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Comment by claudiulodro

From when minimum wage was first established:

> “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

> FDR

It was supposed to be a "living wage".

Letting companies pay less than a living wage and providing a robust government safety net just subsidizes businesses using government tax money. The biggest beneficiaries of this are companies like Wal Mart, who gets effectively subsidized to the tune of $6B+ a year because so many of its employees are on SNAP and similar low income programs[1].

[1] https://www.ufcw.org/press-releases/wal-mart-has-highest-num...

parent claudiulodro 8 months ago

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