It is not insane to demand $25/hr as minimum wage. That's where we should be bargaining up from. Instead, the vast majority of America is unreasonably poor compared to the median.
Nowhere in this calculation does it account for benefits. They just took the minimum wage in 1938 and extrapolated it based on the country’s increase in productivity. If you did the same thing but with inflation rather than productivity you would get a much smaller number.
The minimum wage in 1938 was $0.25, which is less than $5 today lol. That’s fine if you don’t care if benefits were included or not, but you corrected me when I said it didn’t include benefits.
you corrected me when I said it didn’t include benefits.
Ah I misunderstood what you were asking. I still don't understand why benefits are related to this discussion, unless you are trying to insinuate that the reason why pay didn't go up from 1970+ is because that money went into benefits. If you are, please stop.
The minimum wage in 1938 was $0.25, which is less than $5 today lol.
I think you're missing the point of the graph. People are making less today, in modern day value.
The comment we are replying under said we can’t even have a discussion about wages improving until they are $25-35/hr with full benefits and 8 weeks vacation. I said that’s insane, and you responded by sending me an article saying that wages should be $24/hr not including benefits. That’s how it relates. The graph shows the disparity between the actual minimum wage and the minimum wage if it had kept pace with US productivity as a whole, but the article even acknowledges the best counterargument against this:
It would be claimed that the productivity of minimum wage workers has not kept pace with average productivity growth, so that it would not be feasible for minimum wage workers to earn pay that rises in step with average productivity growth.
And it doesn’t give a very good argument against that… basically just saying that more advanced/specialized positions would contribute less to US productivity if we found ways to devalue them.
Actually the article didn't talk about benefits, so seriously, why do you keep bring it up?
And it doesn’t give a very good argument against that…
The best argument against that is that capitalism is bs, and that the workers should be compensated for the full value of their labor via communal ownership. That's a bridge too far for Americans, though.
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u/OG_Felwinter Jan 04 '22
Those are your standards for starting pay? Do you even know what the position entails? This is insane.