No, a living wage would not kill jobs. It might raise prices but, in point of fact, most people can afford to pay more for the things they buy and the ones that might be hurt, namely those surviving on a non-living wage, i.e. minimum wage, would benefit because higher wages would increase their income. The idea that a living wage kills jobs is conservative American bullshit. The first step toward a living wage would national health insurance after the German system which is NOT a single payer system but is compulsory, has private insurers, forces everyone to be insured, insures the majority through what was called in the US the "public option" and has the Federal government set ceiling for every possible medical procedure. Obamacare is a cruel joke. Few know the details and those that do are truly horrified by what it portends.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 6:18 PM To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Critique Needed: Living Wage Would Kill Jobs ...and so an exchange rambles on, heedless of its digression from the subject line and the question that initiated it. I guess the short answer would be "Living wage? Kill jobs? Myth? Who cares?" On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Max Sawicky <[email protected]> wrote: The effective rates don't speak to the shares borne by income class. So it is true that lower income people pay non-trivial rates of tax (in the sense of shares of their income), but it is also true that the bulk of the revenue comes from upper classes. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=558 Naturally, those in lower income levels contribute less because they have less income, as brad noted. On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote: On May 11, 2011, at 1:52 PM, brad wrote: > I don't understand why we would want to debunk the idea that most > federal income tax is paid by the top. It is simply a sign that the > middle class has disappeared and that the bulk of people now fall > bellow the $33,000 cut off for which low income tax credits reduce > their federal taxes to zero. If we regrow the middle class their > portion will go up. You can't squeeze water out of a rock. That's not really true. There have been major changes to tax rates over time. Here are some numbers from the CBO, which I realize make for a less snappy soundbite but have the virtue of being accurate. The first panel of the table is the effective tax rate (what people actually pay, not what's on the books) for the bottom, middle, and top quintiles and the top 1% for all federal taxes; the second is for the income tax only. Note the big shift from positive to negative rates at the bottom (mostly the EITC): bottom 20% middle 20% top 20% top 1% all --- 1979 8.0 18.6 27.5 37.0 1984 10.2 18.0 24.3 28.2 1994 6.6 17.3 27.4 35.8 2007 4.0 14.3 25.1 29.5 income ------ 1979 0.0 7.5 15.7 21.6 1984 0.7 6.7 14.1 19.3 1994 -3.9 5.3 15.0 23.0 2007 -6.8 3.3 14.4 19.0 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l -- Sandwichman
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