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]
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    4 years ago

    Υes, these are things really hard to nationalize. And subsidies could probably help. But at that point, I really think instead of trying to get minimum wage up to 25 or something wild like that, it's a lot better to pressure for it to be raised to something less extreme BUT focus on much better labor laws that give much more power to employees, which is really important in a place like the US where it's impossible to even strike in many places.

    • The_word_of_dog [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      Either require entire system changes and people to approach business differently, so I'd like both but maybe not as heavy handedly as described in my original post

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

        They don't require the system to change, they are how you go about gradually starting to make changes to the system. Labor protection laws give to the working class the power to organize against capitalists and neoliberal policy. It is very important.