The % stays the same but the $ will change as will the number of workers. As a business owner I don't like the idea of paying more and more for labor yet labor provides nothing in return. I realize labor is only going to work 40 hours per week but how about increasing their skills, their math, their science, their ability to solve problems? Lower wages are specifically for people who refuse to increase their job worth. Whether it's through the private sector or public sector, we can build/manage housing in a non-profit sense keeping the costs to renters as low as possible. We cannot expect all workers to purchase their own transportation and further crowd our over-crowded roadways...public transportation is required! We cannot increase our 10-lane freeways into 20 lanes! We have no more areas for parking! We should not allow over-development of some areas and under-development of other areas. We should not allow ghettoes in some areas and perfectly manicured places in other areas. As a human, a US citizen, a resident of an area, I should be able to go anywhere I wish without fear and reprisal. It is stupid to locate employers in one area, rich residents in one are with poor residents in other areas, and general services including art and entertainment should be in all areas. I'm talking about the 'infrastructure' in which we live, work and play...all aspects of it. All we have is excuses why we can't do better! When we're spending taxpayer money, the schools, parks, roads, sidewalks, crime, security, services, should all be identical...
The US population is 319 million which comes to $12,539 per citizen. I don't care in this discussion where the government is spending the money. I just know they are spending ~$4 TRILLION per year. I further know that except for deficit spending the $4 trillion must come from taxpayers. Taxpayers are business and individuals and some excise taxes. The question becomes which individuals and which businesses are going to pay taxes? All of them or some of them? As soon as you adopt 'some of them' everyone wants a reason not to pay taxes. This leaves fewer and fewer people paying taxes...which IMO is the wrong path to take...
If we did not have home ownership who would own all the properties in which people need to live? The government tries to provide an incentive to encourage home ownership by giving tax deductions on interest, property tax, etc. The government also meddles in financing and insurance, etc. to help pave the way for home ownership. IMO someone who accepts the effort and risks of home ownership is entitled to more deductions than those who have no risks or commitments...
wrong, lib socialist govt has no business in picking out special interest groups to favor and sending the bill to other special interest groups it does not favor.
I believe that is an over-simplification. Individuals earning fourteen dollars an hour can pool their resources together to afford housing. That is not currently the case with our homeless who are simply unemployed.
And even more to the point, using the current employment figures of 151,517,000 that would come to $26,399 per worker. That, is the problem we should be trying to solve. Even the deficit spending eventually comes from the taxpayers as interest payments must be made each year on the debt, and as Social Security and Medicare spending results in cashing in IOU's they become part of the public debt. In my opinion it is the poorest and the wealthiest who benefit most from Federal spending, or you might call them the too small to fail and the too big to fail. The middle class is where the most harm occurs, resulting in more people becoming dependent on government spending, temporarily or permanently.
That would only happen if all Americans were to feel the cost of the taxes being imposed upon them in a negative way, which currently does not happen to those supported by government assistance programs, nor does it happen to those who pay the highest taxes and are compensated by the governments spending. I agree, and so is any form of prudent thinking.
