Set the minimum wage

[PETRUS]

Dollars per hour, of course.

8 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
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	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[JaneyVee]

1. At LEAST $12/hr. Preferably $15/hr.

[Cal Carpenter]

2. I'd also like to set a maximum wage

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Careful what you ask for

That was standard in the 18th century, and was used to keep pay low.

Trust me, the Koch brothers would love it.

[OceanEcosystem]

5. That could still be an astoundingly high wage.

For instance, pro athletes are often paid millions of dollars per year. What would that maximum wage look like, "No more than $10 million a year?"

[sarisataka]

4. Had to vote 15-20

I know too many in the 12-15 range who can only control the slide downwards

[Recursion]

6. $25 or so, phased in over 2 years

Get some of the inflation the Fed refuses to create going.

[PETRUS]

7. Kicking, please vote! (nt)

[progressiveinaction]

8. Why not raise it to $100 per hour?

[Ter]

9. Because that's more than needed for lots of us

Hell, that's twice my pay and I do fine.

[hunter]

10. I'd like to see generous public works, education, welfare and retirement programs...

... compete directly with crappy jobs.

Create good government jobs, pay people to go to college or trade schools in fields where there are worker shortages, pay parents to stay at home with small children, make it easy to obtain welfare benefits for any kind of disability or involuntary unemployment, encourage early retirement with generous pensions, and fund it all by reducing military spending and imposing increasingly progressive taxes on anyone who makes more than eight times the minimum wage, or who is eight times wealthier than the average citizen.

Throw in a single payer health plan too.

The effect would be anyone could quit a crappy job without fear of dire consequences like homelessness, hunger, or untreated medical problems. Maybe an underpaid overworked and abused factory farm worker decides to go back to school, retire, or find a better job if the working conditions and pay don't improve.

Taxes for people making minimum wage to eight times the minimum wage would be a flat rate on everything they earn above the minimum wage. In other words, people making the minimum wage would pay nothing, and maybe people who make up to eight times that would pay, let's say, 30%. In smaller businesses, where the bosses and owners are making no more than eight times the minimum wage everyone is feeling like they get a fair shake. Maybe the boss lives in a larger house, and the lowest paid worker an apartment, but it's the same neighborhood. If bosses and owners start to pay themselves more than eight times the minimum wage, or begin to accumulate vast wealth, then they start to see some very progressive taxes, 40, 60, even 80% or more. The explicit purpose of this taxation would be to keep political power and wealth well distributed within the general population. In effect, everyone would own a piece of the national economy large enough to support them in some comfort, without any fear of homelessness, hunger, or lack of appropriate medical care no matter where life's adventures take them.

[PETRUS]

11. Anyone else? (nt)