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no need to tax them more to solve THAT one, just make them pay a living wage. Nobody working full time should be below the poverty line, nobody working half-tim

no need to tax them more to solve THAT one, just make them pay a living wage. Nobody working full time should be below the poverty line, nobody working half-time should require food stamps - otherwise it is exploitation not employment.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> no need to tax them more to solve THAT one, just make them pay a living wage. Thereby reducing the scope of jobs for which they can hire to ones that return sufficient value for that, sure. Of course, that will add to the public welfare burden, not reduce it, since it will reduce employment. There's a very good argument for some minimum wage in the absence of better of minimum support policies like UBI (that is, while it may not be the ideal minimum support mechanism, there's plenty of evidencie that, to a point, minimum wage is a net gain compared to not having it.) There's also probable a decent argument for “living wage” (sufficient for independent support) as a floor for certain kinds of labor in government contracting, etc. There's not really a good argument for living wage as the minimum wage floor; making everyone whose most valuable labor is not sufficient valuable to support them independently unemployable rather than employable at a level from which they can gain experience and advance is good for neither the unskilled nor the broader society. > to solve THAT one, just make them pay a living wage. Nobody working full time should be below the poverty line, nobody working half-time should require food stamps - otherwise it is exploitation not employment. This argument is equivalent to: “No one whose full time labor returns less value to the employer than would merit pay above the poverty line should be employed at all; nor should anyone whose half-time pay would leave them eligible for food stamps.” Making the relatively unskilled completely unemployable isn't helping anyone. (Also, food stamp eligibility limit is generally 130% of the poverty line, so aside from the general outline being bad, the specific details you've chosen would set a minimum hourly wage for half-time work at 2.6× the minimum for full-time work.) It's much better to tax capital income and increase the minimum support floor independent of employment than place increasing demands on employers, which just promotes automation and reduction in employment. You want to improve conditions for workers, especially at the low end? Tax capital income equal to labor income—both the basic income tax and the payroll/self-employment tax employed to labor income (this also includes uncapping the social security portion of payroll taxes.) Use the added income tax equivalent revenue to fund broad, unconditional minimum support (it won't be anywhere close to a mature UBI initially, but that's okay.) Use the added payroll tax equivalent revenue to (1) provide SS and Medicare eligiblity based on qualifying income that isn't labor based, but with (for SS) additional high income “bend points” beyond those in the current formula so that the marginal additional benefit for additional income continues to drop with income, (2) provide additional security for payroll tax funded programs, (3) beyond what is actuarially needed for long-term program security, transfer the excess to fund additional broad, unconditional minimum support. After indexing minimum wages to inflation, reduce the by $0.01/hr for every $40/yr of the minimum unconditional support (that is, full-time minimum wage would be reduced by half the unconditional benefit.) Workers are, in net, better off. Those unable to find work are better off because of the unconditional benefit. Taxes paid are fair, income is income. There's less incentive to reduce employment, and indeed more people can be employed.
- kennywinker 6y ago
  > Thereby reducing the scope of jobs for which they can hire to ones that return sufficient value for that, sure. The fact that they are BILLIONAIRES seems to indicate there is a decent amount of headroom to their business model. > This argument is equivalent to: “No one whose full time labor returns less value to the employer than would merit pay above the poverty line should be employed at all; nor should anyone whose half-time pay would leave them eligible for food stamps.” No. My argument is: if your business model can't sustain people at a living wage, then YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD NOT EXIST. Remember that walmart put a lot of small shops out of businesses - many of those shops paid their employees enough to live without needing food stamps. They sucked up all the air, if they can't sustain their workers, they need to stop sucking up the air and make room for businesses that can. edit: for details. the article I linked suggested that walmart employees receive $6.2 billion in gov assistance (2014) - wikipedia suggests that walmart made $14.8 billion (2020). Seems like they DEFINITELY have the headroom to pay their employees that difference. Why are we even arguing about this? Walmart would have made $8.6 billion and government would have at least 6.2 billion more for schools, PPE, covid relief, etc. nobody needs to lose their job, NOBODY EVEN NEEDS TO STOP BEING A BILLIONAIRE to at LEAST get people off food stamps.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The fact that they are BILLIONAIRES seems to indicate there is a decent amount of headroom to their business model. Does it? If you multiply a small per-labor-hour surplus by 1000+ hours per worker per year and lots of workers, you can accumulate lots of money per year and become a billionaire, but that doesn't mean you have lots of headroom, just lots of scale. > No. My argument is: if your business model can't sustain people at a living wage, then YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD NOT EXIST. Sure, and when you kill all the businesses that can't pay every entry level employee enough for a comfortable independent life, who is going to pay the additional public benefit costs to give even minimum poverty support to the much wider pool of unemployed and unemployable? Your plan is lose (for the people who would be employed but now won't)-lose (for the people unemployed in either case for whom there is now less revenue to provide support)-lose (for the capital owners who are now prohibited from employing people whom they otherwise could, mutually profitably). Taxing capital gains fairly and using the proceeds to provide better universal support while reducing employment friction is win-win-mixed for the same groups. > the article I linked suggested that walmart employees receive $6.2 billion in gov assistance (2014) - wikipedia suggests that walmart made $14.8 billion (2020). Seems like they DEFINITELY have the headroom to pay their employees that difference. Their 2020 net income was more than double their 2019 net income, of $6.67 billion. Tax net capital income more, and you don't ever switch a profitable business into a losing one by your policy, increase employment costs and you make profitable decisions to employ people into unprofitable ones.