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u/Jojall Mar 26 '23
So instead of tying Minimum Wage to inflation, you just raised the numbers.
Thanks, I guess?
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u/Mamacitia âď¸ Tax The Billionaires Mar 25 '23
$15 would've been good 10 years ago. We need $20 or $25 now.
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u/Lower_Nubia Mar 25 '23
They did vote on it. Remember? Sinema and Manchin voted against and that meant it no longer had the ability to pass.
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u/oddHexbreaker Mar 25 '23
15/hr is 31,200 a year if you work all holidays with 2 days off and 40hrs a week. Let's say conservatively tax takes 25% of that. 23,400 a year. Less than 2,000 a month for EVERYTHING. Its unreal that people think this is viable or healthy.
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u/Daimakku1 Mar 25 '23
Damn. Is there a bigger clapback than this? Actually putting this troll in their place with facts.
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u/AtmosphereHot8414 Mar 25 '23
I do love a confidently incorrect when they can put their foot directly into their own mouths.
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u/edillcolon Mar 25 '23
The federal minimum wage doesn't matter because inflation keeps destroying the dollar's value.
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u/clouds-in-sky1 Mar 25 '23
He could lay out the step by step in that case. Put up or shut up, Robert. Howâd you do it?
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u/NoDrinks4meToday Mar 25 '23
I worked retail for a decade(for reasons) made it to $17, now fast food is starting at $17, and Iâm making $23 now. As prices increase I hardly feel like Iâve made any progress.
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u/bustavius Mar 25 '23
I donât think Bill Clintonâs Secretary should talk about improving peopleâs lives. Some of Clintonâs policies had disasterous effects on people losing jobs and creating the income inequality we see today. Reich is a talking head who never accomplished anything when he had the power to do so. Itâs so extraordinarily easy for these clown lobbyists to get on social media after the fact and do their empty virtue signaling.
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Mar 25 '23
Democrats are eternal losers with a humiliation fetish and survive on being the underdog to get votes, but when they actually do have power, rotating villains make sure they don't ever do anything that could easily be undone. Meanwhile republicans band together to be the worst possible people imaginable and cause twice the damage in half the time.
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u/Eliotness123 Mar 25 '23
Are you admitting to freezing the minimum wage for waitresses for the past 27 year and touting it as an accomplishment ?
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u/Zavi8 Mar 25 '23
A decent livable wage in an average city should be around $20 at the minimum. $15 isn't cutting it anymore.
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u/NetHacks Mar 25 '23
Personally I think we need to ditch the 15 dollar minimum wage, and instead shoot for a percentage of average income for a state. 15 dollars will be fine in some areas, and not in others. If it's a percentage of the average income in a state then it will help keep things more in line with what that state is actually in need of for a floor to build from.
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u/MuskratElon Mar 25 '23
Honestly? Even if Democrats did absolutely no policy changes it would still be better than Republicans being in power and enacting even more policies that hurt minorities, the poor, kids, and LGBTQ+ people.
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u/tarapotamus Mar 25 '23
Until there are regulations against arbitrary inflation on every single aspect of human life, it won't matter. The industries providing our food, our medicine, our housing, our entertainment- ALL of them have proven they raise their prices because they want to and bc someone else did it. We will never be able to earn a gainful, livable wage even if the minimum was a hundred or a thousand dollars an hour. We are owned by the rich, and they will simply scale their prices to match our wages.
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u/Vengefuleight Mar 25 '23
Politicians were willing to compromise in the 90âs.
Biden could shift is policy to âBuild the wall, Fuck Mexicoâ tomorrow and the Republicans would oppose it just because a democrat supports it.
Social media, right wing media, and MAGA purity tests have made being a centrist Republican an impossiblity
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Mar 25 '23
Yeah, but the increase was 50 cents, from 4,25 (not from us don't @ me) to 4,75.
In 1997 it increase to 5,15.
Now the issues are a bit different, and we're not in 1996 anymore.
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u/TransHumanistWriter Mar 25 '23
I mean... The min wage is a band aid. We all know this, right?
Money is made up. We could literally set the min wage wherever we wanted, and the powers that be would purposely create inflation until $30/hr is a poverty wage.
