Biden's $15 wage proposal: Job killer or a boon for workers?

reduce America's vast financial inequality

Therein lies the problem. The 'greatest economy in history' Trump and his minions touted has been just that - for the 1% caste.

While millions of Americans go homeless, stand in food lines unable to provide enough food to feed them, lose their jobs, and have limited prospects for finding work.

$15 an hour matters, but so does $12 and $13. If we cannot get $15/hours, workers will be way better off at $13, then they are at $7.25. Let's keep the big picture in mind, improvement in the lives of low-wage workers, and improving the status quo. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Go Joe!

It’s going to fail. You will have businesses folding or you will have businesses raising prices to offset the hike so it’ll reflect back on the consumer. Either way, it’s going to fail and fail sadly, miserably.

Raising the minimum wage, they said, would also help narrow the chronic economic gap between white Americans on the one hand and Black and Hispanic Americans on the other.

I think I see the problem. Never gonna happen.

There are going to be both pros and cons to this, but the simple fact is this should never have been a thing. Wages should have been keeping up with inflation (I'm going off the top of my head, I'm not an economist).

End the reduced wage for places that allow tipping.

A national minimum wage can't work. The costs of living vary widely around the US. Poverty in NYC or SF is very different from poverty in Biloxi or Jacksonville or Lincoln or Fargo. $15/hr is more than my first professional job paid. At the time, a family of four could live on that.

In college, my job paid $5.25/hr. That was above min-wage. I lived in a dump, ate ramen during the week, and ate at work on the weekends - 50% off.

Minimum wage isn't meant for people supporting families. Trying to make it that is a state decision, where local pricing considerations can better be made.

No one really knows what will happen. Seattle is one example but it's just one example. Most economists believe it will lift people out of poverty while at the same time reducing hours (pay) for other workers. The hope is that the net benefit from raising people out of poverty (and off of government subsides) would outweigh the losses on the other end.

But at the end of the day, minimum wage is pretty much the poverty level for the US. It's not a sustainable model for society.

Noidall: No one is supposed to be able to feed a family while working at McDonald’s. Those types of jobs are for teenagers and the elderly.

The average age for a fast food worker is 29. "Supposed to" has nothing to do with it. And no one is talking about raising a family working at McDonalds. A single person, working full time, missing zero days per year, taking no vacation days, will be just above the poverty level. For a company that makes billions in profits.

Also, these adjustments are usually done over a period of 5 to 7 years. It's not like they're raising the minimum wage to $15 during a pandemic.

Bass: You will have businesses folding

If your business model depends on paying workers poverty level wages, then adios amigo. You don't deserve to be in business. Move to Thailand and open up a sweatshop if that's the only way your business works.

Finally, we're coming up on 12 years of no increases in the minimum wage. That alone should settle the argument. How long do conservatives want to keep it at $7.25? Until 2030? Maybe bump it up a dollar or so every couple of decades?

No one is supposed to be able to feed a family while working at McDonald’s.

Yes they are. Where did you read this rule that they're not supposed to be able to support themselves?

Strangerland: Yes they are. Where did you read this rule that they're not supposed to be able to support themselves?

I was thinking about the typical "family" model, parents and 2.4 kids or whatever it is these days. No one should expect one person to support 3-4 people working at the cash register at McDonalds. But we're at the point where one person can't support himself even if he puts in 40 hours a week forever.

No one really knows what will happen. Seattle is one example but it's just one example. Most economists believe it will lift people out of poverty while at the same time reducing hours (pay) for other workers. 

What many don't consider is that, because wages are so low, many people are working several jobs, exhausting them and keeping them too busy to raise a family.

To put it briefly, someone having one job that pays $15/hr is better than having two jobs that pay $7.25/hr.

I was thinking about the typical "family" model, parents and 2.4 kids or whatever it is these days. No one should expect one person to support 3-4 people working at the cash register at McDonalds.

What lifestyle should someone working at McDonalds expect?

Incorrect:

Data shows that the majority of small businesses have no negative impact from a minimum wage raise:

Wrong:

The Data and historical records especially and pertaining to the service industry has shown that raising the minimum wage greatly affects the consumer as well as small businesses in the overall sales and revenue

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/964172333/how-a-federal-minimum-wage-hike-would-affect-small-businesses

https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2019/07/17/federal-minimum-wage-hikes-could-crush-small-businesses-across-america/?sh=1070befa6eb1

The trouble is that the CBO report finds that some Americans will lose their jobs because of the minimum wage, too. “But 1.3 million other workers would become jobless, according to CBO’s median estimate,” adds the report. “There is a two thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero and a decrease of 3.7 million workers. The number of people with annual income below the poverty threshold in 2025 would fall by 1.3 million.” The CBO study also finds that minimum wage hikes will have a negative impact on small businesses. “A higher minimum wage reduces the family income of business owners to the extent that firms’ profits are reduced,” says the CBO report. “Those losses in business income are biggest in the first years after a higher minimum wage is introduced. Real income is also reduced for nearly all people because increases in the prices of goods and services weaken families’ 

Biden wants to kill more jobs. The guy is on the role and not even 2 months on the job....

Not for illegal immigrates though.

“But 1.3 million other workers would become jobless, according to CBO’s median estimate,” adds the report. “There is a two thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero and a decrease of 3.7 million workers. The number of people with annual income below the poverty threshold in 2025 would fall by 1.3 million.”

This vindicates what I said: when the minimum wage goes up, people stop living in poverty and can stop working two or more crappy jobs. Thanks for your pro-$15/hr argument, bass!

This vindicates what I said: when the minimum wage goes up, people stop living in poverty

And establishments go out of business, Raise the prices onto the consumer, or daily off the employees which put some back in either poverty conditions or leaves them we’re trying to take on two or three extra jobs, Which validates my first argument.

To be very clear, neither of these articles are evidence that hiking the minimum wage actually kills jobs.

Just take a stroll through downtown Seattle and then you can see for yourself, that’s the evidence right there you’re very own eyes and they just don’t lie...to be clear.

https://freebeacon.com/issues/report-15-minimum-wage-in-seattle-killed-jobs/

Yup!

https://freebeacon.com/issues/report-15-minimum-wage-in-seattle-killed-jobs/

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-free-beacon/

Overall, we rate the Washington Free Beacon Right Biased based on story selection that favors the right and Mixed for factual reporting due to misleading and false claims.

Nope.

The reality is, the vast majority of economists agree that a minimum wage hike would be largely benefitial to society in general.

The only people who strongly disagree are some politicians, some pundits and some randos on the internet.

And I for one would rather trust the opinion of actual economists on economical issues.