This is somewhat of a stream of thought here – if you disagree with some of it, awesome. I just ask that you keep it civil and present your counter-argument. It’s also USA centric so I apologize to people outside the United States.
There’s a lot of talk here about minimum wage. Like most, I support a minimum wage. And depending on the cost of living, it needs to be adjusted accordingly. Obviously $15 is the hot number now, but many think it should be higher. Sometimes much higher.
And that’s the crux of my thoughts here and some disagreement.
Realistically, can you really expect your favorite tiny coffee shop or cafe or clothing store or
I disagree with you because businesses typically have to start small. Really small and with great personal risk. To me, thinking otherwise is to give up everything to big corporate America more than you already have.
Before you blow your stack, please keep reading.
I think this debate about relatively high minimum wages is part of a larger plot by certain right-leaning politicians as well as extremely high earning capitalists and corporations and lobbyists to drive out competition from small businesses. They do it by, once again, pitting “small people” against “small people” (as they see us). It’s a complete distraction and we have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
How? Because they continue to get away with destroying the will and ability to implement actual social program solutions to the minimum wage problem. They call them socialist, communist, left-wing radical, or whatever ridiculous name you want to come up with. It’s none of the above.
If the USA had programs that I’ll list below (an incomplete list no doubt), the need to pressure small business owners to pay unaffordable wages would decrease. More people could afford to live on less per hour because their money is going to go further.
I’m talking about programs like:
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Medicare for All (or similar) – severing the tie between employment and healthcare once and for all. Implementing a mostly free-at-time-of-use system that is based on small taxation rather than premiums, deductibles, surprise bills, outrageous prescription costs, and so on.
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Free trade training and community college – it amazes me at how many people want to advocate for trade training and for people to get more education so that they can have a better job, yet they oppose every measure to make it more affordable. This is a very cheap investment with high returns.
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UBI. Perhaps still a bit controversial and not quite tested but there is a lot of data that shows that a universal basic income typically gets spent on the things that families need. It’s not being spent on alcohol, drugs, or whatever other thing people want to apply their moral standards on to.
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Free or highly subsidized childcare. Women especially should not have to sacrifice their entire careers just because they had a child. The USA already treats women as second class citizens and this needs to stop. It’s time for the US to make childcare more affordable for everyone.
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Student loan forgiveness. First the majority of the student loan debt that exist now needs to be forgiven so that the holders can save for retirement and increase their assets so that they do not become a burden on state in 30 to 40 years when they are past retirement age. As for preventing or lessening future student loan debt, we need the free community college and trade training, but we also need to set strict interest rate parameters and payback time frames. Preferably 0% interest and no matter what job a person has – not just public service – they will not pay on their loans for longer than a certain number of years as long as they have made payments. Details obviously need to be scrubbed out.
What say you? Do you think that we should keep demanding higher and higher minimum wages from small businesses especially that are just starting out or should we demand more from our government and from our tax dollars and place the burden back on the rich where it belongs?