LogFAQs > #979013504

$50? Just make it $300/hour! That'd solve everything!

adjl posted...

As a concept, a flat minimum wage will never work. It'll inevitably fall behind inflation,

More or less, especially since it has a role in driving inflation. And, as you mentioned, regionality is a huge thing. A $20 minimum wage in some areas would kill the region.

Plus, minimum wage is generally a band-aid on broader societal issues, which continue to fester, while exacerbating other social issues.

adjl posted...

That, or just do UBI and abandon the idea of minimum wage altogether. That's probably simpler, though it still runs into the issue that living wages are not universal and there'd need to be some regional variation there (with some kind of checks to make sure people don't just move to expensive neighbourhoods so they get more UBI).

The only problem with that plan is UBI doesn't work. Well, not as a replacement, anyway. The UBI pitch has been "Do this in lieu of everything else!" when in fact you'd still likely have some version of Section 8, some version of Medicaid, some version of SNAP, etc, supplementing it.

That and we aren't in a post-labor society where UBI could function.

adjl posted...

Fun fact: If you took away 99.99999% of a billionaire's net worth, they'd still have $10k left. Musk and Bezos would still be millionaires. A billion dollars really is a ludicrous amount of money.

Except net worth isn't billions of dollars that they have, it's holdings in companies where the valuation of the company's shares is volatile. While "okay, you're successful, we want to take a good chunk of your money" is questionable, suggesting "okay, you're successful, we want to take over your company" is straight-up Soviet.