• radiohead37@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I have no idea why you’re being downvoted. How would the government mandate a pay raise across the board? The government only has the federal minimum wage lever to play with. Somehow the law would have to say: all hourly workers must be paid 25% more. Would companies just increase prices by 25%?

    Now, I’m all for reducing the work week to 32 hours. I’m tired of spending most of the week working and only having to 2 free days (of which one is usually spent doing home chores). But I’m genuinely curious about how this would be implemented without causing massive inflation.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Raising the minimum wage to account for inflation would give a vast number of people a major raise.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Which has little to do with a 32 hour workweek, and can’t be done on its own even though it really should be done.

        Personally the minimum wage should be tied to the cost of living or increased along side CPI or some other useful inflation metric

        Simply a one-time jump isn’t going to accomplish all that much in the long run.

        Bring it up even to where it was along side inflation, (big jump,) and have an annual little jump baked in each year.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I agree, it has little to do with it. I was just addressing the idea that the federal minimum wage being the only lever to play would not have a massive positive effect on a huge percentage of workers.

          The AFL-CIO, which is only demanding a $15/hour minimum wage says that if it kept up with inflation, it would be $24/hour.

          https://aflcio.org/what-unions-do/social-economic-justice/minimum-wage

          Based on that, the bare minimum someone working full-time should be making is a little less than $50,000 a year. And if the government used that ‘only lever to play,’ and it would still be less than the $68k that is needed to ‘live comfortably.’

          https://thehill.com/business/4059025-an-average-american-income-may-no-longer-cut-it/

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            ive been reading a few things by the AFL-CIO, older stuff, I’d pay attention, though. (And 24 sounds about right.)

            I was chatting with the union’s negotiator (technically the enemy, but, whatever. We have a good relationship for that.) now that the new contract is ratified; he’s disappointed because he thought they could get more.

            I’m glad the bigwig negotiated they sent out fucked it up every which way. Got my people a much deserved pay raise and stuff.

            Seriously, corporations are freaking scared of unions just now. I hope this momentum lasts.