Makes sense, cause by the time it gets through, $50/hr would be about right.
Needs to be pinned to the cost of living, and raised annually.
My wife and I make about that each and we’re very comfortable. Just 15 years ago I was living out of my car and now I’m at a point where money is barely an issue. Everyone should have this level of security. Scraping by I was having constant panic attacks about not having enough money to meet my basic needs.
Glad to hear you were able to make it out!
If conservatives (little “c”) want to go back to a time when people could buy a house and support a family of four on a single income, this is the only way to get there.
Critical that it is tied to inflation. Otherwise the system will just rebalance via price to protect profits. That has to be stopped. They have to give all of us a larger share.
Needs to be pinned to local cost of living, defined at the federal level and applied to each state individually.
This would then enable the state legislature to fight for the state with the lowest minimum wage by combatting the rent seekers who cause high costs of living.
About time some Democrats start developing the awareness that they’ll have to aim above their target if they want to hit it instead of consistently missing or failing to take the shot.
First I want to put out that Lee is basing her argument in data, something her detractors in the article are not doing.
If minimum wage had kept up with CEO compensation, the minimum wage in today dollars would be ~$130.
So Lee is striking a mid point between those two values. This seems reasonable.
I propose that we decide on some ratio of CEO compensation to minimum wage at a given company (say, 100x), and any company in violation of this has their profits taxed at 100% and redistributed to their employees.
I like the 12 to 1 rule. CEOs can’t make more in one month than their lowest paid employee makes in a year. If you want to make more than that then raise the standard for everyone.
They just outsource services. No longer does a janitor work for the company. It is outsourced to a janitorial services company. Average wage increases as does pay.
Most proposals for chaining CEO pay talk about anyone who has contributed to the work product. Including by letting the working area clean. So that would include sub contractors of sub contractors and independent contractors and subsidiary workers. It might even include a rival company.
So, for a zoom meeting, does the software get considered? Zoom has workers too. The work from home employees that have a cleaner. WFH that don’t. Etc etc.
Is it just that outsourced janitor considered, or the recruiter that hired them, their manager and CEO of that company, their marketing and sales dept etc.
I agree that CEO salary should be lower relative to workers, but when you have a kpi, people work to the kpi, not what we want to achieve. It wouldn’t lead to better employee pay, but more creative accounting is my point.
The idea is obviously not fully baked here. This is why seemingly simple ideas run a hundred pages when the law is actually passed.
Haha, yes indeed. I think focusing on the comparison between workers leads to infighting. Most CEOs of small companies are on good salaries but they are not billionaires. Tax exeryine accordingly, including companies and CEOs and ensure wages offer a good standard of living. Raising minimum wage based on cost of living and improved living standards is easier to sell and achieve and has a knock on effect of raising everyone.
Less kids in poverty leads to more social mobility.
What about a max percentage of the valuation of the company? This would include other incentives such as stocks, vehicles, etc
Mandatory employee stakeholder status for every company, so that each company is 50% employee owned, it works in Europe.
Ask for the whole pie and you’re guaranteed a slice.
This is taking the comment out of context, she said the federal minimum wage should be as high as $50 for places like the Bay area, she then went on to say that the national minimum wage should be raised to $20-25 based on affordability but that she’s chiefly concerned with California.
Oh wait, you mean these dirt bags make shit headlines to impact good people? Normal people would call it deformation, but not today. Today it is called political strategy
Edit: Sorry that was to offensive. Fuck them, fuck anyone who voted against the people and fuck everyone in government who allows this shit. I mean everyone. Every seat in Congress and the Senate has been jeopardized. They all need to be gone as soon as possible. A vote…sure. is it soon enough, no. If you are Republican you support what is happening at the border (cowards) if you are democratic you support not drawing up bills that will fix immigration because they bent over backward to support that shit.
Immigration increases taxes and money and will support our fucking economy. The Republicans are fucking idiots and the democrats are adopting to be so. It is unacceptable.yes Biden will need to win the presidency and thats fine. He doesn’t make the fucking laws. He doesnt make the laws. Shit. The president doesn’t even enforce them, the states police do. Yes I’m upset, sorry. Bad Day
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., laughed at the suggestion, writing on social media Tuesday “why not $500 per hour?”
Assuming he actually worked 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, Senator Cruz’s pay rate, as set by federal law, amounts to around $87 per hour. We know that he doesn’t actually do that much work, so it’s actually going to be much higher.
He also gets financial compensation from other other sources, so his actual per hour compensation is effectively much higher.
Yeah he’s getting way more than just 87/hr from his position.
$50 is decent. It’s a living wage. It is not exorbitant and there’s plenty of incentive for workers aiming higher.
One of my most hated “arguments” is the notion that “well, I’m an experienced worker and I’ve only made $15/hr forever. Therefore I will actively fight against raising wages because my wages were always low”. What self-defeating bullshit. If the minimum wage had been indexed to anything having to do with cost of living for the last half century, $50 would be about right.
That’s $100k/yr roughly.
That seems insane for a minimum wage, but then again when rent is $2500+ for a one bedroom…
Presumably all other salaries would be pressured into increases. Or you’d have people quiting their jobs to work at McDonald’s.
I make $100 k / year in the bay area, and I am fucking poor. It’s dumb.
That’s exactly it. Cost of living has outpaced wages for 50+ years. $100k might sound like a “made-it” salary, but it’s actually not that compared to buying power of previous generations.