No, the dollars will not change the median income because the median income is based upon the line number of the person where half are earning more and half are earning less regardless of how much more or how much less they earn. For example lets say we have 2001 people that we're going to use for establishing the "median income" of the group. If we sort them all by income then the income of the person on line 1001 established the "median income" for the group. It doesn't matter if those on lines 1-1000 earn $1 less or $10,000 less than the person on line 1001 because that doesn't change the income of the person on line number 1001 that established the median income for all of the 2001 people in the group. The workers, all of the workers, are producing about $16 trillion of new wealth every year. They're already producing the wealth but tens of millions aren't being paid for the wealth being created by the workers. While economists estimate that $3 trillion out of the $16 trillion in wealth being created would ensure a "living wage" for all workers I estimate it would require $4 trillion. That leaves $12 trillion to be divided up by those with specialized skills and for the owners of enterprise. Don't try to tell me that $12 trillion isn't enough for those with specialized skills warranting more compensation and for the owners of enterprise. If you believe it's not enough then you have no concept of how much money even $1 trillion actually is. It's still subsidized housing that reflects that the cost of housing is more than the workers can afford. No argument from me but the only people that public transportation applies to are those where their home and there work location are serviced by public transportation. When I worked in aerospace it wasn't unusual for many of the workers to live 50 miles away from the factory and there was no public transportation that could service their transportation needs. Of course they lived 50 miles away because it was the only place where they could afford to own a home. We also know that adding more public transportation is very expensive. In Seattle they created a light rail system and the government has to provide over $50,000 per year for every rider on the light rail system. So yes, the riders are using the light rail system and the taxpayers are funding each of them to the tune of $50,000 so that they have a train to ride on. Ironically I wanted to use the light rail system to visit downtown Seattle but it only runs for a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours in the evening. If someone's job hours doesn't align with the rail schedule then they can't use the train to get to work. And how, pray tell, do you think you can change this? Those less desirable locations exist because they're existing old neighborhoods and the people there are too poor to relocate to the more expensive and nicer neighborhoods. A business will locate where it's best for the business. Two basic choices to address this. We can dramatically increase taxation to improve the more distressed areas using taxpayer money. We can cut spending to the better neighborhoods so that the turn into less desirable neighborhoods. That's petty much the only two choices. Either we spend a metric butt-load of money to improve the crappy neighborhoods or we turn the better neighborhoods into crappy neighborhoods so that they're all the same.
While my proposal only addresses the personal income tax that the primary source for funding the general expenditures if you want to roll it all together into a single lump then you can. But realize when you do this then you have to include the tax revenues from all sources which includes the FICA/Payroll/Self-Employment tax that's imposed on the first dollar of gross income for all of the workers. So even a minimum wage income earner is contributing a significant amount of money to the federal government every year based upon their wage and the number of hours then work at that wage every year. Many like to bring up the EITC that's a government welfare program for low income workers to offset their taxes paid to the federal government in the form of the FICA/Payroll/Self-Employment tax but this is not a refund of the taxes they pay. The EITC comes from the general revenue that's predominately funded with personal income taxes. There are no actual refunds of the Social Security/Medicare taxes every worker in America is paying. So you say that every worker, regardless of income, should be contributing to the funding of the federal government and, in fact, they already are because if nothing else they're paying the Social Security/Medicare taxes that are a component of the total $4 trillion in federal spending you refer to. What you and I do agree on is that we shouldn't be deficit spending and all of the deficit spending is related to the general expenditures that are primarily funded by the personal income tax. My proposal addresses that so that no deficit spending occurs, the actual top tax rate on personal income taxes is reduced by about 25% or more (depending upon the year), it doesn't impose more taxation on those already being taxed under the Social Security/Medicare tax that have income below the median income, and it's so simple that every household could do their annual taxes in a matter of a few minutes potentially allowing us to abolish the IRS because the US Treasury could handle the much simpler tax system. I don't know what you really want because basically every concern that you've mentioned is inherently resolved by this tax proposal.
All of these itemized deductions are replaced by the unified Exemption so the typical homeowner loses absolutely nothing based upon my proposal. In fact many homeowners might actually be better off from a tax liability perspective under this tax proposal. I really have no idea about the risks you refer to. For example I purchased a home a few years ago for $250,000 and, after my down-payment, my monthly mortgage payment was about $850/mo and there was no risk whatsoever for me. I paid the $850/mo and I lived in the home for as long as I wanted. Where was the risk? The fact that the home could have fluctuated in value, going up or down, didn't represent any risk to me because I was locked in on my loan and that was my cost for living in the home. I wasn't a real estate speculator that does take risks. I was a homeowner that was taking no risks at all.
The amount of taxation per citizen is ludicrous! I care very much how we spend but in this discussion I do not care. A problem with debt and interest on that debt is most Americans are clueless or don't give a rip. IMO if we had more people paying taxes and voting they would start to pay attention. IMO if a person does not like their income, that person must take personal steps to achieve whatever it is they desire...and asking government to help them is not an option. It's not government's or industry's job to make sure people earn whatever it is they desire. If people are incapable of achieving more then what does this say about our education system and society and people who are failing? I'm a farmer and we pay $19-$25/hour for the labor we use and our critical problem is finding people to work! Never ever will a white-boy do this type of work. If it was not for legal and illegal immigrants myself and most others would be out of business. IMO too many people today don't wish to work... - - - Updated - - - You gotta wonder where it all leads...
