Quote (2020AlmostOver @ 6 Mar 2021 17:51)

Nah.
The thing is, you don’t have to work for “the rich guy” and earn “slave wages”

That’s the good thing about capitalism, it’s completely voluntary.
You aren’t forced to do anything.
The thing is, most of the brain dead “fight for 15$“ supporters are brain dead millennial socialists who don’t understand the way the real world works because they’ve had everything handed to them their whole life.

Quote (2020AlmostOver @ Mar 6 2021 11:59am)

I mean Amazon employees start out at 15$ an hour with full benefits. I highly doubt they need food stamps.

I also don’t agree with taxpayers having to foot the bill for things like this.

I think proper budgeting would solve a lot of people’s financial struggles. I know someone who makes decent $ and is still always broke & crying because they buy things that they don’t need, which I believe is a huge problem.

Quote (Leevee @ Mar 6 2021 03:19am)

Crazy how they feed you this and you believe it, while the rest of the civilized world has proven for decades that this isn't a problem.

Quote (Plaguefear @ Mar 6 2021 02:28am)

In libertarian land more money in the hands of people who actually spend it leads to businesses losing money and having to let people go.
In reality, we call it stimulus and do it every time we hit a recession... to pump money into those businesses.. and it works.. every time.

Quote (bogie160 @ Mar 7 2021 06:05am)

Increasing costs to a subset of businesses via wage floors does not increase the profitability of said businesses. You are implying that increasing labor costs to a business will increase the profitability of that business because some small percentage of those costs might ultimately be returned to the business. Write that down on a napkin and get back to me as to whether it checks out.

The impact of a wage floor is relatively well understood. Businesses respond with some combination of higher prices, lower margins, and cost reductions (fewer hours / employees / more automation). Higher prices impact consumers, most of whom are lower and middle class. Fewer hours and fewer employees negatively impact the same subset of the population the legislation is attempting to help. Lower margins often disproportionately impact small businesses which are less equipped to handle cost increases. A higher minimum wage would almost certainly benefit Amazon and Costco, for instance, at the expense of their smaller competitors. This has an unintended side effect of consolidating corporate power into a handful of corporations.

There are far better means available to achieve these goals. If the goal is to financially empower the poor, then the government should construct economic safety nets that gradually taper along with income.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Mar 5 2021 07:51pm)

The growth in overall productivity in the United States was largely driven by outsized gains in a few industries like Silicon Valley and Wall Street, it was extremely top-heavy. I'm not against having the minimum wage tracking the productivity gains in the abstract, but we must look at the relevant type of productivity. An explosion of productivity in Big Tech industries does not mean that the value of the work of waitresses or pool cleaners has gone up. The minimum wage relates to the lower echelons of the job market, and if it is to track productivity gains, it must track the productivity gains in the fields which provide minimum wage jobs.

On top of that, a sensible minimum wage approach must of course index for local cost of living. A $15 minimum wage for lowly jobs is a pipe dream and job killer in rural South Dakota while it would still remain a starvation wage in, e.g., the Bay Area.

The bigger picture issue is that productivity and wage gains at the top of the ladder will always have spillover effects on the cost of living for lower wage workers. Therefore, as long as the productivty gap between high tech industries and menial services keeps growing, so will the wealth and income inequality, even if regulations ensure that minimum wage workers get their "fair share", in the sense of a wage which reflects the true productivity of their work.

Quote (Plaguefear @ Mar 6 2021 02:18pm)

Owned three successful businesses, works out fine, increased money in the community leads directly to more sales.
If you can't benefit more from 10,000 locals with more money in their hands than having to pay staff a few dollars more you are a poor busines owner.

I should also note minimum wage was $18 and I paid $25, and had more loyal and hard working employees than my competitors who had to keep paying to train staff i would then poach.

Quote (bogie160 @ Mar 6 2021 02:01pm)

Increasing costs and receiving a fraction of those costs back does not lead to magically enhanced profits. It is voodoo economics.

There are many good reasons to increase employee pay, and the investment often pays off handsomely. But we should allow the market to largely set prices. The economy is akin to a business we all collectively own, and we want it as efficient as possible.