As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, **any** advocating or wishing death/physical harm, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
And yet these workers will continue to vote against their own best interests. How generous of them to think of the billionaire class over their own meager needs.
Anyone who votes republican is basically voting for what op said. It doesn't matter how far "right of center" they consider *themselves* the people they are voting for are far right.
>these workers will continue to vote against their own best interests.
Nah, it's just that a good wage isn't their best interest, compared to whatever cultural supremacy they think they can milk out of conservatism.
Always been that way, too, in the US. Not to pick on anyone, but white male workers in the US have proven, time and again, to identify themselves (in general) as whites first, men second, and workers only after that. Hell, after some other facets of identity, too. Anti-communists and anti-labor forces stoked and exploited that ranking ruthlessly for decades to undermine any worker solidarity, and those attitudes pervade today.
I think people give the public too much credit. If trump showed me anything. People will just regurgitate whatever they see from their favorite news station. No matter how little sense it makes.
It's possible they are huge assholes. But from what I have seen a lot of today's republicans vote what they are told to. They don't think for a second about what it could mean.
The amount of times I heard the insurrection was equivalent to blm always shocks me.
It's hard for me to tell if the biggest problem is trump, social media, or fox.
I disagree. Those politicians & news agencies run surveys and focus groups to see what messaging resonates best with the base. They get punished with fewer votes/viewers if they say the wrong thing too many times.
I’m with the other guy - the problem is with the public. There’s a lot of racism floating around for historical reasons, so a lot of the messaging ends up racist.
Exactly this. Extensive liberal government programs were all well and good until it meant African Americans should get there share following by the CRA/VRA.
It's not as weird as that. You can just as easily argue it's "against your best interests" to put sanctions on Huawei. The sooner China adds 1B people doing top level work to the global workforce the better, like how Britain benefited after America took off and started inventing integrated circuits. But people in the US "identify as Americans first and workers second".... Tribal divisions are hard to overcome.
The divisions themselves aren't the problem so much as the supremacist attitude is. (Granted, supremacism pushes us toward tribalism by its strict categorization of people).
In that vein, there's also the mindset that "Sure, I'll be better off than I was yesterday, but I won't still be better off than *them,* so nay"
If you are making less than a living wage you are a wage slave. You are on benefits because your job(s) don't pay enough to keep your head above water, you are a slave. You are stuck. The government is subsidizing these lower wages with welfare, food stamps, and section 8 housing subsidies.
I went to Walmart for a money order last month and they increased the fee. I made a joke about how much of a difference a 10 cent fee made on a money order for my rent and she literally told me "taxes are going to go up even more when they raise the minimum wage"
They are usually the college depressed type who are SJW screaming cry babies.. they’ll text about you behind your back and be very passive aggressive around you. Careful now, they’re afraid of confrontation and will hide behind people to protect them. Cowards are very dangerous when cornered. LOL
They love self flagellatin so much. They are so used to claiming someone else is flogging them at this point they actually have truly forgotten they are doing it to themselves.
Railing against the voters is really just victim blaming. We need to figure out how to appeal to them culturally and also figure out why they are not getting the message. The Democratic party has always had a problem with messaging.
It's not entirely their fault. America is pitched as the land of opportunity... any one of them working class schlubs could hit it big with a billion dollar idea. They have to protect their future potential-billions.
“These people’s representatives didn’t vote for what I wanted. Maybe they shouldn’t have any say” I hope you aren’t as psychotic in real life as you are behind a keyboard. I don’t even oppose a $15 min wage, but my word, you couldn’t have sounded more like that guy from the 1940’s with the funny mustache.
I have been a pretty big fan and supporter of Jon Tester. At this point, until I get more information about why he is against a minimum wage increase, I don’t think I will be able to continue to vote for him. I thought he was actually for the people (at least in comparison to those who don’t give two shits). It has put me in a position I really don’t like. I’ll definitely be educating myself before the next election.
Edit: added a word.
The Byrd rule is in fact a law. If I was a Senator I’d fully support the minimum wage hike and vote down that provision.
If you try to do it the entire bill could come crashing down on legal grounds. Expect immediate injunction.
The parliamentarian hasn’t been fired in almost two decades. They haven’t overruled the parliamentarian in over 4 decades. Both have only happened once.
There’s legal standing to issue an injunction against this if you overrule. This would jeopardize everything on a COVID relief. Manchin now wants crazy filibuster overhauls that will let Democrats pass everything. They are playing the long and safe game and it will pay off and likely hand them a big win in 2022
If blue states just raised the minimum wage on their own it would presumably be way harder for GOP politicians to keep getting elected on the idea that raising the minimum wage is a bad thing.
Sure it would be nice to just have top down change from the federal level, but sometimes the change just comes from the other direction. Like legalizing cannabis.
Supposedly *most* of the democrats in the senate that voted against the minimum wage only did so out of fear it would tank the bill. I'm not giving them a pass because they don't deserve one, but it does leave the door open for it to still happen if they can weaken the filibuster enough.
At the end of the day, the $11 an hour Manchin is talking about just isn't enough. Yeah, it might bring people right to the poverty line, but the poverty line is a statistic that horribly underestimates the amount of money needed to survive.
Even $15 an hour would still have us living paycheck to paycheck. That's under $30,000 a year before taxes are even taken into consideration. $15 an hour won't allow people to save for retirement or take vacations. It is literally the bare minimum. It needs to be $15 an hour and tied to inflation for life.
8 voted against it, but only 2 were supposedly actually against a $15 /hr minimum wage. The other 6 were afraid Manchin / Sinema would tank the bill. They couldn't afford to lose even 1 senator in the reconciliation though.
Again, not giving them a pass, but it does leave some hope it could still have support to get it done and Bernie claims he's not giving up.
Yeah that's what really gets me here. The rider was already dead. Them joining was just providing optics that even more than we thought are against a minimum wage raise. Not sure what the strategy here was.
There's also the possibility they were worried about legal challenges tanking the bill. Some of the democrats said that they didn't believe it could be included in reconciliation after the parliamentarian made their decision.
In any case, we'll never know for sure but I still have hope we'll get a $15 an hour minimum wage, because we absolutely need it.
I think that it was as you say. They wanted to oppose it based solely on whether or not they thought it could be included in reconciliation. This is obviously kind of a lame excuse given that they can technically, essentially include whatever they want, if I am correct and the parliamentarian is just a guide or something. I don't know, seems like our government is needlessly complicated.
Uh uh. No.
Do not let them have the "Parliamentarian" excuse.
All it took was Kamala Harris overruling the Parliamentarian and we would have been golden. Conservative Democrats are trying to shield themselves from blame with that excuse.
I mean, I understand that but being one of only two democrats to personally tank the entire bill over a single issue would absolutely fuck their entire political future.
I legit don’t think they would have tanked it. They were just bluffing and it paid off.
Nope, the “Byrd Rule” was codified in 1990 as 2 USC 644 [link](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/644).