The inherent problem is with using an apportioned measurement (i.e. tax burden per person) in evaluating taxation when income and the tax burden is not apportioned in the United States. For example the "average annual income" in the United States is pushing $90,000 per household but the income for the median household has hovered around just more than $50,000 per year for the last ten years. The "average" is almost $40,000 more because the top 1/10th of 1% of income households receives about 20% of all income in the United States and they also have one of the lowest effective income tax rates. The top 400 income tax households average $250 million per year in income but have an effective tax rate of less than 18%. To claim that a household that only has $205 million left over in "after-tax" income is over-taxed is rather absurd. My proposal fixes that by spreading the tax burden more effectively over the entire population while also ensuring that those with lower incomes are not over-taxed by the federal government. . And while your statement, while rather pessimistic, that "most Americans are clueless or don't give a rip" could be accurate it's obviously not true for me because this tax proposal ends deficit spending that I'm highly concerned about and it accomplishes it without imposing a draconian tax burden on those least able to afford taxation. It prevents the "ludicrous" taxation that you're concerned about. I also want to see a reduction in federal spending and even though this thread isn't about the spending we know how to responsibly accomplish that. We need to address the problem that's driving the necessity for the spending. For example welfare spending isn't an actual problem. Poverty is the problem that drives the necessity for welfare spending. So how do we reduce poverty is the key question that must be answered and as we reduce the poverty the necessity for the welfare spending is also reduced. There are a few problems with this. Statistically about 40% of all jobs don't pay enough for the household to live on and no matter what one person manages to accomplish it doesn't change the fact that 40% of all jobs don't pay enough for the household to live on. If one person "moves up" and out of that 40% then another person is "driven down" into that 40% because the 40% doesn't change. There's also the misconception that too many people don't want to work because we know that the vast majority of those requiring welfare assistance are working and often working very hard at that. It isn't that they don't want to work, because they are, but instead because they fall within the 40% of all jobs that don't pay enough for them to live on. "Conservatives" like to blame the worker when, in fact, it's the employer that's causing the poverty due to under-compensation. As a Libertarian I support the libertarian belief in "liberty and responsibility" in our society and the employer that doesn't provide an adequate income to their employees so that they don't require welfare assistance is irresponsible. If they were responsible people then they wouldn't be expecting the taxpayers to provide assistance just so their employee could pay the minimum-mandatory expenditures of the household. This is compounded by the "conservative" belief that the employers can't afford to pay a "living wage" to their employees and that's nonsense. Before spending even one cent the prospective business owner must first be a business manager by doing the market research necessary and creating a business plan to determine if the business will be successful. In creating the business plan all the prospective owner has to do is include a "living wage" as a component of "compensation for labor" and the difference between a "living wage" and a "market wage" (assuming the marker wage is less) is insignificant statistically in the business plan. Whether the prospective business will succeed or fail never hinges upon the difference between a living wage and a lower market wage for labor. We know what the real problem is. Based upon SBA statistics roughly 80% of prospective new business owners are NOT good business managers, don't do the necessary research, and fail to create a realistic business plan that determines in advance whether they're going to succeed or fail and because of their managerial incompetence they're not providing a living wage to their employees. "Conservatives" keep blaming the hard working and competent employees that perform every task they're assigned by the owner/manager instead of blaming the incompetent owners/managers of the enterprise for the fact their employees require government welfare assistance. If the owners/managers of the enterprise knew what the hell they were doing none of their employees would be collecting welfare assistance.
dear, Only lousy capital management has that problem under any for Capitalism with the socialism of the law that favors employers, instead of equal protection of the law, in our "employment at the will of either party" State. Fifteen dollars an hour is within the range of an efficiency wage for some labor market participants. Do you need a Peoples' HR, to put the "right people in the right place at the right time" for you.
