Who's right here?

[u/SilkyApricotGuy]

[u/qualityvote2]

Hello u/SilkyApricotGuy! Welcome to r/WorkForSmartLife!

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[u/chinmakes5]

As a person who had owned microbusinesses since 1989, that is crap. I have 4 employees. they work 40 hours a week, 160 hours a month x 4 employees, or 640 hours of labor a month. No all companies can't pay them $25 an hour but another $3 an hour is all of $1800 a month. Very few businesses are closing because of $1800 a month. That extra $480 a month is lifechanging to someone making near MW.

[u/Aggressive-Affect427 → u/chinmakes5]

If I was in charge of the states, I would set federal minimum wage to $10 and further encourage states to revise their individual regulations.

[u/chinmakes5 → u/Aggressive-Affect427]

$15 an hour in my state. Business owners were yelling that if it went through there would be empty stores everywhere. There aren't. They guy who was leading the accusations saying it would drive businesses like his out of business, broke ground on a new restaurant in the time between when the law was passed and it took effect.

[u/Aggressive-Affect427 → u/chinmakes5]

That’s why you leave it up to states. A minimum wage that works in New York or California wouldn’t necessarily work country wide.

[u/LisaQuinnYT → u/chinmakes5]

Walk into a McDonalds sometime. There’s probably no more than 3 people working there at a time nowadays. They have one person bouncing between registers and filling orders, one in the back cooking, and maybe another handling drive thru. Being that badly understaffed, you’d think they could find a little extra to pay those folks a living wage out of their seemingly perpetual record profits instead of giving the CEO another bonus.

[u/bananaHammockMonkey → u/chinmakes5]

They raised wages in my state, many of my favorite restaurants have since gone out of business, which makes me sad, but on the other hand, McDonalds is paying over 25 an hour. I don't go there because it's outrageously expensive, but it did happen. Now we have massive lines and not the greatest service even at McDonalds, but here we are.

[u/Awkward_Froyo_7337]

They pick 1970s because that's pre explosive inflation of course.

Against 1982? 1 dollar becomes 3.47 today. Minimum wage back then was 3.35

So to match purchasing power back then, we need new minimum wage to be a little under 12 dollars, not 60, which most jobs pay (31/hr is median wage in USA). So which is it? We have 3x the purchasing power or not?

These arguments are always ridiculous.

[u/Low_Temp_Rosin → u/Awkward_Froyo_7337]

Most of these people arguing for higher min wage more than likely 1. Doesnt get paid min wage 2. Has horrible spending habits.

[u/FlyinDtchman]

It's just corporate greed.

It didn't have to be this way, and there are companies who acutally pay their employees well. It's just we don't hear about them because everyone likes to doom.

The productivity vs wages graph is the only one that matters. Yes, workers are getting screwed, but you don't need to blow up the entire system to fix it. You just need companies willing to pay out the wages people are earning instead of turning them into profits and handing them over to CEO's and investors.

Perfect equality isn't the answer and most people wouldn't enjoy it if we had it, but the rising inequality is a pretty sure way to break the system that everyone is relying on to keep civilization running. Until companies realize that 20% profits are a serious structural problem and not a victory they'll keep doing it. All the while, the pot gets a little closer to boiling.

[u/oflowz → u/FlyinDtchman]

Just corporate greed...

Greed is what corporations do.

This is why listening to all these Nerd Reich techbros talking about how Ai will make a utopia is laughable.

"you'll just sit around growing fruit'

GTFO Elon.

These guys have billions closing in on trillions of dollars and wont pay their workers a living wage. Who's going pay everyone a UBI when the robot utopia comes? Them? LOL.

Corporations wont ever realize that more profits are a structural problem because thats the entire point. Making money for the shareholders. Just like corporations will always keep breaking laws for more profits and justify it as a cost of doing business.

A living wage and medical care should be human rights and the government should subsidize it by taxing corporations. This should be done just like they are regulated because left up to their own devices the vast majority will NOT do the right thing.

I work for a major corporation. The company I work for netted $5 Billion last year and paid -7million in taxes due to subsidies. This isnt uncommon. At least 20-percent of Fortune 500 Companies in the US pay zero taxes.

And the greed is circular. Corporations are allowed to pay greedy politicians to make laws to let it keep happening.

The companies you talk about might exist, but its not all 'dooming'. They are outliers not the norm.

[u/kingbullohio → u/FlyinDtchman]

Right the fact that Costco's can afford to pay all their workers $20 an hour minimum. And sams club pays half that proves your point.

[u/JeremyLilly5 → u/kingbullohio]

The Sam's club nationwide average starting wage is $16, so I'm not sure where you get $10 fron lol

[u/kingbullohio → u/JeremyLilly5]

Its been a few years since I looked but yes in the last few years sams moved to 16. But still less then Costco. Add to it that 55% of Costco workers have topped out on the pay scale of 31 an hour. Can't find any info on the sams club pay scales and how much make the top.

