"The Capitalist’s Case for a $15 Minimum Wage"

[applegrove]

The Capitalist’s Case for a $15 Minimum Wage

By Nick Hanauer at It's Our Economy

http://itsoureconomy.us/2013/06/the-capitalists-case-for-a-15-minimum-wage/

"SNIP.................................

No one earning the current minimum wage of about $15,000 per year can aspire to live decently, much less raise a family. As a result, almost all workers subsisting on those low earnings need panoply of taxpayer-supported benefits, including the earned income tax credit,food stamps, Medicaid or housing subsidies. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government spent $316 billion on programs designed to help the poor in 2012.

That means the current $7.25 minimum wage forces taxpayers to subsidize Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and other large employers, effectively socializing their labor costs. This is great for Wal-Mart and its shareholders, but terrible for America. It is both unjust and inefficient.

A higher minimum wage would also make low-income families less dependent on government programs: The CBO report shows that the federal government gives about $8,800 in annual assistance to the lowest-income households but only $4,000 to households earning $35,500, which would be about the level of earnings of a worker making $15 an hour.

An objection to a significant wage increase is that it would force employers to shed workers. Yet the evidence points the other way: Workers earn more and spend more, increasing demand and helping businesses grow.


.................................SNIP"

[NYC_SKP]

1. Recommended. (nt)

[arcane1]

2. K&R!

It blows my mind that people who are barely scraping by would be against a higher minimum wage!

[applegrove]

3. I was always for a minimum income. Something that would allow people to go to afford

university or simply get people above a basic income. Something that would allow them to dream a bit, then pursue their dreams.

[Pelican]

5. Paid for by who?

Bare minimum to live? Enough to be comfortable with a family of 4 and a trip to disneyland?

Any incentive to get off of the program?

Details, details details...

[applegrove]

6. For a single person, $22,000 at least. That is enough for a university education.

It would be sort of like a negative income tax. You would get fewer benefits if you worked, but you'd still get something up to a certain income. An income enough to encourage you to strive. Because the quality of life improves a great deal when you make a little more than the welfare amount. Of course there would have to be affordable universities and decent drug addiction programs and decent health care and such for it to work. Paid for by taxes the rich have been running away from in the last 30 years. Taxes corporations and not letting them reset the goalposts regarding what can and cannot be realistically taxed.

[reformist2]

11. Another advantage of the minimum income is that it would automatically raise wages...

Employers would have to entice people to go back into the work force with wages that significantly exceeded the minimum income.

[xtraxritical]

14. President Richard Nixon proposed the negative income tax to replace the extant

welfare programs but it went nowhere with Congress.

[leftstreet]

21. How do we motivate military contractors to get off dole?

[Pelican]

22. Stop paying them....

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. The Right Wing gets those people to come along by screaming "INFLATION!!!"

[reformist2]

18. True, but that doesn't work on everyone who's just scraping by, or worse!

And these days, I'm willing to bet that's way more than 50% of the population.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. They scare the hell out of the poor by claiming if wages go up $1 then milk will go up $8 a gallon.

[Trajan]

4. Well said ...

Wages have always been a priority issue for me ... Decent wages that allow for increased wealth at the low and middle class levels are the REAL stimulus that the economy needs ... it increases business (and wealth) for everybody ...

Wages ... Wages ... Wages .....

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. But,...but,...but,...Rush said, "It's not how much you MAKE it's how much you KEEP."...

According to him, we'd ALL be rich if the government didn't take it all away in taxes.

[Brigid]

7. There's another aspect of this that isn't talked about much.

I think a minimum wage set as low as it is now erodes a person's work ethic. Chris Rock said minimum wage is basically an employer saying they would pay less if they could get away with it. Harrison Ford once said of his pay while working at Warner Brothers studios as a contract player back in his salad days, $125 a week and all the respect that implies." I have no idea how a minimum-wage employer can expect employees to work hard and have a good attitude when the rewards are so meager. That's probably why so many of those types of jobs are notorious for high turnover.

[Iliyah]

8. GOPers want to trash the minimum wage

and leave it up to their corporate masters to dictate wages.

[Dustlawyer]

9. They are jealous of Bangladesh! That is what they want and that is where we are headed!

[reformist2]

10. It's becoming screamingly obvious we need a minimum income, whether you work or not.

There simply aren't enough jobs to go around, at least in the private sector.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. There would be if people could retire at 55.

[hunter]

12. A good minimum wage and a single payer health plan are good for business.

What don't people get?

You get the feeling that the people in charge don't care about money, that they want a feudal society, that it's all about the political power.

They want serfs who will lick their boots, they want workers they can abuse. Telling a homeless guy to "get a job!" or harassing the housekeepers makes them feel big.

These wannabe lords, these crooks who have bought our government, they must be very small insecure people to need that kind of attention.

[Moostache]

13. Take solace in the fact that they waste their brief momenmt of life in pursuit of the etheral...

and they will end up just as dead and penniless as I will when our respective corpses are recycled by flame or rot.

You cannot take it with you....any of it.

Embrace life.
Live passionately.
Love universally.
Ease suffering.

These things make a life well lived and worth remembering.
And the last time I looked, none of them have decimal places or dollar signs attached!

[Lady Freedom Returns]

15. K & R!