When they're discussing trade pacts and adding jobs in the US...

[catnhatnh]

I wonder if they have considered the effect of an increased minimum wage like the "living wage " proposals of 12-15$. While minimum wage is 7.25 you can add a buck or two and entice people into factory work. How many factories do you think will open when 14-17$ is starting pay?

[enlightenment]

1. So,

you think that by not raising the minimum wage, the corporations that have off-shored their manufacturing to countries where they can pay workers 56 cents an hour with no benefits and miserable, unsafe working conditions will what? Come back to the US?

Perhaps I have misread your post.

[catnhatnh]

2. Part of the benefits that are promised is that new factory jobs will appear.

Some in start ups and others as we increase exports to new markets. Some companies are starting to repatriate some jobs. I'm supporting a living wage and wondering if they are basing their rosy predictions on the current minimum wage and asking how would a living wage affect their predictions.

[Hoyt]

3. I'm for increasing the minimum wage and the TPP.

Or, subsidizing minimum wage

Lots of ways to do it, unless we withdraw from global trade.

[catnhatnh]

4. Subsidies are how Walmart does it now

and withdrawal from international trade strikes me as a better deal than international trade tribunals trumping worker safety and the environment.

[pampango]

5. The last ones to pursue a "withdrawal from international trade" were the republicans,

Coolidge and Hoover who preceded FDR. They brought on record income inequality and the Great Depression.

Perhaps not surprisingly FDR did the opposite of a "withdrawal from international trade". He expanded trade in his first and second terms then made it difficult for countries to raise tariffs and cut trade after the war.

There were several GOP state party platforms in 2008 and 2012 that urged the U.S. to withdraw from the WTO in order to withdraw from trade. So the idea is more popular than one might think.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. Factory jobs used to be $20.00 an hour or more.

That was the 60's to 80's.

Outsourcing allowed we ed massive increases in profits