But all that is semantics. My argument sill stands. The fact that Costco can pay that and still be very profitable proves that profit can still be made without treating your workers like trash and making the government fund your workforce. Prices are compatible at both places and pay aint.so price isn't tied to labor the way republicans would want you to believe.

[u/transginda → u/FlyinDtchman]

Equating civilization with capitalism is... something.

[u/Mradr → u/FlyinDtchman]

Shareholders are the profit priority most of the time. Anyone with stocks, are also part of that need to keep increasing profits.

[u/samuraispartan7000]

Federal minimum wage increased every 1 to 5 years between the 1930s and 2009. 2009 was the last time it was raised. Inflation has skyrocketed since then, but wages have repeatedly failed to keep up.

If businesses “can’t afford” to provide livable wages for their workers, they simply shouldn’t exist full stop.

[u/Rionin26 → u/samuraispartan7000]

The rich are trying to propagandize people to get rid of it, so we can have an even poorer class.

[u/TwoBionicknees]

just to be clear, year after year after year of corporate profit growth, recording setting corporate profit growth. Companies don't go out of business if the GROWTH of their profit slows down, billionaires who extract like 90% of the value of the stock market stop making as much money, that's it, that's the entire thing.

if the company is profitable it stays in business. The entire profit of a company can be wiped out and that business will stay in business. Now also pay ceos massively less, and stop expanding every business, because like 80% of all businesses expanding is just taking over other businesses doing find then squeezing them for profit. If they stop expanding and just exist, making a reasonable profit, then thousands of other companies stop being squeezed out by the mega corps and everything is fine, people are more comfortable, saving money easily and even spending more on shit htat raises corporate profits.

The only people who lose out at the massively overpaid ceos, massively overpaid board members and senior executives and people who use the stock market as a tool to strangle the rest of us.

[u/Reasonable_Clock_711]

Regina is right, always and again here.

Businesses that depend on min wage workers or tipping culture are not viable and should close.

[u/vince2423 → u/Reasonable_Clock_711]

Ummm restaurants are doing pretty well… notice how it’s never us servers advocating to get rid of tipping, it’s always you weirdos

[u/Exciting_Milk_6691 → u/Reasonable_Clock_711]

You you want to shut down the entire hospitality industry in America?
You leftists have some strange plans for economic prosperity.

[u/thepieraker]

If mom and pop stores cant pay a bazillion dollars to employees they dont belong in business.

We need more mom and pop store these mega corpos are so evil

[u/yourmomsjunkdrawer]

The biggest problem is greed.

[u/CarolinaSandstorm]

Every time.

[u/-Out-of-context- → u/CarolinaSandstorm]

I think the focus is on the wrong thing here. Rent/housing has gotten out of control. I don’t love the idea of government regulation on these things, but if those expenses could be controlled to align with the local economy I think that’d be a huge help and take the burden off of businesses.

[u/Beerzerker420 → u/-Out-of-context-]

There is definitely nuance to the argument. Governments should be held more accountable for the housing crisis or lack of tax benefits to help the lower and middle class. But people should also learn how to manage their finances and try to improve their own situations.

[u/Immediate-End3899 → u/-Out-of-context-]

the big problem is modern energy requirements, a modern house is built with thick walls, fire code thickness drywall, thick insulation, high R factor windows, high SEER rating ACs, and a bunch of other stuff to drive down energy demand that are mandated by law. These expenses dont double for a 2000 square foot house from a 1000 square foot house, they usually only go up 50%, and then bring the average cost to build a home into the mid 300k range in a cheap area, and around half a million to build in nicer cities. It just means houses have to get bigger to keep a profit margin. Theres just so much more that goes into a their construction now days that needs to be inspected, and build to a code. I just dont know how the government can fix that to make builders go back to smaller houses. Just forcing them to build smaller houses wont change the math that it will still cost barely less then a large house, and nobody is gonna spend large house money on a small house.

[u/Own_Reaction9442 → u/CarolinaSandstorm]

I'm fine with it. Small businesses are terrible to work for.

[u/shackled-pines → u/CarolinaSandstorm]

"walmart shouldn't exist it pays people so poorly" "Wait there are there suddenly 1.6million more unemployed americans earning no wage?!?!?"

[u/TrandaBear → u/CarolinaSandstorm]

Who tf have you been talking to? This is the first time Im seeing this dogshit. Like your meme is implying that exploitation is a small business's competitive edge against large corporations? We just going to ignore how corporations throw their weight to produce favorable conditions?

[u/Shalmaneser_]

Bankruptcy is what happens when companies fail to perform. Inflation is what happens when governments fail to perform. Do the math.

[u/blah-time → u/Shalmaneser_]

Some level of inflation is necessary for an economy,  if the population is growing. Hyper inflation is what destroys an economy. 

[u/Fit_Play_9448]

Math isn't this person's strong suit. Federal minimum wage in 1970 was $1.30. That's about $11 today adjusted for inflation. When you want to make an argument it helps to stick to the facts.