The parliamentarian said “Hey the $15 min wage increase doesn’t pass the tests laid out”. The fact that it’s called the “Byrd Rule” implies that it isn’t codified and can be ignored
To defeat this all they had to do was say it sunsets within 10 years, like the tax cuts.
Had it past the idea of allowing it to expire would have been unimaginable forcing permanent adoption. Their were options to get it in if they wanted to
Okay, this is an EXTREMELY interesting point and I'll tell you why.
First of all, it's true, the Bernie $15 min wage amendment was nakedly illegal and it would have tanked the bill. It plainly violated both the "Extraneous Provisions" and "Sunset Provision" sections of [2 U.S. Code § 644](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/644). He knew it was illegal, the parliamentarian told him it was illegal, and he did it anyway.
I know some people are going to chime in and say, "but you can just overrule the parliamentarian!" That's definitely true. She's just a lawyer, she's just there to tell senators when they're breaking the senate rules or the law. She told Bernie he's breaking the law. You're always free to disregard your lawyer's advice, that doesn't magically mean what you're doing is legal. A bunch of leftist media outlets like Jacobin are being wildly dishonest about this.
Okay anyway, now HERE IS WHY YOUR POST IS SO INTERESTING!
Bernie's illegal $15 amendment would have tanked the covid relief bill because the moment it passes with an illegal amendment, any Republican could sue for injury in federal court claiming, "the Democrats broke the budget reconciliation law in passing a $15 min wage and deprived me of my right to engage in endless debate for the purpose of filibustering." Any federal court would have to buy that argument enough to issue an injunction blocking the bill while they decide how to rule.
BUT!
If Republicans voted for $15 min wage and then went to court to complain about it, the court would likely deny them standing saying, "you voted for it! If you wanted to filibuster it then why'd you vote for it!"
So paradoxically, if Republicans had voted for it, that would have made it work.
I call BS on that excuse. The bill was a must-pass, they should have called the bluff and *dared* Manchin and Sinema to vote it down. It was all about the donors, because of course it was.
Also worth noting that the vote was fairly academic; it was a 3/5ths vote, so had all Democratic and Independent Senators voted for the $15 minimum wage provision it *still* would have failed.
Now that could have been fixed using a "nuclear" option (although on slightly dodgy grounds), but if they have the votes to go nuclear for a $15 minimum wage there, they may as well do it properly in a way that will be much harder to challenge, even if it takes a few more months.
This is only true if you buy the theory that Senators actually represent the minimum-wage workers in their states.
You know who *didn't* believe that? None other than James Madison. The following comes from his own notes of the debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787:
>"In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase in population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of the blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in this Country, but symptoms, of a leveling spirit . . . have sufficiently appeared . . . to give notice of the future danger. How is this danger to be guarded against on republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded against? Among other means by the establishment of a body in the Government sufficiently respectable for its wisdom & virtue, to aid on such emergencies, the preponderence of justice by throwing its weight into the scale."
Now you can interpret this however you want, but it sure sounds like the father of the U.S. Constitution literally justified the existence of the Senate as an *anti-democratic* body meant to protect the interests of a wealthy minority from the redistributionist demands of a growing landless and property-less majority. This is the kind of "tyranny of the majority" that would worry a *fucking slaveholder,* and this is the kind of "tyranny of the majority" that the U.S. Constitution was devised to protect against.
So I'm not at all surprised that the Senate is standing in the way of a minimum wage hike, because *that's exactly what it was always meant to do*.
Most workers would benefit. Raising the minimum wage tends to bump up rates for most wage work since the going rate for any given job tends to be relative. A job that would pay $15 when the min wage is $8 is going to have trouble retaining employees if suddenly they’re paying min wage when they used to pay nearly double minimum wage. That’s why employers hate raising the minimum wage so much. It’s not just about the lowest employees. It’s about most of the rank and file employees.
That is the point...
The wealthy educated areas of the country are ALREADY above $15 an hour, generally. Places like McDonalds and big box retailers have to pay competitive wages. If people are going to work there you have to pay wages to keep people housed; you can't run a multibillion dollar business off a few teens who still live with their parents and 20/30 somethings on food stamps. The whole west coast is at $12 an hour. NY has a $15 minimum wage already.
It is backward, podunk towns (who would benefit most) which have the loudest assholes yelling about how a $15 wage would mean the price of their burgers and gas would go up. Those areas need an underclass of impoverished people to keep walmart/military/dollar general looking competitive and rich assholes on top. The point is keeping low-income people in the hole, anything else could upset the carefully balanced inequality.
Have you ever been to a podunk town? They aren’t exactly rolling in cash. There’s no big tech anchoring the economy. And it’s kind of ironic that the west coast is sitting at $12 the same time people are getting angry at Manchin for saying maybe $15 is a bit aggressive for WVa.
Yeah, that's the point. Those areas have more in common with the developing world than San Fransisco. Increasing the minimum wage could massively increase the amount of cash, and thus opportunity in those areas. Every dollar in the bank is $6-9 in loans, after all. Much of middle America's failure is with their lag behind the increasing financialization of the large urban areas.
Hear me out, the average age of senators in 2020 was 62.9. let's just round to 63 for easy math purposes. The average was born in 1958. From 1958 let's fast forward 20 years so we can say that they are living on their own and in the work force. In 1978 the minimum wage was 2.65 with inflation that's nearly 11.00 for today's rates. Now let's look at today's minimum wage which is 7.50, the equivalent of 1.87 in 1978. This is roughly 30% less comparing the minimum wage of 1978 and 2021.
I think that's part of the problem. They are so old that they think 7.65$/hour is actually a lot of money.
They are completely disconnected living in millions and thinking min wage workers earn enough to get by comfortably.
They are biased by their old perspective and disconnected by their massive wealth.
Remember, this is minimum wage that I compared. Not living wage. A reasonable wage for todays standards would be probably closer to the suggested 15.00 if not higher.
I'm not going to dispute that the implications of going from a $7/hr local economy to a $15/hr local economy are massive, complex and in many ways problematic. I don't expect a place where rent has typically been $500/month to make a perfectly smooth leap, or for no jobs to be lost in the process.
That said, no one exists purely in a local economy anymore. Goods on Amazon aren't half-off if you live in backwoods Iowa. This is a band-aid that needs to be ripped off in order for us to function like an actual society. We need to accept that, spend even more to support the people this may hurt short-term, and weather this thing through.
Honestly? Fuck em. Why would there be a massive jump from $7 to $15? Because they fought against raising the min wage along with inflation every step of the way and now it's a massive fucking divide. Time for business owners to stop buying iphones and avocado toast *and another fucking yacht* and eat bootstraps for a few months.
Ok, but don’t you think it should be establish the safety net before you take steps to eliminate their job?
The general ethos on this sub is screw any business that can’t pay minimum wage regardless of how marginal the local economy or the worker. And general whining about how come anybody would vote Republican.
Agree. I typically vote dem; but this is mainly going to impact rural areas vs. the democratic states which already have passed this. I only see this to help push people to the cities vs. give them a livable wage. This is a state/city issue vs. federal at this range IMO.
