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> Right, because how do you empathize with someone who gets $1, and their response is: Oh yeah? Well fine then I'm going to vote for the person who wants to tak

> Right, because how do you empathize with someone who gets $1, and their response is: Oh yeah? Well fine then I'm going to vote for the person who wants to take away literally EVERYTHING to show you! Consider how the program actually works. You have a job and pay taxes, but don't make much money, so the government takes the taxes you paid and gives them back to you. But you have to apply for the program, and then spend the money (which was originally yours) on only the things they tell you to. And there is more than one assistance program so you have to apply to them each individually. Then each of the programs have their own phase outs if you make more money, but the phase out rates combine to a very high de facto marginal tax rate, which means if you're still struggling you can't get out of it by working some extra hours because that just causes you to lose your benefits. It's a poverty trap. Then prices go up by 20% or more, but you still can't make any more money or you lose your benefits. In response your benefits are increased by one dollar. Are people even wrong to want to blow all of that up and replace it with a tax credit?

Riverheart 2y ago
If only there were people who wanted to raise minimum wage…
- TimeBearingDown 2y ago
  This raises the lowest rung on the ladder, reduces the set of contracts that adults may consider or consent to, and can eliminate entire jobs and threaten entire sectors such as the old apprentice mechanic / gas station attendant and now fast food.
  - Riverheart 2y ago
    And higher income can lead to increased spending on businesses that are paying their employees more. I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet but you can poke holes in anything. The point is, one party is proposing “something” and not just posturing. The cost of ingredients for a burger doesn’t radically change if a burger flipper gets paid more and the price of the burger isn’t going up drastically either. Clearly companies with billion dollar market caps can also be held to higher standards because no one is going to pay more than they are required for labor. Maybe the minimum wage is a percentage of the business total profits and minimum wage at $7.25 is just the floor? A lot of wealth is locked up in the wealthiest people which could be circulating in the economy instead of being in a Swiss bank account. There are multiple layers, multiple solutions instead of hoping wealth trickles down. Poverty wasn’t solved under the last Trump administration as I recall nor do I expect it in the upcoming one.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > And higher income can lead to increased spending on businesses that are paying their employees more. > The cost of ingredients for a burger doesn’t radically change if a burger flipper gets paid more and the price of the burger isn’t going up drastically either. These things are two sides of the same coin. The increase in wages is the same as the increase in costs, so if one of them is small then so is the other one and if one of them is large then so is the other one. > Clearly companies with billion dollar market caps can also be held to higher standards because no one is going to pay more than they are required for labor. Maybe the minimum wage is a percentage of the business total profits and minimum wage at $7.25 is just the floor? This is only less of a bad idea because the bad idea then applies to fewer businesses. Also, the billion dollar market cap companies would then just contract it out. > A lot of wealth is locked up in the wealthiest people which could be circulating in the economy instead of being in a Swiss bank account. That's not real wealth. That's just money. Money is numbers in a computer. Taking non-circulating money and putting it into circulation has the same inflationary effect as printing it. Whereas leaving it non-circulating doesn't consume any real resources (land, labor, etc.) because it's just bits. However, most rich people don't store their "wealth" as cash money anyway, they buy stocks and things, which in turn puts the money in the hands of businesses to use to hire employees etc. That money isn't non-circulating and what you're doing then is reallocating resources from something else. You're trying to solve the problem that people aren't being paid enough by passing a law that literally says they have to be paid more. It's like passing a law that literally says housing prices have to be low. That's a dumb law. You can't just magic up a change in labor demand or housing supply. You need to figure out why wages are low or housing prices are high and do something about that.
      - Riverheart 2y ago
