protests and actions, but doing systemic change is a collective endeavour.
we actually need much more people to recognize its broken and be willing to help. that wont happen if all you do is begrudingly accept the progressively worsening lesser evils.
i’m all for forcibly restructuring society, but yeah… we know these people will do nothing.
Or don’t skip the polls. Both sides will shoot at you, but one side will shoot much sooner because it wouldn’t necessarily be political suicide for them.
i cant do that by myself. the rest of the people has to recognize the system is broken too.
You also can’t do it if the backslide into full totalitarian fascism reaches the “first they came for the socialists” line in the poem.
totalitarian fascism is already there, the crackdowns on the university protests are looking a lot like it. violence towards the protesters, a pat on the head on the fascist counterprotesters.
and honestly its looking a lot like trump will win anyway, at least that is what the polls are looking like.
we should be bracing for impact.
edit: how could i forget the treatment the us gives to the third world.
totalitarian fascism is already there
Fucking lmao
Don’t worry - after
HitlerTrump, their turn!
I would argue you need unions more. There’s no minimum wage in Iceland because we have people who negotiate it for us.
There are a lot of US states that have skirted union protections by not banning unions themselves, but just banning workplaces from requiring union membership for employees. It’s called a “right to work” law that is implemented many different ways in many different states that makes unions a hard thing to nail down for the federal government.
As far as a federal ban on these laws, I think we are more in a position of fighting against a federal version of them, which is more likely to have support, than we are in a position to fight for a federal ban against those laws, though there are efforts.
You forget that dems vote against it as well: Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Jon Tester, Tom Carper, Chris Coons, Angus King…
You also forget that a $15/hour minimum wage isn’t even a living wage in current year and that’s what they voted against. Both sides fight for billionaires, stop deluding yourself.
Ah the DINOs. Well two are out at least.
Both sides fight for billionaires, stop deluding yourself.
Nobody’s deluding themselves. I’m pretty sure we all know full well that both sides fight for billionaires, it’s a question of degree and that degree matters. Is $15/hr more or less than $7.25/hr?
IOW, it’s a start… it’s progress. I get that the progress is frustratingly slow. But once you have $15/hr you can keep incrementing it, especially at the state level.
Is $15/hr more or less than $7.25/hr?
Considering the former ain’t fucking happening because Democrats voted with Republicans, your question is irrelevant.
Considering the former ain’t fucking happening because Democrats voted with Republicans, your question is irrelevant.
Which bill are you referring to precisely? The Raise the Wage Act of 2019 was passed by the House but not taken up by the Senate, which at the time had an R majority. The 2021 “American Rescue Plan” bill had an amendment added by Sanders to raise the FMW to $15 but this was removed because it wouldn’t have passed otherwise. An important distinction here is that a number of the 8 democrats who voted to remove the amendment were doing so so that the pandemic relief part could pass. Their various reasons are outlined here. The amendment was a bit of a hail mary that few expected to even make it for purely procedural reasons. So this was a compromise… it wasn’t saying “we democrats don’t want a FMW increase”. There are a couple of DINOs that think that, sure, but two of them are going away.
There are other options here, such as HR 603 (2021-22) which hasn’t been taken up yet. Some dems oppose this because it takes too long to get to $15/hr. But of course we need a house majority to make any progress on that.
And notably, Biden via EO raised the minimum wage for federal workers to $15/hr.
The fight isn’t over. But if anything this just underlines the need for stronger majorities. Throwing up your hands and giving in because it didn’t happen right away is, well, not helpful.
The 2021 “American Rescue Plan” bill had an amendment added by Sanders to raise the FMW to $15 but this was removed because it wouldn’t have passed otherwise.
Because one unelected bureaucrat said so.
Their various reasons are outlined here.
Count the republican talking points about the minimum wage in that link.
It’s always some technicality or detail that forms a se master plan. No, they voted to remove it unlike everyone else.
