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But let's say this was true... if all the people ditch their harder $15/hr job for easier $15/hr jobs, they'll find that there are x # of easier jobs available, while there are y number of them where y is greater. They'll have to stay put. Besides, if their harder jobs really are harder, that could translate into better skills, which gets them to move on to better jobs, and quicker than the easier $15/hr jobs.
That is a good argument. There is some truth that the number of easy $15/hr jobs will be limited. If somebody is in a stressful $15/hr management job with great responsibility and is looking at the $15/hr job of putting widgets in boxes at a relaxed pace for 8 hours straight, I agree that there will be some competition for the easy $15/hr jobs.
At the same time, I would argue that management is slow to increase wages and give raises. Some here talk like the raises are going to come overnight. The $15/hr minimum passes and you come into work the next day making $18/hr because they don't want to lose you. I think the raises would be much slower and immediate raises would be rare.
Yes, they could have! They would have grown more slowly though, and the oligarchs on both sides would not have gotten nearly as rich.
The best approach, and something we actually have control over, is lower the US$ value to acheive approximate trade neutrality. Not trade neutrality with any particular country, just overall. There are plenty of areas where the US can have a comparative advantage and increase exports, if only the US$ wasn't so damned overvalued.
That $'s value can be pushed with what I'm talking about. We have a global debt bubble I'm looking at global wage inflation to deal with it. The minimum wage can be used to get wage inflation in a deflationary macro economic environment.
That $'s value can be pushed with what I'm talking about. We have a global debt bubble I'm looking at global wage inflation to deal with it. The minimum wage can be used to get wage inflation in a deflationary macro economic environment.
Debt and deflation can be easily dealt with directly by printing money.
That's easily dealt with as well by manipulating things we can control. Foreign wages isn't one of them.
we don't control foreign wages but we very well can influence them.
We can control our taxes. And with that we can manipulate the world's economy.
And with a global not national economy the wealth distribution just got really skewed. The bottom end in the US is competing with the middle world wide. The bottom world wide is so far from the top world wide that it isn't ever in the same universe.
In the real world, people currently making $15/hr are worth substantially more than the floor wage. Else they wouldn't be making $15. If the floor rises to $15/hr then they are still worth more than the floor wage and can and will command a higher salary. The market naturally adjusts.
From what I can tell, low wage jobs usually aren't easier, they just require less talent.
If everyone salary increases, then consumption will rise. Who will produce all those new things they buy?
Thats not how it works, as shown to you earlier, higher minimum wage lead to unemployment for low skilled workers, hence the MW wage workers left produce more value. In addition, a high skilled worker is not likely to switch for a low skilled job.
People with $15 are not likely to receive much of a raise, unless the manage MW workers. Because cost rise, the result is lower wages.
I strongly agree with #'s 1, 3 and 4 which would go a long way towards helping the working poor. However, do you really think those would be easier to pass than minimum wage increases?
Not easier to pass, but smarter to pass. Not everything that sound good is good, MW should be used to support the very poor, not as a tool to raise wages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
We've already got people saying that a higher minimum wage is tantamount to welfare. I shudder to think about the criticism that child care and maternity leave would bring. People across the country would cry out that we shouldn't pay for "free stuff for lazy people."
I think if progressives focused on those issues, then at least they could implement it in left wing states. It will most likely be very popular, because it is very popular in Europe. The success would be noticed by other states, and eventually the rest of the country will adopt the same policy.
The $15 MW increase is likely to be failure, because it is too high, and will make it harder to get the left wing reforms I want.
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