The Minimum Wage Problem

Even if they increase the minimum wage you still need the same amount of employees or you're going out of business. Or you are at least in the retraction phase not expansion phase of business. Either way. If you can't afford an extra 40 (assuming this is a full time worker) to 80 dollars a week you were not doing good way before the min wage increase. Also if you fire one minimum wage worker the max you could save is $290 a week.  Assuming again that this easily fired worker actually works 40 hours. In reality it's probably more like $150 a week or less. 

There are two other options in addition to a minimum wage increase we should try. A maximum wage linked in percentage to the lowest paid workers wages so CEOs couldn't make 400 percent of what their lowest paid worker makes. Or caps on inflation of necessities. Which we technically already have in place except we give the subsidies to the corporations claiming to end starvation with GMOs to keep the prices down. Instead of giving more subsidies to people who are starving because of low wages. Some of them do get food assistance. However a much larger percentage of our tax revenue goes to corporate subsidies for large scale agricultural crops than food stamps which keep people from starving to death, or starving long enough to suffer permanent brain damage. Even once you give the starving person food stamps they still have to give the money to corporations to get food.

Big business lobbyists do not support the minimum wage increase. The IRS actually has almost no policing power over people with major money. The way they hoard money hand over fist for offshore bank accounts has all been made Perfectly Legal. 

I capitalized Perfectly Legal because it is a book about specific changes in the tax codes that favor people with a certain level of wealth or higher, By David Cay Johnston. You should check it out. I've read his other two as well. Also good. I haven't taken any college level economics classes. As far as I know some assholes are still teaching laissez faire Chicago style economics as a viable global option even though it has proven time and time again to be a disaster Everywhere and create huge economic disparities. 

ALEC, ya know the people who write the laws for the lobbyists to give the Senators, is actively fighting against the minimum wage being raised. As a matter of fact the Tea Party wants the minimum wage abolished.

A small business owner can't just fire half her staff because they raised minimum wage to $8.15. That's not how that works. Also tipped waitress minimum wage and home health care is still $3.24.

Small business owners will moan and groan about a minimum wage increase in some cases. But they won't downsize. Because that's the cost of doing business. Successful business naturally wants to expand. Companies don't produce anything, no profits at all without labor. In service at least which is where min wage primarily resides. You can profit in silicone valley or on wall street without labor. You can use social media to make your advertising go viral but you can't actually produce anything.

I don't think things that produce nothing of value to society should produce profit. Paperwork and organization, management and CEOs are glorified paper pushers. We have computers and programs that could do the job much most efficiently. Women are likely to do the same types of leadership jobs as men but for volunteer organizations. Women often work for free or almost free taking care of loved ones and friends, or cleaning and other shit that holds society up like raising children and teaching. But that hard work doesn't ever produce profits. When the economy takes a down turn like this the unemployed are the opposite of lazy, they hold everyone else up.

The idea is, employees shouldn't come and go. There should be a low turnover rate if people were doing things to contribute to society that they love. They should be invested in where they work. Capitalism created the come and go culture. Real small businesses just want to stay afloat and pay their bills and their employees bills and expenses and every penny more goes back into the business and that local community. There is a myth of small business profit. That you can have what the banks have. That you can jump class.

It's when you ignore things like safety regulations, required insurance, fees, that you make profits, from not paying things you owe. Or from keeping your employees at below living wages. People who do things by the book who aren't millionaires already pay out the ass in taxes and fees. And no they don't make much profit. I'm talking less than 50 employees that aren't publicly traded. I'd even say there are a lot of businesses with fewer than 20. Look around your town, they are dropping like flies. But they are the places with things we need as a society a lot of the time. I've seen more secondhand stores popping up which is encouraging.

All those min wage stock clerks working at the big boxes like Target, Walmart, Kohls, etc. etc. etc. don't have money to go out to eat or get their hair done or a massage. They need to eat and it's on a tight budget. It is exactly a businesses responsibility to the community to provide living wage jobs. Often small businesses, real ones, aren't paying below a living wage, it's the big boxes churning out drone employees and burning out their energy and frustration level on minimum wage jobs that have little meaning. 

We should have more locally produced items to save on shipping for environmental and cost minimizing reasons. Protecting labor rights and working conditions is part of keeping things local. We don't want to have to dial our factories back to the 1900s to compete in the global economy. We are the wealthiest nation in history. We should have amazingly productive and safe modern factories that pay a living wage. The model of the future as opposed to racing backwards in time.