My sister and her husband make $65k a year each and they’re living paycheck to paycheck. If $130k a year doesn’t pay for a mortgage, car payments, and raising your kids, what are we even bothering for?
We’re overdue for a demonstration, nationwide.
You’re right, but also that number could be $180k and I doubt you’d see much difference, they’d have more expensive cars, maybe a nicer house, and take a fancy vacation but still be at the same place at the end of the month. Not to detracg from the cost of living crisis, just that some of it is simply the lifestyles we choose to spend on
When I look at what $5 in 1990 is worth today, it’s $11.80 (allegedly).
Min wage was $3.80 then so that would make it $9.24 now.
What am I missing?
I guess that’s just inflation. What else should go into the minimum wage calculation. (Also this assumes $3.80 was fair back in 1990)
What am I missing?
Have you tried living off $9.24 an hour? That’s about $370 a week before taxes.
Average rent in the US was $1372 a month 2023, which means just buying power isn’t enough to figure this out. Many people who already own property miss the fact that it’s largely impossible not to rent forever for anyone born after 1990, and extremely hard for anyone born after 1980 (on average – it differs for cheaper areas, which won’t be cheaper for much longer based on trends).
I’d argue we have multiple factors. Inflation is a huge one, but cost of living has in many ways outpaced inflation. Those two alone are additive, which is why even the current California minimum wage of $15.50 is not enough.
Let’s leave it as an amorphous amount for now, and I’ll ask a different question: what about a potential $50 minimum wage upsets you? What makes that a bad idea, in your view (and if you don’t believe it is, apologies in advance!).
That makes sense. I don’t know why people are down voting me like it’s reddit. It was a good faith question.
If you look at # of hours to pay average rent it was 118 hours in 1990 min wage versus 189 with today’s. You literally have to work more that 40 hours a week to just pay rent. It wasn’t my h better in the
I’m on board with higher minimum wage but the entire system should be looked at. Housing quadrupling in cost(to rent) seems like it should be an even bigger concern than stagnate min wage. It’s not zero sum but Jesus Christ that’s nuts.
I don’t have a problem with a $50 min wage on the face of it. My concerns would be: does that drive inflation higher?(I read that it doesn’t, but I’m not sure how it wouldn’t) would that just make rent higher? Would the price of things skyrocket just because companies can go after the extra money? We already saw shitty corps using inflation as cover for profiteering.
Basically what is the consequence of such a drastic increase? Would it start a race condition?
Obviously companies across the country would potentially go under and be forced to raise compensation(which is fantastic imo). Id feel bad for some small businesses but at the same time, I think it was Roosevelt who said, if you can’t afford to pay a decent wage you can’t afford to be in business.
And I have no sympathy for big companies like Walmart who pay people scraps and depend on the government to fill in the gaps with food stamps and welfare.
What am I missing?
Most major inflation indices omit things like the cost of food and housing. So, they are only marginally useful in looking at the financial experiences of the populace.
Sounds insane until you consider the purchasing power of the dollar over the last few decades. These boomers railing against wave hikes cause they retired in 15/hour would have effectively been making 70 or more today. You need a 6 figure salary today to enjoy a life comparable to what your grandparents or great grandparents enjoyed on a single salary bringing home 10/hour
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Cries at current $7.25 minimum wage.
Those tears are telling you something. Like maybe unionize, or maybe move. At least do enough math to decide if you’d be better off elsewhere. We appreciate you and want you to be properly recompensed for your work.
Never did I say I work minimum wage. I actually am very comfortable money wise, I however remember what it was like to work it, and understand those who have to. $7.25 is not survivable for anyone.
I definitely agree with that
Median price of a home in California (as of December 2023): $754,900.
I’m on board with people across the board making more money, but $50/hr everywhere in the US seems unrealistic.
Where I live (Midwest) that would put you in a very high percentile income bracket. But in much higher cost of living areas it’s probably still barely enough to get by.
I feel like minimum wage should be adjusted by cost of living.
US civil servants’ salary is broken into 2 numbers: Base Rate and Locality Rate. The first is based on their grade and time in grade. The second is wholly based on where their job is and is a percentage of the base rate. It goes from ~16% base to in the 30s%. It drastically needs to be more granular and updated in a lot of locations but this could work for a lot of jobs.
Then federal minimum wage sets the base rate and states and localities set Locality rate. States and cities could even use this to incentivize workers to move there at the cost of wages increasing across the board.
That seems like a much more sensible (and realistic) approach to me.
That’s what she was saying, everyone is taking her out of context. She was saying the federal minimum wage should be as high as $50 in places like the Bay area, she then went on to say that the national wage should be brought up to ~$20-25 and base it on affordability.
This would also be for federal employees, not state level minimum wage. So postal workers, military bases, etc. Maybe state and local government? I’m not sure if those count as federal positions or not tbh
Then they’ll only hire people from low cost areas. It’ll be the next suburban exodus, except to rural instead
I don’t think so. I mean, theoretically I see how that might apply to a small number of remote workers, but the vast majority of minimum wage workers (and many hourly workers) are in jobs that require a physical presence at the workplace.
God damn, I’ve never been paid anything close to $50 an hour.
It’s as likely as any other national minimum wage hike.
I mean, most low paying jobs are also part time, so I don’t necessarily disagree. Make it $50/hour, would be an interesting experiment.
