A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US.
The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey.
The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants who, she said, worked multiple minimum-wage jobs just to get by.
They said “a pair” so I’m dropping that for the Illinois folks.
genuine question, im trying to learn something. i do agree that higher wages are necessary for the current economic climate, and that raising the minimum should come with other, more in-demand jobs having their wages/salaries raised as well. however, would this worsen prices? obviously most companies could probably stomach the cost, but they would probably raise prices anyway to reclaim their original revenue stream. and then, since prices increased, a higher minimum wage would be necessary to survive in the new climate. what happens next?
The impact of higher minimum wage on prices is way less than most people think.
First thing is that wages is only a minor share of the price already, with obviously minimum wage work again being only a minor part of the total.
The total of minimum wage workers in most companies is less than what the management makes. Sometimes even less than just the CEO. Have you ever heard fear of inflation or that prices increase because the CEOs are overpaid?I haven’t, probably because the narrative is driven by the 1%, and has little to do with real economics.
Yes it may have an effect on prices, but there are second order effects. One example is that it would also have an effect on a huge number of people’s ability to pay those prices. A customer base that can afford goods will likely increase sales. Increasing sales can increase revenue.
Markets are complex dynamic systems and often the key to getting a healthy economy is removing choke points where money doesn’t flow. Not paying people enough kills demand. An economy with low demand is dying.
SIMPLE ANSWER: Companies would learn to accept lower profit.
There’s no goddamn good reason for companies to “need” 15, 20, 30% profit margins. And there’s zero justification for companies to assume (a) every year is a winner and (b) every year, we gotta grow.
Every dollar they keep in excess profit is a dollar they stole from you. That extra dollar increases prices, decreases the value of the money you DO get to earn, and increases the political power of the extremely wealthy people who already own the government.
Hopefully. I could see it turning into massive layoffs, cutting things all across the board, and it’ll be a war of attrition, who will cave first, me fighting my crippling desire for potato chips, or PepsiCo. needing to gouge prices. And the problem I see is that they’ve been winning this whole time, and the royal we are weak and dumb. But maybe we need a bigger push.
Beyond that, I’m not sure we can legislate the problem away either. And so we raise the minimum wage, we squeeze the middle class, and we probably end up in a worse position for it. But who knows, maybe we are capable of banding together as proles and speaking with our wallets.
Well, regardless, prices increase while wages stagnate regardless, and the federal minimum wage does seem to drive the floor and by consequence probably a lot of the rest of that stagnation.
Doesn’t seem to me that it makes sense to peg a federal minimum wage that stays the same for long periods of time while also seeing “inflation” constantly drive prices up (I’m using inflation as a catch-all to sum up all flavors of price increase, not just what’s strictly meant by the term normally). It’s inconsistent - two sides of one coin, but somehow one keeps getting larger while the other remains unchanged…?
But beyond that, yes, you’re right, it’s no panacea of any kind, because the bigger problem is that all markets (including labor markets) are driven and in effect controlled by the largest players. They don’t have to collaborate and conspire directly, though of course being above the law they often happily do. But yeah, not necessary, by and large they merely have to act in their own self-interest to produce the system of advantages for them causing the accompanying monstrosities we see everywhere for everyone else (us).
Raising the minimum wage is good but it isn’t anything close to a solution, the spiraling problems keep spiraling. But remember, that’s constantly, always happening, in directed ways, regardless. Bad idea to worry over downstream effects of things that clearly help folks struggling the ~worst. Address the actual problem, leave those folks out of it, I say.
[Edit: if you’d like a real-time example of price changes and govt relief being solidly one-sided - watch what happens as companies fight for and receive the court-approved reversals of collected tariffs. You’ll see some token price decreases and a few more strident responses, I expect, but by and large companies will have raised their prices to keep their profit margins intact, having a hateable president to blame and garner acceptance among consumers - and then they’ll get back the money they did send for the tariffs, then keep prices high because that’s how it works when people accept new normals (and boyyy have we Americans proven great at accepting new normals). Then fund some campaigns/events/PACs/whatever with a slice of the money as thanks, keep the good times rollin.]
[Edit edit: looks like when this would take effect is spread out so long anyway that it just gives plenty of time to do what I’m describing and I guess you were worried about too maybe. Lovely.]
It does tend to be a push pull system, but with capitalism it is really the only thing that can be done, inflation will always go up and wages will always follow, often there is a lot of lag though. It’s kinda like playing catch up, if we find a living wage that works it will only work for a while then the purchasing power of that wage will slip.