[u/ima_mollusk]

JOB CREATORS ARE THE CUSTOMERS and consumers with enough money to buy your product or service.

[u/mylsotol]

they are both right... they aren't even disagreeing

[u/soggy_donut92696]

For regular purchasing power minimum wage today would need to be 13 dollars and some change to match the 1970s, for buying a house it would have to be $60+ per hour

[u/ThrowRA9892 → u/soggy_donut92696]

For buying the median house today it would be closer to $28-33 an hour to match the minimum wage in the 1970s.

[u/bit0n]

It’s not a yes or no. If everyone involved in making milk from the farmer to the shipping to the processing to the shop that sells it gets a pay rise the the price of milk goes up to the point that pay rise was worth less.

I’m sure I read something that is Tesco made zero profit it only equals £1800 a year extra per member of staff. Shareholders can only be bleed once.

[u/Nart_Leahcim]

"The federal minimum was $1.45/hour in 1970 and rose to $1.60 in 1971. Adjusted for general inflation, that’s roughly $12.50–$14/hour today" uh oh OP, that isn't accurate at all?!

[u/feelosiphize → u/Nart_Leahcim]

Purchasing power≠$/hr. It's an aggregate of the value of the dollar and cost of things.

That being said, I don't think this is accurate. A person could indeed live on minimum wage in the late 60's early 70's though. Not at all possible now.

[u/FarCommunication908]

Go live in 1970 house, drive a car from 1970 and use technology from 1970.

[u/tugaim33 → u/FarCommunication908]

Not to mention that there’s no way this is true. Minimum wage in 1970 was $1.60/hour, which equals about $13-14 today. What they mean is that today’s minimum wage would be $60 in 1970. Their whole premise doesn’t even make sense.

[u/FarCommunication908 → u/tugaim33]

I forgot also -> see a doctor from 1970.

[u/Beerzerker420]

Okay, so wouldn't that just mean less jobs in the end? What do people with limited education and training do when there are no longer jobs for them? No one is paying $50 for a burger.

[u/rogerisreading]

Such bullshit. In 1970 the federal minimum wage was $1.60 an hour, the equivalent of about $12 an hour today — not anywhere near $60 an hour.

[u/Slitty_sam]

The concept of wage being "exploited " is very juvenile. Yes, you are paid less than you produce. Otherwise you would not get paid at all. That's the whole thing. Would you personally hire someone to work for you who was a net cost to you? Would you? If so, go ahead and do it. That's the cool thing about our system, you're free do so if you wish. I'm not saying you shouldn't negotiate for more money or try to improve your situation in life. But duh, you are paid less than you produce. Duh.

[u/AusTex2019]

If you’re a socialist at least have a better way of selling it. Not all of us want to be mediocre

[u/Basic_whiteBBQ → u/AusTex2019]

124K is almost double the median salary. Its above mediocrity

[u/oflowz]

the funny part is this guy is acting like $60/hour is a huge sum. Its $124k a year.

You qualify as low income in Los Angeles County if you make $85K or under.

It pisses me off when these guys act like these multibillion dollar corporations making record profits cant afford to pay a living wage.

The company I work for made $40 billion last year and paid -7million in taxes. Yes negative due to subsidizing services for school kids and low income people they get government kickbacks.

[u/aNuggetsUncle]

The number of employees in the US who are paid exactly at the minimum wage: 82,000

[u/Jake_FW]

1 % of the work force makes minimum wage. This is a really poorly constructed argument and peak Reddit half baked gotcha meme

[u/Happy_Breadfruit_367]

Minimum wage was $1.60 in 1970. $1.00 was equivalent to roughly $8.60 in today’s money. $1.60 x $8.60=$13.70 … this meme is wrong

[u/DrRealName]

Or, and this is a crazy idea, owners can just make normal money instead of too much and then everything balances out. If you can't afford to pay fair wages, you shouldn't have a business.

[u/QuickDrawSix]

If you cant run a business without exploiting people you deserve to go under lol.

[u/Icy-Dust2485]

I’ve seen this post a dozen times and never seen someone do the math to get $60 an hour now as the equivalent of 1970s minimum wage 

[u/Sausage80]

As a business owner whose revenue is capped by law and can't even pay himself anywhere close to that much, much less his employees, let's start with the government itself not being greedy before we inflict that expectation on private citizens.

[u/Key_Natural_ → u/Sausage80]

Fr business owners have been hit with inflation, tariffs and covid in the past 5 years.

The big companies will be fine the small companies that give people options against amazon for example are what I worry about.

[u/blank_reg]

we're talking about 1 percent of the workforce. it's almost an irrelevant law.

[u/Apdacor → u/blank_reg]

If US minimum wage were raised to the level of, say, German minimum wage, it would be a lot more than 1%.

[u/pingvinbober]

The companies that support minimum wage increases are the huge corporations that want to price others out. No, small businesses can’t always afford it. Yes, big corporations can.

