please, and you think they are pouring across the southern boarder now... we'd see a million illegals a year breaking into the land of the FREE PX
Posted on 04/20/2016 2:16:51 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton spent a great deal of time debating the merits of raising the minimum wage at the last Democratic debate on April 14.
Sanders, ever the radical, stood behind the popular $15 minimum wage figure that will soon take hold in California and New York. Clinton, who's long pushed for $12, updated her position in support of $15 figure.
Both could be misguided.
While raising the minimum wage does make sense on paper — working people need to make more to survive than they can on today's minimum wage, so we should give them more money — mounting evidence suggests even a $15/hour wage isn't drastic enough. The smarter solution could be giving people enough money to live regardless of their working status.
That idea, known as universal basic income, has had a surge in popularity over the last year.
The Dutch city of Utrecht recently announced it would start a basic income experiment in 2017, as did Finland and Ontario, Canada. Talks are underway in Switzerland, New Zealand, and the US, and the largest basic income experiment in history is slated to launch later this year in Kenya.
Ostensibly, the goal of ensuring the basic welfare of citizens falls under the purview of the government. Trying to use the minimum wage to achieve that outcome puts pressure on smaller businesses that may cause them to lay people off. In that event, the minimum wage does more harm than good. Businesses lose staff, and citizens lose income.
By removing the work requirement, basic income skirts around the problem by giving money to people up front. It frees people up to pursue jobs that may not pay as much as they'd like, and it spares the employer from dealing with the burden of providing a wage it may not be able to sustain.
There's another wrinkle that makes basic income more valuable as time goes on: Workers may not be as useful in the future.
The latest evidence suggests automation could displace half the American workforce in the next two or three decades. That means millions of people could be out of work, or at least working for lower wages than they currently do.
With fewer employees, hitting a higher minimum wage might not be as hard for employers. But we'll still be left with unemployed people who need to survive. Basic income covers both groups — the employed and the displaced.
The upside is that productivity doesn't plummet under basic income; if anything, it tends to rise. Study after study has shown that people work harder when they know they have a safety net protecting them.
And that's good for businesses, which won't have to worry that minimum wage — a system designed to help workers — could end up tanking them in the process.
Basic income is the more effective solution because it gives employees reassurance they'll be able to put food on the table while giving employers peace of mind that they won't get crippled by their payroll.
This is just NUTS! Even Marx and the Commies never came up with this garbage.
Ask Richard Nixon where the money will come from. He proposed something similar.
The answer is quite simple. If Peter can take from Paul, Peter will have more money.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
With all due respect to these folks, by discussing so-called national minimum wage as presidential candidates, low-information Sen. Sanders, and likewise low-information former Sen. Clinton, have once again distinguished themselves as excellent examples why the ill-conceived 17th Amendment should never have been ratified.
More specifically, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate INTRAstate minimum wage or labor-related issues. In fact, a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified this in broad terms as evidenced by the following excerpt.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
So low-information federal politicians are once again trying to get themselves elected by “promising” things to low-information voters, things that the states have never given the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for.
why would a person work at a job with lousy conditions that has a low wage rate if they can get basic income for doing nothing?
A $25 minimum wage?
The Jizya collected from the natives will be paying for the Muslim guaranteed income.
Oh... We didn’t mention that non- muslims still had to work?
Where they always go for it. From “the rich”, i.e. anyone who has a job. But this idiot doesn’t realize is that if you get a check no matter how lazy you are, many won’t work at all.
More sustainable than a $15 minimum wage.
Employers can pay what they can afford because people already have a basic income safety net - a floor through which they can’t fall.
If they want make more, they certainly can. If they get laid off or displaced, one of the great stresses on family life is taken care of.
We could replace our welfare program with a basic universal income program and come out ahead.
I think it would move us in the right direction.
Will people misuse their income? Of course, there are people who are irresponsible.
Our welfare system discourages productivity and encourages dependence.
If you work, you lose your benefits.
UBI works the opposite way, if you work and earn more you keep what you’ve got and can build a better life.
It has much to commend it.
Well, I’m sure you’re right on this, I was just being facetious though... like the old minimum wage argument. If $15 an hour is going to be beneficial to all of society, then why not $100 an hour?
it’s just paper!!!
I had a great uncle that used to make it in his basement :) jk
please, and you think they are pouring across the southern boarder now... we'd see a million illegals a year breaking into the land of the FREE PX
We’re not going to lose as many jobs as they say, especially if declining wages allow more hiring of humans as servants or building and fixing infrastructure we need.
The Great Shift Toward Automation and the Future of Employment
http://hubpages.com/business/The-Great-Shift-and-the-Future-of-Employment
This experiment was posted a few months ago, and after thinking about it, it could actually be a good thing because it would replace all the obama welfare programs! The savings in the bureaucracy alone would probably pay for it.
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