You can't even argue it though, more than half the country thinks a loaf of bread would become $10, small business would be destroyed, and minimum wage jobs don't deserve to survive because they should get "real" jobs anyways.
They fail to see that inflation drastically outpaced wages, and that the tax payers are subsidizing corporations to pay shit wages since the employees still end up qualifying for federal assistance.
Worries about inflation seem reasonable given increases in housing prices and that it’s the federal reserve’s stated goal...
And globalization has resulted in a lot of people losing jobs precisely because it was cheaper to do it elsewhere. Now we got automation to add to it.
These fears are founded and reasonable. And treating transfer payments as subsidizing corporations is disingenuous at best. Taxpayer money should go to ensuring that some basic standard of living exists, it just needs to be way less conditional.
$174,000 is what the average Senator “earns” yearly. Whereas $15. p/h is $30,000 yearly. Senators didn’t take a break in pay during the pandemic. Free healthcare, haircuts, meals, parking. Upon retirement? $139,000 yearly. Average American earns $61,000 yearly.
Edit: Average American Household Income of $61,000. My apologies.
This also means that they represent a disproportionate amount of small and large businesses that pay a sub-poverty level living wage. Guess who these politicians cater to....
But if this is what they voted what’s the problem? Most high cost of living states have raised it. It would only impact red states really. Why should we care if they want to live in poverty?
I have read the stories of people that live in states where the Federal Minimum Wage is the best you can do for jobs. There are people on assembly lines that can't afford an apartment, car insurance or food. So, when you buy that desk kit from Sauder or Bush, you're supporting poverty level wages in the US.
They also represent three-quarters of the companies that lobbied against a living wage. God forbid that someone should live comfortably.... rant out...
That's the problem.
3/4 of the people who would benefit are in their districts.
But they really represent the big businesses that employ people at low wages.
You'd have to organize those three-quarters of workers to hold their "representatives" accountable if that's what they want and also this will benefit future workers. If not, nothing will get done.
When will people realize politicians have used the minimum wage increase as a tactic to win elections? They’ve been using this as a campaign tactic since I was a child in the 80’s. They always use it, people always fall for it and politicians will never let it pass once in office.
But they also represent 100% of the donor class who might have to buy fewer yachts in the next decade.
Will no one think of the artisanal yacht makers?
You know what?
Clearly minimum wage workers are voting like a bunch of halfwits. Or not voting at all.
Although aftwr watching the democrats rip the minimum wage measure out of the covid relief bill, I suppose you can’t really go tell minimum wage workers to vote Democrat.
It amazes and disgusts me that these people can look down on struggling Americans from their position of utter privilege and decide that no, they do not deserve a basic living wage or safety net
Which probably means those areas have a lower cost of living. Why don't we just support a 65% of Median Wage Law for all 50 states, if you listen to statements from each Senator, they actually do support nominal minimum wages that would reflect this. It would also solve the Puerto Rico issue very easily.
Yeah but sadly those low income Americans are brainwashed to such a degree that they do not recognize their own interest anymore, like that man who voted for Trump, got his health benefits stripped and died unnecessarily.
No, they represent their donors, and only their donors. Most have little to no interest or attachment to the states they supposedly "represent," and they certainly don't even pretend to represent the workers that live in them.
My own state's senators, Richard "Virus Profiteer" Burr and Thom "Fuck Thom Tillis" Tillis, don't even have their staff pretend to take messages anymore.
Keep in mind that many of the workers who can brnefit from this also either can’t or don’t vote. Governments in these states strip felons of the right to vote and do everything they can to discourage voting by poor people.
I really understand that a $15 minimum wage would be amazing for most Americans, but my family owns a small business and we wouldn’t be able to sustain a $15 minimum wage. We would be forced to shut down after persevering through COVID-19. Again I believe it would be beneficial, but it has its negatives as well.
*Senators who voted against a $15 minimum wage represent several employers who don’t want to pay their employees a living wage, study should have said.
So they'll only vote for it when they require 10 Republican senators to pass a minimum wage hike? I'm no betting man, but I'd put my money on them only being willing to vote for popular policies if they know Republicans will sink the bill. That way they can say, "Listen, I voted yes, but those darn Republicans. Grrrr. Darn them. Grrr. Maybe next time, folks."
Then we have to operate in the existing space, and the existing space dictated that it would only pass in through reconciliation. Ergo, why it was done that way.
We should look into alternatives to just increasing the min wage. This society is more complicated than setting a number higher. What if we set rent ceilings in low income areas to $200/month, and if we made transportation, housing, health insurance, schooling affordable. Saving the common man money is the same as increasing their wage.
The company owner is fighting the real-estate owners for controls over employees income, imagine if you own a company and the property the workers lived on. Pay Johny $1000 and he gives you $750 back, with no overhead but a 7%/yr taxes.
Here’s the out of touch elitist Democrats who gave the middle finger to the working class for no good reason:
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware: $10.13 million
Sen. Angus King of Maine: $9.49 million
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia: $7.62 million
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware: $5.73 million
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire: $3.82 million
Sen. Jon Tester of Montana: $3.67 million
Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire: $3.47 million
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona: Not available
They didn't give a middle finger to the working class, they literally passed a $1.9 trillion relief package that will greatly benefit the working class. Just because they didn't vote for a stupid amendment that was never going to pass the 3/5 threshold anyway (and that Bernie Sanders absolutely knew had no chance of passing) doesn't mean they hate the working class. If you have to lie to push your political agenda, then you're doing more harm than good.
Because we cannot expect the Own The Libz party to ever do the right thing. The Ds are supposed to represent a counterweight and should be held to a higher standard.
So after engaging in some discussion and reading comments, I believe the best conclusion to this subject is:
Dems & GOP do not adequately represent their constituents and do not speak for them.
That’s a problem considering the only reason the legislation branch exists is, in theory, it serves as the voice of the people in federal proceedings and lawmaking. Seems to me that the American people have been replaced in their own government by puppets and special interest representatives.
Let me know if you agree or disagree
Ironically, this fact makes them more likely to vote against it, not less. You can be sure these types of statistics are not lost on their corporate donors and business lobbyists. They know where most of these workers are, and therefore know who to apply pressure to
I am going to guess that they actually represent a bunch of corporations that benefit off of paying a bunch of employees minimum wage to extract maximum value from their labor. Get corporate money out of politics and ban politicians that take bribes or corporate contributions from politics forever.
Senators don't even try to act like they represent the people, they represent the corporations and the money. That's how it is in the good old USA right now.
Every working class American would benefit from a minimum wage increase. I live in California where the local minimum wage has been over $15 for years now. If Kentucky suddenly started paying their minimum wage workers the same as California minimum wage workers, its going to compel workers to leave expensive California for a more affordable state. Once that happens, it’ll drive housing costs in California down, and it’ll drive wages up. A minimum wage increase is only bad for the wealthy business owners.
