Should the Federal Government Be Telling Companies What They Have To Pay Employees?

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Should that be a State level issue?

 

[Fenixgoon]

Perfectly fine for the feds to set a baseline requirement - whether that's minimum wage, emissions requirements, or anything else. States are free to exceed those requirements. They just can't override the federal requirement.

 

[Moonbeam]

Should it be a state right to determine if you can own slaves? I think if we can answer that one we should have our answer. Seems logical that if you can’t pay nothing you should not be allowed to pay an equivalent to nothing, in other words, you can’t pay slave wages. That would tell me additionally, then, that the real question, that whenever it is we decide you can’t pay nothing or keep people as slaves, then the question of relevance becomes at what point, what amount do we define as a living wage.

So, should the federal government make slavery illegal? Personally I think that would be a very good idea because with so many Asians and other ethnic groups, various European groups as well as the Jews willing to educate themselves, and so many brown people willing to work, the employment value of millions of uneducated but entitlement infected white people makes them the low hanging fruit of prime value as corporate owned slaves. Hell, there are already 74 million whose minds are already so enslaved they would welcome free room and board if you paid them in gold colored Monopoly money pictured with Donald Trump’s head. Now we can’t have that or can we?

Perhaps we should do all in out power to prevent those 74 million from being the group that determines if Moonbeam Inc can own slaves.

 

[nOOky]

Companies lobby the federal government with creative ideas so they can pay less taxes, which in turn become tax code. They then in turn pay their workers more due to the trickle down effect. The federal government has no need to get involved in what these companies pay their employees. If the minimum wage was $1.25 an hour it wouldn't matter, workers would still be paid fair wages with regular increases for inflation. In fact it's none of the government's business what private companies employees are paid, if it's not a living wage perhaps those people should just work harder, get more education, or move to a different job market, all easily attainable things.

All that sound about right my conservative friends?

 

[pauldun170]

"If I want to pay senior executives 100million dollars and a couple of low level workers $4 an hour that should be my liberty\freedom. It should be my choice whether my fellow Americans can go fuck themselves or not.
It's anti American to try and help other Americans aqs a collective. Especially those Americans who CHOSE to be in poverty. Thats sort of shit should be an individual choice by other people who are not me and preferable an organization that I can get tax write offs donating too.
Real Americans would entrepreneur themselves some bootstraps and pay themselves 100 million. Bitches"
- Dale Carnegie (1955)

 

[SmCaudata]

My state regularly subsidizes other states. I'm tired of my tax dollars going to support substandard wages at Walmart. I don't even shop there.

I think the government has an obligation to have a minimum wage to live. This could mean wages with two workers to support children provided we cover child care, or one salary to support family of 3 (original intent of minimum wage). We also need universal health care.

I think businesses should have to post on their front door their minimum and median wages along with % of employees that recieve health care and retirement benefits.

The government should also redo the corporate tax structure in a way that makes it advantageous to pay people up to about $75k. But enact severe "luxury taxes" on wages over $500k or something.

The federal government can, and should, fix our budding banana republic. The "free market" has failed.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

I maintain, wages are a state issue. It's about economics and states know their economies better.

 

[woolfe9998]

I maintain, wages are a state issue. It's about economics and states know their economies better.

If states were making good faith decisions to set a minimum wage which takes into consideration differing costs of living from state to state, then we might not need a federal minimum, but that isn't what is happening.

It isn't about "economies" when the state makes a minimum wage decision. It's about ideologies. Red states are run by republicans who do not support having any minimum wage. The only reason most red states even have a $7.25 minimum wage is because that is the federal floor. They'd have none otherwise.

 

[zinfamous]

Should companies have access to federal welfare dollars without any expectation of meeting whatever requirements and restrictions the Feds make for them?

 

[soulcougher73]

I suggest you read up on the working conditions and pay of the industrial revolution to see what it would be like.

 

[pauldun170]

I maintain, wages are a state issue. It's about economics and states know their economies better.

While I'm not arguing that wages might be state isue or not, I do suggest you show your math when arguing that states know their economies better.

I say this because my natural response is to look at poverty rates and GDP rankings and say "certain states do not know what the fuck they are doing"

List of U.S. states and territories by poverty rate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gross domestic product by state U.S. 2023 | Statista

The gross domestic product (GDP) of California was about 3.23 trillion U.S.

www.statista.com

One nice thing about P&N
I can have a potty mouth.
I don't even curse in real life.
Just here.

 

[dullard]

Since federal payments to the poor (and conversely federal income tax receipts) are directly related to the wages that the poor earn, I say that the federal government should have some say in the matter. If you were by law required to make payments to something, wouldn't you feel the right to have some input on the matter?

Want to essentially end your federal tax dollars going to welfare? Then raise up the minimum wage. Most of the need for welfare will vanish, and your federal taxes can be lowered.

 

[conehead433]

Not only would a $15 minimum wage lift at least 1.3 million out of poverty it would incentivize people to want to work. It's sickening to hear all the cry babies bitching about the poor getting free money from the government. I don't actually have the statistics but I'm willing to bet that the percentage of federal funds that go to the poor is probably less than 5% of the money given out. The other 95% is corporate welfare, because you know they really need that money. A direct result of a higher minimum wage would also be a reduction in crime.

