Get rid of minimum wage entirely and replace it with UBI and universal healthcare - now you can at least survive without having an income. If you want more than just the bare necessities of food, shelter, and healthcare, you can get a job to earn more money. But, because you're not forced to work to survive, you can be much more selective about the job you take. Businesses will be forced to offer better pay, better working conditions, more flexibility, etc. because now nobody is forced into working a shit job just to make ends meet.
Get rid of minimum wage entirely and replace it with UBI and universal healthcare
Do UBI and healthcare first.
I feel like this is the most correct solution.
Came here to post this answer. This guy progresses.
Unironically the objectively correct answer.
As the owner of an asbestos factory and slaughterhouse, I don't like this.
Also more public housing. Everyone needs somewhere to live and letting a handful of people siphon wealth out of that isn't working out for us.
It would also allow for more automation within factories because there's no downside to losing a job.
It would truly fix a shit ton of problems and only for the better.
Authoritarian Capitalists: "They're taking your jobs!"
UBI: "Yeah...and?"
So, a bit of an André Gorz question here: If we try to further the economy via working towards consumption, or buying what we want outside of basic needs being met, social inequality will still be a problem. Think, for instance, of someone who might be disabled and can’t find the extra employment to afford a car or something on one end, and me being jealous of my neighbor’s PS5 on the other. We’d be effectively driven to compete yet again for the jobs that we thought we could escape, progressing consumer culture as the end goal. Do you think a different goal is possible?
That's hard to answer. I'm not sure if humans would be able to create a stable society that didn't rely on consumerism. We're wired to try to maximize our resources, and this doesn't seem to stop even when basic needs have been comfortably met. I can't say I'm at all knowledgeable about this though. I'll have to think more on it.
$0. Cover everyone’s basic needs by default whether they work or not.
Then you will have no need for a minimum wage, and people who do work will be in much better positions to negotiate their pay because getting fired or quitting has zero chance of being deadly.
Human life has innate value and worth.
What do you do when there's a shortage? I never understood the "cover everyone's needs" idea. Don't you eventually run out of other peoples stuff to give away?
Agree with the 0$ min tho!
Idk if you’re American, but I am, so I’m using as the example.
There are more empty houses in America than there are homeless people. There is more than enough wasted food to feed those who are starving.
There are no shortages of our basic needs. There is only unrestricted greed of the rich. People die, not because the resources to keep them alive don’t exist, but because politicians value their wallets over the lives of their citizens.
Furthermore, to address “other people’s stuff” This proposed scenario isn’t like capitalism, we aren’t forcing people to work so others can leech off their effort. We are building the infrastructure to support everyone by using everyone’s money. This stuff doesn’t belong to someone, it belongs to everyone. You participate in the system because you want the benefits and you get them just like everyone else.
Lastly, arguments like yours usually come from people who don’t understand that many people actually like helping others. So, I’m here to tell you: lots of people actually like doing things to help others.
If my government was trying to build infrastructure to help support my fellow citizens, I would volunteer to help. Most of my friends would too. And, if people no longer have to “be productive” on threat of death/destitution, they will be much more likely to do this kind of volunteering.
On a related note, lots of infrastructure and cool inventions are built by people like that. You know, like this website we’re on right now, and the protocol that makes it work, and the software that most internet servers run on, and the operating system that your phone and computer’s operating systems are based on, etc.
Most people like making things. We like creating things. Most people like to help others. It feels good to do good things. The limiting factor is not that people do not want to help others, but that, as things stand, taking the time to help others or create is wasting time that could impact your survival. Many people only care about capitalizing on their work because they need money to survive. If you remove that threat, you free millions of people from the chains that prevent them from sharing their effort and creativity with the world freely.
US answer because I live in the US.
It should be the livable wage of a single person for each US state. It should be calulated each census with an annual cost of living increase based on the prior 10 years.
It would be a lot easier to calculate if universal healthcare and UBI existed.
It should be at least $25 by now for even the poorest state.
adjusted for inflation unless the us gets a UBI that pays well enough to live in small towns.
People may not appreciate the genius of this suggestion. Un-tethering the "rural" and small-town poor from struggle would allow them to consider voting in ways that aren't strictly about money. In some places, that means voting for cleaner water instead of more gas drilling. Or even human rights over tax breaks.
Setting it to any single number is pointless, it will inevitably stagnate and fall behind inflation, leaving us in the exact same position.
The first thing we need to do is redefine a livable wage to being able to afford shelter, food, and utilities. Then, we can tie the minimum wage to the current livable wage, which will continue to rise in future alongside inflation.
Whatever happens, pin it to inflation
$68 an hour.
In 1988 I was a single head-of-household mom without child support, and a full time college student when there was no tuition. I worked 30 hours a week as a bartender. I had to spend wisely, but was able to pay all bills with 75% of my pay, and have enough disposable income (and time) left to actually enjoy life. In today’s dollars and including tips, my take home pay was $54 an hour.