Today the median wage is something like $34K meaning 50% of the workers earn below $34K and 50% of the workers earn above $34K. Let's pretend we do something foolish and force business to increase minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $15.00/hour which also forces other wages to rise as well...including those earning $34K. When the dust settles the new individual median income might be more like $38K. Individual and household median income changes all the time as the entire wage scale moves up and down. If you demand 'living wages' for everyone this certainly will increase the median incomes. All workers are being paid commensurate with their education, skills, and the supply and demand of labor. Those with little to no education or skills, perhaps lacking good self-esteem and language skills, are competing with millions others who have the same to offer an employer. Why would an employer pay a worker $15/hour when another worker agrees to do the identical job for $12/hour? If Company A does not control labor costs while Company B is paying $3/hour less for labor, this is not going to bode well for Company A. Since labor costs might be 20%-50% of the cost of doing business, controlling labor costs is a big deal. Incidentally, I do understand numbers including those in the trillions. Housing costs are what they are and in high-demand areas housing is not affordable to most workers...like in San Francisco or Seattle. If a City desires to staff the millions of jobs which don't earn enough to acquire housing within a reasonable commute to work, they will experience a labor shortage. Someone, somehow, must create affordable housing in all areas...not just in Fresno! A City can set zoning to require affordable housing and the City can work with the private sector and non-profits to develop these projects. Maybe the City must acquire valuable land from private owners and make it available for affordable housing, in which yes there is a cost but a very necessary cost since we're talking about teachers and hospitality and fire & police, etc. Effective and efficient and affordable public transit is required...this is not an option. With continued population growth, and more cars on the road, and issues with pollution, etc. it is impossible to acquire land and build infrastructure assuming everyone in the future will have their own transportation. A great example is we have needed another Golden Gate bridge for at least 20 years now including rail service crossing the bay yet nothing...why...because there's not enough money in the world to pay for it! Instead the antiquated bridge is a gridlock nightmare! Knowing this won't change for decades or ever, and knowing this same scenario exists in myriad places across the nation, it is imperative to greatly reduce the number of personal automobiles. For this reason, and because many people cannot afford personal autos, society must provide better public transit. Why do we allow ghettoes? Why do municipalities allow a shopping mall in one area to be closed then reopened 10 miles down the road? Why not rebuild the existing shopping center into something everyone can enjoy? Why don't we take care of these areas to the same level as we do in other areas? We just abandon stuff and move on with zero concern for the original area. Ironically, given enough time, many of these same areas go through a Renaissance of redevelopment...my point is if this will happen eventually then just make it happen on Day 1. City managers and administrators and especially taxpayers are a bunch of self-serving bums. There is zero logic in a community abandoning some areas in favor of other areas when in the original areas there continues to be people living and businesses operating. If these same politicians cleaned up the ghettoes, end crime and gangs, provide total infrastructure including fire and police protection, all areas could be used by all people all of the time! But when we divide the community by incomes, by wealth, by government spending, we create (*)(*)(*)(*)-holes and this is despicable...
Possibly over time but no one but an idiot would increase the minimum wage by $7.75 in a single year. It has to be a phased implementation allowing the business plan of the enterprise to absorb the additional expenditures and with phased implementation the wage scale of the enterprise can also be compressed so that those making more than $15/hr may not see any increase at all or may see just a very slight increase to keep them ahead of the "starting" wage for the company. Think of a benefit though. Perhaps $400 billion cut from the federal budget over time because those earning a living wage don't require any welfare assistance. Would you rather have the employer pay for the difference in the cost of living and the current wages or would you rather have the federal government continue to spend $400 billion a year and more in the future to subsidize the employer that doesn't pay a living wage?
Not sure where you get your information but I've read that we have 40 million Americans with four-year college degrees but we only have jobs for 30 million of them. This is one of the reasons why about 1/2 of all college graduates can't find any job requiring a college degree upon graduation. We can also note that many of the jobs that once required a college degree have disappeared because of computer technology. So someone goes to school, gets their four-year degree, and 15 years down the road they lose there job and can't get another one because a computer is doing it. What the hell are they supposed to do? Go back to college when they're 35, spend a couple of more years, so they can start over from scratch in new career? We often find that those losing their jobs are older workers that simply don't have the time to start over again from the bottom in a new career. In any case the "market" doesn't pay based upon the skills of the worker. The market pays based upon how easily it is for the enterprise to replace the worker. If every American had a PhD in nuclear physics the job would pay $7.25/hr. There's no real relationship at all to the employees actual knowledge and skills when it comes to the market rate for labor. The relationship is to the number of people available to the employer that have those skills.
