Is legislating a minimum living wage possible or destined for failure?

[bbhaag]

As many of you may not know Illinois recently elected Governor J.B. Pritzker to office. A top priority on the Governors agenda is to increase the minimum wage in Illinois from $8.25/hour to $15/hour by the year 2025. It got me thinking about how governments try to legislate a living minimum wage and whether or not that is helpfull to the overall health of the States economy. With a State that is facing massive debt with no foreseeable way to pay it off I wonder if this is the correct choice for Illinois. We are already taxed at some of the highest rates in the nation which causes business and residents to shy away form coming here or outright leave so is increasing the minimum living wage going to really help?

What do you guys think? I've added a poll to get the overall consensus of the forum.

 

[shortylickens]

seems like it works in smaller, wealthier countries.
It wont work in America.

 

[soundforbjt]

Pritzker needs to legalize marijuana quick to ease the financial burdens the state faces.

 

[HurleyBird]

I don't think there's a universal answer. There's an ideal minimum wage for every situation, but finding the optimal solution, or even anything near it, is hard.

 

[LTC8K6]

I think that many prices rise, and your taxes go up, and you end up at the same basic poverty level, whether the MW is $8 an hour, or $15 an hour. Your position in society doesn't move, and your ability to afford things changes little.

 

[Jaskalas]

I believe minimum wage is a solution to an obsolete problem. Automation and devaluing labor means you cannot force sustenance through a corporation's labor costs. The solution needs to be labor agnostic. A tax to cover Basic Income. I believe that through such measures, we wouldn't need to regulate the labor market so much, minimum wage might even be abolished. So long as our people have what they need, the free market could be freer than it has been in a long time.

Policy to control and restrict things seem rather asinine. Bad policy for an old age, and it never worked all that well to begin with.

I favor stepping forward with something bolder, and better. No amount of minimum wage would let your children pay CASH for a home. Or let them enjoy the freedom to move and live where ever they want, to seek out and find the sort of labor they favor. To take time off and care for their loved ones in times of need. Things happen in life, and the value of a "living wage" should be universal, not tired up with strings or fifty sheets of paperwork attached.

 

[dank69]

While I believe that eventually we will have to move to basic income, in the meantime there are some flaws with a straight minimum wage hike. There needs to be some middle ground because high school and college kids don't need to be paid $15 an hour to spit in people's burgers a few weeks a year for 20 hours a week.

However, if you draw a simple distinction between minimum wage for full time vs part time jobs, then greedy corporations will exploit that loophole to force people who want full time work into part time jobs.

No, there has to be two tiers of minimum wage, part and full time, as well as regulations stating that if you have enough work for more than one part-timer you must convert anyone to full time if that is what they desire.

 

[tweaker2]

Mostly depends on the wealthy and how much pressure they can apply on the politicians to keep it from happening.

 

[alcoholbob]

I think that many prices rise, and your taxes go up, and you end up at the same basic poverty level, whether the MW is $8 an hour, or $15 an hour. Your position in society doesn't move, and your ability to afford things changes little.

I believe the idea isn't necessarily to make the ability for people to afford things change, but rather reduce corporate dependency on government welfare programs to support the labor they hire, which is ultimately a more expensive way of achieving the same outcome, and also advantages some corporations over others (i.e., the ones who don't pay so little that people have to rely on government programs).

If you want to level the playing field, you either have to make the welfare programs universal to remove the advantage given to some corporations, or raise the minimum wage. To me it's more of an argument of removing bad incentives, since right now the taxpayer is basically socializing the losses and privatizing the profits of the corporations who use this labor strategy.

 

[bbhaag]

For anyone interested in state politics the mandatory minimum wage bill was passed by the Senate and the House. By 2025 the minimum wage in Illinois will be $15 an hour.

I do not believe this is the right course of action for Illinois. The fundamental problem lies in the States Constitution which protects State workers pensions. Until we are able to come to a compromise on this issue and amend the State Constitution we will not see a way forward.

Raising the minimum wage, legalizing sports betting, and legalizing the sale of weed will not supplant the core debt problem that Illinois is facing. It is only a short term solution and until the Democrats are willing to see that we only get band-aids that help cover the bleeding but not solve it.

 

[alcoholbob]

What is the connection between municipal debt and the minimum wage?

 

[bbhaag]

What is the connection between municipal debt and the minimum wage?

Are you a resident of Illinois? Perhaps you are not familiar with Illinois ability to legislate one failed policy after another. Policies we can not afford. Besides the glaringly obvious constitutionally protected pension funds you should look into the All Kids Care program.

 

[alcoholbob]

A lot of people don't have faith in their government, but you haven't explained what the connection between those two are.