> That's why minimum wage laws and workers rights are important.
How do you translate that into numbers? If $15/hr is better than $14/hr, wouldn’t $150/hr be 10x better, and if so, what’s wrong with a comfortable $1,500/hr?
Slippery slope / Straw-man fallacy. One is to do with tying the minimum wage to a livable wage. The other is just large numbers for the sake of trying to win an argument. No one is arguing for $150/hr. The argument is simply that you aught not to be able to run a business and extract a profit if the cost to do so is employing people at such a low wage that they require governmental handouts just to pay rent and eat food. Given that, imaginary large numbers like $150/hr or $1500/hr do not come into play and thus do not need to be considered.
Sure, different countries have different living standards. That's the point. "Living wage" is an undefined, ever changing concept. Populist to the core.
That is still better for society than not having the economic activity.
What exactly is the benefit of wholly depriving the putative worker of a job vs. making up the difference with something like food stamps and Medicaid?
Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company.
To "live" at what standard of living? A smartphone? A recent one? What standard of medical care? What about entertainment? What if someone wants only to eat organic, fair trade food?
When you pay for yourself, you're price sensitive and try to choose what makes sense for you. When you're not price sensitive, you run into a major incentive problem. If your life is funded by taxpayers, you have no reason not to argue that basic subsistence requires a lifestyle as expensive as you can get away with.
There’s obviously income thresholds for Medicaid, food stamps and other services. ACA clearly defines standard of medical care. Not sure what your asking because the government has already figured this out base on data.
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In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.
By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
"""
> A smartphone?
Yes
> A recent one?
Define "recent". One that has internet connectivity, allows you to install apps that are increasingly required today (banks, school, mail, auth etc.)
> What standard of medical care?
All of it except cosmetic. A.k.a. universal healthcare.
> What about entertainment?
What about it? Define entertainment. Let's do this way more broadly: how about vacations, sick leaves and parental leave?
> What if someone wants only to eat organic, fair trade food?
Yes. The poor cannot escape bad eating habits because (especially in the US) more often than not they have no access to healthy food, and healthy food is much more expensive than current government assistance can cover.
Demanding other people live in perpetual poverty with no safety nets, how is that not slavery.
BTW: Are you American, and do you by any chance identify as Christian? Because I've only seen two groups of people so hellbent on never helping their fellow man. American Christians and American libertarians.
You must have lived a horribly isolated life if those are the only groups you've ever seen this behavior from. Take a look at the EU and austerity measures if you want to see this kind of behavior on a large scale.
> All of it except cosmetic. A.k.a. universal healthcare.
I really wish people were more educated about this. In 2013, the US Government spent $4,981 PER PERSON (only $4,500 was privately funded per person) [1].
That is more government money per person than Sweden, Germany, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, etc (more than almost every first-world country).
The US has a pricing problem and a healthy-living problem. Almost 2/3 of all healthcare spending goes toward the obese 1/3 of the population [2].
Under 45, costs are less than 3k per person per year on average. The next 2 decades see prices soar to over double at almost 6.5k and over 65 they almost double again to 11.3k [3].
Why should I have to pay twice as much because someone else is overeating?
Put more interestingly, if obese people were denied government funds, the current amount of government spending at current prices would not only pay for EVERYONE, but would even have money left over (most likely gradually reaching equilibrium as those people lost weight to gain coverage).
> Why should I have to pay twice as much because someone else is overeating
Why do you pay for car insurance just because someone is driving recklessly? ;)
Also: as you correctly pointed out, the US spends more on healthcare than any other country. But people in those countries pay for obese people, too. And still...
Healthcare is a complex problem which should also include solutions for crazy amounts of sugar in American foods and drinks, better food in schools, better access to healthy foods for low-income families etc. etc.
> Why do you pay for car insurance just because someone is driving recklessly? ;)
I've paid much higher premiums than my sister simply because of my sex. If I get a speeding ticket, reckless driving, at-fault accident, or any number of things, my insurance will skyrocket enough to cover my added costs to the system (interesting, in my earlier years with my perfect record and despite my sister's many speeding tickets, I still wound up paying more for insurance for an equivalent vehicle).
EVERY insurance increases premiums for high-risk situations EXCEPT health insurance because reasons.
> But people in those countries pay for obese people, too. And still...
Obesity in the US happens at a much higher rate than other countries. My main point was that we are already super-socialized and the real issue lies elsewhere.
> EVERY insurance increases premiums for high-risk situations EXCEPT health insurance because reasons.
Of course, because reasons. Because health is a bit more complex than "you get a speeding ticket, you're a bad driver"
> My main point was that we are already super-socialized
You mean to say that the US already has super-socialized medical care? Erm, no. It's nowhere even close to being "super-socialized".
> and the real issue lies elsewhere.
Indeed. And I mentioned this in my comment:
Healthcare is a complex problem which should also include solutions for crazy amounts of sugar in American foods and drinks, better food in schools, better access to healthy foods for low-income families etc. etc.
Before punishing obese people the US should take quite a few steps towards helping people not become obese. Because even fast food is healthier in Europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMaW6TamNAc
> Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company.
No, the government is subsidizing the worker, and in a system of means-tested aid doing so less than it would be without the job.
If you can't employ people at wages that don't get them fully off public aid, then people can't get the jobs that let them build the skills to be employable at decent wages. Your plan is a recipe for (1) killing businesses and tax revenue that support public assistance, and (2) killing people's ability to move up and off of public assistance, so that for any given minimum standard of living we’ll need more public funds to reach it but have less available.
It's much better to tax capital returns and use the proceeds to support the un- and under-employed (whether permanent or transitional) then it is to block the onramps to people becoming employable at wages that are livable.
And that's even ignoring that Medicaid and other public assistance usually aren't based solely on individual income but household circumstance, so that the required minimum wage by that standard would be dependent on household circumstances, which is problematic.
It's expecting companies to subsidize misguided government policies. For example, if the government restricts housing (and implements rent control) which drives up prices, why should companies pay more to make sure people can afford housing costs? How about runaway inflation?
There's always talk about market failures when many times government failures are the true causal mechanism.
Thanks, that seems to be the most rational approach and can be tied to a specific formula.
I wonder why states/municipalities don't just leave it at that - a specific consumption basket whose cost is recalculated annually, vs having recurrent loud debates about it with some arbitrary round numbers.
> I wonder why states/municipalities don't just leave it at that - a specific consumption basket whose cost is recalculated annually, vs having recurrent loud debates about it with some arbitrary round numbers.
Because the level at which it is safe to set local minimum wage without net adverse effects from job loss depends on a variety of conditions besides price levels, including prevailing low-end wages in localities that compete to attract employment. Building a formula that fully addresses this is nontrivial, and even with one that worked locally there would be a reason for broader regional/national campaigns to kick the floor up.
I agree in spirit, but not in execution. What you suggest implies the necessity of discrimination between different workers in the same job, which I don't agree with.
I think the better solution is to set a reasonable rate, fix it to inflation, and use corporate taxes to fund social safety nets.
How do you translate that into numbers? If $15/hr is better than $14/hr, wouldn’t $150/hr be 10x better, and if so, what’s wrong with a comfortable $1,500/hr?
I think that’s where economists start to differ.