higher wages are not the solution; universal basic income is. higher wages just mean it’s even more difficult for companies to higher employees, which means there will be fewer jobs overall. also, you’re excluding people who are unable to work that way.
Overall job loss is not what happened the last thirty-odd times the federal minimum wage was raised, or any of the times individual states raised minimum wage, but go ahead and believe it will happen the next time for sure.
What has happened is the newly higher-paid employees spend that money, and the new demand creates new jobs, enough to offset the losses from the old employers deciding to manage with a smaller staff. As long as the size of the increase is in the same range as all the previous ones, there’s every reason to believe the effect would be the same.
I wish the federal congress would just do several years of catch-up increases, then tie it to inflation so we can stop arguing about it.
that’s just factually not true. i’ll explain it slowly so you can follow:
rent is determined by two things: cost of construction and profit of the landlord.
cost of construction is more or less constant and wouldn’t change if people have more money to spend. profit of the landlord is subject to the free market, i.e. if renting out apartments becomes overly attractive (as in, landlords make more money with it), then new people will enter the market to also become landlords and rent out apartments. since these landlords are all competing against each other, they try to be more attractive to potential customers by lowering their rent, which means lowering their own profit. that’s how the free market works.
The way it actually works is that all the landlords outsource their paperwork to a rental management company like RealPage, which then algorithmically fix prices to be as high as possible.
There are homeless people. They’ve already priced out millions of people. They don’t give a shit about “losing customers”. RealPage is the default service in the US, meaning everyone’s rent in each city is in the same ballpark and gets the same rent increase every year.
“Apartment construction in America has been hovering near a 50-year high, and even though renter demand is strong, it’s not keeping pace with supply,” said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. “Many units are sitting vacant for months, which means renters have power to negotiate concessions and landlords have less leeway to keep rents high.”
Inflation depends on the resource people are chasing after and the timeline of the cash infusion. Most resources can be provisioned at greater quantity without price increases if given enough time (years to decades). If everyone poof had double their normal income, and immediately tried to spend it all, there would be supply chain constraints and inflation, sure. Any UI scheme would need to have a gradual rollout to avoid that.
Welfare queens aside, Americans don’t know true horror yet. Wait until food gets scarce and your priorities will shift faster than a naked twelve year old running through a GOP bath house.
higher wages are not the solution; universal basic income is. higher wages just mean it’s even more difficult for companies to higher employees, which means there will be fewer jobs overall. also, you’re excluding people who are unable to work that way.
Overall job loss is not what happened the last thirty-odd times the federal minimum wage was raised, or any of the times individual states raised minimum wage, but go ahead and believe it will happen the next time for sure.
What has happened is the newly higher-paid employees spend that money, and the new demand creates new jobs, enough to offset the losses from the old employers deciding to manage with a smaller staff. As long as the size of the increase is in the same range as all the previous ones, there’s every reason to believe the effect would be the same.
I wish the federal congress would just do several years of catch-up increases, then tie it to inflation so we can stop arguing about it.
I’m all for higher employees!
They do tend to mess up my order, but they are at least super chill and nice when I kindly ask them to fix it.
*hire
Higher wages also just translates to higher rent for their landlords.
Shame poor people can’t connect these dots, but that’s why we are where we are.
that’s just factually not true. i’ll explain it slowly so you can follow:
rent is determined by two things: cost of construction and profit of the landlord.
cost of construction is more or less constant and wouldn’t change if people have more money to spend. profit of the landlord is subject to the free market, i.e. if renting out apartments becomes overly attractive (as in, landlords make more money with it), then new people will enter the market to also become landlords and rent out apartments. since these landlords are all competing against each other, they try to be more attractive to potential customers by lowering their rent, which means lowering their own profit. that’s how the free market works.
The way it actually works is that all the landlords outsource their paperwork to a rental management company like RealPage, which then algorithmically fix prices to be as high as possible.
as high as possible without losing customers to competing landlords
There are homeless people. They’ve already priced out millions of people. They don’t give a shit about “losing customers”. RealPage is the default service in the US, meaning everyone’s rent in each city is in the same ballpark and gets the same rent increase every year.
yeah because construction costs alone are higher than these people can pay in rent.
Not everywhere. Shockingly to many, cities with higher rates of apartment construction have falling rents.
https://www.redfin.com/news/rental-tracker-may-2025/
Yeah, you’re an actual idiot.
Keep being taken advantage of accordingly.
If you think inflation is bad now, wait until the government starts handing out free money. I’m no economist, but some of y’all are dumb as hell.
that is not how universal basic income implementations work, atleast educate yourself before commenting.
I think you mistakenly posted this instead of your usual conversation with the mirror.
Inflation depends on the resource people are chasing after and the timeline of the cash infusion. Most resources can be provisioned at greater quantity without price increases if given enough time (years to decades). If everyone poof had double their normal income, and immediately tried to spend it all, there would be supply chain constraints and inflation, sure. Any UI scheme would need to have a gradual rollout to avoid that.
inflation is kinda irrelevant. what matters is people’s real buying power, and that would increase.
The government hands out free money all the time to people taking us for a ride.
Welfare queens aside, Americans don’t know true horror yet. Wait until food gets scarce and your priorities will shift faster than a naked twelve year old running through a GOP bath house.