You don’t understand how the American political system works. Full stop.
You don’t understand how we stop living under the whims of a broken system. By fixating these details completely divorced from the actual helping of others you are prepetuating that those details matter. You are lost and you have no idea what matters.
You don’t understand how we stop living under the whims of a broken system.
Enlighten me.
You are lost and you have no idea what matters.
No really, educate me.
I understand people are suffering because there are always enough votes against workers.
I understand people are suffering because there are always enough votes against workers.
This is true. But is this where your understand of the American political system begins and ends?
There’s also an argument to be made for building better cities and more affordable housing (both more affordable and more of it), as well as building a society where you don’t have to buy a car to participate. Life could be a lot more affordable if we didn’t arrange our policies to make it so expensive.
Then we would need to get rid of lobbyists
Or just show up to city council and county supervisors and shout the NIMBYs down
Repugs want nothing less than slavery
Always have. And yet morons who didn’t pay attention in class talk about the party of Lincoln
They proclaim “party of Lincoln” while waving a Confederate flag without a shred of irony or self awareness.
Don’t forget the decision banning non-competes. Apparently the decision went along ‘party lines’, with you know who Gop trying to keep them. But nooooooo, bOtH sIdEs SaMe.
Nothing is ever good enough for republican stooges.
In this case it was the gop with “corporations can do no wrong, all hail corporations”.
If there’s no corresponding regulation on rent prices, minimum wage is irrelevant.
Raise the minimum wage to a bazillion dollars? Great! Rent is now three hundred bajillion!
Raise the minimum wage to $25/hr, tie it to inflation… Use the $67billion a year spent on section 8 housing to build people houses which they end up owning, instead of shoveling all that money into slumlords’ pockets. Flood the housing market with supply to keep the prices down, even as people are able to afford more.
Raise the minimum wage to $25/hr, tie it to inflation…
I fully believe this would cause runaway inflation as wages only went up and up as the majority of americans have more money and thus prices can be raised. This cycle would constantly repeat as raised prices cause a raise in wage until the american dollar is worthless and we’re all making millions or billions of dollars a year which adjusted to inflation… is like today’s $15/hr. Interest rates for loans would skyrocket to an unfathomable percentage as double digit inflation remains y/y.
The billionaires would quickly turn into trillionaires and quadrillionaires as their investments rise in price proportional to inflation.
I fully believe this would cause runaway inflation
https://fortune.com/2023/05/30/inflation-worker-pay-not-a-major-cause-fed-study/
https://archive.riksbank.se/Upload/WorkingPapers/WP_159.pdf (PDF Warning)
https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-minimum-wage-lead-higher-prices
Please don’t believe BS.
Inflation is happening anyway… Prices keep going up and up regardless of whether pay increases enough for people to afford them
So basically the idea is to just make everyone make the same amount of money unless they are very rich, in which case they are going to have their total compensation pegged to 300x+++ of minimum (or some other absurd number.)
It’s all bullshit man. Crazy minimum wage hikes are never going to become law in the united states.
I’m glad someone made this point. Raising the federal minimum wage too fast is a great way to cause inflation. Control rent and interest rates and creep minimum wage up in steps, going to $15 federal would be great for a while but isn’t a stable solve. We can start establishing a living wage economy slowly, especially where many states still tax food and health essentials. $7.25 is embarrassing, but funnily enough, it is still the 17th highest across all countries.
Your defeatism is toxic and not supported by evidence.
So I’m curious. When you feel compelled to shit on some random Internet stranger with no apparent substantiation beyond general anger, do you prefer virtual toilet paper or a digital bidet?
You tell me I’ve no evidence, and that’s pretty much true as I’m just making a casual remark, but you’re taking it upon yourself to verbally attack me with words like toxic without providing any basis yourself.
The rest of this conversation is level headed, some agreeing, some disagreeing, some expanding on the thought.