What we need is a system that adjusts every year that way the corporations would have to find a more sustainable method to address earnings, because they would not have the lag between cost of living and minimum wage.
Would be better to lower the maximum wage
Yeah, that’s called a wealth tax or marginal tax rate. And we need that too. Only problem is that over half of America has been thoroughly brainwashed into believing that a wealth tax would “ruin the economy” because multiple conservative think tanks funded by billionaires has spent the last 4 decades propagandizing that belief into them.
the weird thing is, if the billionaires had their wealth redistributed, it would actually BENEFIT the economy. People hoarding wealth does nothing for anyone except them.
I think people need to understand that we don’t actually have to eat the rich.
I recommend combining the rich with an equal volume of leaf litter, yard waste and veggie scraps.
Keep the pile moist and aerated, and in 90 days the warm, wet mass of viscera and wastes will be transformed into a wealth of rich compost!
Of course, if you use it to grow food, you are still ultimately eating the rich. Someone has to eat them eventually.
No reason it has to be only one. Both is the correct answer
Or cap the multiplier that upper management make compared to the lowest employees and make it harder for companies to hire contractors instead of full time employees with benefits.
Should be 1 to 1 tho
definitely.
pass laws that say highest paid employees can only make 10x what lowest paid employees can.
The rich don’t get paid money. Just check Jeff Bezos salary.
Rich people live off equity. Make them realize gains used as loan collateral!
Or just stop granting loans to people with net worth over some amount. If they can afford to do whatever they’re doing with their current assets, then they should sell that to make the value of the loans they “need”.
Loans aren’t meant to be a gamble or profitable (for the borrower) transaction. They’re to access items you can’t currently afford but need and are willing to pay significantly for over time.
Especially when your net assets cover the cost of the loan amount hundreds of thousands of times like “Richie’s” do.
I’m sorry, but people who have never seen a balance in their life with less than 7 digits just shouldn’t qualify for any loans at all, period.
And none of that signing stuff of to hidden Bank accounts and fake companies.
Tldr- if you’re rich, absolutely disqualified for all loans.
Can’t wait to hear all the people complaining about this because they’re already making $25 an hour. As though keeping everybody else down will somehow make things better for you.
If you’re making $25 an hour, and the minimum wage changes, you should demand more money for yourself, not less money for other.
By the time this passes we’ll need it to be $30/hr.
Hopefully this can pass and it’ll be tied to inflation.
Isn’t it weird how when billionaires make more money “a rising tide raises all boats”, but when the poorest make more money, suddenly there’s extreme resource scarcity?
Yes, because of trickle-down economics. Didn’t you know that tides come from rain???
Rising tide raises all yachts. Most of us can’t afford boats, so we’re just drowned by the tide.
should have pulled yourself up by your bootstraps. /s
*hung
It’s called “punching down economics”.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson
Plus they’re still pro-genocide.
As someone that makes around $25, that’s still not even that much money. It definitely feels like a good minimum wage as I can afford my bills and food relatively easily (although it is getting harder as prices go up) but it’s still not really enough to make my life that much more comfortable than it was 5 years ago.
The only complaint I have is that I needed to work for 10 years in order to reach a wage of what would now be considered minimum wage. It’s always seemed like every increase in wages I have ever gotten has been a year or two too late conpared to how expensive everything is. When I was making $14 an hour the average house prices in my area were $100,000 to $300,000. Now that I’m making almost twice as much and could afford a house 8 years ago, house prices in my area average around $400,000 to $800,000 and sometimes over $1,000,000. It’s like I’ve been playing catch up since the day I was born. In my opinion, I should be making $30+ an hour.
$25 an hour treated me extremely well in the southeast with my partner making about the same or at least pre-inflation. Even then that just meant keeping a slightly tighter budget, but still a pretty comfortable life.
So, in other words, it took 80 hours a week to live comfortably at that wage…
Fix poverty and you’ll see a bunch of completely unrelated problems magically disappear.
Which is exactly why rich people love poverty so much. Revenue stream.
The rich also like poverty and homeless so they can use it to scare the masses. “Thinking about asking your boss for a raise, careful. Ask for too much and you’ll be replaced and end up homeless.”
The system requires people to be unemployed. If everyone had a job and paid their bills on time the country would collapse.
Remember that the next time they talk numbers and labor supply.
I’m making about that much and I’m sick of my bosses saying “well it’s a good wage”. I would have so much more ammo for a raise if it was the new minimum. Don’t understand people who don’t understand a rising tide.
Bucket crab ass mentality
A swift “well, don’t you think you’re worth more than that” can build many bridges
This is the way.
