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81 (90%)

No

9 (10%)

Total Members Voted: 88

[Orange Wizard]

Well... then how about welfare for people who earn less then a certain threshold?

Most countries do that anyway

-Also yes, I am going to keep coming up with bad ideas until people fill in what we should have INSTEAD of minimum wage as a sort of stop gap against worker exploitation for low income individuals. Especially in America where some businesses are infamous for cheating employees out of their full pay even at minimum...

Pretty sure minimum wage is the most effective means. That, and legal support for people who are being exploited.

--As well especially since a lot of analysts find that the current minimum wage to be especially low and barely accounts for the cost of living.

Pretty sure this is a problem everywhere. It forces people to work multiple jobs, live semi-communally, or depend on additional welfare.

[Neonivek]

Well... then how about welfare for people who earn less then a certain threshold?

Most countries do that anyway

Indeed. One of the major issues why you can't do it as a replacement for minimal wage is that it doesn't incentivize businesses to provide adequate pay nor the worker to attempt to seek higher wages.

[Cthulhu]

Honestly how many adults are actually trying to live off of minimum wage?  That's always the direction the talk goes but the numbers I've seen are in the low single digits.

[scriver]

Wouldn't they just lobby for a new minimum wage?

Not necessarily - countries with very strong unions like Sweden and the other Nordic countries don't have minimum wages, for example.

[Neonivek]

Honestly how many adults are actually trying to live off of minimum wage?  That's always the direction the talk goes but the numbers I've seen are in the low single digits.

About 3 million are trying to live off of minimum wage or lower

Ok that isn't accurate... 3 million have jobs that pay minimum wage or lower... of 70 million.

HOWEVER! the proposed Minimum wage increases are $12-$15... Which is more then 20% of all workers in America rather then the less then 10 earlier.

[Frumple]

@cthulhu: Google had this to say, right at the top of the search results in a big box:

In 2014, 77.2 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.7 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.3 million earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

This looks like a quick attempt at a breakdown. Zero clue how accurate it is, though.

If you're more curious about wages that aren't particularly livable, the 2015 poverty rate was 14.8 percent. Or around 47 million. S'actually a kinda' shit measure, because so far as I can recall the poverty rate doesn't vary based on region, but eh. Could be wrong about that... s'been a while since I looked at the methodology involved.

[mainiac]

Well... then how about welfare for people who earn less then a certain threshold?

Like the earned income tax credit?

It helps with poverty at the upper reaches of poverty but doesn't help people at the very bottom.  In particular people with mental illnesses or other disabilities.

[Ghills]

Anyway, the One True Breakfast is bread, butter and cheese.

One Breakfast to rule them, One Breakfast to find them, One Breakfast to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Oh, you don't turn lights on in the bathroom either?

[Ghills]

@cthulhu: Google had this to say, right at the top of the search results in a big box:

In 2014, 77.2 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.7 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.3 million earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

This looks like a quick attempt at a breakdown. Zero clue how accurate it is, though.

If you're more curious about wages that aren't particularly livable, the 2015 poverty rate was 14.8 percent. Or around 47 million. S'actually a kinda' shit measure, because so far as I can recall the poverty rate doesn't vary based on region, but eh. Could be wrong about that... s'been a while since I looked at the methodology involved.

The most infuriating thing to about the minimum wage discussion is how few people are willing to recognize that having the minimum wage be unlivable means we're subsidizing corporations.   This is both empirically true and follows logically from economics, but I have yet to meet a center or right-wing economist who will own up to it.

If people can't make a living working fulltime, but companies aren't required to pay living wages, then a significant group of companies will do the economically-incentivized thing, pay minimum wage and depend on welfare to subsidize their employees.  Wal-Mart is a huge offender with this.  And providing welfare is expensive!  It would be much less expensive to mandate a higher minimum wage and stop providing these de facto subsidies to large corporations.

But apparently no right-wing politician is honest enough to own up to the fact that we have good economic reasons to raise the minimum wage, let alone the less-tangible benefits of supporting stable families by reducing the need for overtime, keeping kids fed so they can learn in school, etc.

[Strife26]

Relevant:    http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/#2e8810007cd8 

[Cthulhu]

@cthulhu: Google had this to say, right at the top of the search results in a big box:

In 2014, 77.2 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.7 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.3 million earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

This looks like a quick attempt at a breakdown. Zero clue how accurate it is, though.

If you're more curious about wages that aren't particularly livable, the 2015 poverty rate was 14.8 percent. Or around 47 million. S'actually a kinda' shit measure, because so far as I can recall the poverty rate doesn't vary based on region, but eh. Could be wrong about that... s'been a while since I looked at the methodology involved.

So low single digits, yeah.  People aren't poor because minimum wage is too low, they're poor because they're unemployed or underemployed.

[Frumple]

You... seem to have missed the point where a higher minimum wage would mean significantly more that "low single digits" being less poor. Note that 1.3 million was for folks making dead on the federal minimum. That doesn't including the people that are making less than an increased minimum.* It doesn't including the people that are making less than the current minimum (from that quote's source, another 1.7 million**). Nor does it include those who aren't paid by the hour, but are still making the equivalent of at or less. People aren't poor for any one or two reasons; there's dozens upon dozens of contributory causes. What a minimum wage is intended to address is just some among many.

If you want to see the report that quite came from, you can find it here.

*A $15 minimum would effect around 42% of the hourly paid working population, by the by; somewhere in the realm of 30 million people if I'm checking the numbers right. A $10 minimum would effect around half that.
**You can say 3 million is still low single digits, I guess. I'd personally call around four percent of our entire wage/salary base something that's a pretty substantial issue, particularly considering it falls notably on those of us who can afford it the least.

[Neonivek]

So low single digits, yeah.  People aren't poor because minimum wage is too low, they're poor because they're unemployed or underemployed.

Well in all fairness... If your living off minimum wage... your poor by definition.

[feelotraveller]

I am going to keep coming up with bad ideas until people fill in what we should have INSTEAD of minimum wage as a sort of stop gap against worker exploitation for low income individuals.

I think you already have an answer.  Perhaps it is worth thinking through the implications.

snip replace minimum wage with unconditional basic income snip

One notable outcome is that the Great Toad would have some competition, and no doubt there would be a veritiable flourishing of independent projects not bound by corporate agendas - music, art, perhaps even low budget science or works of philosophy.  Then more people wouild lose their jobs and get on the bandwagon.

There would still be work but it would be a proper market with supply and demand rather than the current system of being forced to sell at whatever the law mandates (aka slave labour).  The disappearance of work which has been underway historically now for several centuries would take on a new and unreservedly positive meaning.

Okay, I'm sure there will be lots of differing opinions but it is a real answer and a real alternative candidate (unless you are thinking only of a two-horse trumped up poltical debate).

[alway]

Relevant:    http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/#2e8810007cd8 

Or to phrase it another way.
Walmart employs 1.4 million in the US. This comes out to $4400 per year per employee, even if we include managers and executives and such non-minimum wage workers, and even if we include non-full time employees (which these days, is most retail employees). This means that, at bare minimum, the US taxpayer is picking up a full 1/3 of Walmart's labor costs and paying for them for the sole benefit of company profit margins.