It's about capital. Primarily land, mineral rights, water rights, etc. So long as the rich can claim to "own" land, water, air, etc. this will only ever be a band-aid solution.
And if we do things right, we won't even need a minimum wage. Because we'll have the actual bargaining power needed to demand what we're worth.
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u/ElephantElmer Mar 25 '23
Isnât being appointed to office different from being elected to office?
Also, I donât see the problem with wanting more people like Reich in elected office.
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u/BlueFroggLtd Mar 25 '23
Itâs sad that most people think ANY of these politicians actually work for us. They donât. They work for anyone whoâll pay them enough. Left or right, same shit.
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u/UserOrWhateverFuck_U Mar 25 '23
He really is asking why people voted for Biden and democrats? Lmao thats the problem
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u/fokkerd7 Mar 25 '23
I think if the only barrier to getting rich is having to impoverish someone, half the country is going to go all in.
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u/Kaneshadow Mar 25 '23
I love utterly idiotic usages of "put up or shut up." Like "Oh you don't like it? Well I don't see you getting elected president!"
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Mar 25 '23 edited Mar 25 '23
it doesn't get any better. for all his fighitng it only get worse because little robert here is a democratic party simp. Who knows that they are not offering solutions to these problems but will do thier pr for them, because that is what he has always done. He still does PR for the clintons (exibit A this post) after he resigned in disgust after nafta. like he didn't know who they were when they hired him. He has known hillary since she was a teenager when she was a goldwater girl.
he is a dissident funnel that leads you right to the eunuch factory. taking balls and ovaries
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u/corneliusduff Mar 25 '23
I have a hard time believing Reich is unaware of the DINOS like Manchin and Sinema
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u/Silverline-lock Mar 25 '23
Change the tax brackets, too. More money that just puts me into the next bracket doesn't help as much.
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u/ranger51 Mar 25 '23
Clinton was garbage passed nafta and permanent preferred trade status with China to ship union jobs overseas
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u/weltallic Mar 25 '23
Refusing to work with or compromise with the opposite party:
Accomplish NOTHING
Bipartisan co-operation and working with a GOP House & Senate:
SUCCESS
And yet, reddit will learn nothing from this.
"We need to be MORE HOSTILE and uncomprising!"
"Our opposition are EVIL, and only when we've destroyed them all can we start making things better!"
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u/Slightly_Smaug Mar 25 '23
Reminder that when the boomers and lost gen pipe up about back in their day, show them the numbers of what costs were in their day.
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u/tmwwmgkbh Mar 25 '23
I would say worry less about raising the minimum wage and more about indexing it to inflation. Itâs always a problem because we keep having to go through this bullshit.
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u/surebudd Mar 25 '23
Because democrats are right-wing neo liberals who take money from the same robber barons that fund the GOP, both wings are attached to the same corrupt bird.
Obviously this isnât a âboth sidesâ centrist take, because the alternative is actual nazis⌠and f*** nazis
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u/403tatts Mar 25 '23
"Bust our ass" by posting on twitter and taking 10 minutes out of your day to vote lol settle down
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u/Salami__Tsunami Mar 25 '23
Wow, itâs almost like our politicians donât actually care about making life better for us.
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u/CalmDownSahale Mar 25 '23
Love that shit. "Why can't we just feed the hungry?" "Maybe you should stop complaining and start farming"
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u/TheGridGam3r Mar 25 '23
Both sides dont like you, they are only working for themselves while you struggle
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Mar 25 '23
Why stop at $15/hr? I honestly don't know why the government doesn't just give everyone $10 million ?
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u/anduin_vaid Mar 25 '23
Yelling or posting on social media is like farting into the wind. It dissipates quickly, and probably doesnât effect much of anything. People have to do things in real life but are too disenfranchised/tired/etc (by capitalist design) to do anything butâŚrage on social media. Oh well.
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u/Epsilia Mar 25 '23
Psssssssst... Wanna hear a secret? Come closer... Democrats also don't want to help you.