These idiots need to stop setting the minimum wage to fixed values, and set them to calculations based off GDP and localized (by county) cost of living, with an annual (or better yet quarterly) refresh on the calculation. Maybe some other variables, I’m not an economist, but the point is to have it adjust without needing constant legislative flights.
Or just abolish the wage system.
Make it illegal to pay a wage. Instead make it a calculation based on the company’s profits, split evenly by all employees.
Question. If you were a capitalist running small or medium company how would you adapt to that paradigm?
The comment above yours laid out the details in this bill which include automatic increases adjusting with the median national income. I think that’s about as good as it could get coming from the federal government You could loby your local/ state government for additional adjustments based on COL, something i could see happening in NY, California or other high COL places. At least I could have seen in the pre-weasel reality, but who knows on this hellsphere.
County could get far too complex. By state would be fine. If counties had a set size or population that would be more reasonable, but they don’t. In some states you can easily drive 3 counties over for a daily commute. In others it can take over an hour to drive out of 1 county. That alone will create inequities
It should be tied to congress’s salary. Every time they give themselves a pay rise, minimum wage increases proportionally. Also healthcare and pensions.
Congress hasn’t had a raise since 2009.
Most of them are independently wealthy and/or get their money from insider trading instead.
It’s cute you think a Congressperson makes money from their salary
They do make a salary and they often do vote to increase it. So their comment still makes sense.
Their other unethical to illegal money making strategies are irrelevant to what was said about minimum wage, but it’d be nice if we did something about all the insider trading and bribery
often do vote to increase it.
Congressional salary has been the same for the last 18 years.
Fuck, they could agree to recalculate every decade and it would still be an improvement.
I mean it’s almost like since the concept was invented we developed a way of collecting and storing information in a way where it could be constantly updated and then used as input for algorithms and math on demand, continuously.
I mean taxes and fees are a percentages as well, why would a minimum wage be a fixed amount. Changing circumstances, regionality and inflation are not new concepts for lawmakers. A fixed $25 is actually not a great idea, but I get it’s better than status quo.
Nah mate that has a chance of working, can’t have that.
inb4 gop uses this calculation to set the minimum wage to like $10
Still would be a raise for some places.
If you indexed minwage to the local affordable housing costs, there might be more interest in building some.
Unfortunately Federal minimum wage is not going to do locality calculations, that has to come down to locality or state intervention. And thats not discounting the fact that a federal minimum is obviously going to have a direct hand in blanket changes
I’m going to be honest: this is a terrible idea before the midterms (which, let’s face it, are likely to happen rigged)
For people who want the details:
Companies with more than $1 billion gross revenue or more than 500 employees would be scheduled to increase their minimum pay to $25/hour by 2031, while smaller employers would be on a longer timeline to reach $25/hour by 2038.
AKA no instant price shock
To ensure wages don’t lag again in the following years, the bill also requires the minimum wage to automatically grow each year to reach the equivalent of two-thirds the national median hourly wage.
This isn’t adjusted to inflation, but the median national hourly wage tends to reflect a very similar trend to inflation as measured by the CPI, but lags behind a bit. If the base minimum wage was raised like this, it would bring that stat much more on par with inflation, if not higher than it as it stands now.
It also eliminates the subminimum wage, which is paid to tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities.
FINALLY! Just because you receive tips, are younger, or have a disability, you shouldn’t be paid less than someone else if you’ve still gotten hired to do the job. You might be familiar with the tipped subminimum wage, which is where, if you receive tips from your job, instead of the $7.25/hr minimum wage, you can get paid as low as $2.13/hr as long as your tips make up the difference to bring you to at least $7.25.
This is one reason why so many places want you to tip now. The person doesn’t get extra money, you just subsidize their employer paying them less out of their pocket.
…buuuuuuuuuut there’s also a lowered minimum wage for disabled people… with literally no actual minimum. It’s why one Goodwill was at one point paying a guy $0.22/hr:
https://www.cnbc.com/2013/06/21/some-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour.html
If I didn’t know how screwed up America is, I’d assume that had to be satire, but nope, it’s real. Subminimum wages being abolished is great.
if you receive tips from your job, instead of the $7.25/hr minimum wage, you can get paid as low as $2.13/hr
And yet some workers still fiercely defend it and will insist these rules stay in place. They’ve been brainwashed by the system to think they will somehow make less if subminimum is eliminated.
It’s why one Goodwill was at one point paying a guy $0.22/hr:
This is absolutely disgusting. Fuck that company. Selling donations at market rate and exploiting workers all while claiming nonprofit status. Like a true capitalist. If the company is non profit and they’re triple dipping on the merchandise and labor, where’s the money going?
