Minimum wages and/or universal benefits? The broader policy question is important.

[Zynx]

We have had a lot of discussions about whether the minimum wage should be a replacement for or a supplement to universal benefits. One of the major discussion points when considering the United States' minimum wage relative to other countries has been that other countries have much stronger universal public benefits programs and, as such, the minimum wage needs to be higher to offset that deficiency. On the face of it, this seems to be a reasonable point, but it does raise the obvious question of why don't we pursue a more robust system of universal public benefits like the European countries?

Boil it down to two potential systems:

1. Current universal benefits plus a $15/hr minimum wage.

2. Greatly expanded universal benefits for health care and housing paid for through progressive taxation plus a $10-$12/hr minimum wage.

Between the two, I would argue that the second is a far better approach. It still enhances the minimum wage greatly, with between a 50% and 70% increase while making good the deficiencies of wages through universally available benefits.

Attempting to provide the full range of entitlements through what is essentially an employer mandate is considerably less efficient than this. It does not take into account broad variations in cost of living and the prevailing wages in a particular area. In some cities, it's possible to buy a house for $80,000 to $100,000 or rent a perfectly viable apartment for $650 a month whereas in other cities houses don't come much cheaper than $400,000 and rents don't come in lower than $1,800 a month or even higher.

Furthermore, a higher minimum wage designed to be a living wage for those with children has the perverse effect of, all things being equal, "overcompensating" single earners without children. Benefits tied to the disposition of the family, scaling with the number of adults and children in the family, are far more precise at correcting for this issue.

Benefits, paid for through progressive taxation, more efficiently collect from the ability to pay at the high end than do higher minimum wages. A doubled or more minimum wage will materially affect some employers who are now just barely profitable while not materially affecting larger corporations who happen to pay some of their employees below the targeted wages. Public benefits, however, paid for through progressive taxation on high earners and corporations, collect from those who can afford the costs easily and avoid pricing marginal labor out of the market through wages that are higher than productivity. In such a system, you don't put a small restaurant in rural Iowa with 10 employees making an average of $10/hr that's barely profitable out of business or cause them to lay people off/reduce hours.

It is conceptually a far more efficient system for providing what is in essence a guaranteed minimum income. It also a system that provides these benefits regardless of the economic strength of an area or the country at large. Whether there is regional economic hardship or a national recession that reduces employment, these universal entitlements are not subject to the abundance of employment. It's very much the same reason that a single payer universal healthcare system is far superior to one based around an employer mandate.

I think most, if not all, of us agree with a far more redistributive system than we have at present. I argue that it is far more precise and less disruptive to put far more of the emphasis on public benefits that can be more finely tuned to economic realties than through a single national minimum wage that would ignore things like family sizes, cost of living differentials, the abilities of particular employers to pay, etc in a single attempt to provide a true living wage.

We have to consider why other countries have opted for the range of minimum wages that they have, which are in the $10-$12 range when adjusting for cost of living, and a system of robust public benefits instead of $15-$20/hr minimum wages. It's not an accident. This has happened because of robust policy discussions in those countries and this is why they are where they are.

[LWolf]

1. These kinds of arguments are interesting to me.

So many arguments, so many talking points, so many political maneuvers, start off based on the misleading assumption, the projection, the mindset, that we can't have both, that we must always choose between what we need, that we must always start from a position of weakness and then give up more ground. We must set the bar low so that we can claim victory when we don't lose more ground, or when we win symbolic rather than concrete victories.

To be honest, that echoes the education "reform" movement way too closely for comfort. As a teacher, I know it doesn't work. Frankly, that's not the way I get things done, and that's not the way I want to see any group of people trying to achieve positives for the planet and her people do things. Here's a better way:

Start by making the ideal outcome the goal. (Yes. I'm an idealist.) Start from a place of vision and strength. Set the bar high. Then fight like hell to get there. Whatever we do, DON'T FUCKING BACK UP. DON'T GIVE GROUND. Even if we gained not a hairsbreadth, at least we wouldn't have lost anything. If we do make incremental gains, they aren't at the expense of anything else. In every case, we make more progress by setting that bar high. The problem is with perceiving, and allowing the perception to be framed, as somehow a failure if you don't get all the way there, instead of celebrating every step of the journey forward as a win.

So...I don't accept "either/or." I'll take on both, and I want people to be determined enough to join me.

If I am fighting for $15 an hour and I end up with $12, I'll call that a victory and press on, regardless of where so-called "universal benefits" stand.

As far as "universal benefits" go, I'll keep marching forward, one step at a time, until we have a universal, national health care plan providing abundant, high-quality, easily accessible care free at point of service, universal and universally free public education pre-school through trade or university, public ownership of utilities, fully developed public transportation systems, and all infrastructure of any kind under non-profit public governance.

It's not either or. It's keep taking steps forward on both of these, and other important issues.

[Zynx]

3. I presented the argument this way because option 2 is what Europe does.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Is your wage less than $15?

How about option 3:

$15 and universal healthcare and universal education.

By the way your candidate is against 15 and "greatly expanded universal benefits". So you left out option 4 too.

[Zynx]

4. I presented the argument this way because option 2 is what Europe does.

[PowerToThePeople]

5. I agree with you.

I think the first one is a simpler task to accomplish, so it is what has been pursued. The second is a greater change to the system, so would be more difficult.

[Zynx]

6. To me it's easier to expand the universal benefits system than pushing up the minimum wage that high

[PowerToThePeople]

7. As far as I know, there are no universal benifits

Other than social security.

Unemployment is based on documented work history, medicaid is based on income levels, welfare has been replaced by tanf, which is more like a loan than a grant.

What universal benifits are you thinking of?