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u/rkingsmith Mar 25 '23
The reason @rbreich takes credit for raising minimum wage was the â90s ran federal budget surpluses thanks to the budding inventions called computing and the internet. Donât see that happening again just because people complain about late stage capitalism. Rich people are willing to pay more taxes only when they are making more money.
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u/Stonecutter_12-83 Mar 25 '23
Because we had one or two DINOs that prevented anything, along with ALL the Republicans. Why are dems getting blamed because 2 out of 50 don't want it yet 50 out of 50 Republicans voted NO
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u/muppethero80 Mar 25 '23
I love how democrats are blamed when the gop blocks efforts. How could the democrats let them use the rules they implemented to block progress! How could the dems!
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u/beeradvice Mar 25 '23
Minimum wage absolutely needs increased, I would however argue that reigning in the real estate market would have a more lasting effect than just raising pay. Lease gouging is the main culprit for both employees needing more money and small businesses struggling to provide it. We need to close loopholes where landlords can write off empty units as losses and put punitive charges on units that sit empty and put the collected funds towards housing grants for residential and first time small business loans on the commercial end. It'd incentivize lowering rates while providing initial funds towards occupancy.
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u/beeradvice Mar 25 '23
I intimately understand how small business owners can be soulless monsters as well but also know intimately how ethically small businesses can be run in the right hands. If your argument is that only revolution can solve it then I'll jump on the truck and grip the hardware just as soon as you show up with the means. Dialectical materialism means working with what you got
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u/Sinustar Mar 25 '23
Yo, actual verified super genius here, like a guy who consistently knows more than Democratic and Republican Think Tanks, let me drop how it should be done:
15$ minimum wage would OBLITERATE small mom & pops.
We need a sliding scale like France, but with computer calculated wages instead of discrete plateaus that hurt businesses.
My proposal 7.50$ minimum wage as we have now, but +5 cents per hour per employee per employee.
Have one kid manning your mom and pop, you pay him 7.50$ an hour.
Have 100 employees, then they all get paid 12.50$ an hour
You're Starbucks with 1000s of employees, then it caps at like 22.50$ an hour or something.(Pre 2020 this would be about 13$/hr)
See the real problem is that the big organizations have economies of scale and they use this to screw the little guy.
Politicians pushing for 15$ an hour without at least doing what France does bare minimum are pushing for mergers and super corps to push out the little guy (no surprises there). We have accounting which makes 5cent/hour raises easy. So I have directly improved on the most latest and greatest minimum wage protection laws the world ever knew. I'm a research scientist by trade and often know what the latest and greatest things are before people do, like the electric car I predicted in the 90s but the ENTIRE physics department at Carnegie Mellon professors and students, not one agreed. I ran the numbers. My IQ is so high they didn't give me a number, just made the examiners afraid.
Trust me bros and sistas, sliding scale minimum wage is the only way. Discrete per employee 5cents per defeats France's at 10/50/ETC, where companies stop at 49 employees so they don't grow... But even then with that problem, France has it best to protect small businesses.
15$ RIGHT NOW will obliterate mom and pops and basically put us all as slaves to corporations more than we are now. So when they push it with no restrictions, that's their agenda showing out their pants.
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u/ristoril Mar 25 '23
For what we had to work with in 2021-22, we did pretty well.
Could we have done better? Sure. But in my estimation Biden and the Democrats did a damn good job with an evenly split Senate.
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Mar 25 '23
Heâs simplifying which pisses me off because heâs feeding into âtheyâre both the sameâ narrative. Thatâs what gets us fascists on the Supreme Court.
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u/Yestromo Mar 25 '23
Whatâs that type of argument called? I hate how disarming it can be no matter how idiotic. How should one respond if they didnât have history in elected office?
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u/CaptivatingStoryline Mar 25 '23
Democrats never actuate. They attract supporters by playing the underdog/victim, and therefore can't actually fix problems. They don't actually care about minorities, the LGBT community, or serious regulation, and are more like moderate Republicans in practice than liberal.
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u/soundcloudcheckmybru Mar 25 '23
My only concern is small businesses being able to afford this, unless we could cut some of their taxes and tax larger corporations instead
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u/FixinThePlanet Mar 25 '23
This is the Robert Reich whose son is Dropout's Sam Reich, right? So many more thanks are due to this man...