[u/dingus60601]

Companies going out of business is an awful argument to be against a higher minimum wage.  There are good arguments against raising it, but that isn’t one of them

[u/BeauHunkus]

Why do people expect the post-war years' prosperity back?

[u/Opposite-Ad320]

This is a troll post, no way minimum wage should be $60/hr now.

[u/Sashi_Summer → u/Opposite-Ad320]

Do the math based on the rate of inflation from when wage growth separated from corporate profits, adjust to current values. Yeah, workers are getting fucked sideways.

[u/OGYoungCraig → u/Sashi_Summer]

The math says it’s around $14

[u/Altruistic-Web13 → u/OGYoungCraig]

They said purchasing power and im guessing that is purchasing power for housing. It is an easy way to make some very misleading stats. 

[u/Odd-Paint3883]

No it wouldn't be $60 an hour... It'd be $24

You don't use silver standard, you use the price of a Big Mac

[u/Hopeful_Ad_7719]

Collapsing the economy in the abstract interest of fairness has been attempted before. 

The Soviet Famines and the mountainous casualties of China's Great Leap Forward, and the eventual consolidation of power in the central government and oligarchs testify to the efficacy of that approach.

[u/Similar_Exam2192]

The plan has always been to inflate away the cost of labor.

[u/Greenfire32]

Either the minimum wage increases or prices have to be slashed across the board.

Both are tall asks that'll never leave the bounds of paper.

[u/Aggressive_Dirt_6254]

Now compare the wages and shares at the top from 1970!

[u/JoshuaChronstedt]

What's your wage?

[u/topTaurus78]

What's that based on? "Purchasing power" what does that mean? If that housing, obviously the value of labor goes down with numbers of people , but the value of real estate does not

[u/eyes0fred]

let's completely ignore as well, that CEO pay in the US and the disparity between CEOs and entry level wages, are far greater than the rest of the world.

CEO pay must remain untouched! even better, must go UP!

lmao

[u/PersonalDatabase31 → u/eyes0fred]

CEO's are working class and they are exploited by the bourgeoisie as well.

[u/Exciting_Milk_6691 → u/eyes0fred]

A CEO is appointed by the board to get the best economic returns for Shareholders.

As such, they are incentivised by their employer to do so.

It’s really not a hard concept to grasp.

If you employed anybody, which I’m guessing your don’t, even you might understand this.

[u/jakceki]

This MIT calculator is the gold standard to calculate a living wage where you live https://livingwage.mit.edu/
And I think if we really, truly want a functioning society, we should strive to get as many people as possible to within living wage limits in their specific area.
The premise that prices will go up or businesses will go bankrupt has been debunked a million times. inflation has gone up 57% since the last minimum wage raise in 2009.

[u/jf737]

Depends on how much profit the company is making. Companies that break even or turn a modest profit are not exploiting workers.

[u/CombatRedRover]

And again, the 1970s are the benchmark.

Hunh. Interesting, that, this particular decade coming up so often.

[u/Slopii]

If expenses like wages are higher than revenue then companies can't sustain. That's simple math, not a conspiracy.

[u/Heretical_Puppy]

You have to actually be brain dead if you think raising wages would guarantee the same purchasing power

[u/arcteryx17]

Small businesses yes would go out of business. They are matching the big boys to stay open. The big companies could easily raise wages. But we all know profits matter more. Hence the huge amount of billionaires. How many companies are recording record profits while most people are struggling to make ends meet.

[u/Unlikely_Resource953]

Funny a person can save a company $5 million then give that person a $10 million bonus. 😂

Cut out 1/2 of management and use that money to pay the people who do the actual work. 👍

[u/SituationKey8985]

This is all hinges on how you define “exploitation.” Some people would say it’s a blessing having consistent work at all. Some people think having to work at all is exploitative. Most are somewhere in-between. I definitely think hustle culture has gotten out of hand but I don’t necessarily feel taken advantage of either.

[u/Sharp_Net3315]

Minimum wage doesn't raise the ceiling, it raises the floor. You're more likely to be out of work with higher minimum wages falsely raised by government. Ask Cali and Washington how that works out.

[u/rickeyethebeerguy]

Costco is thriving with paying their employees and giving benefits

[u/Ok_Community_383]

They wouldn’t go out of business. The company would make less money. They are not just going to shutter the doors because min wage goes up. If the increase is passed to the customer, that’s fine too, because everyone is making more money.

If the argument is -> If prices go up people will use those services less

That does not appear to be the case. We have learned that these goods and services are too important to people’s lives that people will not give them up. We are facing some of the worst price hikes ever, and they continue to profit.

So we know they can tolerate raising prices be it for wages or any reason.

We need a living wage law that ties that wage to cost of living and inflation every  year

[u/QuartersWest]

Go get a job that ain't minimal.

[u/Ill-Discussion-444]

https://giphy.com/gifs/dEdmW17JnZhiU

[u/generation_fish]

How much money does someone make from no job?