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> no need to tax them more to solve THAT one, just make them pay a living wage. Thereby reducing the scope of jobs for which they can hire to ones that return sufficient value for that, sure. Of course, that will add to the public welfare burden, not reduce it, since it will reduce employment. There's a very good argument for some minimum wage in the absence of better of minimum support policies like UBI (that is, while it may not be the ideal minimum support mechanism, there's plenty of evidencie that, to a point, minimum wage is a net gain compared to not having it.) There's also probable a decent argument for “living wage” (sufficient for independent support) as a floor for certain kinds of labor in government contracting, etc. There's not really a good argument for living wage as the minimum wage floor; making everyone whose most valuable labor is not sufficient valuable to support them independently unemployable rather than employable at a level from which they can gain experience and advance is good for neither the unskilled nor the broader society. > to solve THAT one, just make them pay a living wage. Nobody working full time should be below the poverty line, nobody working half-time should require food stamps - otherwise it is exploitation not employment. This argument is equivalent to: “No one whose full time labor returns less value to the employer than would merit pay above the poverty line should be employed at all; nor should anyone whose half-time pay would leave them eligible for food stamps.” Making the relatively unskilled completely unemployable isn't helping anyone. (Also, food stamp eligibility limit is generally 130% of the poverty line, so aside from the general outline being bad, the specific details you've chosen would set a minimum hourly wage for half-time work at 2.6× the minimum for full-time work.) It's much better to tax capital income and increase the minimum support floor independent of employment than place increasing demands on employers, which just promotes automation and reduction in employment. You want to improve conditions for workers, especially at the low end? Tax capital income equal to labor income—both the basic income tax and the payroll/self-employment tax employed to labor income (this also includes uncapping the social security portion of payroll taxes.) Use the added income tax equivalent revenue to fund broad, unconditional minimum support (it won't be anywhere close to a mature UBI initially, but that's okay.) Use the added payroll tax equivalent revenue to (1) provide SS and Medicare eligiblity based on qualifying income that isn't labor based, but with (for SS) additional high income “bend points” beyond those in the current formula so that the marginal additional benefit for additional income continues to drop with income, (2) provide additional security for payroll tax funded programs, (3) beyond what is actuarially needed for long-term program security, transfer the excess to fund additional broad, unconditional minimum support. After indexing minimum wages to inflation, reduce the by $0.01/hr for every $40/yr of the minimum unconditional support (that is, full-time minimum wage would be reduced by half the unconditional benefit.) Workers are, in net, better off. Those unable to find work are better off because of the unconditional benefit. Taxes paid are fair, income is income. There's less incentive to reduce employment, and indeed more people can be employed.

kennywinker 6y ago
> Thereby reducing the scope of jobs for which they can hire to ones that return sufficient value for that, sure. The fact that they are BILLIONAIRES seems to indicate there is a decent amount of headroom to their business model. > This argument is equivalent to: “No one whose full time labor returns less value to the employer than would merit pay above the poverty line should be employed at all; nor should anyone whose half-time pay would leave them eligible for food stamps.” No. My argument is: if your business model can't sustain people at a living wage, then YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD NOT EXIST. Remember that walmart put a lot of small shops out of businesses - many of those shops paid their employees enough to live without needing food stamps. They sucked up all the air, if they can't sustain their workers, they need to stop sucking up the air and make room for businesses that can. edit: for details. the article I linked suggested that walmart employees receive $6.2 billion in gov assistance (2014) - wikipedia suggests that walmart made $14.8 billion (2020). Seems like they DEFINITELY have the headroom to pay their employees that difference. Why are we even arguing about this? Walmart would have made $8.6 billion and government would have at least 6.2 billion more for schools, PPE, covid relief, etc. nobody needs to lose their job, NOBODY EVEN NEEDS TO STOP BEING A BILLIONAIRE to at LEAST get people off food stamps.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The fact that they are BILLIONAIRES seems to indicate there is a decent amount of headroom to their business model. Does it? If you multiply a small per-labor-hour surplus by 1000+ hours per worker per year and lots of workers, you can accumulate lots of money per year and become a billionaire, but that doesn't mean you have lots of headroom, just lots of scale. > No. My argument is: if your business model can't sustain people at a living wage, then YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD NOT EXIST. Sure, and when you kill all the businesses that can't pay every entry level employee enough for a comfortable independent life, who is going to pay the additional public benefit costs to give even minimum poverty support to the much wider pool of unemployed and unemployable? Your plan is lose (for the people who would be employed but now won't)-lose (for the people unemployed in either case for whom there is now less revenue to provide support)-lose (for the capital owners who are now prohibited from employing people whom they otherwise could, mutually profitably). Taxing capital gains fairly and using the proceeds to provide better universal support while reducing employment friction is win-win-mixed for the same groups. > the article I linked suggested that walmart employees receive $6.2 billion in gov assistance (2014) - wikipedia suggests that walmart made $14.8 billion (2020). Seems like they DEFINITELY have the headroom to pay their employees that difference. Their 2020 net income was more than double their 2019 net income, of $6.67 billion. Tax net capital income more, and you don't ever switch a profitable business into a losing one by your policy, increase employment costs and you make profitable decisions to employ people into unprofitable ones.