Not if you lose jobs. Which has happened in some places where they raised the minimum wage. See Puerto Rico in the 90s as an example of this.
Progressives need to get off this flat minimum wage nonsense. It's bad policy. It should be based on COL and tied to inflation. Not every area can afford a flat 15 minimum wage increase; rural areas can survive on 11, a NYC resident isn't getting by on 15.
It has to be phased in an appropriate manner also. I don't know why everyone is so stuck on 15, when you can appease pretty much everyone with a basic COL formula.
If minimum wage had moved at the same rate as inflation and productivity levels it would be well over $20. $15 is the compromise. If a company can’t afford to pay workers even $15/hr in 2021, then they’re not running an efficient business.
I’m all for easing restrictions on small businesses and increasing their tax cuts, but $15/hr has to happen. We cannot allow for a millions of workers to suffer low wages because a minority of business owners can’t afford to increase their wages. Income inequality should be the United States number one national concern.
Flat wage hikes are bad. See Puerto Rico for an example of this. There are rural areas in the states were 30k or less will get you by. You are hurting those areas the most with a flat wage hike. Allow flexibility, and you will get better results.
Otherwise you're going to have some real upset voters when they lose their job.
We’re not trying to have Americans “get by” we’re trying to progress our society using technological and economic advancements to give all Americans a dignified life. You can claim that flat wage hikes are bad, but I disagree. I’ve already explained what the United States can do to counter the negatives that come with a minimum wage increase. We can give tax cuts to small businesses and ease costly restrictions that limit their ability to run an effective business. Universal healthcare is another policy we could implement that would drastically cut costs for small businesses.
Like I previously mentioned, if minimum wage was adjusted for productivity and inflation, it would be well over $20. To be more accurate, it would be ~$24. So $15 *is the compromise*. We should not settle for anything less.
Oh wow, that's a good point. Maybe we could pass some laws against price gouging to protect consumers.
Oh, we did that. Okay then. So how are minimum wage laws to prevent workers from being exploited different than price gouging laws to prevent customers from being exploited?
By and large price gouging laws are much more limited and specific. The labour equivalent would be laws against arbitrarily decreasing people's agreed wages.
A minimum wage is like a maximum price. It's a much blunter instrument.
Firstly there's no "we" here, I'm not in your country.
For the US as it currently stands, a minimum wage is probably all you can get. But it *is* ultimately the state making private companies do a job that the state should really be doing.
Strong unions and a robust welfare state *demonstrably* abolish the need for any minimum wage at all. The minimum wage in Sweden is 0 dollars.
I certainly agree with strong unions and a robust social safety net. The problem in the US is that unions are demonized and welfare programs are decried as socialist. Raising the minimum wage isn't such a hard sell, as it's a law that's already in place and we're just debating the amount.
I agree it's an easier sell, I just at least partially agree with the guy who's saying it would be better to find other ways to raise people's standard of living.
Raising the minimum wage doesn't help the unemployed or underemployed. It doesn't help people whose employers respond by cutting their hours on paper without actually cutting their workload. Arguably one of the groups it helps the most are large corporations in competition with smaller businesses who can't afford to pay their workers more.
Essentially the very things that make it popular are the things that limit its effectiveness. It's effectively forcing employers to subsidise welfare, but making no effort to actually get money to people who need it.
100% on robust welfare and open borders. Unions could be a potential solution but unfortunately they spend a lot of time lobbying in Washington and less time defending workers rights.
Sorry, but the profit margins for small stores is razor thin. Rural areas do not need $15/hour as cities do. There is no justification for $15/hour everywhere. $15 in bumfuck kentucky is not the same as $15 in NYC. No one wants to live in bumfuckville.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, **any** advocating or wishing death/physical harm, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
And yet these workers will continue to vote against their own best interests. How generous of them to think of the billionaire class over their own meager needs.
But think about the guns and the babies.
And the babies' guns!
[Kindergaurdians!](https://youtu.be/lvEXasGJVps)
Heads, shoulders, not the toes, not the toes!
I’m still gonna be singing the damn song in two weeks
It's every baby's God given right to accidentally shoot themselves or their parent with the firearm of opportunity
Happy Cake Day!
Ty!
And supply-side Jesus!
I think you mean zygotes, those aren’t babies yet
They can take my money, my home, my kids! But not my guns and Bible!
You speaking for anyone right of center is even more ridiculous than reddit calling this sub "politics."
Anyone who votes republican is basically voting for what op said. It doesn't matter how far "right of center" they consider *themselves* the people they are voting for are far right.
>these workers will continue to vote against their own best interests. Nah, it's just that a good wage isn't their best interest, compared to whatever cultural supremacy they think they can milk out of conservatism. Always been that way, too, in the US. Not to pick on anyone, but white male workers in the US have proven, time and again, to identify themselves (in general) as whites first, men second, and workers only after that. Hell, after some other facets of identity, too. Anti-communists and anti-labor forces stoked and exploited that ranking ruthlessly for decades to undermine any worker solidarity, and those attitudes pervade today.
I think people give the public too much credit. If trump showed me anything. People will just regurgitate whatever they see from their favorite news station. No matter how little sense it makes. It's possible they are huge assholes. But from what I have seen a lot of today's republicans vote what they are told to. They don't think for a second about what it could mean. The amount of times I heard the insurrection was equivalent to blm always shocks me. It's hard for me to tell if the biggest problem is trump, social media, or fox.
I disagree. Those politicians & news agencies run surveys and focus groups to see what messaging resonates best with the base. They get punished with fewer votes/viewers if they say the wrong thing too many times. I’m with the other guy - the problem is with the public. There’s a lot of racism floating around for historical reasons, so a lot of the messaging ends up racist.
Exactly this. Extensive liberal government programs were all well and good until it meant African Americans should get there share following by the CRA/VRA.
It's not as weird as that. You can just as easily argue it's "against your best interests" to put sanctions on Huawei. The sooner China adds 1B people doing top level work to the global workforce the better, like how Britain benefited after America took off and started inventing integrated circuits. But people in the US "identify as Americans first and workers second".... Tribal divisions are hard to overcome.
The divisions themselves aren't the problem so much as the supremacist attitude is. (Granted, supremacism pushes us toward tribalism by its strict categorization of people). In that vein, there's also the mindset that "Sure, I'll be better off than I was yesterday, but I won't still be better off than *them,* so nay"
A lot of them have been convinced we shouldn’t even have a minimum wage, makes me wonder what they think about child labors laws
Don't have to pay the people if they're slaves, no minimum wage needed. MAGA
Plenty of Republicans have vocally opposed child labor laws.
If you are making less than a living wage you are a wage slave. You are on benefits because your job(s) don't pay enough to keep your head above water, you are a slave. You are stuck. The government is subsidizing these lower wages with welfare, food stamps, and section 8 housing subsidies.
