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 What are retired people suppose to do on fixed incomes & $15 minimum wage inflation? (2)

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FromWithin(8241) pic



What are retired people suppose to do on fixed incomes & $15 minimum wage inflation?

Retired people will have no increases to their pensions and 401k's, etc.
So when these idiotic mandated $15 minimum wage increases start, how can older people afford the increased cost of living? Their property taxes will go up as well because of every pubic employee having their wages increased to $15 per hour. These public jobs are paid for by property taxes as well as other taxes.

How come these so called compassionate Democrats who say they care for the elderly are making it so hard for them?
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4 points

Hello. It's been while. I posted a comment on a debate mirroring this discussion, and I'll put my argument here.

I think you'll find that proponents of the 15/hr minimum wage support furthering spending/funding of social programs in general, but let's leave that off of the table for now. I did some basic research. I started with the assumption that the best way to measure this would be by examining Australia, which has a minimum wage of roughly 16.70/hr USD. This wage has, in real terms, been almost the same as it was 40 years ago! The minimum wage's growth since then has only very slightly outpaced inflation. Their GDP per capita in real terms has been growing on par with that of the US, and Australia maintains a mean/median income that is about 18% higher than that of the US.

What does this tell us? Well, less importantly, that a "radical" raise in the wage floor of the sort isn't going to have a strong impact on inflation, because historically it genuinely hasn't. More importantly, a 12-17 dollar minimum wage is certainly not going to be catastrophic, or even necessarily harmful to a first world country's economic well being.

Sources:

https://crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/events/attachments/2013-06/bray coombsfinalpresentationslides.pdf

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimumwagelaw#Australia

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?order=wbapi datavalue2013%20wbapidata_value&sort;=asc

FromWithin(8241) Clarified
2 points

If Australia did not all of a sudden jump from $9. to $15, then that is not a comparison.

I have seen too many Government mandates not to know it will be passed on to the consumer. There will be layoffs and there will for sure be inflation. Tell me how the wages of employees at fast food places going up a huge amount will not raise the cost of a Big Mac?

Business and jobs are already starting to move out of California because of the mandate. What do you think that will do to their property taxes?

You don't honesty think that the Businesses are going to just eat the costs do you?

Our county budgets are created partly by the wages paid to public workers. That means our property taxes will go up.

This debate is about retirees whose incomes will not go up with inflation. They will have no income increaes to offset inflation with their pensions and 401k's.

Most everything a retiree pays for will go up in price.

Stickers(1037) Clarified
1 point

If Australia did not all of a sudden jump from $9. to $15, then that is not a comparison

I think that you make a valid point, but I didn't expect it to be a perfect comparison, just probably the best one available. A 15/hr minimum wage in the US doesn't have to happen suddenly, and it won't on the federal level because of how the US gov't is structured.

Opponents of the 15/hr minimum wage typically cite that the relationship between inflation and a dramatically increased wage floor is actually more of a long term consideration, and that the more immediate effects would be seen in employment, hours worked, benefits, etc.

I have seen too many Government mandates not to know it will be passed on to the consumer. There will be layoffs and there will for sure be inflation. Tell me how the wages of employees at fast food places going up a huge amount will not raise the cost of a Big Mac?

The price of a Big Mac will obviously go up, but that's a micro economic concern, and not one that'll accurately reflect inflation.

Business and jobs are already starting to move out of California because of the mandate. What do you think that will do to their property taxes?

You don't honesty think that the Businesses are going to just eat the costs do you?

Firstly, California is not an example of a 15/hr being passed suddenly. They have been adding a dollar per year from 9/hr in 2015 until it reaches 15/hr starting in 2021. I didn't cite the effects that it has had on unemployment, because that was originally outside of the focus of the discussion. Will it have an immediate negative impact on employment? Absolutely. There is very little evidence to the contrary. It is worth noting that a 15/hr wage floor would also bolster consumer demand, it's just difficult to measure how much this would bolster a demand for labor. In fact, some of the rise in price could actually be attributed to increased demand by the recipients of the new wage floor.

Our county budgets are created partly by the wages paid to public workers. That means our property taxes will go up.

This debate is about retirees whose incomes will not go up with inflation. They will have no income increaes to offset inflation with their pensions and 401k's.

Most everything a retiree pays for will go up in price.

Yeah, I agree that both will occur. The point of my statement was to try to illustrate what the 15/hr minimum wage levied over time will do to inflation and a nation's well being, and try to trace that back to a figure of cost of living. The convenient answer for me would've been to just start and end it with proponents of the 15/hr minimum wage saying that "we need to make wall street pay more to retiring seniors anyways, blah blah blah"

1 point

Aw sweet I found this debate hahaha I can use my arguments for my college presentation :))))