How do you propose doing that?
Minimum wage increases?
Why not increase the minimum wage to $10,000 an hour?
Minimum wage increases?
Why not increase the minimum wage to $10,000 an hour?
Minimum wage and employee protection laws are the way forward. Everybody should be able to live comfortably, working at most 40 hours / week.
Minimum wage is bad in its own way, because it sets a "what is the least we can get away with" boundary for employers, but in the current employment climate, employers can and do get away with paying less (see the service industry where employees are expected to collect tips to stipend their wages, see the gig industry where the employer doesn't give a shit that the employee has to struggle full days to get enough work to get paid).
What if they aren’t productive enough to earn that amount of money? Where does the money come from?
You have millions of people sitting in their government provided housing, waiting for their government provided payouts, so they can avoid having to get out and work. This sound familiar yet? Then what you have to do, after production grounds to a halt, is to start to force people to work which is exactly how you get labor camps.
I'm pretty sure you may be trolling but if you're not, reading up on the western european welfare states would probably be a good idea.
At least in the UK, we have an inordinate amount of benefits cheats that live off other people's money. If you only extend benefits to people who physically cannot work -i.e. disability benefits, then you stop this happening.
...
> perceptions among the British public were that benefit fraud was high – on average people thought that 27% of the British welfare budget is claimed fraudulently; however, official UK Government figures have stated that the proportion of fraud stands at 0.7% of the total welfare budget in 2011/12
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_fraud_in_the_United_...
> Fraud: Cases where all three of the following conditions apply:
The conditions for receipt of benefit, or the rate of benefit in payment, are not being met
The claimant can reasonably be expected to be aware of the effect on entitlement
Benefit stops or reduces as a result of the review. [1] <
Firstly, the data is only from those who got caught. I would say there is probably a lot more that haven't been. Also, you can claim benefits by going to the job centre every so often, but you don't need to actually get a job.
Anecdotally, my mate's dad does this. He has been living off of benefits for 10+ years, even though he is more than able to work. If someone can get away with it for that long, how is the system not broken?
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-...
You can definitely manufacture an umbrella or a car cheaper in China or Serbia than in the U.S.
This means that there is a natural ceiling on wages in some sectors, unless people start "Buy American" even if the price of the product is considerably higher. Which, in turn, will lower their own purchasing power.
As seen in practice, most customers would rather purchase cheaper stuff made abroad by cheaper workforce. The E.U. has a lot of protective measures in various sectors precisely because they know that the same would happen if the restrictions were lifted.
What happens time and time again if the working class has it too rough in a country with a sizable 'aristocratic' class just below the ruling class?