Guarantee a national minimum income and end the minimum wage

[Recursion]

The more I think about it the more I think that's the solution.

Guarantee a national minimum income (some of which can be in-kind, e.g. everybody gets SNAP) and let employers pay whatever the hell they can get people (who no longer need a job to survive) to work for.

[JaneyVee]

1. Minimum wage IS a minimum income.

[Recursion]

3. No it's not. Not everybody has a job.

A minimum income would go to everyone.

[Posteritatis]

6. Uh, no it's not. (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Coming out against the minimum wage?

Remove the minimum wage, then alter the rules for your 'minimum income' and poof, slavery returns!
Why not a minimum income and a minimum wage? Oh, yeah. That serves people. Can't do that!

[Recursion]

4. Huh?

That didn't make any sense.

Give everybody, say, $28K a year (or whatever we decide you need to live).

If you want to earn more, you can get a job. We'll have a much lower labor force participation rate because not everybody will want to work if they can live without a job. This makes less of your life and dignity subject to an employer's whims.

[HeiressofBickworth]

5. I disagree

Minimum wage is for hourly work. Total take-home pay depends on the number of hours worked. Many employers keep hours below certain levels in order to avoid paying required benefits for workers who work more hours. We wind up with the working poor.

Minimum income would be total take-home pay, regardless of number of hours worked. This would ensure that unemployed or under-employed would still have enough to shelter and eat.

Is this what you had in mind, Recursion?

[Recursion]

7. No, just the government cutting a check to every man, woman, and child

(Though, like I said, some of this could be in-kind, e.g. SNAP or health insurance or housing subsidies or whatever.)

If an employer wants workers, he'll have to pay them enough to make them want to work (which they don't have to do to live anymore). But that will probably be less than minimum wage now (because it's on top of the minimum income). But taxes would have to be significantly higher. So it's trading labor costs for taxes.

[pnwmom]

13. So a family with four kids and no jobs would be given more than $150K a year?

Somehow I don't think that idea will fly . . . as pleasant as it sounds.

[brewens]

8. I've wondered about making the minimum wage higher for part-time employees.

Eliminate the incentive to keep people part-time. It would have to be just enough to make it more worth letting them have the full-time benefits. Then managers would feel it was better anyway to have full-time people that were happier and not having to try and work another job. In an emergency, you can't call someone in on their day off if they don't really have one and are at their other job.

[brooklynite]

9. Is there a SINGLE nation...

...even the Social Dweocratic ones, that guarantees a minimum income? And if you offered it, what's stopping the private sector to raise prices so that the income isn't adequate?

[Recursion]

10. Not entirely, though a dole comes close

Nations with a dole have a minimum income that the government gets rebated if you get employed. But several social democracies have talked about it (IIRC Canada came within a vote or two of doing it in the 1930s).

[brooklynite]

11. ...but didn't.

And hasn't changed its mind in 80 years through Labour and Conservative Governments. Personally, I'll focuse on realistic strategies rather than dreams.

[Recursion]

12. That's usually my line

And, yes, that's true. Sometimes it's fun to spitball, though.

[reformist2]

14. Yes. As more and more industries are thrown into turmoil, we will realize there aren't enough jobs

... to go around.

Once we recognize this new reality, a guaranteed minimum income goes from being a pipe dream to a moral imperative.

[juajen]

15. Yep, I think it is doable.

We spend a fortune just on administration costs for many programs, such as food stamps, welfare, medicaid, etc. The administration costs are enormous. In a lot of ways it probably would be easier, and might not cost too much over what is being given now.

Question, would ss recipients get the difference between what they draw and that minimum income? We should have gotten many more raises to cover the cost of living than we have been given. Just wondered how the elderly were figured in your proposal.