        I’m hearing a lot of hole poking and not a lot of solutions. If everything I’ve said is wrong then what do you believe is right? Genuinely, if you have something to teach I’m all ears for my personal betterment. How do we ensure everyone gets a livable wage without redistributing the wealth of the rich, mandating a higher minimum wage, or increasing inflation and since you mentioned housing, make that affordable without gutting the value of existing housing which will make existing home owners upset. If the answer is tax cuts for the rich “job creators” so they might spend some of the savings on employees instead of pocketing it, we’ve had decades for that to work. > You're trying to solve the problem that people aren't being paid enough by passing a law that literally says they have to be paid more If a company is profitable and chooses not to share their profitability with their employees then I have no qualms with this anymore than I do with the current minimum wage law, which was created for a reason and the world did not burn down as a result. Businesses are more profitable than ever, employees more productive than ever, they had their chance to do this on their own and avoid gov interference and they blew it. We can argue the details of that intervention but the market isn’t going to correct this. > These things are two sides of the same coin. The increase in wages is the same as the increase in costs, so if one of them is small then so is the other one and if one of them is large then so is the other one. It’s not 1/1 increase and labor is not the only cost. If 5 employees make an extra $1 the price of a burger doesn’t go up $5. If 5 employees build a million dollar house the cost of the house doesn’t go up if they get paid $7 extra because the cost is tied up in material/licenses/etc, not labor.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > If only there were people who wanted to raise minimum wage… So you raise the minimum wage but keep the crazy high effective marginal tax rate? Then the benefits phase out eats the extra money the same as it would if they were working extra hours. Also, hardly anybody actually makes the minimum wage. If your problem is you make $20/hour but that's not enough to afford housing, raising the minimum wage to $15/hour doesn't get you a raise and only makes the things you buy cost more. If you tried to use a $40/hour minimum wage you would get high unemployment and stagflation. Minimum wage laws are broken technology. They do more harm than good and most of the studies "in favor" of them are really only claiming that they don't hurt that much, and those studies are performed in contexts where the minimum wage is quite low. Somewhat obviously, if the median wage is $18/hour and less than 1% of people make less than $4/hour and then you ban paying less than $4/hour, there is no major effect and therefore no major harm. That doesn't at all imply that banning anyone from paying less than $40/hour is going to be equally harmless.
Dalewyn 2y ago
>Then prices go up by 20% or more Going to chime in here hopefully to give better context than "a carton of eggs is up 10%!" or whatever. The average price of a gallon of gas in 2018 was ~$2.72, peak was $2.92 in May. The average price of a gallon of gas in 2022 was ~$3.95, peak was $5.01 in June. So that's an increase in average price of about 45% between the midpoints of Trump and Biden, and an eyewatering 71% in peak increases. Obama 2014 was ~$3.37 average and $3.70 peak in June, for further comparison. Trump's economy was objectively and factually easier to live in. A 45% increase for a good necessary for daily life is going to hurt no matter what, let alone 71%. All else being equal it's thrown around as a meme that incumbent presidents and parties live and die by the gas price index, but there's a reason for that. Anecdata, I'm decidedly middle class. I can afford luxuries reasonably if I want to, and objectively I can tolerate increasing costs of living fine (for now). That said though, even I feel a bit of discomfort buying mundane groceries because they definitely feel like they should be cheaper. It's even worse for mundane luxuries like beer, I can't really complain about a luxury good being expensive but at the same time it still feels too expensive anyway. Don't get me started on gas prices, where I'm at they're ~$4.00 per gallon today and were up to ~$5.00 at some points during Biden. It was ~$2.00 during Trump. That's a 100% increase or more, you can't pay me to say that doesn't hurt even if I can still afford it. That feeling of discomfort and pain isn't nice and I don't blame a voter if they cast a single issue vote on it.
- anjel 2y ago
  We had near 0% inflation for more than a decade. Average all those consumer staples price increase across 15 years and it's still modest inflation that was weoponized, both by the GOP and also the news media (because ratings.)
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Normal inflation is wages and prices both going up by a couple of percent a year, which is fine. 20%+ abrupt increase in prices without a corresponding increase in wages, not fine.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago

