Biden COVID/Stimulus Bill

I've got two employees, both women, who have been with the company for 25 and 21 years respectively. They don't make $15/hr. They are going to tell us to get bent and go take a job, any job, elsewhere. I don't blame them. They are worth at least double what they make right now, but I don't have control over payroll.

question: since there's no real cap to spending right now, why couldn't the Feds mandate the $15 this year and subsidize it on the employer side at a decreasing rate over the phase in period with the employer carrying the full rate in, say, 5 years?

A drawback there is that, unless I misunderstand how it would work, it would be rewarding companies that have been exploiting their employees and giving those companies an artificial competitive advantage over companies that have been doing the right thing.

Maybe if that subsidization only went to small businesses. I mean, that is the argument, right? That raising the minimum wage would put small businesses out of of business.

Nothing like having your priorities in order!

Right. Walmart gets a fuckton of subsidies and their employees are often running food drives for each other during Christmas. Big companies don't need it, they need to be hd accountable and pay what they owe.

The way Seattle did our minimum wage was to have 4 tiers:

Companies with >500 employees who do not provide health insurance
Companies with >500 employees who provide health insurance
Companies with <500 who don’t provide health insurance
Companies with <500 who provide health insurance

Your tier determined how much time you had to adjust. After five years all >500 companies were on the same schedule. In the eighth year all >500 AND <500 w/no insurance are on the same schedule. After ten years all companies will be on the same schedule.

I’m probably doing a bad job explaining it. Here’s a chart:

http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/LaborStandards/OLS-MW-multiyearChart2021_Final.pdf

Local breakdowns by big/small business can work, but I don't trust it on a federal level because corporations would just buy their way into being "small" regardless of how much revenue or how many employees they have. Just don't even broach that division.

[edit] I am quite prepared for someone to post an example of how the feds already differentiate between small and big businesses.

Wait. Not everyone knows 13 CFR § 121.105 Subpart A?!?!

Was going to start another thread, but maybe this belongs here:

Biden's Chief of Staff has issued a memo that basically outlines the plans for a series of executive orders, starting January 20th, that will pretty much roll back a good portion of what Trump did over the past four years.

I thought the payment was going to be 1200 dollars back during the primaries, and bernie wanted 2000. I will admit the raise up to 1400 is better than what was going around. I hope this is not the end of it, and I would like to see more steady payments until jobs start to return to pre-covid levels.

As for the left pushing creepy joe the republican assplug, yes keep kicking that fucking scumbag. The moment you give him an inch he will snif your hair and stick his finger in you. We have learned from the republicans to never ever give an establishment dem a moment to breath, and it works. So since joe is already a republican sympathizer keep kicking him and nancy back to the left. Do not give into the shame from the Biden Bootlickers because they would take a reach around if it was offered. This is how you bargain. You do not do a nanci pelosi and accept lower than your opponent's original offer because you are pathetic. You raise your opponent's offer, get the deal, and then hammer them to make the next deal higher. Then when you come up in primary season you portray your opponent honestly as the republican shill they are for trying to undercut the people.

The dems are just angry because everyone bargains better than the party of losers.

As we have seen the problem with one president issuing executive orders is that the next one can revoke them. far better for long-term coherence of policies, foreign and domestic, is to get laws passed.

Somewhat but you'd need guardrails.

As it stands now, a lot of workers are not making living wages without government support - who'd drop off the rolls if they were making 15x40 - so there's government spending already going on, this would just move it from the employee side to the employer. Done properly this not only puts more money into the economy but acts as an incubator for small businesses that might not otherwise get off the ground and from those will occasionally grow robust employers.
But you'd need to work out the formula so that you're only subsidizing ACTUAL small businesses who can demonstrate their revenues wouldn't support the payroll increase.

That way, whereas now you have tons of Walmart/Amazon/Kroger/whatever employees being subsidized through social safety net programs, alongside the employees of the mom&pop shop - if you move the subsidies over to the employer side the big mega-corps DON'T get the help that mom&pop do.

Biden can do both.

This is the field surgery, the long-term palliative care can come once the bleeding is stopped.