I had a discussion with a girl I know about minimum wage (idk what her politics are exactly bc she's inconsistent but if I had to guess I'd say soc dem) and she was saying Biden's plan to increase the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 was the most ambitious plan in world history. She explained that with $15 min wage the US will have the highest minimum wage in the world, this was the best way to do it bc if we switched to $24 min wage overnight then small businesses would completely shut down and leave a large amount of the workforce unemployed and allow corporations like Amazon to take over.

I'll admit I'm newish to leftism and didn't really have an answer to this. Is there an argument from the left against this? also sorry to mods if I posted in the wrong place, wasn't exactly sure where this should go

  • Pezevenk [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Why do people misunderstand the point these people are making so badly? When a socdem or whatever tells you they are afraid businesses will close, it does not necessarily mean they are upset at poor small business owners losing their business. They might be but that's not the most important part. Lots of businesses closing down means unemployment. And you can't even say "it is the free market at work" either because you're literally intervening into the free market. Besides even if it was the "free market at work" you really don't know if they care at all. So you're not gonna "own" anyone by saying something like that. You're much better off saying something like "businesses will make more money too because their customers will be making more money and they will be spending more".