But you’ve just got to scratch that Internet hemorrhoidal itch.
Biden was the Dem that passed many of the Republican bills including making it impossible for students to declare Bankruptcy on their student loans.
Current Dems are more right than old Republicans. Republicans just went even more to the right.
Cherry picking a bit, there.
Who Made Student Loans Nondischargeable?
Allen Ertel, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, pushed to make student loans hard to discharge. Ertel was in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1983. Despite stats showing less than 1% of federal student loans were ever wiped clean in bankruptcy, Ertel argued student loan defaults were jumping up. His convincing talk changed the rules, making student loans stick around after bankruptcy unless the borrower faced severe hardship.
Joe Biden’s Dual Role in the Student Loan Crisis
Joe Biden has affected the dynamics of student loan debt and its dischargeability, playing two distinct roles:
As a senator, Biden backed multiple pieces of legislation that unintentionally exacerbated the student loan crisis. These laws facilitated the growth of student loan borrowing, often increasing borrowers’ monthly payments and making these loans tougher to discharge in bankruptcy.
As President, Biden’s policy changes have further altered the landscape of student loan dischargeability, albeit in a different direction. While his administration has sought to alleviate the student loan crisis and lighten the burden on borrowers, the reforms implemented may have indirectly made it more difficult for some student loan borrowers to discharge federal loans in bankruptcy.
Here’s how:
-
The administration created the most affordable repayment plan to date, shielding even more of a borrower’s discretionary income from student loan payments. While this new student loan repayment plan provides immediate relief, it might inadvertently discourage some borrowers from seeking bankruptcy discharges.
-
Biden implemented an interest waiver, effectively reducing the debt burden. While beneficial for most, it could indirectly create an environment where discharging student loans through bankruptcy becomes harder.
-
All federal student loan borrowers, including those with a consolidation loan, are eligible to get retroactive credit toward income-based repayment forgiveness. This move alone has already erased $39 billion in federal student loans. Experts expect that this will ultimately lead to a $400+ billion bailout by the federal government, again potentially reducing the instances of borrowers resorting to bankruptcy.
https://www.tateesq.com/learn/student-loan-bankruptcy-law-history
As a senator, Biden backed multiple pieces of legislation that unintentionally exacerbated the student loan crisis. These laws facilitated the growth of student loan borrowing, often increasing borrowers’ monthly payments and making these loans tougher to discharge in bankruptcy.
Yes literally what I said. Cherrypicking lmao. If you want to learn something:
How Biden helped create the student debt problem he now promises to fix:
“Biden was one of the most powerful people who could have said no, who could have changed this. Instead he used his leadership role to limit the ability of other Democrats who had concerns and who wanted the bill softened,” said Melissa Jacoby, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill specialising in bankruptcy
(please stop using this formatting btw)
Oh, I’m afraid you misunderstood. I was doing you the respect of including what you were talking about along with the context for it, because you aren’t wrong that Biden contributed to the problem. But you are very wrong that he’s exacerbating it now.
But hey, the difference between then and now, true and false, right and wrong - why should any of that bother you? You’ve got an agenda to push! 🤡
-
There is a mentality from Boomers and passed along to Gen X that full-time work does not entitle you to anything. That there are just millions of jobs in America that shouldn’t be required to pay people enough to live in the community they work, or anywhere for that matter. As long as that mentality aligns with the goals of capitalism, nothing will change.
You will hear all the excuses in the world justifying low-paying jobs. “Just get a better job if you don’t like the pay” “Those jobs are only for high school kids” “If they raise the pay they will raise the prices” The list goes on. None of them make a ton of sense if you explore the idea any further.
The idea of working hard and being, eventually, rewarded with good pay has been dead for decades. It is widely accepted that the easiest way to increase your pay is moving to a different company, which speaks a lot about longevity in this late-stage capitalism era most of us are living in today.
