A nationwide $15 dollar minimum wage is harmful and dumb. We should advocate wage subsidies and UBI.

[mackdaddy]

69. A phased in $15 minumum wage WILL work, and is not "Dumb".

Labor is usually only a fraction of the costs of of most goods and services. If Everybody has to pay the higher costs then they do not have to worry about their competitors undercutting their prices. Yes prices will go up, but ALL worker will have much higher income to more than compensate for the somewhat higher prices. And workers will make enough that we not longer have to subsidize them with welfare and food-stamp programs. And they will be paying more overall taxes through income and sales taxes to help local governments that are all facing budget crisis. And with a rising minimum wage, other incomes will also tend to rise, so the entire workforce will rise. Some inflation is fine as long as it is controlled, and does not rise faster that personal income. This was broken with fucking Reaganomics since the 80's.

The problem has been big businesses sucking all the capital from the economy and putting it in a few oligarchs off shore bank accounts. And sending all so many jobs off shore looking for a race to the bottom. No economic model can sustain that kind of bleeding. An economic model where the cash actually circulated in the local economy does work and has worked for years.

The economy can and MUST work for the masses. Not just the "elites".