Quote:
|
Originally Posted by California Tanker
If the benefit of an increased minimum wage is definite, why are not more states increasing their minimum wages to the $7 or $8 mark on their own? They're obviously legally capable of doing it if they think its a good idea for their economy.
NTM
|
Several states already have broken the $7 mark. Several more are scheduled to do so in the 2007 calendar year. Propositions are on the agendas of several states throughout the country to increase the state minimum wage. However, it looks as though most states take the federal minimum wage level as their floor....meaning that for significant nationwide change, states look to the feds for leadership on this.
So... This is your recommendation for slave labor? (Labor at zero cost)
Increasing wage levels will indeed increase costs to consumers across the board. However, if combined with other measures, such as redirection of productive capacity and tuning of the monetary system, that inflation can be kept well within reasonable bounds. One highly effective means of doing this would be reduce employment in armaments, which produces nothing which supports the economy, while generating excessive numbers of overpaid jobs subsidized by the taxpayer. I'm merely suggesting that reducing the effect of the military/industrial complex (i.e., the war profiteers) upon the economy would go a long ways toward dampening inflation, as well as reducing our national indebtedness. It is most likely one of many measures which could be introduced. Measures to increase savings on the part of the average worker would also assist, but the programs of the past twenty years have encouraged excessive consumer debt, rather than savings. Amassed consumer debt is as big a problem as is the national debt. This is because, in large part, wages have not kept pace with monetary inflation over the past ten years.