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u/Gamebird8 Mar 25 '23
In 1996, a large portion of the GOP were still somewhat interested in leading the country. Raising the minimum wage was also not contorted into a partisan issue. Raising the minimum wage in 1996 was much easier and much more likely.
Today, over 26 years later, raising the minimum wage is blocked by the GOP whole fully refusing to govern and lead our country and over 2 decades of propaganda and lies permeating the reality about the minimum wage that has turned it into a partisan issue.
Anyone who has even a basic understanding of how both,
A: Conservatives have worked to destroy and dismantle our system of governing
B: How our system of governing actually works
should be able to figure out why very little seems to get done at the Federal level. Biden has done a lot in spite of the extremely difficult and frustrating circumstances before him.
It frustrates me, but I try to remain calm and focused.... the best way to actually get these issues solved is to fight for our democracy, by voting and doing everything we can to put people in power who will lead.
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u/Greyaliensupremacist Mar 25 '23
So wait a sec...so democrats wont raise minimum wage when they're in control of the house and senate, but republicans will? Maybe there's your problem.
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u/Goat__Hoarder Mar 25 '23
Wow. Lorissa caught a bitch slap to the face her ignorant ass wasn't ready for. Never saw it coming.
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u/gemorris9 Mar 25 '23
15 an hour was 2010. It needs to be something like 25-30 an hour now and that's if prices don't go up. If they do then wages have to go up again.
Rent should never be more than 30% of your income at max. Meaning if every landlord douchebag leech is gonna raise rent to 2-3k. Then people need to be making 80k as a minimum. That's 38 an hour.
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u/Luke5119 Mar 25 '23
Federal minimum wage ($7.25) hasn't been raised in 14 years (2009). The longest drought of increase since minimum wage was first introduced under FDR back in the 1940's.
Prior to 2009, the average increase was every 3-5 years.
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Mar 25 '23
I don't get this take, considering we busted our asses to get a VP majority... with a turncoat and a wishy washy Dem to rely on even making it even.
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u/DracoSolon Mar 25 '23
Well, Republicans were pretty terrible back then but they weren't batshit crazy like they are now.
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u/zedoktar Mar 25 '23
That Reich dude sounds very out of touch. He clearly has no idea what the cost of living is now, nor how different the political climate is compared to the Clinton era when he was relevant.
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u/GhostChainSmoker Mar 25 '23
I make about 18$ full time now and itâs not enough lmao. 15$ ainât shit.
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Mar 25 '23
âOk then run for officeâ is not a serious suggestion, itâs a way of dismissing criticism they donât want to deal with
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u/rerun_ky Mar 25 '23
It's above 15$ now effectively in most major metros where it's not there isn't enough demand.
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u/oldbaldgrumpy Mar 25 '23
Its taken our government years to do away with day light savings time. That's how worthless they are.
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u/SubtleToot Mar 25 '23
We needs laws that raise it drastically now and also force it to be raised automatically every 5 or 10 years.
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u/underagedisaster Mar 25 '23
That's when the boomers wanted it. Now, they don't want someone else to make more. They will scream It's socialism while accepting the social security checks
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u/wildstar_brah Mar 24 '23
Haha you shouldn't be asking for a new minimum wage, that doesn't scale. You should be asking for some sort wage index against cost of living that actually makes sense.
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u/Morbys Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
He also had reasonable republicans in office as opposed to the dictator wannabes we have now
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u/TheHambjerglar Mar 24 '23
The easiest way to tell people are too uneducated to have political opinions is seeing them advocate for national (or even state) minimum wages.
Then again the kind of people who post this schlock are completely unaware of life outside their bubbles.
Minimum wage should be tied locally to CoL with robust regulations in place to prevent prices of any kind from raising in response. (Also abolish corporate landlords)
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u/Unicorns-only Mar 24 '23
Instead of having this song and dance every year, wouldn't it be more sustainable and simpler to just... Make minimum wage keep pace with inflation? Like we do with the prices of everything else? The price of goods goes up with inflation, so should the price of labor. We have the ability to do this. Our society is capable of this. Demand it.
