[jmclnx]

What is needed are enforceable laws that force companies to pay a living wage. The wage paid is based upon the cost of living in various US metro regions. The wage must be updated every 6 months. And we need a single payer health system.

Plus a type of tax that forces the ultra-rich to pay, if needed, a wealth tax that some countries are enabling.

[freefaler]

All businesses run on a profit margin. It's a resource game, thinly veiled by the money layer as means of exchange. If you make the price of buying labor by decree, the owners of the business will either buy less of it (supply/demand ratio), automate it, raise the price to offset the increased cost or close the business down, because the costs are too high.

Businesses are shaky constructions and when you regulate them out of existence who will be generating the taxes for the government to redistribute?

About the "single payer health system", it's not a panacea. Many countries struggle with single payer systems, because there are also problems there too. The best working example for a medical system is Singapore. Compulsory medical saving account with government subsidies in that account for the poor. All prices are transparent and patients pay from that account and have premiums over the basic treatments, thus creating the market dynamics needed for the market to work and still requiring personal responsibility, by making sure the patients sees the costs and chooses himself.

[bob001]

That works only as long as people are employed and there are enough jobs to employ people. Simplest solution for a company is to outsource or automate jobs away as much as possible. After a couple years customers will adjust to the new norm even if it's a worse experience for them.