Min. Wage - A hard look

[packman]

?1484338460

GOD - Doesn't seem that long ago - JFK was President when $1.50 an hr. min. wage was an issue. My earliest recollection of those by-gone days is .50cents an hr. at a hardware store being worked to death.


Poverty in the midst of plenty exists because many working people simply don’t make very much money. This is possible because the minimum wage that businesses must pay is low: only $7.25 per hour in the United States in 2016 (although it is higher in some states and cities). At that rate, a person working full-time for a whole year, with no vacations or holidays, earns about $15,000—which is below the poverty line for a family of two, let alone a family of four. A minimum-wage employee is poor enough to qualify for food stamps and, in most states, Medicaid. Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum is roughly the same as in the 1960s and 1970s, despite significant increases in average living standards over that period. The United States currently has the lowest minimum wage, as a proportion of its average wage, of any advanced economy, contributing to today’s soaring levels of inequality.

Article gives the pros and cons of raising min. wage and the historical thinking of a min. wage:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/economism-and-the-minimum-wage/513155/

[guillaumeb]

1. The discussion should be about a living wage, not a minimum wage.

And the minimum wage should be a living wage.

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