[StevenWaterman]

If the total salary has gone up, for less work done, it is a positive change. You can solve the inequal distribution via taxes and benefits.

Start: 100 people paid $100

After minimum wage change: 90 people paid $125, 10 people paid $0

After tax increase: 90 people paid $113 + $12 taxes, 10 people paid $108 from taxes

Now everyone is paid at least as much as they were before, and fewer people are forced to perform labour

In practice it was only 3% unemployment not 10%, which means the tax increase is less and there is more of an incentive to continue working. You can also pay the displaced workers less than their original wage, to reach an equilibrium where everyone is happy with either work+more money, or leisure+less money. Or have it be age-based with an earlier retirement. Or have people work part-time.

We need to stop seeing having a job as being inherently good. Being able to live is good. Humanity should strive for 100% unemployment.

[kgwgk]

"Less work done" doesn't look like a positive change, you can't tax your way out of a smaller pie. Specially if you strive for humanity to produce no pie to start with.

[StevenWaterman]

I disagree that increased employment and increased labour always makes the pie bigger. If minimum wage was low enough, we would decommission our cement mixers and use a human with a shovel instead. But that's not an improvement. Automation is happening, jobs can be replaced right now. The problem is that humans are too cheap to bother automating, and that the profits of the automation are not being distributed to the displaced workers.

[po1nt]

Then we should increase the minimum wage to 200$/hr or more.

[StevenWaterman]

The total salary would go down if you did that

[thfuran]

Then we should just increase the presidential salary to 110% of the total 2024 US workforce salary.

[sethammons]

Billionaires don't care about their salary.

[thfuran]

They would if their salary were more than ten trillion dollars.

[po1nt]

How can you know that? That's also such an arbitrary number to obsess about. Setting bilionaire income tax to zero would increase total salary also.

[SideQuark]

Paying more for less is never a positive change, it's an inefficiency that is costing someone and resulting in less goods for society. It's a net loss. That money paying for less is now not being spent where it was before, making that place lose out.

[OrvalWintermute]

Total salary going up for less work can truly hurt people that are low, aptitude, low skill, and do not produce sufficient value to hit minimum wage.

[Ray20]

Well, on the other hand, it can be seen as something like a eugenic program to cleanse society of those unworthy of the state. After all, there is nothing stopping them from going to work somewhere else where there is no such minimum wage.