A Maximum Wage?

Question

Should there be a minimum and maximum wage? If there was a maximum wage (and maximum stock earnings, perhaps more importantly) workers could be paid more, and after a certain point corporate executives would stop complaining about minimum wage increases because it would no longer affect them and no longer merit campaign and advertising spending

what do you think? faschist? or necessary?

and if not, what other solutions are there? would good campaign finance reform and transparency in voter education group membership and spending take care of the problem?

this is not referring to overtime pay or anything except jobs which pay literally in the millions per year, and in inordinately wealthy stockholders

to the man with $500 in his hands... it's called the commerce clause, and they use it to control any trade in any way they please. pay me now please.

Problems I'm trying to solve with this: jobs not paying a living wage to their workers, and inability to change it due to corporate control over public discourse

Answer 1

Interesting idea. I'd say go for it... but I am not at the top to complain... yet!

Answer 2

There is already a minimum wage, which was never designed to be a living wage. And in all companies I've worked for there's always been a maximum wage.

Salary surveys determine the pay scale for various jobs on the market. My company for example conducts a survey of all companies in the state that provides the same services we do. Now each job has a certain value. A button pusher for an electronic manufacturing company won't get paid as much as an actual repair technician who in turn won't get paid as much as the CEO.

Now with that in mind, I think you're getting at capping out the CEO who is responsible to ensure his company stays in business, remains competitive among other companies, and continues to be financially solid for the stock-holders. The operating board typically determines what the pay is going to be for the CEO and other officers on the board. Because of this vast responsibility, any person who can succeed in reaching and surpassing all of these required goals deserves the biggest chunk of money.

As for the "little guy".... there's a maximum any job is worth. If one starts to demand the company "pony up" and give large raises, even at the cost of the CEO salary, the company might not likewise stay in business. We see this today with grocery stores and union workers demanding large salaries just to stand there and run product across a scanner, or bag the purchases. Albertsons and Ralphs are just two victims of such a concept.

Answer 3

It would be very tough to decide what the max should be. Should someone with a PhD be limited on what they earn so a drop out can make more? What about the $$ the PhD paid to go to school? Tricky, isn't it?

I work where people are very educated and make lots of money. I am at the bottom of the food chain. I have a college degree but chose this job for better hours vs. better pay. We all have to make a choice...

Answer 4

This idea is mostly punitive towards rich people. If that's your position, then fine. State that. But, don't pretend it would do anything to increase low end pay. The extra money wouldn't go to the lowest paid workers, it would go to middle management. Even if all the extra money went evenly to every worker, in most companies it wouldn't amount to much more than a couple of hundred bucks a year.

Answer 5

Anti-capitalist, it wouldn't work because people would move their base of operations to countries where there was no such restriction, costing billions in lost tax revenue (and jobs). It would also uneccesarily regulate the stock market, reducing its efficiency and hurting the world economy as a result.

Addendum: I don't know what problem you're trying to solve, exactly, so I can't really propose solutions.

Hey Marty K, law should final say on contracts between two consenting adults when one of them is an illegal immigrant. Too bad I can't contact you to collect my $500.

Answer 6

I disagree, you have to admit that some people earn a lot more than others for a reason. In the job i will be doing i will probably be working a 12 day, i would expect to be paid more for that rather than having my wages curbed for someone else who works a less hours and has a much less stressful job.

Answer 7

On the minimum wage:
People are grossly undereducated about it. I ran a small business, and my heart goes out to anyone running a small business faced with a minimum wage increase.

Most small businesses are run by middle class folks who put in long hours and considerable investment trying to make a living. Many barely make it. 80% fail in the first 2 years.

Do the math:
If you have a small store with a few employees and have 100 hours per week allocated to them, you are paying out 433 hours per month (approximately)
If the minimum wage increases by ONE DOLLAR. That's 433 (plus employer FICA) or approximately $463 additional per month that has to be paid out by the family that owns the business.

How would you like to be handed a new bill for $463 per month that you have no say in?

Many of these small business people make less than 50k per year IF that at all. Then the govt. forces them to pay hundreds more each month.

That's a conservative example. Many are asking for more than a dollar increase, and many businesses have more than 100 hours allocated.

What do you think these business owners will do? Many will cut staff or close down altogether.

What if the government decided you had too many rooms in your house and drew up a law requiring you to take on boarders for free. Would you like it? NO. Because it is your home that YOU paid for. Same with a business. It is the YOUR investment and YOUR creation. No-one should be allowed to tell you who you can or can't hire or what you can pay them.

Yeah thats right HateBoy. Pay them ANYTHING you want. If they don't want to work for .50 / hour, let them go elsewhere.

Answer 8

I think Figato is right! Damn the government for making a minimum wage. Businesses should run things the way they want! If they want to beat their employees and pay them next to nothing, they should be allowed to! If they want to buy slaves from other countries and use those as workers, they should be allowed to do that too! It's in the bible, folks! And America is founded on Christianity! Let businesses do what they want!

Other countries are even worse! Almost every other country in the world has company presidents making only ten times what the lowest flunkies make. That's ridiculous! Flunkies are a dime a dozen. CEOs are easily worth a thousand of them. In fact, I think every new CEO should be honored by sacrificing a thousand flunkies. They used to do that in the old days too. Those were better times.

Answer 9

No, neither one and I think I need to start a foundation called "Minimum Wage for Morons."

But whether I start it or not, I have an ongoing $500 reward for anyone who can present a valid reason why a law should dictate the terms of a private contract between consenting adults to enter into work, or how that could possibly be constitutional to remove that right.

Please step forward to receive your reward.

Answer 10

Are you from Russia? Cuz that's pretty much the system by which the Soviet Union operated.

Why shouldn't someone who's reached the pinnacle of his profession, such as a CEO, reap the benefits of that? All businesses were started by a single person, family or small group. Who are you to punish them for their success? Besides, the CEOs of whom you speak work for publicly traded companies. You know shareholders have a say in that type of thing, don't you?
Who's to say how much is "too much" or "enough"? By the same token, whose role is it to make some poor family buy food instead of cigarettes or lotto tickets?

When you start enabling government to "save us from ourselves", you start eroding American freedoms, and I'm not for that.

Answer 11

i have two stories for you,
1. This man owned a fruit company and didnt have to pay taxes on his profits so he started a vegetable company. He employed more people, fed more people, and made more money.
2. This man owned a company but lost alot of his earnings in taxes. So he couldnt start a vegetable company, couldnt feed more people, couldnt employ more poor people, and he couldnt make more money.
this is a basic economic principle, if americans were required to pass an economics test in order to vote, the liberal party would disapear and america would become very conservative