Why the U.S. needs a $15 minimum wage [or some process / tool to provide an adequate living standard for ALL Americans]
How the Raise the Wage Act would benefit U.S. workers and their families
Fact Sheet • January 26, 2021
https://www.epi.org/publication/why-america-needs-a-15-minimum-wage/
"The federal minimum hourly wage is just $7.25 and Congress has not increased it since 2009. Low wages hurt all workers and are particularly harmful to Black workers and other workers of color, especially women of color, who make up a disproportionate share of workers who are severely underpaid. This is the result of structural racism and sexism, with an economic system rooted in chattel slavery in which workers of color—and especially women of color—have been and continue to be shunted into the most underpaid jobs."
First reaction is people will lose their jobs because business will have to let go employees. This is a situation American businesses and our government created and accepted, essentially a circular argument amounting to servitude.
Businesses can only survive and employ people if they do not pay them enough to pay their minimum living costs. If we pay employees enough to live on, we cannot employ them.
This conundrum must be solved in favor of better living conditions, and to eliminate America's version of "capitalism" for the rich [IRS & loans] in the name of "jobs," & tax breaks / subsidies for corporations in the name of "jobs for poor," pull yourself up by your bootstraps for the poor, i.e., servitude.
It is my sense the minimum wage should be tied to cost of livings.
Minimum wage hikes are increasingly tied to cost of living
Mitchell Hartman Dec 26, 2019
https://www.marketplace.org/2019/12/26/minimum-wage-hikes-increasingly-tied-to-cost-of-living/
"
When the New Year rings in on Jan. 1, the federal minimum wage will still be the same as it was the day before: $7.25 an hour. Since it was last raised by Congress in 2009, inflation has cut its purchasing power by 17%.
Meanwhile as 2020 begins the minimum wage will increase in 47 state, city, and county jurisdictions around the country. It will be at or above $15 per hour in 17 of those jurisdictions, according to a report by the National Employment Law Project.
This patchwork of minimum wages is thanks to the fact that while Congress sets the minimum wage for the whole country, state and local jurisdictions can set higher local minimums, where they aren’t legally prohibited."
The federal law should set up a formula to balance
1. cost of living,
2. inflation both local and nationally, and
3. Medicaid and other welfare provided by each state as each state differs one from the other,
SO the wage paid to workers meets a minimum living standard, with wage income foremost, and, if deemed reasonable, elements like earnest charity and religious support, climate, weather, and maybe even subjective choices made by American workers, perhaps to add or subtract, e.g., work habits, health & education choices.
What is the point of a minimum wage? If it is to sustain life, then it has to sustain life.
How do Western Nations prosper with higher minimum wages than America?
Countries with a higher minimum wage than the United States’ $7.25 an hour include Denmark at $21, Australia at $15.81, Germany at $11 and France at $12.35.
"Do other countries have a higher minimum wage than the United States?
One of the most popular Democratic talking points this campaign season has been to call for an increase in the minimum wage. A social-media meme that’s been circulating recently provides a justification for hiking the minimum wage -- namely that the minimum wage in the United States falls well below that of other advanced industrialized nations.
Here’s the text on the meme, which Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., among others, put on his Facebook feed:
"Minimum wages around the world in U.S. dollars: Denmark $21/hr., Australia $15.81/hr., Germany $11/hr., France $12.35/hr. United States $7.25/hr. Share if you agree we should catch up with the rest of the world."
We wondered how accurate the meme was, so we took a look.
Using foreign-exchange rates
There are two major methods for comparing minimum wages between countries. The meme uses the most basic way -- using exchange rates to convert the wage amount from the foreign country’s currency to U.S. dollars. Using this method, the meme isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close.
Australia’s minimum wage was recently raised to 16.87 per hour in Australian dollars. At current exchange rates, that’s $14.81 in U.S. dollars -- a little lower than the $15.81 cited in the meme, but still well above the United States’ rate of $7.25 an hour.
Germany recently established a national minimum wage for the first time, at 8.5 Euros per hour. (Previously, Germany had a patchwork of different rates.) That works out to $10.79 in U.S. dollars, not far from the $11 cited in the meme, and still quite a bit higher than the minimum wage in the United States.
In France, the minimum wage is currently 9.53 Euros, which works out to $12.10. That’s pretty close to the $12.35 in the meme, and it’s well above the U.S. minimum wage.
Of the four countries cited in the meme, the description of Denmark is the least accurate. There is actually no minimum wage in Denmark, according to a summary published by the U.S. State Department. According to that summary, "unions and employer associations negotiate minimum wages. The average minimum wage for all private and public sector collective bargaining agreements was approximately DKK 110 ($20) per hour, exclusive of pension benefits."
In other words, the Danish "minimum wage" of $20 or $21 is actually an average of all minimum wages across a variety of sectors. That means many Danish workers will be working in companies or industries that have a "minimum wage" lower than $20 or $21. And that undercuts the notion of a "minimum wage," which is supposed to be a floor for wages."
This is splitting hairs to my way of thinking. The right wage is complicated by cost of living everywhere, but the wages of the countries noted are better than US wages, PERIOD!
When did the American conservatives and liberals decide a welfare state was OK? It seems to me conservatives and liberals want the same thing, but somehow do not realize it. America wants people to work and survive. America wants businesses to prosper, but profit must not come at a cost to both government AND the worker.
The bottom line debating the $15 minimum wage for American workers is:
1. people should NOT start a business until they can pay workers a living wage, determined to be $15/hour, and
2. America is the richest nation on the planet, and should at a minimum match the Western nations that long ago concluded workers wages come first, starting a small business comes second so an entire society benefits from a living wage, i.e, in America, that is $15.hour.
America can continue to pay ~$100 billion a year in welfare, food stamps, and Medicare, which literally subsidizes small business ability to pay low ages, and to keep burger prices ARTIFICALY low due to these subsidies,
OR
America can reduce the welfare costs, accept higher, REALISTIC prices, and recognize human rights to have a living wage when working, not to mention the incentive higher prices might be to keeping people working.
"Capitalism" is what we are provided by "Conservatives," and by 100% of America's 1% richest, as the "Prime Directive," their rationale for lower wages, and a welfare state. America was made an economic powerhouse by "Capitalism."
This "Capitalism" is a lie, an excuse. The truth is our America has no pure form Capitalism that allows all to equally aspire to riches.
American Capitalism is rigged.