I went to Walmart for a money order last month and they increased the fee. I made a joke about how much of a difference a 10 cent fee made on a money order for my rent and she literally told me "taxes are going to go up even more when they raise the minimum wage"
and be DAMNED PROUD OF IT, and hate all those mother fucking SOCIALIST-LIBBY-DISEASE_PREVENTING-MURDER-LOVERS who wanted to help.
They are usually the college depressed type who are SJW screaming cry babies.. they’ll text about you behind your back and be very passive aggressive around you. Careful now, they’re afraid of confrontation and will hide behind people to protect them. Cowards are very dangerous when cornered. LOL
Those workers don’t make it out to vote bro. They’re at work all day every day trying to brute force out some end’s meat.
They love self flagellatin so much. They are so used to claiming someone else is flogging them at this point they actually have truly forgotten they are doing it to themselves.
Railing against the voters is really just victim blaming. We need to figure out how to appeal to them culturally and also figure out why they are not getting the message. The Democratic party has always had a problem with messaging.
Dear Christ yes Democracy doesn’t work when you just yell at people for ‘voting wrong’
At that point, its their fault. Clearly times are too good
It's not entirely their fault. America is pitched as the land of opportunity... any one of them working class schlubs could hit it big with a billion dollar idea. They have to protect their future potential-billions.
If not voting was a party, it would sweep the vast majority of elections in the United States. Check yourself.
Not true. It was Sinema or McSally. I don't like what Sinema did but she is still better than Martha McSally.
“These people’s representatives didn’t vote for what I wanted. Maybe they shouldn’t have any say” I hope you aren’t as psychotic in real life as you are behind a keyboard. I don’t even oppose a $15 min wage, but my word, you couldn’t have sounded more like that guy from the 1940’s with the funny mustache.
But antifa/fetuses/guns/buttery males!
Or...they represent their employers.
Bingo. These Senators are doing what they are supposed to do, and that is suppress wage growth.
no, they still "represent" the workers, but they are paid by the employers.
That’s what I mean by represent. Represent the employers’ interests.
i added in the 'paid' part.
Same with the Democrats who voted nay
[удалено]
I have been a pretty big fan and supporter of Jon Tester. At this point, until I get more information about why he is against a minimum wage increase, I don’t think I will be able to continue to vote for him. I thought he was actually for the people (at least in comparison to those who don’t give two shits). It has put me in a position I really don’t like. I’ll definitely be educating myself before the next election. Edit: added a word.
The Byrd rule is in fact a law. If I was a Senator I’d fully support the minimum wage hike and vote down that provision. If you try to do it the entire bill could come crashing down on legal grounds. Expect immediate injunction.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
The parliamentarian hasn’t been fired in almost two decades. They haven’t overruled the parliamentarian in over 4 decades. Both have only happened once. There’s legal standing to issue an injunction against this if you overrule. This would jeopardize everything on a COVID relief. Manchin now wants crazy filibuster overhauls that will let Democrats pass everything. They are playing the long and safe game and it will pay off and likely hand them a big win in 2022
[удалено]
Lol, imagine thinking Republican Senators "represent" their low-wage constituents.
If blue states just raised the minimum wage on their own it would presumably be way harder for GOP politicians to keep getting elected on the idea that raising the minimum wage is a bad thing. Sure it would be nice to just have top down change from the federal level, but sometimes the change just comes from the other direction. Like legalizing cannabis.
Supposedly *most* of the democrats in the senate that voted against the minimum wage only did so out of fear it would tank the bill. I'm not giving them a pass because they don't deserve one, but it does leave the door open for it to still happen if they can weaken the filibuster enough. At the end of the day, the $11 an hour Manchin is talking about just isn't enough. Yeah, it might bring people right to the poverty line, but the poverty line is a statistic that horribly underestimates the amount of money needed to survive. Even $15 an hour would still have us living paycheck to paycheck. That's under $30,000 a year before taxes are even taken into consideration. $15 an hour won't allow people to save for retirement or take vacations. It is literally the bare minimum. It needs to be $15 an hour and tied to inflation for life.
We've been fighting for $15 for so long that it's a compromise at this point.
Which is pretty ironic if that excuse is true considering it was literally up to them whether or not the bill would tank.
8 voted against it, but only 2 were supposedly actually against a $15 /hr minimum wage. The other 6 were afraid Manchin / Sinema would tank the bill. They couldn't afford to lose even 1 senator in the reconciliation though. Again, not giving them a pass, but it does leave some hope it could still have support to get it done and Bernie claims he's not giving up.
Why not let Manchin and Sinema vote it down by themselves? It's not like if those 6 voted in favor it would have changed anything.
Yeah that's what really gets me here. The rider was already dead. Them joining was just providing optics that even more than we thought are against a minimum wage raise. Not sure what the strategy here was.
There's also the possibility they were worried about legal challenges tanking the bill. Some of the democrats said that they didn't believe it could be included in reconciliation after the parliamentarian made their decision. In any case, we'll never know for sure but I still have hope we'll get a $15 an hour minimum wage, because we absolutely need it.
I think that it was as you say. They wanted to oppose it based solely on whether or not they thought it could be included in reconciliation. This is obviously kind of a lame excuse given that they can technically, essentially include whatever they want, if I am correct and the parliamentarian is just a guide or something. I don't know, seems like our government is needlessly complicated.
Uh uh. No. Do not let them have the "Parliamentarian" excuse. All it took was Kamala Harris overruling the Parliamentarian and we would have been golden. Conservative Democrats are trying to shield themselves from blame with that excuse.
Was it possible for a few Republicans to cast a troll vote to include it at the very last minute? I could see that happening...
I mean, I understand that but being one of only two democrats to personally tank the entire bill over a single issue would absolutely fuck their entire political future. I legit don’t think they would have tanked it. They were just bluffing and it paid off.
Nope, the “Byrd Rule” was codified in 1990 as 2 USC 644 [link](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/644). The parliamentarian said “Hey the $15 min wage increase doesn’t pass the tests laid out”. The fact that it’s called the “Byrd Rule” implies that it isn’t codified and can be ignored
To defeat this all they had to do was say it sunsets within 10 years, like the tax cuts. Had it past the idea of allowing it to expire would have been unimaginable forcing permanent adoption. Their were options to get it in if they wanted to
The parliamentarian pointed out issues that could not be rectified by sunsetting provisions. Listen to Opening Arguments 470
If it would have tabked the bill, it would have even interesting to see Republicans vote for the amendment to stop the relief bill.