Seems a lot goes to executive pay and “grants” to other Goodwill organizations I wonder how much of that grant money is used for salaries in those organizations.
By the time they pass this, we’ll need $50/hour minimum.
Beautiful, love to see it. Don’t forget to tie it to inflation. My ideal is 3% or cpi, whichever is greater
Explain please
democrats are usually not considered leftists or progressives by the latter groups
It’s a great idea but it’ll never pass
I thought voting was important?
Sucker
Whoosh.
How is this a great idea? I think the point is that they are center right who won’t pass anything that’s actually going to solve wealth inequality
This would be super great, therefore it won’t happen. There is no hope.
That kind of “no hope” thinking is how nothing changes. If you believe something would make the country better, then it’s worth more than just a passing comment.
You’ve got your own voice. Use it. In a system like ours, that means being able to explain your position and defend it when it’s challenged.
Otherwise you’re not really standing for anything, you’re just agreeing in theory and giving up in practice.
You have your voice. They haven’t taken that away yet. Use it effectively.
W take
Why does this has to be regulated on federal level and not by the states?
My state has the minimum wage set at the federal minimum wage (7.25/hr) which is not livable in any area of the state.
They even passed laws so our mostly Democratic-leaning urban city can’t raise the minimum wage past the state minimum wage. The cost of living in that city is higher than my local area, where you can’t find a 1br apartment for less than $900/month
The federal wage has to be raised federally or red states will never do it.
“has to be”? why do you have to ask this question?
I have to ask this because different states of US have different economic circumstances and different costs of living.
Federal minimum wage is $7.50 that is not a livable wage anywhere in the country. Currently about half the states have minimum wage at or below federal level, (where the state is below federal is the minimum actually paid) without a federal level most of those states would have a lower minimum wage. Anytime a job pays minimum wage you should assume they would pay less if they could.
So to answer your question, many states would happily let companies fuck their citizens, the fed is there to apply a tiny bit of spit to makes things more comfortable.
I’d counter that without addressing price gouging, rent control/passive income, and pain in the ass scores are, raising minimum wage is a short term “win” that will quickly be erased as soon as inflation catches up and leases need renewed. Your bottom end apartment that was willing to rent to you for X amount because they know it’s a shithole now knows you make $25 an hour. If they were taking 2/3 of your income when you made it at $7.25, they’re going to want 2/3 of $25. The apartments that were renting to people making $25 before are going to adjust to limit access to people making even more to keep the riffraff out. And credit providers won’t view this as a step-up for us, they’ll just raise the ceiling for approval. They might have given you a home loan if you were making $25/hr in a $7.25 world, but now everyone makes that, sorry!
It’s the illusion of progress because it only addresses one facet of what needs to be done. I’d rather see a world where $7.25 is a living wage because the exploiters were cut off from their practices than one where we pretend like giving the masses “more” is the solution.
Not going to matter much because the boomers will all shout “when I was your age, I had five kids and a house on less than minimum wage! You just need to sacrifice a little more!” and then it’ll just get shut down by people who have never experienced poverty, let alone even middle class life.
My boomer-fuck parents made their way on the world my greatest and silent generation grandparents fought for, and bled & sweat for. Then they turned that into a swindle and called it “self-made”. Then they never let go. Fuck ‘em. You half-assed it and think you’ve earned it. I’ll grant there was an occasional effort, but you never did as hard as they did. An entire generation of stolen valor.
Without restrictions on rent increases , that’s just going to increase inflation. That’s what always happens.
When minimum wage goes up, every single industry thinks they deserve that extra money.
In a way, driving rampant inflation supported by a rising minimum wage tied to inflation destroys the wealth hoarding of the rich, if it is denominated on dollars. Actually, since most of their wealth isn’t, it destroys the savings of the poor and middle class.
Except most of the wealth is equity which would also rise along with/usually faster than the inflation rate.
They’re not sitting on cash.
Extreme inflation bankrupts a country.
Not that we aren’t already headed there. But still.
In my opinion, this here is far from becoming extreme inflation. Even 100% a year is not extreme, and I don’t think minimum wage tied to median wage will cause more than 10% inflation
But of course, I’m no economist
Yeah it just makes the middle class lose what little savings they have.
Inflation keeps going up anyways. The boring answer is to set it to something reasonable and have it go up 2% every year to keep pace with inflation rather than these big jumps that gets everyone worked up.
Someone else suggested it should be a set percentage of gdp. Not amount. That seems like a good idea too.
Which party is fighting to abolish the wage system?
Workers’ Party of Korea