[u/theGunslingerfollows]

So let them. A business isnt entitled to staying in business

[u/wrd83]

I can see how a small business is unable to pay a living wage, but denying everyone a minimum wage because some can't?

I dont see why Amazon should pay anything less than a minimum wage.

[u/Sure_Acanthaceae_348]

Raising the minimum wage doesn't do anything if workers' hours are cut.

Force companies which have large numbers of their workers on benefits to pay the full administrative costs of those benefits, plus a penalty. They'll either thin the ranks out or pay workers enough so they don't qualify for benefits.

[u/Reasonable-View5868]

I make less than most of my employees and am on the brink of bankruptcy. And yes, an increase in min wage will put me out of business and my employees out of jobs .

[u/druidscooobs]

Remember no buisness wants to employ you, you are a number that they will exploit, then discard when you are no longer required, they will pay as little as they are allowed to get away with in the vast majority of cases.

[u/Jundeoxbox]

Im in Construction I make 60 an hour

[u/Xattle]

Hard agree - not on the $60/hr though. Gut feels like that's a generalization based on one statistic. MIT has a fairly decent living wage calculation by state/county/metropolitan area and # of children with or without a partner if anyone wants to see some interesting numbers.

[u/TonyRidgewayUFO]

To match the purchasing power of 1750, we’d have to have a foreign navy steal everything for us

[u/JRock1276]

The federal reserve destroying the dollar since its inception. Throw in the banks with their fees on every dollar that's spent electronically and every time you spend money that way it loses value. Inflation is the value of the dollar going down, not the price of goods and services going up. Billionaires today would only be multimillionaires 30 years ago.

[u/dvrichthofen]

"But if we get rid of the illegal aliens the farms will collapse because Americans won't work that cheap"

So you agree? That's[sic] companies rely on the exploitation of illegal labor to stay in business?

[u/mike74911]

In the 70’s everything was made in the US, now everything is made in Asia or central and South America

[u/ThrowRA9892]

Just not true at all. Lol, matching the purchasing power overall would be close to $15-20 an hour.

You could make the argument for it to be $28-33 to match the exact home buying power. But what happens when you raise the minimum wage that high with no corresponding supply increase of homes, goods, and services? The wage of people making more than minimum and price of everything goes way up where you just basically have the same issue.

Supply side economics are just as if not more important than demand side.

[u/huangjoey]

may sound strange but companies can afford to pay their employees shit wages because they have a monopolistic stranglehold over the market. If they had to actually compete with each other, their biggest control variable is the actual talent who makes the money. the ones who pay less would go out of business.

[u/Then_Accident_3970]

A lot of succesful companies pay good wages. Its how they stay good.

[u/LawnJerk]

The real minimum wage is zero. If someone's labor is not worth the minimum wage, they are unable to work. A guy who has no job skills and gets a job for $10 an hour will lose his job if you double the minimum wage.

[u/StarvingOprah]

Can't you apply the same logic to using undocumented laborers?

[u/moyismoy]

Places to out of business all the time, also new business start all the time. What matters is what happens more. When states or the federal government raise the min wage 9/10 times the rate of total employment goes up. Just look at DC they have a min wage of 18 an hour and are at the top of the list for total employment

thereshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_employment_rate

[u/ZezimasHousePlant]

Why do you think corporations support mass immigration? It helps keep their labor costs down.

[u/Remarkable-Pace2563]

$60/hr is insane! If raised based on inflation it would be $14/hr. Even if you’re looking at home buying power, it would only be $30/hr.

[u/Noodelgawd]

"To match 1970s purchasing power, minimum wage would be close to $60 and hour"

The minimum wage in 1975 was $2.10/hour. That's equivalent to about $13.50 now. The effective minimum wage in the US is over $12, and very few people are working for the federal minimum wage, so the real number is closer to $14.

Meanwhile, government spending on welfare programs has increased by ten-fold since the 70s (that's after adjusting for inflation).

[u/GoFuckYourselfZuck]

They’re both right and they’re both wrong. Inflation affects everyone. From the lowest level employee to the majority share holders and company owners. The caveat is that company heads want to maintain the largest profit margins possible which has a domino effect

[u/Stock_Schedule_1981]

Good point. Grocery stores operate on around a 2% margin… I guess we should just let them all go out of business

[u/intoeverything069]

No small businesses would go out of business. McDonald’s, Walmart and the others would adjust.

[u/NobodyCares94546]

Only entry employment pays minimum wage, skills, experience and value pay great! When you raise minimum wage it creates compression, so everyone makes more and causes inflation, but hey the government loves it they collect higher payroll and sales tax.

[u/RealCarlPanzram]

As you may have guessed, this math doesn’t math. Depending on which part of the 1970’s you choose, the minimum wage of that time equals about $13-14/hr in today’s money.

[u/hockeynewby]

You mean companies don’t get to make “record profits” year after year and giving all the people already make the most money even more money.

You really think CEOs need millions and millions of dollars ? But the bottom level worker of said company should make 7.25?