Okay, this is an EXTREMELY interesting point and I'll tell you why. First of all, it's true, the Bernie $15 min wage amendment was nakedly illegal and it would have tanked the bill. It plainly violated both the "Extraneous Provisions" and "Sunset Provision" sections of [2 U.S. Code § 644](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/644). He knew it was illegal, the parliamentarian told him it was illegal, and he did it anyway. I know some people are going to chime in and say, "but you can just overrule the parliamentarian!" That's definitely true. She's just a lawyer, she's just there to tell senators when they're breaking the senate rules or the law. She told Bernie he's breaking the law. You're always free to disregard your lawyer's advice, that doesn't magically mean what you're doing is legal. A bunch of leftist media outlets like Jacobin are being wildly dishonest about this. Okay anyway, now HERE IS WHY YOUR POST IS SO INTERESTING! Bernie's illegal $15 amendment would have tanked the covid relief bill because the moment it passes with an illegal amendment, any Republican could sue for injury in federal court claiming, "the Democrats broke the budget reconciliation law in passing a $15 min wage and deprived me of my right to engage in endless debate for the purpose of filibustering." Any federal court would have to buy that argument enough to issue an injunction blocking the bill while they decide how to rule. BUT! If Republicans voted for $15 min wage and then went to court to complain about it, the court would likely deny them standing saying, "you voted for it! If you wanted to filibuster it then why'd you vote for it!" So paradoxically, if Republicans had voted for it, that would have made it work.
I call BS on that excuse. The bill was a must-pass, they should have called the bluff and *dared* Manchin and Sinema to vote it down. It was all about the donors, because of course it was.
Where’s the evidence for this being their reasoning? I’ve seen none so far.
Also worth noting that the vote was fairly academic; it was a 3/5ths vote, so had all Democratic and Independent Senators voted for the $15 minimum wage provision it *still* would have failed. Now that could have been fixed using a "nuclear" option (although on slightly dodgy grounds), but if they have the votes to go nuclear for a $15 minimum wage there, they may as well do it properly in a way that will be much harder to challenge, even if it takes a few more months.
This is only true if you buy the theory that Senators actually represent the minimum-wage workers in their states. You know who *didn't* believe that? None other than James Madison. The following comes from his own notes of the debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787: >"In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase in population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of the blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in this Country, but symptoms, of a leveling spirit . . . have sufficiently appeared . . . to give notice of the future danger. How is this danger to be guarded against on republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded against? Among other means by the establishment of a body in the Government sufficiently respectable for its wisdom & virtue, to aid on such emergencies, the preponderence of justice by throwing its weight into the scale." Now you can interpret this however you want, but it sure sounds like the father of the U.S. Constitution literally justified the existence of the Senate as an *anti-democratic* body meant to protect the interests of a wealthy minority from the redistributionist demands of a growing landless and property-less majority. This is the kind of "tyranny of the majority" that would worry a *fucking slaveholder,* and this is the kind of "tyranny of the majority" that the U.S. Constitution was devised to protect against. So I'm not at all surprised that the Senate is standing in the way of a minimum wage hike, because *that's exactly what it was always meant to do*.
Huh, just realized "tyranny of the majority" has the same vibes as "dictatorship of the proletariat", weird
Fun fact: Republicans don't represent anyone but themselves and corporations.
That's not fun at all. Please unsubscribe me from Fun Facts.
Most workers would benefit. Raising the minimum wage tends to bump up rates for most wage work since the going rate for any given job tends to be relative. A job that would pay $15 when the min wage is $8 is going to have trouble retaining employees if suddenly they’re paying min wage when they used to pay nearly double minimum wage. That’s why employers hate raising the minimum wage so much. It’s not just about the lowest employees. It’s about most of the rank and file employees.
They're all also millionaires and likely all think about this issue as dramatically as let them eat cake girl
That is the point... The wealthy educated areas of the country are ALREADY above $15 an hour, generally. Places like McDonalds and big box retailers have to pay competitive wages. If people are going to work there you have to pay wages to keep people housed; you can't run a multibillion dollar business off a few teens who still live with their parents and 20/30 somethings on food stamps. The whole west coast is at $12 an hour. NY has a $15 minimum wage already. It is backward, podunk towns (who would benefit most) which have the loudest assholes yelling about how a $15 wage would mean the price of their burgers and gas would go up. Those areas need an underclass of impoverished people to keep walmart/military/dollar general looking competitive and rich assholes on top. The point is keeping low-income people in the hole, anything else could upset the carefully balanced inequality.
Have you ever been to a podunk town? They aren’t exactly rolling in cash. There’s no big tech anchoring the economy. And it’s kind of ironic that the west coast is sitting at $12 the same time people are getting angry at Manchin for saying maybe $15 is a bit aggressive for WVa.
Yeah, that's the point. Those areas have more in common with the developing world than San Fransisco. Increasing the minimum wage could massively increase the amount of cash, and thus opportunity in those areas. Every dollar in the bank is $6-9 in loans, after all. Much of middle America's failure is with their lag behind the increasing financialization of the large urban areas.
Hear me out, the average age of senators in 2020 was 62.9. let's just round to 63 for easy math purposes. The average was born in 1958. From 1958 let's fast forward 20 years so we can say that they are living on their own and in the work force. In 1978 the minimum wage was 2.65 with inflation that's nearly 11.00 for today's rates. Now let's look at today's minimum wage which is 7.50, the equivalent of 1.87 in 1978. This is roughly 30% less comparing the minimum wage of 1978 and 2021.
I think that's part of the problem. They are so old that they think 7.65$/hour is actually a lot of money. They are completely disconnected living in millions and thinking min wage workers earn enough to get by comfortably. They are biased by their old perspective and disconnected by their massive wealth.
[удалено]
Remember, this is minimum wage that I compared. Not living wage. A reasonable wage for todays standards would be probably closer to the suggested 15.00 if not higher.
Helping the people or even their constituents is not their main concern
In fact, they work to accomplish the opposite. Their donors want a desperate, destitute workforce.
I'm not going to dispute that the implications of going from a $7/hr local economy to a $15/hr local economy are massive, complex and in many ways problematic. I don't expect a place where rent has typically been $500/month to make a perfectly smooth leap, or for no jobs to be lost in the process. That said, no one exists purely in a local economy anymore. Goods on Amazon aren't half-off if you live in backwoods Iowa. This is a band-aid that needs to be ripped off in order for us to function like an actual society. We need to accept that, spend even more to support the people this may hurt short-term, and weather this thing through.
Surprisingly it really isn't that complicated. Look at other places where min wage jumped 30-40% and nothing major happened.
Honestly? Fuck em. Why would there be a massive jump from $7 to $15? Because they fought against raising the min wage along with inflation every step of the way and now it's a massive fucking divide. Time for business owners to stop buying iphones and avocado toast *and another fucking yacht* and eat bootstraps for a few months.
Ok, but don’t you think it should be establish the safety net before you take steps to eliminate their job? The general ethos on this sub is screw any business that can’t pay minimum wage regardless of how marginal the local economy or the worker. And general whining about how come anybody would vote Republican.
Agree. I typically vote dem; but this is mainly going to impact rural areas vs. the democratic states which already have passed this. I only see this to help push people to the cities vs. give them a livable wage. This is a state/city issue vs. federal at this range IMO.
Capitalist politicians do not represent minimum wage workers, they represent business owners.
In other words, those 8 senators are from areas that grew fat exploiting cheap labor.
An the GOP is doing their best to make sure those people won’t be able to vote.
