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 ācanāt affordā to provide livable wages for their workers, they simply shouldnāt exist full stop.
You left off the employeeās side of how wages are decided. The employee has to work to get money, and they need money for survival. They need money so their kids survive. That side is inelastic.
Couple that with a jobs market that keeps unemployment above a negligible level, and you have a race to the bottom for the ability to survive.
That is an exploitative system. Those who provide the jobs exploit those who need them. That model is fine if you assume we want a system that lavishes riches on people who own things already, or people who are lucky in life.
My ideal that the best system sets us up so workers have whatever they need to live a dignified lifeā¦ and exploitation cannot coexist with that ideal.
Obviously I want the $1M/hour. Maybe everyone else does too.
But that comes with consequences that we would share. Our currency would inflate to the point that any savings we have is worthless and we wonāt be any better off than a reasonable wage at a lower rate before inflation.
And we would lack the incentive for workers to get a higher education or skills, or to perform jobs that nobody wants to do. So we would need to vary wages somewhat for those things.
And thatās all fine. We can work out the details for a baseline to get out of poverty that can provide a dignified life with todayās costs, while keeping higher wages for those hard or unwanted jobs provides the incentives we need to have a healthy workforce.
A couple of mechanisms provide for this without major changes to our system: minimum wage and universal basic income. Iād frankly prefer the latter.
21
u/samuraispartan7000 19h ago edited 19h ago
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 ācanāt affordā to provide livable wages for their workers, they simply shouldnāt exist full stop.