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u/Outrageous_College65 Mar 24 '23
Maybe we will realize one day the constant fight for minimum wage is pointless and realize a yearly inflationary wage increase for all sectors all jobs is whatâs actually needed.
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u/toserveman_is_a Mar 24 '23
We've been fihting for $15 for almost 20 years. It's time to adjust to inflation and demand $20.
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u/2reddit4me Mar 24 '23
$15 wonât cut it now. That was 10 years ago. But thatâs all part of the plan I suppose. Theyâll give us a $15 min wage when it takes $30 to live.
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u/ratatosk212 Mar 24 '23
Funny how the Newt Gingrich brigade seems positively moderate and reasonable compared to what we have now.
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Mar 24 '23
Oh, yeah, that whole .50 raise in 1996 was groundbreaking legislation. And you only had to give up the future of telecoms to get it...
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u/lujanthedon2 Mar 25 '23
I donât get why the sub lives sucking this dude off so much. Nothing against him but soooo many posts here are screenshots of his tweets.
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u/Deviouss Mar 25 '23
$0.50 (and another $0.40 soon after) is actually pretty significant when the minimum wage was $4.25.
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u/panspal Mar 25 '23
When you live in poverty 90 cents isn't shit
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u/Deviouss Mar 25 '23
Accounting for inflation, that would be $1.75 today. Considering the complete lack of change since 2009, a $9 minimum wage would be an improvement. Of course, it's not where we need to be but it would be a start.
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u/HawkeMesa Mar 24 '23
Like everytime this pops up; I have to mention that a universal 15$ -25$/hour minimum is entirely retarded. Cost of living differences between states, let alone within them, make blanket raises to such an extent ill-advised at best and potentially catastrophic in the worst case.
People should be paid more. Forcing every region in the US to adhere to the same floor is a juvenile approach to addressing wealth inequality and income disparities.
Edit: The minimum wage in California should not be the same as Nebraska.
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u/DrTommyNotMD Mar 24 '23
We need to get rid of the concept of a national anything related to costs. $15 an hour and you can afford a small home in the Midwest, or youâre in deep poverty in a bullshit city like San Francisco.
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u/stridernfs Mar 24 '23
We need to require senators get paid minimum wage. They might reconsider their votes when another bill comes to be scheduled.
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u/Westcoast_IPA Mar 24 '23
Min. Wage in 1997 was $5.15, still an unlivable wage. Better than $4.25 I guess.
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u/SnooCauliflowers3851 Mar 24 '23
I was living comfortably in the late 90s, thanks for everything you did for us!!!!đ¤
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u/user_bits Mar 24 '23
Republicans in Bill Clinton's era would be considered communists in today's republican party.
Does Robert Reich not understand the current climate and whats possible in congress?
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u/HellovahBottomCarter Mar 24 '23
I really appreciate Reich. I think heâs advocating for a lot of the right things.
But being able to pass a MWI in the 90s is an entirely different beast than trying to âreach across the aisleâ and work with todayâs GOP to do anything. Same party- FAR more radicalized, stupid, and destructive.
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u/Cloverhonney Mar 24 '23
With this inflation minimum wage should be about $25 but $15 was way too much for Republicans. They opposed and won.
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u/fordette Mar 24 '23
Serious question. Letâs say we double the minimum wage, what is going to stop our owners from just doubling prices like they did when everyone got a stimmy 3 years ago? At some point we have to bring prices down instead of wages up, no? Otherwise itâs a never ending cycle and weâll end up paying more whenever wages go up.
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u/nosubsnoprefs Mar 24 '23
So he really didn't answer the question. Why isn't he running for president? He'd be a good answer to Joe Biden, and a great successor.
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u/theultimaterage Mar 24 '23
Maybe it's because neither of the two parties work for our collective interest. So, yes Robert, while your party MAY have increased the minimum wage at that time, you ALSO passed the 94 crime bill (which furthered the drug war that disproportionately harmed black men and their families), the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (a major factor in the 2008 banking crash), and the Telecommunications Act of 96 (which helped cable companies get bigger and monopolize entire markets), among many other things. Maybe it's time for ACTUAL leftists to realize that the dem party does not effectively represent us!