Riverheart 2y ago

If only there were people who wanted to raise minimum wage…

TimeBearingDown 2y ago
This raises the lowest rung on the ladder, reduces the set of contracts that adults may consider or consent to, and can eliminate entire jobs and threaten entire sectors such as the old apprentice mechanic / gas station attendant and now fast food.
- Riverheart 2y ago
  And higher income can lead to increased spending on businesses that are paying their employees more. I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet but you can poke holes in anything. The point is, one party is proposing “something” and not just posturing. The cost of ingredients for a burger doesn’t radically change if a burger flipper gets paid more and the price of the burger isn’t going up drastically either. Clearly companies with billion dollar market caps can also be held to higher standards because no one is going to pay more than they are required for labor. Maybe the minimum wage is a percentage of the business total profits and minimum wage at $7.25 is just the floor? A lot of wealth is locked up in the wealthiest people which could be circulating in the economy instead of being in a Swiss bank account. There are multiple layers, multiple solutions instead of hoping wealth trickles down. Poverty wasn’t solved under the last Trump administration as I recall nor do I expect it in the upcoming one.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > And higher income can lead to increased spending on businesses that are paying their employees more. > The cost of ingredients for a burger doesn’t radically change if a burger flipper gets paid more and the price of the burger isn’t going up drastically either. These things are two sides of the same coin. The increase in wages is the same as the increase in costs, so if one of them is small then so is the other one and if one of them is large then so is the other one. > Clearly companies with billion dollar market caps can also be held to higher standards because no one is going to pay more than they are required for labor. Maybe the minimum wage is a percentage of the business total profits and minimum wage at $7.25 is just the floor? This is only less of a bad idea because the bad idea then applies to fewer businesses. Also, the billion dollar market cap companies would then just contract it out. > A lot of wealth is locked up in the wealthiest people which could be circulating in the economy instead of being in a Swiss bank account. That's not real wealth. That's just money. Money is numbers in a computer. Taking non-circulating money and putting it into circulation has the same inflationary effect as printing it. Whereas leaving it non-circulating doesn't consume any real resources (land, labor, etc.) because it's just bits. However, most rich people don't store their "wealth" as cash money anyway, they buy stocks and things, which in turn puts the money in the hands of businesses to use to hire employees etc. That money isn't non-circulating and what you're doing then is reallocating resources from something else. You're trying to solve the problem that people aren't being paid enough by passing a law that literally says they have to be paid more. It's like passing a law that literally says housing prices have to be low. That's a dumb law. You can't just magic up a change in labor demand or housing supply. You need to figure out why wages are low or housing prices are high and do something about that.
    - Riverheart 2y ago
      I’m hearing a lot of hole poking and not a lot of solutions. If everything I’ve said is wrong then what do you believe is right? Genuinely, if you have something to teach I’m all ears for my personal betterment. How do we ensure everyone gets a livable wage without redistributing the wealth of the rich, mandating a higher minimum wage, or increasing inflation and since you mentioned housing, make that affordable without gutting the value of existing housing which will make existing home owners upset. If the answer is tax cuts for the rich “job creators” so they might spend some of the savings on employees instead of pocketing it, we’ve had decades for that to work. > You're trying to solve the problem that people aren't being paid enough by passing a law that literally says they have to be paid more If a company is profitable and chooses not to share their profitability with their employees then I have no qualms with this anymore than I do with the current minimum wage law, which was created for a reason and the world did not burn down as a result. Businesses are more profitable than ever, employees more productive than ever, they had their chance to do this on their own and avoid gov interference and they blew it. We can argue the details of that intervention but the market isn’t going to correct this. > These things are two sides of the same coin. The increase in wages is the same as the increase in costs, so if one of them is small then so is the other one and if one of them is large then so is the other one. It’s not 1/1 increase and labor is not the only cost. If 5 employees make an extra $1 the price of a burger doesn’t go up $5. If 5 employees build a million dollar house the cost of the house doesn’t go up if they get paid $7 extra because the cost is tied up in material/licenses/etc, not labor.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> If only there were people who wanted to raise minimum wage… So you raise the minimum wage but keep the crazy high effective marginal tax rate? Then the benefits phase out eats the extra money the same as it would if they were working extra hours. Also, hardly anybody actually makes the minimum wage. If your problem is you make $20/hour but that's not enough to afford housing, raising the minimum wage to $15/hour doesn't get you a raise and only makes the things you buy cost more. If you tried to use a $40/hour minimum wage you would get high unemployment and stagflation. Minimum wage laws are broken technology. They do more harm than good and most of the studies "in favor" of them are really only claiming that they don't hurt that much, and those studies are performed in contexts where the minimum wage is quite low. Somewhat obviously, if the median wage is $18/hour and less than 1% of people make less than $4/hour and then you ban paying less than $4/hour, there is no major effect and therefore no major harm. That doesn't at all imply that banning anyone from paying less than $40/hour is going to be equally harmless.

Dalewyn 2y ago

>Then prices go up by 20% or more Going to chime in here hopefully to give better context than "a carton of eggs is up 10%!" or whatever. The average price of a gallon of gas in 2018 was ~$2.72, peak was $2.92 in May. The average price of a gallon of gas in 2022 was ~$3.95, peak was $5.01 in June. So that's an increase in average price of about 45% between the midpoints of Trump and Biden, and an eyewatering 71% in peak increases. Obama 2014 was ~$3.37 average and $3.70 peak in June, for further comparison. Trump's economy was objectively and factually easier to live in. A 45% increase for a good necessary for daily life is going to hurt no matter what, let alone 71%. All else being equal it's thrown around as a meme that incumbent presidents and parties live and die by the gas price index, but there's a reason for that. Anecdata, I'm decidedly middle class. I can afford luxuries reasonably if I want to, and objectively I can tolerate increasing costs of living fine (for now). That said though, even I feel a bit of discomfort buying mundane groceries because they definitely feel like they should be cheaper. It's even worse for mundane luxuries like beer, I can't really complain about a luxury good being expensive but at the same time it still feels too expensive anyway. Don't get me started on gas prices, where I'm at they're ~$4.00 per gallon today and were up to ~$5.00 at some points during Biden. It was ~$2.00 during Trump. That's a 100% increase or more, you can't pay me to say that doesn't hurt even if I can still afford it. That feeling of discomfort and pain isn't nice and I don't blame a voter if they cast a single issue vote on it.

anjel 2y ago
We had near 0% inflation for more than a decade. Average all those consumer staples price increase across 15 years and it's still modest inflation that was weoponized, both by the GOP and also the news media (because ratings.)
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Normal inflation is wages and prices both going up by a couple of percent a year, which is fine. 20%+ abrupt increase in prices without a corresponding increase in wages, not fine.
insane_dreamer 2y ago