not true - we have a historically stagnant minimum wage artificially deflating salaries; they are surprisingly not market or economy based in many fields, simply '2usd more than minimum wage, y our doing great!'
.. when minimum wage should be ~50% higher at least. Yay for market distortions.
I wouldn't complain about a $100k/yr minimum if it was actually sustainable (I doubt it) but the 50% is mostly intended as a response to the fact that the current minimum wage is dramatically below the poverty line, in some cases to the point that you need more than 80 hrs of work a week just to pay rent and buy food.
It wasn't always this way. The federal minimum wage used to be livable.
What would you think about have a base income or "mincome" where every citizen essentially gets a base level to provide for necessities, and then anything else you make through employment is bonus?
I've been thinking about that a lot lately due to the mass robotization of jobs. Not sure how I feel about it, but it seems like an important conversation to have.
guaranteed minimum income. Honestly; that's the future (and dream?) the closer we get to a post-scarcity economy.
Are we there yet? I'm not sure; but... maybe in some areas of the US...? Lots of issues with abuse though until post-scarcity is widespread. Lots to think about, we live in an interesting time.
Honestly; engineers '100k/year' salaries are also distorted by the false floor on the job market. I'm honestly not sure if actually for the higher or lower, though I do know goods/services tied to minimum wage are too cheap currently by far. The min wage has allowed employers to utilize business models relying on arbitrarily-cheap labor as, 'that's what everyone pays' functionally keeps all entry level work low through collusion. The biggest flaw with the Big Mac Index IMO; it's too cheap in the US.
> I hear your waiters have slave wages, that's why they depend that much on tips.
Waiters make quite a lot of money off of tips. They actually have been upset with the changes in places like California that "raise" their base salary to minimum wage, because it results in a lower take-home pay overall.
Talking about $15/hour as a "slave wage" is honestly insulting to people who, you know, lived under actual chattel slavery.
You may not like that threshold, but lumping the two together undermines your own point. This sort of racial insensitivity is one of the biggest reasons that leftist movements have such difficulty gaining traction with minority voters, and black voters in particular.
Isn't happening, because that's not the US minimum wage.
> is honestly insulting to people who, you know, lived under actual chattel slavery.
I'm pretty sure they are the ones who actually coined the phrase in reference to crushingly inadequate post-formal-emancipation wages.
> This sort of racial insensitivity is one of the biggest reasons that leftist movements have such difficulty gaining traction with minority voters, and black voters in particular.
Being (partially) black, left-leaning, and actually having studied American political history more than a little bit, I tend to think racial distrust and the absence of as critical mass of visible black leftist leaders is more of a factor; as is a kind of existential despair in the wake of the civil rights movement and nominal victories that have still left blacks far behind.
Obsessing over details of wording is more an issue of concern among
a narrow group of elite intellectuls than the broader community, and I'm not even sure most of them would be concerned in the direction you suggest.
I'm not going to necessarily get into a discussion about what constitutes a "slave wage" but most states have minimum wages far below $15/hour, in fact no state mandates that much, only a few cities.
The wear and tear of a slave, it has been said, is at the expense of his master; but that of a free servant is at his own expense. The wear and tear of the latter, however, is, in reality, as much at the expense of his master as that of the former. The wages paid to journeymen and servants of every kind must be such as may enable them, one with another, to continue the race of journeymen and servants, according as the increasing, diminishing, or stationary demand of the society may happen to require. But though the wear and tear of a free servant be equally at the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of a slave. The fund destined for replacing or repairing, if I may say so, the wear and tear of the slave, is commonly managed by a negligent master or careless overseer. That destined for performing the same office with regard to the free man, is managed by the free man himself. The disorders which generally prevail in the economy of the rich, naturally introduce themselves into the management of the former: the strict frugality and parsimonious attention of the poor as naturally establish themselves in that of the latter. Under such different management, the same purpose must require very different degrees of expense to execute it. It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves. It is found to do so even at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, where the wages of common labour are so very high.
.. when minimum wage should be ~50% higher at least. Yay for market distortions.