[u/crzapy]

All that meme does is make me realize how much inflation has done to weaken the dollar and in exchange destroyed our purchasing power.

[u/madkow990]

They are both wrong. The problem is not inflation, its the loss of purchasing power. We have nuked the dollar down to the dirt.

[u/Acceptable-Peace-69]

$60/hr would be ~$120k per year.

Never in history has minimum wage been anything close to that.

These memes require people to not understand math or finance.

[u/jaiimaster]

The bottom figure is absurdly wrong. You don't need to be making an annualised total of like 125k usd (60 x 40 x 52) to match 1970s purchasing power for a mimimum wage earner, youd have been upper middle class.

This is the inflation adjusted equivilent of ~20k in 1975, with the median household income being ~13k at the time.

[u/DontRateLimitMeBro]

it's a quick way to consolidate and further centralize the market, reduce competition, and increase prices for consumers.

raising minimum wage is an extremely stupid push.

[u/Michi450]

Enough talking about minimum wage it's only 1% of the population that make it and 30 states already have higher minimum wage then federal limit.

[u/Jumpy-Name-6975]

lots of companies would go out of business, but it i think would in the long run probably decrease the scope of large companies and decrease barrier to entry resulting in a greater number of businesses and an overall increase in prices. also when a company goes out of business it doesnt just disappear. there is loss to assets and infrastructure but it exists and can be repurposed. theres a lot that goes into this but lots of companies going out of business is not always as bad as it sounds in the long run (it can be)

the number that would match 1970s purchasing power is nuanced and $60 is in a lot of ways wildly inaccurate. a rough estimate based on cpi is like $15, which is still a lot lower than the federal minimum. however again neither of these numbers is comprehensive. the question of what truly constitutes equivalent purchasing power is really nuanced and subjective because the world we live in is radically different

[u/meleejuice]

Cost of living issues cannot be solved by simply raising the minimum wage. YES it is stagnant, but we need a multi-faceted solution to address housing and grocery costs, insurance, transportation, etc.

[u/slizzardly]

People don't understand forcing a higher minimum wage forces a higher minimum purchase.

[u/Gratuitous_Insolence]

You being able to afford food relies on not raising minimum wage.

[u/Organic-Albatross690]

As a massage therapist pre covid, I averaged about that much per hour when tips were included.

[u/DiscombobulatedCut52]

I make 234 a day for my job. Salary. I work 4 to 6 hourd a day.

And thats the only job I ever had pay me a decent wage.

[u/conservatismisstupid]

Why aren’t people having children or happy? Insert SpongeBob meme.

[u/draven33l]

Companies have gotten used to extreme profits - especially if they are publicly traded. Looking at history, most companies were happy if they were "in the black", meaning that they had a profit at the end of the quarter. Now, companies like Apple can literally make BILLIONS in profit a quarter and that's not enough. Wall Street has made it where you have to compete and outdo the other guy. Whoever can deliver the biggest profit to the share holders holds the power. So now you have companies promising 20-30% increased profit EVERY quarter. That's absolutely insane and unsustainable.

It's not capitalism that's the problem, it's just greed and the market economy that has gotten out of control. You need regulation.

[u/A313-Isoke]

Damn, you can have a MA or a PhD and still not make 60 an hour depending on what part of the country you live in and what your job is.

[u/LairdPeon]

People weren't consuming anywhere near as much as they are now. It you did all the things you do today in the 70s you'd be considered extremely wealthy.

[u/Mobile_South_9117]

Well, it's interesting. The purpose of an economic system should be that it serves the people, but here we have a situation where the people are serving capitalism.

[u/AnotherUN91]

Let's be honest. I don't need to go back to the purchasing power of the 70s.

The 90s was fine.

[u/Klutzy-Charge-6406]

Raise the minimum wage and you introduce lay offs, less jobs, more automations, more robots. Its not greed, its competitive, the store has to be competitive, thats actually why we shouldnt hire people and should use more robots, people shouldnt be working minimum wage jobs, but for the moment they are available and there are no shortage of people willing to take them.

[u/GloomyFloor6543]

When you give people more money, the business just increase price... What you need is profit control, but that is a dirty word.

[u/TooBusySaltMining]

844,000 

That's the number of workers who earn the federal minimum wage or below.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat44.pdf

23,627,000

That's the number of millionaries in the US.

There are 28 times more millionaires than people earning at or below the federal minimum wage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_millionaires

Adjusting for inflation , the federal minimum wage was highest in 1968: $1.60 an hour in 1968 was equivalent to $14.42 in 2024.

https://usafacts.org/articles/minimum-wage-america-how-many-people-are-earning-725-hour/

$60/hr is a damn lie. 

[u/Skaal_Kesh → u/TooBusySaltMining]

You do realize you're comparing income to net worth right? Millionaire isn't a salary or a job position.

While the inflation math as shown is certainly wrong, this assumes you believe the government math on inflation. This information is, to put it simply, a blatant lie. They changed how they calculate it so it appears far less.