In 2025, a single HoH parent working 30 hours a week would be able to pay all bills including daycare and have a reasonable ~25% of their income left for living life on a gross income of $68 an hour.
That number would need an annual CoL adjustment. Also, college should be free.
Also, college should be free.
100%
Minimum services, not minimum wage.
Guarantee food, housing, healthcare, transport, etc to every person first. Then we can talk wages.
72 bucks. Read somewhere a little under that is what the buying power of our grandparents was when they could afford a house and comfortable life with a wife with a single job, so 72 since the billionaires have too much anyway.
I was going to say $73 but you're right that would be way too much! $72 is perfect.
But we can't pay our workers 73 dollars per year! We'd go bankrupt!
Nobody wants to work any more...
$30 if implemented instantly. $35 if it takes more than two years., add $5 for every three years after either of those cases.
It certainly shouldn't be static, waiting on legislators to increase. Tie it to some kind of economic metric that is determined by an independent (non political) body
IMO minimum wage should be set to something like $25/h, and then automatically adjusted for inflation annually. The downside would be that inflation can be calculated in many different ways, and would probably be calculated in the way that's best for dicking over the working class, but that's still better than what we've got now.
It should be a living wage in whatever market the job is in. Executive pay should be capped to a multiple of the minimum employee wage and the average employee wage. No company should be able to make profit or pay dividends or bonuses unless every employee is making at least a living wage. If they do they are stealing the value of the labour.
I like that approach, but you'd have to deal with companies spinning off departments as separate companies on paper so that executives and average employees are paid by different companies and have different payscales. You'd have to do something like include any company that BigCo transacts with when calculating payscales for BigCo or something like that.
I would include every employee of every affiliated company and include suppliers and contractors. I would also make the benefits owed to part time employees higher than those owed to full time employees to incentivize companies to create full time positions. That way four people working four 25% time jobs each would be converted to full time employees.
I would also require that any offshore employees or contractors be paid the same as onshore employees.
There are extra considerations for being given shares in lieu of direct income that get complex fast, but could be done. The real problem is that shares appreciating in value lets them use the stocks for collateral without triggering any income taxes on the value.
I think it should be Enough™️. Not just enough to scrape by with 3 roommates, or to barely make it on your own, but enough so that you're never a single paycheck from homelessness; enough so you can live on your own, modestly, comfortably, without struggling unduly; enough so that if a medical issue arises, you can handle it without worrying.
People should be paid Enough™️ so that they can do MORE than just live, but so that they can THRIVE. And every day that doesn't happen is a stain on Humanity's record.
I say we make the federal minimum wage equal to 20% of the salary of a Congressperson.
That's likely to be $180k in 2025, which means a minimum of $17.30/hr. We know they never fail to give themselves raises, so it makes sense to tie their pay to the minimum wage.
It should be tied to the highest COL region (so that it does not economically limit geographic mobility) and it should allow someone living there to:
- Pay rent of a 1b/1ba apartment at current market rate with less than 1/3 income. As well as utilities (Internet included)
- Pay for a healthy diet at current costs of food.
- Pay for all medical care that could be necessary (this shouldn't actually cost anything but a small tax on the income).
And
- Pay for tuition and all costs associated with being a full-time university student while working 25% of the year. Or
- Leave sufficient income after expenses to save up for a market rate home in 5-7 years of working full-time.
(Note that this is all predicated on continued use of a capitalist economic system and would likely be much easier to achieve in ways not directly tied to wage in a more advanced economic system.)
Whatever it takes to afford and apartment and eat food and commute to a job.
At the very least it should be $10.80 - the last increase was in 2009 to $7.25, and that’s what it would be if it kept up with inflation. If you pegged it to inflation at earlier points then it would be even more today. The minimum of $3.35 in 1981 would be equivalent to $12.35 today. Any future increase in the federal minimum wage should be set to automatically increase with inflation every year. That way it can’t stagnate for 16 years like it currently has.
Realistically the minimum wage would need to be higher in some places at the local level, in particular in some cities where the cost of living is much greater than the national average. The California minimum wage is $16.50, and it’s higher in more expensive cities (Berkeley is $18.67).
Average rental price per month divided by 40 hours a week or 160 hours a month.
$1200 / 160 hours = 7.5
Obviously this is just an example
Some of my comment got lost:
Your housing costs should only be a third of your total income or less. Thats the place i was going with it. Oops
So your entire pretax pay check should go to housing?
No, absolutely not. i think theres a case for a minimum wage, but here its just a baseline for only basic housing. Obviously the national average rental price is much higher than 1200 to start. My conclusion here would be that your housing costs, according to experts should only be a 1/3 or less of your total income.
Enough to live off of. The worker deserves their due.
e.g. if we really want to be a Christian nation, these earlier writings come to mind: Leviticus 19:13, Deuteronomy 24:15, 1 Timothy 5:18-19, Jesus reiterates in Luke 10:7, James 5:4, and many, many others.
Whatever it takes to have a place to stay. Three meals a day. Get medical care.
The rich.
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