Then you will love my solution. Raise the federal minimum wage to $20/hr.
How is that a solution?
I love it when dumb asses who don't have a clue try to explain economics.
So tell me how raising the federal minimum wage is a solution so I can debase your ignorant solution and laugh at you.
Simple. Welfare, social security and stimulus money are safety nets. Not a means to create a lifestyle; but a means to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies should we need it.
I agree with you in part. However I do not see Social Security as a safety net. You are forced to invest into a (supposedly) personal account. I expect a return on my investment.
Make it more profitable to work than live on the dole.
I agree. Except the problem is not federal minimum wage, the problem is the welfare benefits are FAR too generous. Many of these welfare riders would not take a job if you offered them 6 figures.I know from experience as I have parasitic welfare riders in my extended family.
The minimum wage should have kept pace with inflation but starting in the late sixties, business wanted cheap labor.
Business had to lower their operating cost to compete with foreign imports. Ultimately the American consumer is responsible for that. I will concede that minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. Let's examine that in further detail. Minimum wage was raised to $1.60/hr Feb 1'st 1968 (I used that year because you specified late 60's). Converted using a CPI calculator provided by the
U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS (
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm) as of November 2020 (the most recent info provided) that is equivalent to $12.17. That is far below the $20.00 you suggested. It is also below $15/hr (Fight for $15).
You are also ignoring the fact that few employers actually pay minimum wage. You are also ignoring the fact that people have many more employment opportunities today. With all of the jobs available we should have 0% unemployment. Go look at an internet job board sometime. You will be shocked how many jobs they have on there that have no skill requirements, no education requirements, and pay $41,600+ (exceeding your $20/hr solution) a year. I found a job on Indeed while typing up this post for a gutter installer (
https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?cmp=...gF&pub=4a1b367933fd867b19b072952f68dceb&vjs=3), no experience necessary with a salary range of $65,000 - $85,000, 401(k) matching, Dental, Health, Life, Vision, and they provide a vehicle, fuel, ladders, and safety equipment. There are opportunities like that all over.
For that cheap labor, they fought hard to kill or prevent unions to maintain cheap labor. And politicians from BOTH parties made it easy for them to export our manufacturing base to Mexico and China, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Trump tried to mitigate that with tariffs and the left leaning general public attacked him for it. The whole point of tariffs is to protect the domestic means of production. Americans want stuff and they want it cheap, that has NOTHING to do with politicians. Even when given the opportunity to get a competitive edge for American companies through tariffs the public rejected it.
Republicans did it under the banner of profits, Democrats under the banner of globalization. Thanks to campaign finance laws and PAC's it is profitable for politicians to heed business over people.
What does any of that have to do with your ridiculous solution to pay people $20 an hour.
I am going to use the left's favorite punching bag Walmart as an illustration of how stupid your $20/hr "solution" is.
Here is a link to Walmart's annual financial report so you can verify the information for yourself.
https://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/Walmart_2020_Annual_Report.pdf
Walmart had $519,926,000,000 net sales last year. However after operating cost they only made a Consolidated Net Income (what you would call profit) of $14,881,000,000. Walmart employs 2.2 million employees.
Let's assume every single one of them is part time (20 hours a week). According to USA today the average Walmart wage is $14.76/hr.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...n-each-state-and-what-they-are-paid/42993851/
After bumping them up that is an increase of $5.24 an hour.
5.24/hr times 20 hours a week times 52 weeks a year times 2,200,000 employees comes out to $11,989,120,000. Now their profit is down to $2,891,880,000. Now consider not everyone that works for Walmart is part time at 20 hours a week and many make below the $14.76/hr average (meaning their raise will be much larger than $5.24/hr). Congrats, your stupid idea of raising minimum wage to $20/hr just bankrupted Walmart.
I am sure your answer will be for Walmart to just raise prices. Of course that means their customers (many of them employees) have to spend more to get the same goods. What good does it do to get more money if the price of everything goes up?
Raising minimum wage does not fix the problem. It only triggers a market correction where people end up right back where they started. In the short term (before market correction) it hurts the value of the dollar (since the global market trades in USD) and makes us less competitive in the global market.
If you make minimum wage the "solution" is to seek out an opportunity to make more money, there are plenty of them out there. Don't come to me complaining about your $7.25 per hour Walmart job when they are hiring 10 people to install gutters at $65,000/yr ($31.25/hr) with no experience necessary. Also I don't want to hear any whining from someone who has been a cashier for 20 years and has not tried to move up the ladder or looked for a better paying job.
Class dismissed.
P.S. Don't try to talk money because you don't have a clue.