We have ghettos and slums because of the slum lords that make a lot of money and don't have to re-invest it in the property to keep it up to "middle class neighborhood" standards. I worked with a man that was a slum lord and they have to be very frugal to make a lot of money in that market. They just can't be spending money on things like painting the building or landscaping services. The tenants can't afford to pay for those luxuries. Good luck getting the politician to go down to the slum and actually work to clean it up and good luck raising the property taxes on the middle income households that actually own their own homes to pay for revitalizing the slum lords property for him. A lot of people in these areas are minorities that can't get a job because of prejudice in employment practices. Why don't we work on ending the prejudice and then ensuring that they receive a living wage for their labor and they can fix up the slum?
actually being a minority is a big plus when looking for a job. 1+1=2. Minorities often do poorly because they are the victims of crippling liberal welfare programs. This is also why the prisons are filled with minorities. "We could survive slavery, we could survive Jim Crow, we could survive racism, but we could not survive liberalism"- Walter Williams Ph.D
I agree. "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." When the recession began and the unemployment numbers rose, are we saying the job losses resulted in an equal number of above and below median wage income earners becoming unemployed? I don't really know the details of how government comes up with what it presents as a median wage, for example if comprised of an even number of persons and one year the two in the middle are earning $50,000 and $60,000 respectively, would that not indicate a $55,000 median income? Or the following year if the two in the middle were earning $50,000 and $100,000 respectively, would that not indicate a $75,000 median income even though the case may be that only one persons income changed? If the minimum wage was increased dramatically, resulting in a large number of minimum wage earners losing their jobs, would that not show an increase in the median wage, and probably result in some additional inflation and a need for greater government assistance to the unemployed? Does a family living in Mississippi, where the median household income is $36,919 need to see their income raised to that of a family living in New Jersey, where the median household income is $69,825 to have the same life style? When I was working, I once found that moving 30 miles greatly reduced my cost of living costing me only a small amount of time added to my travel to and from work.
I have no idea where this nonsense belief originates because it's not backed by research into racial discrimination in employment. In reality, based upon a 2003 study, and equally qualified black man without a criminal record is LESS likely to be hired than a white man with a felony conviction. Instead of making absurd claims why not read the following study on racial discrimination in employment. http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_09172003/
if i may respond to this specific paragraph, conservatives believe in free market capitalism and when the government through communist authority enforces a 'living wage', that causes bad business owners to fail through government force when its the markets responsibility to correct them. tariffs will balance the budget, because it will force the market to correct itself and bring wages higher. this means more revenue from taxpayers who are net contributors to the budget, instead of net recipients with no dignity working jobs for minimum wage. in point of fact, only one presidential candidate has suggested this solution to balancing the budget.
Well then there's a clear choice because only two scenarios exist to choose from: 1) The enterprise provides the necessary income through wealth distribution by paying a living wage that funds the employees minimum-mandatory expenditures. 2) The government supplements the workers income with wealth redistribute by providing welfare assistance so the worker can fund their minimum-mandatory expenditures. So take your pick. Would you rather have wealth distribution or wealth redistribution because those are the only two options because the minimum-mandatory expenditures must be fully funded and only these two means of funding pragmatically exist.
You make it seem like having more Persons with more money to spend is a bad thing regarding increasing demand. Do you also not believe in positive multiplier effects and growing the size of the pie.
They are contributing to their future retirement and health care...no play no pay. If FICA was optional few would have retirement or health care when they reach 65 and this is not an option for the nation, therefore, FICA contributions are not an option to avoid. There should be no FICA refunds? FICA is not income tax! FICA contributions directly benefit the employee at retirement. I don't like the political BS about forcing the wealthy to pay more and more taxes...or demanding more taxes from business...and instead want every able-bodied American to pay income taxes and vote. I want every American to have a dog in the show! I want Americans who desire more to take personal steps to achieve more instead of depending on government.
For all property owners who live pay check to pay check, who can barely afford to pay their mortgage payment, who cannot maintain the property, who cannot afford property taxes, who depend on two incomes to qualify and pay the mortgage payment, who don't work in a reasonably secure career, etc. etc. etc. are at risk! Without home ownership incentives most properties would be owned by the government...
