Reply to Help me understand the impact of a $15 minimum wage?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I often wonder if any of the people that say “flipping burgers” is easy work, have every worked any kind of food service or retail. It’s horrible thankless work. Count yourself lucky that you acquired the skills to move on or avoid it. Some people don’t, and that’s not their fault.  They deserve to live off their work too, if they’re working full time.  [/quote]

You don't need any prior skills to get a McJob.  You just need to be 14 years old with working papers (certificate to work for a minor).  [u]They are good jobs for kids, and aren't meant to be a career.  [/u]

It's not that they're "easy" jobs, its that they're entry level jobs that you use to build skills to get other jobs. You learn to show up on time, put in your hours, build customer service skills, all things that are applicable to other careers.  If you look at the demographics who who actually is earning minimum wage in these positions, they're still mostly younger people who live at home.[/quote]

My god man just read! You are wrong about who works these jobs. What percentage of the workforce is in these jobs? About a third! A third! And 60% of those workers are over 25. Mostly minorities and women with low education or language barriers. [b]Should they not eat? [/b]Should they not have a safe home to live in? In exchange for an honest days work?[/quote]

Sure, they should eat, but raising the minimum wage is a terrible way to try and achieve this good goal. It is much better for businesses to pay a tax on their profits, which goes into the tax base to help pay for universal basic income, which ensures that low-productivity people can eat and maintain a standard of life that we as a society find acceptable as a safety net. This has far fewer of the inefficient outcomes of raising the minimum wage. [/quote]

If you tax profits... corporations will just play games to hide profits.[/quote]
DP here. And I've come to the conclusion that if corporations are properly regulated (which I don't think they currently are), then low corporate taxes do make sense. But there needs to be a recognition that corporations often make bad decisions and/or are operated unfairly. Right now, one of the things that corporations do is create an inherently unfair payscale where almost all of the benefits of increased profits and productivity accrue only to a handful of people at the top. This is terrible for the economy, and it creates all kinds of burdens on the government.

Corporations want to be considered "people" when it suits them, but they also want to be treated as unique entities when it suits them. Corporations get all kinds of specialized governmental treatment that individuals don't (e.g. specialized tax treatment, the ability to "live" in perpetuity, etc.). This makes sense, because corporatized industry can provide a lot of societal benefit. But as a junior exec at a big corporation, I would say most corporations (including the one I work for) can be at least as harmful as they are beneficial to society. Subject them to more regulation, and you can make up for those harms. Alternatively, treat them like any other corporeal being. Corporations want neither, and that hurts the rest of us.[/quote]

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