dmcheatw
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2011
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@DM - not going to quote your last post because it was pretty long. I don't disagree with many of your points, and I am not one of those arch-libertarian flag wavers that goes all Chicken Little about minimum wage increases - a minimum wage increase will not collapse the fast food industry or eliminate all fry cooks or destroy the economy, etc. etc. But I am convinced that the minimum wage has in fact reduced the number of low skill jobs available in this country, and increasing it will reduce those jobs further - at a time when, frankly, we need all the low skill jobs we can get.
Raising the standard of living of the working poor is important, they keep falling further behind due to inflation and other factors, and the current economic recovery is pretty much all going to the 1% while the rest of us stagnate. But I think that between the minimum wage, Obamacare, and a million other government mandates, we've loaded our employers with enough social welfare burdens. It's time to reform the safety net and fix the tax code so we all pay to support the poor, without the unintended consequences of loading more onto employers.
absolutely agreed, especially with the bolded. even if what i wrote worked, it would only apply to the cheapest end of the hospitality sector, so a very very narrow % of the working poor. i just mainly wanted to point out that however it's done, do it slowly and a lot of the problems go away. i am NOT in favor of giving fast food emps. an immediate 16/hr wage hike, but maybe increase their wage by a dollar a year, and adjust it for inflation and cost of living as specifically as can be done. min wage has always struck me as weird when not tied to cost of living since it varies so much between po dunk alabama and manhattan.
ofc if we can just provide real assistance for all those in need, including those already employed, we could actually theoretically then abolish min wages entirely.
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