 

[desy]

Should companies have access to federal welfare dollars without any expectation of meeting whatever requirements and restrictions the Feds make for them?

Boom! You can't be on the government teet and not expect some strings

 

[Pohemi]

Boom! You can't be on the government teet and not expect some strings

Just start a church/cult. All the fed welfare and none of the tax.

 

[hal2kilo]

Companies lobby the federal government with creative ideas so they can pay less taxes, which in turn become tax code. They then in turn pay their workers more due to the trickle down effect. The federal government has no need to get involved in what these companies pay their employees. If the minimum wage was $1.25 an hour it wouldn't matter, workers would still be paid fair wages with regular increases for inflation. In fact it's none of the government's business what private companies employees are paid, if it's not a living wage perhaps those people should just work harder, get more education, or move to a different job market, all easily attainable things.

All that sound about right my conservative friends?

I was looking for the slash s, then you threw a curve at the end.

 

[shortylickens]

I maintain, wages are a state issue. It's about economics and states know their economies better.

they SHOULD.
but they don't.

 

[Moonbeam]

I maintain, wages are a state issue. It's about economics and states know their economies better.

The big snag I see with that is that for most people the idea of justice and equality are important. If we leave it up to the states to decide what the minimum wage is to be, states run by intelligent people, generally speaking progressive Democrats, people will earn more than others run by brainwashed cultist idiots like we find in Republican dominated states. I don't think that is very fair for the poor brainwashed idiots in states like the latter who vote those kinds of fools in just because they never had a state school system that thought them how to think. It is harder to escape mental poverty than it is to escape financial poverty. In the case of the latter you need dollars which are plentiful and in the latter you need sense which isn't.

This is why you will often hear less progressive members of progressive states bitching about how their tax dollars have to go to the idiots who can't fund the basics of civilization in their own states and need to suck off the tit of those who do. And on top of that, the tit suckers are the biggest complainers about socialism. But what would you expect. It is just human nature, right, to feel resentful of some fantastical notion that socialism is theft when your brain dead culture has robbed you of your own native intelligence and common sense. Nothing beats paranoia that comes from experience.

 

[SmCaudata]

I maintain, wages are a state issue. It's about economics and states know their economies better.

Except the fallout from low wages becomes a federal issue.

The states want to be able to run with low regulation, than as soon as that system fails, they come running demanding handouts. This happens with welfare. It happened in Texas with the power issues due to poor regulation.

Maybe we set a federal minimum wage. If a state opts out, they don't benefit from welfare programs?

 

[darkswordsman17]

While I'm not arguing that wages might be state isue or not, I do suggest you show your math when arguing that states know their economies better.

I say this because my natural response is to look at poverty rates and GDP rankings and say "certain states do not know what the fuck they are doing"

List of U.S. states and territories by poverty rate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gross domestic product by state U.S. 2023 | Statista

The gross domestic product (GDP) of California was about 3.23 trillion U.S.

www.statista.com

One nice thing about P&N
I can have a potty mouth.
I don't even curse in real life.
Just here.

I would agree, but I'd dispute how much is because they don't know what they're doing. Kansas Republicans intentionally tried to torpedo their economy so they could justify killing off as much government programs as possible, under the guise of it being to stimulate growth by enticing companies there with lower taxes. Nevermind Missouri was more appealing (even fiscally speaking if you were just wanting better economics for your business). Well that and to give the Koch-heads tax breaks.

 

[SmCaudata]

I would agree, but I'd dispute how much is because they don't know what they're doing. Kansas Republicans intentionally tried to torpedo their economy so they could justify killing off as much government programs as possible, under the guise of it being to stimulate growth by enticing companies there with lower taxes. Nevermind Missouri was more appealing (even fiscally speaking if you were just wanting better economics for your business). Well that and to give the Koch-heads tax breaks.

This is the GOP strategy for everything. They've sabotaged Medicare and hurt SS intentionally to rile up their base.

The real problem are voters who can't actually think critically.

 

[Vic]

I maintain, wages are a state issue. It's about economics and states know their economies better.

If the monies used to fund those payrolls cross state lines, then the Feds absolutely have power to regulate under the Commerce clause. This is settled law, which is why there is already an existing federal minimum wage.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

If the monies used to fund those payrolls cross state lines, then the Feds absolutely have power to regulate under the Commerce clause. This is settled law, which is why there is already an existing federal minimum wage.

So, Billy Joe Bob's grass cuttin' service that operates only in Bugtussle Lousiana should have to pay Cooter and Skeeter a Federal Minimum Wage to ride around on a lawn mower?

 

[Vic]

So, Billy Joe Bob's grass cuttin' service that operates only in Bugtussle Lousiana should have to pay Cooter and Skeeter a Federal Minimum Wage to ride around on a lawn mower?

Who issues the dollar bills he's paying his employees with? Is the bank that cuts his payroll checks not federally insured? And is Bugtuzsle, LA not kept free by the power and might of the US military?
Like I said, this is settled law.

 

[dank69]

So, Billy Joe Bob's grass cuttin' service that operates only in Bugtussle Lousiana should have to pay Cooter and Skeeter a Federal Minimum Wage to ride around on a lawn mower?

If your business can't survive $15 minimum wage then your business does not deserve to survive. Period.