The answer? Both.
Now I have had conversations with friends about the minimum wage and what I have determined is that most all of them have NEVER been in business and had to pay FOR EVERYTHING and survive to do the same the next day. And none of them understand real world economics, the concepts underpinning Capitalism and what makes it so powerful and the concept of introducing young people to responsibility and developing a solid work ethic. And of course, in time them becoming independent and prosperous in life.
They are being taught by their politicians and their corporate master$ to be dependent.
California Senate candidates spar over Dem's proposal for $50 minimum wage: 'Do the math' (nypost.com)
And here we have aspirants to "The Diane Feinstein" Senate seat (D) in the Communist state of California arguing about a $50 dollar per hour minimum wage! Which as I have pointed out to all my friends is what I call a maximum minimum wage. Which is a self-canceling term that means nothing other than building a Socialist culture of parasitic dependency.
The concept of "a livable minimum wage" is a term that is nonsensical, and it is paradoxical in its formulation. A perfect bait and switch term for a pandering politician in other words. A term of manipulation and pandering that has no connection to the reality of either the economics of business or the real world.
Let's do the math: $50 per hour X's 8hrs a day X's let's say 50 weeks for the really ambitious equals: $100,000.00 per year for a MINIMUM WAGE WORKER!
Not to mention the associated mandated insurance, healthcare and associated benefit costs.
Now let's face some facts that surround where we as Americans find ourselves. Who and what has destroyed and destabilized our society in the many ways that they have destroyed and destabilized our society? And of course, we would be talking about aspirant political party machine politicians and empowered political party machine politics on both sides of the aisle. Thats who.
The Liberal Democrats who are now for all intents and purposes radical Marxist based Socialists. And the big corporation Republican politicians who serve their now un and anti-American international Globalist master$. These are two ends of the same candle that are really the enemy of the American populous that tries to exist in-between both their burning extremism and grab for power and control.
Plain and simple, no need to further confuse yourself about what America is and is not, our country is and has been a corrupt and perverted entity from the start, but that is a good and natural thing. We have a system in place that attempts to dial down that nature to be perverted and corrupt and that is called the Constitution and the political warfare that takes place as a function of it. In the competition and the battle there is salvation. That is the theory anyway.
Most politicians at some point are just plain lying in order that they become politically empowered. Trust none of them. Trust their actions and not their words. And when they say one thing and do another get rid of them.
Not to drone on about where we find ourselves, a minimum wage is a term and mechanism established in order for a governmental agency to insert themselves into a private business in order to set a "fair" minimum wage. A wage that entry level workers are to be paid over and above what the owner of a business reasonably or unreasonably has established what a minimum wage should be. I can make an argument for a minimum wage. A MINIMUM WAGE.
A minimum wage is not a living wage! These levels of pay are for entry level workers building their work experience in order to enrich themselves and become valuable workers who primarily are young people. And these young individuals who if we are to face the reality of the situation are victims of both their politicians, who have essentially destroyed the American family unit and their failed top-heavy educations systems that fail to educate. And now those same politicians are telling them that they are ENTITLED to a $100,000.00 per year pay package to begin their careers? I think not, THAT, is stupid.
I know it, you know it and they know it. But some politicians out of either their own ignorance or corruption will push it anyway because they are desperate to become politically empowered. Trust none of them in either party.
These kinds of proposals are not for one second economically viable and are IMO being used as a tool of mass manipulation in order to garner votes for the many pandering politicians. And these what can only be defined as Socialist policies are also being used as a mechanisms of wealth redistribution when they are installed.
The actual results would be? No young person would ever be hired by any business yoked with these kinds of perverse Socialist mandated requirements. They would have no work ethic they would have entitlement. Then what do you have?
Now I am not against unions or minimum wages, not all. But things like unions and minimum wages have a tendency to turn into unrealistic and unsustainable required maximum wages and the growing insertion of the government and their requirements into the business of independent business. And they know no limits once they are further and further empowered.
There are reasonable lines that need to be drawn for America and its businesses to survive as formulated and to not become an ever-growing top heavy Socialist model where innovation and the ability for motivated individuals to excel and prosper dies. Too much government spells the death of America and of freedom for all concerned.
Minimum means minimum. Except when politics and politicians become involved.
Are you paying attention yet America? JGL 2/14/24
If it wasn't so dangerous and detrimental, it would be funny. The value of anything depends on what someone is willing to pay for it--in the labor market that means the law of supply and demand. If labor is scarce, then laborers are a more valuable entity and those who need their services will pay more. Have you tried to get a good plumber lately? So now the corrupt politicians are flooding the country (and the market) with millions of low-skilled laborers, reducing their value, while at the same time proposing an enormous "minimum wage" specifically designed for such workers. Can anyone really be that stupid?