It’s pretty funny to me to see Americans claiming that a full-time job should be sufficient to have your basic needs met - as if the unemployed should live in dire poverty.
I would fully support some kind of UBI or someway to ensure that those who can’t work can live semi-independent lives. But in order for there to be money to support that system, a majority of people do have to work.
The alternative is some kind of utopian society that has yet to exist. If we make it to Star Trek and not Blade Runner I will fully embrace the idea that everyone can have all of their needs covered without the requirement for others to indirectly support that through labor and taxes. But until then, improving workers ability to support themselves also improves the ability to support those who cannot.
Where I’m from there has been a minimum income guarantee since 1965. In fact, the constitution says the government should ensure every resident has sufficient income to live. A single-person household with someone who is permanently unemployed receives about $1500 per month (you receive additional money per child). This is the lowest income a legal resident is allowed to have. Every rich European country has a similar system, though most opt to cover rent for the poorest, and give a smaller amount for the remaining expenses.
It turns out that willingness to work isn’t an issue, because most people don’t actually like to do nothing. The employment rate is far higher than in the US.
One step at a time, alright? 😅
We’re saying that working a full time job SHOULD give you a living wage.
Instead, even if you’re working, you’re still living in dire poverty.
I agree that people sbould be able to live comfortably with their job, even a low skill one. But the idea that raising wages will mean increase prices does check out though. That, or people with higher skill jobs will be paid less and then they will be the ones to suffer the most.
Imo, we should aim to make things more efficient, thus cheaper because they actually became cheaper. E.g. solving the housing crisis => cheaper rent. Public healthcare => cheaper healthcare. Better schools => better citizens that leave less trash around => less expensive trash management. More public transport, less need to buy or do maintenance to a car etc. And so on and so forth.
Minimum wages can’t fix this problem (they can fix others), they’re just a bandaid on a severed limb.
This is how brainwashed capitalism has made us. In a society that is purely driven by money the thought that giving people their fair share means my prices might increase. Instead, we should fix every societal problem first before doing the one thing that would actually work.
We have record inflation now, is it because major cities have passed $15+ minimum wage? Not at all, not even a little. Further proof that a pandemic has a thousand times more influence than simply paying people more.
Oh and the horrible thought a “high” skilled laborer might be paid less shudder. Like a doctor might only get paid $90k instead of $150k. How could they survive!?
What other convenient tropes should we trot out to disfranchise the only real solution of just paying people what they deserve. Oh that’s right they don’t deserve it because they are lazy or low-skilled or any of the other bullshit excuses we have been force fed our entire lives.
Eh I think you missed my point entirely. And, by the way, being a doctor is simply put very hard, that’s why they’re paid more than people who flip burgers who just flip burgers, and doctors are also rarer and I believe you want to have a good doctor don’t you? Because he’s simply going to get up and leave to another place where he is paid properly if you don’t pay him a good wage. Also, you don’t make any actual good points in your long answer.
Pleaso go study economics. Thank you.
I didn’t miss your point because it was sophomoric in nature and therefore underdeveloped. Your belief in the meritocracy just shows how ridiculously brainwashed you are. It is okay, most of us are one way or another I suppose.
Society might not be meritocratic, but at the end of the day life is… You’re just bitter you don’t deserve better.
You are really reaching there Mr. I buy the rhetoric hook line and sinker. It is clear who is bitter here and it is not the accomplished father of four who owns a million dollar house. Good talking with you.
It is not what you own that makes you an accomplished person
Video evidence of a democrat voting down a minimum wage increase.
And somehow there always seems to be just enough of these “mOdErAteS” to kneecap a Democratic majority from doing what they promised when they get power.
Must be a coincidence 🤔
It’s why big business donates to both parties. Even democrats can be fooled by the corporate propaganda and they all got fundraising targets to meet if they want to keep their seat.
That’s usually how most narrow majorities work. Conspiratorial thinking doesn’t help push forward a progressive agenda.