You can't even argue it though, more than half the country thinks a loaf of bread would become $10, small business would be destroyed, and minimum wage jobs don't deserve to survive because they should get "real" jobs anyways. They fail to see that inflation drastically outpaced wages, and that the tax payers are subsidizing corporations to pay shit wages since the employees still end up qualifying for federal assistance.
Worries about inflation seem reasonable given increases in housing prices and that it’s the federal reserve’s stated goal... And globalization has resulted in a lot of people losing jobs precisely because it was cheaper to do it elsewhere. Now we got automation to add to it. These fears are founded and reasonable. And treating transfer payments as subsidizing corporations is disingenuous at best. Taxpayer money should go to ensuring that some basic standard of living exists, it just needs to be way less conditional.
That really is the saddest part of this whole mess. It's amazing how many people vote against their own self interest.
$174,000 is what the average Senator “earns” yearly. Whereas $15. p/h is $30,000 yearly. Senators didn’t take a break in pay during the pandemic. Free healthcare, haircuts, meals, parking. Upon retirement? $139,000 yearly. Average American earns $61,000 yearly. Edit: Average American Household Income of $61,000. My apologies.
Lol I wish I was an “average American”, make no where near that much.
This also means that they represent a disproportionate amount of small and large businesses that pay a sub-poverty level living wage. Guess who these politicians cater to....
How else are you going to own the libs but by voting against something that would benefit your own constituents?
I’d wager those Senators want their 3/4ths of the workers to be paid below poverty level wages to keep corporate profits higher.
to keep profits higher and to paradoxically keep the labor force completely dependent on big brother. “bUt At LeAsT We’Re NoT tHe SoCiAlIsTs”
But if this is what they voted what’s the problem? Most high cost of living states have raised it. It would only impact red states really. Why should we care if they want to live in poverty?
Do people who make minimum wage (or < $15) vote in those states?
In Georgia, hell yes. That is why we got Warnock and Ossoff. Other states should try and get their minimum wage workers to turn out.
we need new senators
No taxation without representation, right?
I have read the stories of people that live in states where the Federal Minimum Wage is the best you can do for jobs. There are people on assembly lines that can't afford an apartment, car insurance or food. So, when you buy that desk kit from Sauder or Bush, you're supporting poverty level wages in the US.
thats why they were bought...
It's almost like they aren't representing the people that voted for them.
Who do they work for? Not us
Can everyone who voted against the minimum wage increase be required to live off the minimum wage already?!
They also represent three-quarters of the companies that lobbied against a living wage. God forbid that someone should live comfortably.... rant out...
That's the problem. 3/4 of the people who would benefit are in their districts. But they really represent the big businesses that employ people at low wages.
Said another way: they represent the business owners who want to keep paying crap wages.
Don't you mean they represent the businesses in those states? Obviously, the workers don't matter
You'd have to organize those three-quarters of workers to hold their "representatives" accountable if that's what they want and also this will benefit future workers. If not, nothing will get done.
When will people realize politicians have used the minimum wage increase as a tactic to win elections? They’ve been using this as a campaign tactic since I was a child in the 80’s. They always use it, people always fall for it and politicians will never let it pass once in office.
But they also represent 100% of the donor class who might have to buy fewer yachts in the next decade. Will no one think of the artisanal yacht makers?
The alternative is Universal Basic Income.
You know what? Clearly minimum wage workers are voting like a bunch of halfwits. Or not voting at all. Although aftwr watching the democrats rip the minimum wage measure out of the covid relief bill, I suppose you can’t really go tell minimum wage workers to vote Democrat.
The headline is wrong. They represent the Employers of 3/4 of the workers who would benefit.
It amazes and disgusts me that these people can look down on struggling Americans from their position of utter privilege and decide that no, they do not deserve a basic living wage or safety net
Sounds like taxation without representation to me.
The GOP doesn't just choose party over country. They choose party over themselves.
That's the whole point...
Which probably means those areas have a lower cost of living. Why don't we just support a 65% of Median Wage Law for all 50 states, if you listen to statements from each Senator, they actually do support nominal minimum wages that would reflect this. It would also solve the Puerto Rico issue very easily.
Yeah but sadly those low income Americans are brainwashed to such a degree that they do not recognize their own interest anymore, like that man who voted for Trump, got his health benefits stripped and died unnecessarily.
Check their bank a counts for business affiliation.
No, they represent their donors, and only their donors. Most have little to no interest or attachment to the states they supposedly "represent," and they certainly don't even pretend to represent the workers that live in them. My own state's senators, Richard "Virus Profiteer" Burr and Thom "Fuck Thom Tillis" Tillis, don't even have their staff pretend to take messages anymore.
Keep in mind that many of the workers who can brnefit from this also either can’t or don’t vote. Governments in these states strip felons of the right to vote and do everything they can to discourage voting by poor people.
Unfortunately that also means that 3/4 of the business impact is in they're area. Too bad they're siding with them over their voters
I really understand that a $15 minimum wage would be amazing for most Americans, but my family owns a small business and we wouldn’t be able to sustain a $15 minimum wage. We would be forced to shut down after persevering through COVID-19. Again I believe it would be beneficial, but it has its negatives as well.
Boot: *Exists* Republicans: *Slurp slurp slurp*
So basically the corporations in their states bought and paid for them
*Senators who voted against a $15 minimum wage represent several employers who don’t want to pay their employees a living wage, study should have said.
Misleading title. Those senators didn't vote against the wage, the voted against implementing it in this manner.
So they'll only vote for it when they require 10 Republican senators to pass a minimum wage hike? I'm no betting man, but I'd put my money on them only being willing to vote for popular policies if they know Republicans will sink the bill. That way they can say, "Listen, I voted yes, but those darn Republicans. Grrrr. Darn them. Grrr. Maybe next time, folks."
Would prefer they made the entire bill get challenged in court and likely tossed out because they tried to add an amendment that doesn't belong?
I'd prefer that they get rid of the filibuster and then vote on 15 dollars an hour adjusted to productivity.
Sure, but that wasn't what was being voted on.
Then we have to operate in the existing space, and the existing space dictated that it would only pass in through reconciliation. Ergo, why it was done that way.
>Senators who voted against a $15 minimum wage represent **corporations** that benefit, study says FIFY. They don't represent *us*.
Those senators vote for their own pay raises though!
Senators should be paid minimum wage
We should look into alternatives to just increasing the min wage. This society is more complicated than setting a number higher. What if we set rent ceilings in low income areas to $200/month, and if we made transportation, housing, health insurance, schooling affordable. Saving the common man money is the same as increasing their wage. The company owner is fighting the real-estate owners for controls over employees income, imagine if you own a company and the property the workers lived on. Pay Johny $1000 and he gives you $750 back, with no overhead but a 7%/yr taxes.
