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Genuine Question: If every employer started paying a living wage, what’s stopping companies from increasing prices until “living wage” is no longer livable again?

I currently have no strong opinions on the matter; it's merely a question that came to me, and which I don't have an answer for. So say we're talking about the US, and we bumped up the federal minimum wage to, e.g. $25 USD. Or we started giving everyone a $2000/month UBI. In such a case, what's stopping companies from increasing prices by a proportional amount? E.g. if the average consumer's income is doubled, what's stopping all the suppliers like Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds, pharmaceuticals, housing developers, Netflix, etc. from simply charging double, or close to double? If the theory is that companies will charge as much as people can pay, wouldn't they just jack up prices, and we go back to square 1, where people at the bottom struggle to meet basic needs?


I currently have no strong opinions on the matter; it's merely a question that came to me, and which I don't have an answer for.

So say we're talking about the US, and we bumped up the federal minimum wage to, e.g. $25 USD. Or we started giving everyone a $2000/month UBI. In such a case, what's stopping companies from increasing prices by a proportional amount? E.g. if the average consumer's income is doubled, what's stopping all the suppliers like Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds, pharmaceuticals, housing developers, Netflix, etc. from simply charging double, or close to double?

If the theory is that companies will charge as much as people can pay, wouldn't they just jack up prices, and we go back to square 1, where people at the bottom struggle to meet basic needs?

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