It’s how things worked when they had a super majority too and backed off on legislating abortion rights.
The same Dem everyone dragged for being a Dem in name only almost as soon as she started voting dogshit completely contrary to what she ran on? The same Dem who literally left the party because she was never anything more than a corporate shill too corrupt even for the milquetoast neoliberals in the Democratic Party?
My answer is more radical. Tie their tax breaks to the linearly interpolated value of the median wage in the company between minimum wage and whatever is actually a living wage. At halfway between the two they get an equilibrium point, below it is a harsh penalty, above is an increasing percentage of their tax break. Wonder how long it would take of McDonalds owing an obscene penalty on their taxes before they started actually paying employees.
I would also be in favor of levying MASSIVE corporate tax penalties for every employee on government assistance. At this point, government programs are less socialism for the people and more socialism for the likes of WalMart.
I like the idea of rent prices being tied directly to pay, maybe a straight %. It would be complicated, but pitting greedy landlords up against greedy businesses sound much more fair than getting fucked from both sides.
Landlords want to make the most money, but if what they can charge was directly tied to minimum wage, they will actually fight to raise pay. Not for altruism or any positive reason, but because they want to increase their own revenue.
It’s not a great idea, but it’s something I’ve thought about for a decade or so. Especially when that “Fight for $15” took so long to that even if $15 was the minimum wage, it would still be way behind to cost of living.
Landleeches can get fucked as far as I am concerned. Implement a chit system like NYC taxies so only a fixed number of single family homes can be rentals in a town, make strict livability (not habitability) standards for those rentals with steep fines and inspections every 2 years, and cap rent at a % of the real value of the property. You let a house languish so it is only worth $40k, you don’t get to charge $2k/month to live there.
It’s not like I’m pro landlord. But, being realistic about a capitalist society, pitting those with opposing interests to fight one another is so much better than both of those things existing uncheck and us being the victim.
Yeah, I agree that it would be popcorn worthy, but I also have a strong suspicion that doing that would end up getting gamed by both and consumers would have compounding losses.
I like this idea. It reduces my primary concern with raising the minimum wage, that it would cause a dramatic and hard to control increase in the inflation rate. Inflation/Cost off of living would increase, but it would probably be controllable under these circumstances.
When applied to multinationals, it would result in companies exporting high skill jobs overseas to bring pay down. Would need to legislate behavior as well to stop companies trying to get around it
Oh, I never said it was perfect and I have actually thought through all of those issues, just didn’t want to bog down the comment in details and math.
Lot of dems voted against it too
Do you consider 7 out of 48 Dems to be a lot? Versus every single republican?
What percentage of Sanders supporters do you imagine voted for Trump?
Do you suppose it’s higher than the percentage of Democrats in the Senate who were willing to go on record as hating workers by voting to kill the minimum wage increase?
Because Sanders supporters are still catching shit for the loss Clinton earned, regardless of who they actually voted for in 2016.
If we’re expected to vote like the party wants, why aren’t legislators?
Nice whataboutism.
I suppose it makes little sense to you that I was comparing centrists not getting what they want (Clinton’s coronation) to centrists getting exactly what they all want (no increase to the minimum wage.).
The 2021 federal minimum wage vote had 41 Yea votes from Democrats, 1 from Independent. 7 Democrats and 1 Independent voted Nay. Every single Republican voted Nay.
Yeah, Kirsten Sinema (currently an independent and dropped out) and Joe Manchin (who will also be gone soon).
So by “many” you mean “two”?And do you think if those two senators are replaced with GOP senators it will make an increase in minimum wage more likely?
The “uniparty” meme is a Marjorie Taylor Greene thing. Do you agree with the space laser lady?
Hello from California! Democrat majority everywhere but it’s “still too hard” to do it. Things that make you go hmmmm
Some of the strongest worker protections in the country and the CCPA. Really makes you wonder how much more you could get if young adults actually voted in elections.