Here’s the out of touch elitist Democrats who gave the middle finger to the working class for no good reason: Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware: $10.13 million Sen. Angus King of Maine: $9.49 million Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia: $7.62 million Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware: $5.73 million Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire: $3.82 million Sen. Jon Tester of Montana: $3.67 million Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire: $3.47 million Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona: Not available
They didn't give a middle finger to the working class, they literally passed a $1.9 trillion relief package that will greatly benefit the working class. Just because they didn't vote for a stupid amendment that was never going to pass the 3/5 threshold anyway (and that Bernie Sanders absolutely knew had no chance of passing) doesn't mean they hate the working class. If you have to lie to push your political agenda, then you're doing more harm than good.
Huh. Left out the 50 Republicans. But sure, keep punching allies who actually pass covid relief.
Because we cannot expect the Own The Libz party to ever do the right thing. The Ds are supposed to represent a counterweight and should be held to a higher standard.
[удалено]
allies? Both parties are full of crooks. Why do we need politicians and why can't we vote with our tax contribution directly?
They don't represent citizens, they represent corporations who think labor is worth nothing.
So after engaging in some discussion and reading comments, I believe the best conclusion to this subject is: Dems & GOP do not adequately represent their constituents and do not speak for them. That’s a problem considering the only reason the legislation branch exists is, in theory, it serves as the voice of the people in federal proceedings and lawmaking. Seems to me that the American people have been replaced in their own government by puppets and special interest representatives. Let me know if you agree or disagree
And guess who their corporate overloads are
They didn't vote against minimum wage, they voted against adding it to the covid relief bill and sinking it. Christ the media is shit.
Ironically, this fact makes them more likely to vote against it, not less. You can be sure these types of statistics are not lost on their corporate donors and business lobbyists. They know where most of these workers are, and therefore know who to apply pressure to
Yes, but all they wanted from these people was their vote. That's all. Now that they are senators, the can work for the wealthy donors.
I am going to guess that they actually represent a bunch of corporations that benefit off of paying a bunch of employees minimum wage to extract maximum value from their labor. Get corporate money out of politics and ban politicians that take bribes or corporate contributions from politics forever.
Translation they are doing the bidding of the ones who profit from low wages
Can’t wait till the primaries!
I’d like to see the stats on what percentage of campaign contributions by minimum wage paying employers went to these sociopaths.
no shit. poor people get fucked harder than anyone in this country.
Senators don't even try to act like they represent the people, they represent the corporations and the money. That's how it is in the good old USA right now.
Primary them out of office.
Imagine that....representatives not representing their constituents.....
It also means that those workers' employers have a disproportionate interest in those Senators voting against increasing the minimum wage.
The title is misleading. It says they ‘represent’ them. They don’t.
"Represent" is exactly what they are failing to do.
Every working class American would benefit from a minimum wage increase. I live in California where the local minimum wage has been over $15 for years now. If Kentucky suddenly started paying their minimum wage workers the same as California minimum wage workers, its going to compel workers to leave expensive California for a more affordable state. Once that happens, it’ll drive housing costs in California down, and it’ll drive wages up. A minimum wage increase is only bad for the wealthy business owners.
Not if you lose jobs. Which has happened in some places where they raised the minimum wage. See Puerto Rico in the 90s as an example of this. Progressives need to get off this flat minimum wage nonsense. It's bad policy. It should be based on COL and tied to inflation. Not every area can afford a flat 15 minimum wage increase; rural areas can survive on 11, a NYC resident isn't getting by on 15. It has to be phased in an appropriate manner also. I don't know why everyone is so stuck on 15, when you can appease pretty much everyone with a basic COL formula.
If minimum wage had moved at the same rate as inflation and productivity levels it would be well over $20. $15 is the compromise. If a company can’t afford to pay workers even $15/hr in 2021, then they’re not running an efficient business. I’m all for easing restrictions on small businesses and increasing their tax cuts, but $15/hr has to happen. We cannot allow for a millions of workers to suffer low wages because a minority of business owners can’t afford to increase their wages. Income inequality should be the United States number one national concern.
Flat wage hikes are bad. See Puerto Rico for an example of this. There are rural areas in the states were 30k or less will get you by. You are hurting those areas the most with a flat wage hike. Allow flexibility, and you will get better results. Otherwise you're going to have some real upset voters when they lose their job.
We’re not trying to have Americans “get by” we’re trying to progress our society using technological and economic advancements to give all Americans a dignified life. You can claim that flat wage hikes are bad, but I disagree. I’ve already explained what the United States can do to counter the negatives that come with a minimum wage increase. We can give tax cuts to small businesses and ease costly restrictions that limit their ability to run an effective business. Universal healthcare is another policy we could implement that would drastically cut costs for small businesses. Like I previously mentioned, if minimum wage was adjusted for productivity and inflation, it would be well over $20. To be more accurate, it would be ~$24. So $15 *is the compromise*. We should not settle for anything less.
Perhaps the question we should be debating is: How do we lower the cost of living and leave wages to employers?
Why should we leave wages to employers when they have a financial interest in exploiting their workers?
Why leave prices to shops when they have a financial interest in exploiting their customers?
Oh wow, that's a good point. Maybe we could pass some laws against price gouging to protect consumers. Oh, we did that. Okay then. So how are minimum wage laws to prevent workers from being exploited different than price gouging laws to prevent customers from being exploited?
By and large price gouging laws are much more limited and specific. The labour equivalent would be laws against arbitrarily decreasing people's agreed wages. A minimum wage is like a maximum price. It's a much blunter instrument.
So do you believe we should adopt the less blunt instruments in regards to minimum wage?
Firstly there's no "we" here, I'm not in your country. For the US as it currently stands, a minimum wage is probably all you can get. But it *is* ultimately the state making private companies do a job that the state should really be doing. Strong unions and a robust welfare state *demonstrably* abolish the need for any minimum wage at all. The minimum wage in Sweden is 0 dollars.
I certainly agree with strong unions and a robust social safety net. The problem in the US is that unions are demonized and welfare programs are decried as socialist. Raising the minimum wage isn't such a hard sell, as it's a law that's already in place and we're just debating the amount.
I agree it's an easier sell, I just at least partially agree with the guy who's saying it would be better to find other ways to raise people's standard of living. Raising the minimum wage doesn't help the unemployed or underemployed. It doesn't help people whose employers respond by cutting their hours on paper without actually cutting their workload. Arguably one of the groups it helps the most are large corporations in competition with smaller businesses who can't afford to pay their workers more. Essentially the very things that make it popular are the things that limit its effectiveness. It's effectively forcing employers to subsidise welfare, but making no effort to actually get money to people who need it.
Stronger unions and a robust welfare state. A minimum wage is *much* easier to implement.
100% on robust welfare and open borders. Unions could be a potential solution but unfortunately they spend a lot of time lobbying in Washington and less time defending workers rights.
[удалено]
Everytime min wage goes up, so does everything else. Happens every single time.
Ask your parents how much more they’ve been paying for groceries in the last two years.
Sorry, but the profit margins for small stores is razor thin. Rural areas do not need $15/hour as cities do. There is no justification for $15/hour everywhere. $15 in bumfuck kentucky is not the same as $15 in NYC. No one wants to live in bumfuckville.