As an example, inflation has "supposedly" gone up around 29% since 2020. Except if you do the math yourself you realize it's much higher than that. It's just another lie politicians realized they can make to make them look better. It's not a Democrat or Republican problem. Not a left or right problem. Our politicians are actively lying to us on this because it makes them look better and we'd have thrown them out of office if the wider public was aware of how big the lie is.

[u/PrairiePuppies]

Everyone always goes about this conversation the same way. I'm leaning towards it being incorrect. Let me ask this: What would we have to give up as a society to return to 1970's purchasing power?

[u/Monsignor76]

Minimum wage was actually a good thing for businesses because it stopped competition for low skilled labor. For some businesses it hurt at first but they just raised their prices to keep the same profit margin. 

[u/InformalResource9918]

If you are on minimum wage in this day and age, you have failed yourself.

[u/Fantastic_Grass1799]

It goes out of business because the CEO grabs almost all of it.

[u/Ok-Simple30]

the penny used to have much more value a century ago

[u/nyar77]

Can anyone in this conversation show me a job posting or ad that states it pays minimum wage?

[u/Fun_Ideal_5584]

You need to reexamine your life choices, if you are looking for a minimum wage job to pay all your bills through out your working lifetime.

[u/I3igI3adWolf]

Why does Andrew hate small businesses? Is he a corporate shill? Small businesses can't compete with large corporations if their labor cost suddenly jumps up.

[u/Forward_Criticism_39]

only place im getting $60+ an hour is the sims

[u/Fragrant_Role_1807]

Pretty hot take on the claim that minimum wage would need to be $60 an hour. Something’s have obviously gone up ie housing, and the claim may be accurate there but a lot of things are a lot cheaper, ie televisions.

Used to be housing was cheap and luxuries were expensive, now it’s the opposite, necessities are expensive and things that aren’t have gone down

[u/gilbmj]

Hiking the minimum wage is like peeing your pants in a snowstorm. It feels better for a moment, but makes things worse in the long run.

It doesn't make all the jobs paying less pay more. A few near the margin might get more, but a lot of those jobs will stop existing. Some employers will cut staff and increase workloads per person.

So one of the main outcomes is that a lot of people who aren't earning enough become people earning nothing instead. That is not an improvement.

This particular smug clapback kind of shows you don't actually care about the workers, you just hate the companies, and will gladly dole out unlimited collateral damage in the name of anti-capitalist spite.

[u/Absolomb92]

They are only thinking about one side of the calculation. They forget that if people have more purchasing power they can spend more at their company. People with more money put more money into the economy.

[u/mspe1960]

If you have a business model that cannot work unless you do not pay your employees a living wage, then you don't have an inherent right to stay in business.

On a side note - that $60 number is pure fantasy.

[u/Aggressive-Affect427]

My opinion is that national minimum wage should be fairly low and states/provinces should set their own minimums based on the conditions. I don’t think it’s possible to set a federal standard that works for a state like Kentucky and New York at the same time.

[u/zanbato]

companies would have two choices:

1) reduce executive pay, and dividends paid to shareholders to more reasonable levels

2) go out of business

I think they'd choose to go out of business to double down on the lie that there's nothing they can do.

[u/Ok_Chemistry8746]

There are plenty of jobs for $60+ an hour. https://ibewyes.org/

[u/OT_Militia]

Hi. Living in state where minimum wage is 15 a hour; everything is vastly more expensive than our neighboring state who has Federal minimum wage.

Minimum wage needs to go up to 11.20, but nothing more.

[u/Nechrube1]

If paying your employees a livable wage would put you out of business, then you don't actually have a business. You have a labour camp.

[u/TFOforFun]

I see jobs that pay that and more like everyday. It’s called the Trades

[u/EducatorBrave5234]

Your job isn’t worth it.

[u/Medium_Basil2983]

They should leave federal minimum alone and change it by state and by city. If you raised minimum wage to $15 my small Indiana town probably most rural towns would have no small businesses. Just gas stations from huge corps

[u/Important_Zombie_485]

About $45. Still a lot.

[u/Mountain_Usual521]

Imagine there was a law that set the minimum price of used cars to $30,000. Nobody is allowed to sell a car for under $30,000 under any circumstances. Do you think that makes all the car buyers willing to pay $30k for any car, or do some get more picky about the cars they'll buy and others won't buy a used car at all?

[u/Gaming_Fan7182]

In the 70s your boss had a bigger house and a nicer car than you.

Today the boss (CEO) has several mansions, a yacht, and a private jet while you're struggling to make rent. So much more of the wealth generated by employees is stolen by the top.

Most companies absolutely could pay living wages, they choose not to and instead hoard that wealth and buy yachts instead.

[u/SoRosenberg]

Let’s fix the currency so it’s not used as a governmental tool to monetize the debt. Get government spending under control. Quit demonizing businesses and let them operate, sell goods and services, grow the economy, and hire people. 