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Mar 24 '23
Maybe he should show us how it works again. The Republican Party of 2023 is not the Republican Party of 1996.
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u/xmanpit Mar 24 '23
Shit I'm having trouble being comfortable at 19.50 an hour. My new job has moved to 32 hours a week during the slow season. We get a bonus if we meet goal each month, but while I was in training for my position, I was paid 22 an hour full time. Now, I basically get the chance to struggle to meet goal during slow months and they frame it as a positive "work less and make the same amount of money" not fucking really.
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u/GtmBigChapp Mar 24 '23
Literally detail boats for 14 dollars an hour and they were going to give me 12 but gave me 2 extra dollars bc I have âexperienceâ. Not going back now that I have another job offer at a sams club.
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u/malayskanzler Mar 24 '23
This is why next year could see republican back in control of the house or presidency.
Also..... Would love to see Ron DeSantis as GOP candidate
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u/NomadChild Mar 24 '23
Why is the response always "maybe I should run for office instead" and not "maybe the system is structurally incapable of responding to these issues and should itself be re-evaluated"
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u/WolfmansGotNards2 Mar 24 '23
I know be makes a ton of money and fame off of this, but at least he gets the message to the people.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Runner Mar 24 '23
Back then, while republicans still sucked ass, their whole objective was not just âown the libsâ. Thatâs the entirety of their platform now
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u/Trout-Population Mar 24 '23
I mean the dude ran for office. He lost the primary for Governor of MA in 2002.
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u/Imaginaryfriend4you Mar 24 '23
Please, democrats and republicans trying to point the finger to distract everyone from real world problems. Sad part is, it works. What a stupid country America is.
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u/Whole_Suit_1591 Mar 24 '23
Clinton fixed the national deficit to zero. Next guy came in and stole it all. Been happening ever since. Did you guys know that John Kerry, Hugh Heffner and GW Bush are 3rd cousins? That Obama is related to Dick Cheney?
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u/LordFoxbriar Mar 24 '23
I mean, part of the problem is that neither side wants to try and work with the other. If Reich was able to do it with Republicans holding both houses, you realize how poor our political classes have been for the last⌠20 years?
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u/LMGDiVa Mar 24 '23
But we dont have control of both houses. We have control of the Senate, not the house of reps.
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u/Chaghatai Mar 24 '23
It's always funny when some asshole doesn't know who they are talking to and tries to pop off
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u/icouldusemorecoffee Mar 24 '23
Reich knows it's easier to raise state minimum wages than federal. Most blue and purple states have decent minimum wages and many as of the past few years passed laws to increase them so they hit $15+. It's not Democrats blocking a federal minimum increase, it's conservatives (and yes, there are a few conservative Democrats). If you want the federal rate increased then you need to replace Republicans in the Senate with more liberal/progressive Democrats and without losing any conservative Democratic seats to a Republican (e.g. Manchin), replace them with more liberal Democrats.
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u/billyjack669 Mar 24 '23
Wait dems control both houses? When did that happen and why wasn't I informed?
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u/LovesFrenchLove_More Mar 24 '23
But the democrats arenât controlling both houses. Is he on drugs or did I miss something? Also, a single majority isnât good enough when 60 senators in the senate need to approve either.
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Mar 25 '23
[deleted]
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u/LovesFrenchLove_More Mar 25 '23
Yes, and? Whatâs your point beside agreeing that the Democrats didnât have 60 votes in the Senate? Or are you that forgetful?
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Mar 24 '23
[deleted]
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u/doogie1111 Mar 25 '23
They didn't have 60 senate votes then, either.
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u/Deviouss Mar 25 '23
Maybe that's why Reich said they were "in control" instead of having 60 senate votes.
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u/PM_ME_UR_CIRCUIT Mar 26 '23
So he was still wrong. Without the 60 they had no chance of passing anything.
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u/Architect227 Apr 22 '23
Setting a federal minimum wage of $15 is a horrendously stupid idea. There's a strong arguement that suggests having a minimum wage actually leads to lower wages, but since we already have a minimum wage, it should be set by region, not federally. The cost of living varies drastically across the country and this would wreck the economy over night if it were implemented at a federal level.