It’s true that it’s mostly the lower and middle income ranges that will pay for most of the increase. But then, since that defines “the 99%”, there are a lot more people in that group. And besides, when did we start to think of cheap fast food as some sort of Constitutional right? If we stop artificially depressing the cost of labor in an industry and its prices rise, so what? Isn’t that the free market in action?

Frank asked whether it’s about sticking it to “Wall Street”. No, they’re not the object, but certainly it’s the “investing class” that by any standard of justice should have to shoulder the cost of higher pay for workers through lower dividends. Like your suggestion about raising taxes, it’s all about how wealth in our society is distributed. There is no perfectly free market, anywhere; and so the proper debate is over how the rules should be set to maximize fairness for all.

This whole discussion has developed a bit of tunnel vision over the idea of a “living wage”. I’d be just as happy, if not more so, if the lowest-paid tier of workers gets back the right to form unions and take action on their own to improve their lot, no government action required. I know unions are considered to be first-class demons from hell in the eyes of conservatives, but frankly, I see unions as just as much artifacts of free markets as large corporations–the size of one balances the size of the other. A world with giant corporations without unions to push back is an oligarchy. (I’d be even happier if we broke up corporations larger than a $billion/year in revenue, but we know that’s never gonna happen. Next best thing is to play the balance-of-power game.)

The United States has a fundamentally sick socioeconomic system; we have the distribution of wealth of a banana republic, and we seem to have entered an era of having all the stability and good government of a banana republic. I think we can address a whole range of our social, economic, and political problems by addressing the inequality of wealth.

You offering to pay higher prices for goods and services is just plain backwards. You’re placing the burden of lifting the working poor on the shoulders of the low and middle class.

What needs to happen is to raise taxes to pre-Reagan levels and eliminate tax subsides to thriving industries. The tax child credit should also be eliminated for a savings of 52 billion dollars. That money could be used to feed the hungry and help give a hand up to those in need. Incentives for off-shoring need to be removed.

Robert I’m sorry for calling you an asshole. It was a long and stressful day followed by a few martinis.

Please accept my apology.

That’s why “anyone making less than the new minimum” isn’t so much foolish as employed by somebody’s who’s breaking the law. That kind of problem tends to take care of itself with only a little help from lawyers.

The thing about lamenting the disappearance of low prices when WalMart stops building its ” empire on the backs of low wage workers” is that you, finally, introduce the question of morality. It’s about time. I think that intellectual honesty obligates us to ask how much the resistance to increasing the wages of employees at WalMart or McDonald’s isn’t just self-interest; whether we’re balancing justice versus the dollar amount saved. Those low prices come at a cost nevertheless, both from the hide of the workers, as well as from the consumers who supposedly benefit, but make up the deficit indirectly in taxes that support social welfare programs that take care of WalMart’s and other’s exploited workers.

If you can believe that the Invisible Hand will balance out wage increases, why not acknowledge that the benefit to employers of paying low wages is just a shift in cost to somebody else’s pocket? It’s not a real profit, it’s a bookkeeping illusion. It’s a fraud on the taxpayers.

Yet another sign that democracy died long ago in America, and that today we live in an oligarchy.

Say they get what they want. If money were the only consideration, anyone making less than the new minimum (sorry if that’s jumping too far ahead for you) would be foolish not to seek employment with McDonald’s.

Employers in other industries which currently have workers happily earning 10-16 dollars per hour will be hearing cries of; “I could make more cooking burgers” and “I’m not making much more than a burger flipper!”

Payroll taxes will cause employers to pay more than just the increase in wage.

And when Walmart starts paying the living wage, people will only lament the lower prices because they will be gone. At least if what I’m told is true- that they’ve built their empire on the backs of low wage workers.

So there’s the ripple.
Admittedly it’s dependent upon McDonald’s meeting the demand for jobs.

Maybe you could put it to good use by explaining to poor little me how doubling the wages of an estimated 3.5 million workers, out of a workforce of 144 million, employed in an estimated $200 billion sector of our $15 trillion dollar economy, will cut the purchasing power of a dollar in half. Because that’s what would have to happen for “Inflation [to] even things out in the end”.

That’s quite a ripple effect. You must be afraid turn around for fear that you’ll knock the Earth out of its orbit.

And frankly, despite you calling me an asshole, I am a bit concerned if a modest increase in the price of junk food would be a hardship on you. Because that would mean you’re eating waaay too much of that crap for your own good. I confess I eat the stuff too, but at once a week, the hardship would be only $2.50/month. I’m not rolling in dough either, but my reaction to that has been increased empathy for other people who don’t have much, not resentment toward them. I just don’t think that improving the lives of 3.5 million fast food workers is going to hurt me one little bit. And it shouldn’t hurt you either. Not unless you have an unhealthy obsession with junk food.

Seems the elected money would tie the two together making it illegal.

On average the fast food industry wages are between 25-35% of revenues which is in line with most other industries and the norm for anybody wanting to run a company. So by raising wages by 100% that would mean you would have to raise the price of a Big Mac by an average of 30%, from say $4 to $5.20 an increase of $1.20 to stay in line with spending of around 30% of a company’s wages per revenues. And that’s just a Big Mac, all the other food options would have to be raised the same 30%, cause not everybody enjoys the Big Mac.

It’s nice that you can afford the extra cost of a MacMeal but what would the price increase do to the low income person or family who can barely afford to spurge on a outing at a fast food restaurant. You can bet those $1 deals would be rare if not vanish all together.

This idea of trying to make the minimum wage a living wage will only hurt most people in the long run.