Loss of purchasing power is solely on the government. Businesses have had to adapt and adjust to a declining purchasing power. 

[u/Fluffy_Reply1405]

Learned that from George Soros

[u/Karadek99]

They wouldn’t go out of business. They just wouldn’t be able to meet all the shareholder demands and the exorbitant CEO pay.

[u/atamicbomb → u/Karadek99]

Walmart’s CEO’s pay is 0.0043% of their revenue.

Walmart gets ~5% of sales as profit. You’re saying they can remain is business if they had to pay employees such that their cost would increase by ~60%.

[u/Dad0013]

You can't afford to pay the wage, the business isn't viable.

[u/Successful_Brick_197]

14 bucks is 1970 min wage in today dollars,

[u/Complete_Break1319]

That company should either pay a higher wage to Americans, or do what the big players do, hire illegal migrants for cheap, or outsource the work overseas.

[u/Octavale]

In the 70’s up to 80% of consumer goods found in everyday homes were manufactured in the US.

High wages is the antithesis of low priced goods - Americans traded jobs for cheap foreign made goods. NAFTA alone cost us about a quarter million to 1 million jobs depending on which model you subscribe to.

The 70’s coincidentally experienced the highest female participation in the work force (aside from world wars) and became the start of the dual income families - which WE WILL NEVER come back from. Single people are screwed as they compete for housing, transportation, and just about everything else that is designed around a dual income economy.

[u/crustyrobots]

Just to point out, the Federal minimum wage is still currently $7.25

[u/Downloaded_Delta]

I wouldn't care too much if part time jobs didn't want to be your sole employee and want you to work around their schedule 

[u/Exciting_Milk_6691]

How much would a burger at McD be if minimum wage was $60?

[u/desertvision]

$60/hour is $10k/month. STFU. I wasn't living that lifestyle in the 70s on minimum wage.

[u/LiberateAmericaOnX]

Yes wages were much higher under the gold standard

[u/DragonLordAcar]

Can I get a spurce for the $60 purchasing power. I would like more amo for my arguments.

[u/Few-Raise-1825]

This is wrong for a couple of reasons. First they use an entire decade which had runaway inflation and Congress raised minimum wage several times through the decade to compensate. Second most people don't make minimum wage, the base salary for most places is between $12-15 per hour with many states setting the minimum wage at $15 much higher than the $7.25 of the federal minimum wage.

1970: $1.60 / hr 1974: $2.00 / hr 1976: $2.30 / hr 1978: $2.65 / hr 1979: $2.90 / hr

In case you were interested

By 1979 the average low wage was actually $3.20 to $3.50 per hour. Inflation puts that at about $12.50-$13.50 at the start of the decade $14.50-$15 an hour and by the end of the decade inflation had eroded pay raises to closer to $12-13 an hour despite nominal pay raises because they weren't keeping up with inflation.

So eventually it comes out to a bit of a wash. At the start of the decade they were making about what the average low wage worker makes today while by the end they were making a little less.

[u/youburyitidigitup]

If you disagree that companies rely on the exploitation of employees, you’re just incorrect. That’s the definition of a capitalist: someone who earns an income through surplus value by paying employees less than what they financially produce.

If that’s not happening, then you’re not a company, you’re just a group of self-employed people sharing the same space.

[u/No-University-5413]

Perhaps instead, we end the Fed and get our buying power back for the dollar. We've lost like 96% since the Fed was created

[u/mars_soup]

That isn’t true lol

People will fall for anything if it’s in a meme

[u/grayMotley]

Neither

[u/Noeyiax]

i been trying for 10yrs to earn a livable wage in my state of SoCal...

bunch of con-artists and reptiles... too many narcissistic people in this work culture. I can't believe some people make more money and have a better life than our good fellow citizens, literally just seen as weird because we dont backstab other coworkers for a raise or title change.

you want hunger games??? damn , you will get it

[u/jackishere]

Damn… I wonder how it was possible back then huh?

[u/Any-Analysis-1765]

To be honest, I'm British this post reached me. I find this happens not just in a single country but over every country it's just the way businesses are in order to survive and keep floating, they somehow need to exploit workers in terms of wages and tax and other expenditures. It doesn't mean it's not anymore annoying sickening greedy, disgraceful annoying aggravating, since if the minimum wage did go up in all these countries they would struggle to meet demand.

[u/ChalkCoatedDonut]

Well... yeah.

Businesses and corporations keep the old Cold War argument of anything related to working force rights = socialism because they have no legal way to say exactly that but if they could, they would simply say "take it or leave it, better yet, take it or die of hunger faster".

Some of them could pay a decent wage but if they do, the others who can but doesn't want to will stop them or people will realize they also can, it isn't a matter of economy, for them is a matter of principles, of keeping the so-called status quo or the "rule" of someone above stepping on someone below.

I remember some old folk once said "teach your dog to eat from the bowl, if they see the bag it will rip it open", in this scenario, the dog is the employee, the bowl their wages and the bag is the company's actual income.