[toomuchtodo]

Raise the minimum wage while reducing the work week to 4 days for full time employment (this brings the minimum wage closer to where it should be after not being raised for decades, while also giving labor a share of the productivity gains they should’ve been receiving since the 70s).

You squeeze Capital with labor law and regulation. Any reduction in employment due to rising wages can be fixed with social support systems funded by corporate taxes that were previously tax breaks or deductions on automation expenses.

The wealth in the system exists to do this. It’s a distribution issue.

[dTal]

This is the right answer. The only reason we don't work 80 hour weeks for 2 bucks an hour is because the law forbids it.

[mruts]

This is just false. Approximately only 2% of American workers are paid minimum wage. Everyone else makes more.

[dTal]

Technically true. But the minimum wage is still clearly an anchor. The amount above minimum is a signal of your worth as a worker. Consider this[1] income distribution chart (with its precipitous falloff left of the minimum wage mark). It's clear that "at or just above minimum" is the largest demographic, even if it represents a small fraction of the whole. If the minimum wage were raised, it wouldn't simply bunch the left of the graph together - the entire curve would move.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Di...

[embersbreaking]

@mruts: "but then inflation will just go up a similar amount"

That is a faith-based belief.

[mruts]

Of course the entire curve will move, but then inflation will just go up a similar amount. This means that everyone will effectively be making the same amount of money.

Because of this, I think minimum wage is unnecessary and just manages to distort the market and prices out some people out of any job whatsoever.