The real reason the government wants a 15 dollar minimum wage

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." - Ronald Reagan

Right now you pay about 28% of the your salary to income tax for the Federal Government. This is why they want to raise the minimum wage. To collect more taxes. They don't care about you and I mean the DNC and GOP. They want 15 bucks an hour and that would double the taxes collected from minimum wage earners in the US.

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The first 3 months of Fiscal Year 2016 the Federal Government collected 765 BILLION dollars. We could build a wall around every home in America with that. 5k per tax payer was collected on average. However, we still have a homeless issue, vets without proper healthcare and 1 in 5 children who do not have a meal all day.

You work for 75 cents on the dollar. Add Health care and it become about 60 cents per hour. How can someone survive. Don't tell me about a living wage, make a flat 10% tax across the board. If someone makes a ton of money they can still pay 10%, no exemptions, and they have more money to expand and hire more employees. They are so hindered with regulations and having to pay penalties from the ACA as well as making employees part time to reduce costs.

Take a look at the current candidates and this is the question...and remember what else Mr Reagan said.....

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan

The actual reason is because cost of living has far surpassed income.

The other reason is because 74 million people who work full time make less than 15$ an hour.

If you haven't been paying attention gas prices are dropping because of global consumption being down.

Down because no one can afford anything.

Let's see how long we can pretend that we don't need a new economic system that incorporate more of humanity instead of less.

When only 1% of the worlds population can really experience all that life has to give meanwhile everyone else around then lives in poverty then we have a problem.

Fantasy land yay! I love fantasy land!

Undeniably true.

Higher wages mean more taxes collected.

That is one reason why the Fed thinks inflation is a good thing. All of the price increases cause an increase in tax liability.

Although not directly assessed and collected, all of the government activity is "taxed", in the sense that it is paid for by consumers.

With Obamacare the total amount of tax money removed from the economy is about 50%. Including inflation the tax rate is a cumulative 95% since 1913.

a reply to: onequestion

Cost of living is not as big a deal without high taxes. If i make 15 dollars an hour full time that is 31k a year. At the current tax rate that is 9k in taxes. Make that a flat 10% makes that 3k. That is 6k that can be put back in the economy or used to purchase a house. Now, these people are stuck renting because they cannot get ahead.

It is not only the top 1%. If taxes are lowered people can take a vacation once a year. They can maybe choose to send a child to private school. They could save. Right now a family making 100k can still be a paycheck away from homelessness.

Well, who needs real life right?? Dont many of us spend close to a ¼ of our day buried in a screen already, not including work at least?? The hive is growing ...

a reply to: AmericanRealist

Most of us just can't afford to do anything else anymore.

It's 100$ to do anything.

a reply to: matafuchs

Interesting way to look at it, from a govt getting more $ in taxes point of view. I'm still very much against minimum wage going up to $15/hr. Main reason is that pay is supposed to be based on the scope and complexity of your work. Flipping burgers, mopping floors, being a cashier, etc. is not a $15/hr job. Min wage jobs are for high school kids, college students, retirees, people looking to make a few extra dollars and that's more or less it. For the supposed 74 million people who work for less than $15/hr, that is a separate & pathetic topic in itself.

a reply to: onequestion

I have to disagree. If the plan was to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr AND give everyone a tax credit stating everyone keeps the entirety of that first $15 per hour, then you could say it was out of concern for the working person.

The government doesn't 'care' about anything except funding and justifying its existence.

Not only are there the overt Income, Social Security, Medicare and now Health Insurance mandates directly administered by the IRS.

There are also the 'covert taxes'... things required by law but not called a tax because a taxing authority doesn't administer them. Things like...
Auto insurance, if you drive.
Homeowners insurance, if you have a mortgage.
Flood insurance, if you live in a designated flood plain.
Principal mortgage insurance, if you have a mortgage with less than 20% equity in the house.

Me personally, if I had all of those dollars back, I wouldn't need the programs they are funding. If hail damaged my roof, I could afford to have it repaired/replaced. If I crashed my car, I could afford to get it fixed. If I didn't have 'affordable' healthcare insurance, the Dr's office would charge me the self-pay rate, which is about 1/3 the contracted insurance rate, so I could afford to pay for it myself.

a reply to: CantStandIt

I see your point.


I however do not counter.

a reply to: CantStandIt

But giving a tax credit kills the business because they are still paying taxes and then they have to put their employees to part time. Less money into the pot and harder for those who are working an ENTRY level position. If you are single and work at a fast food restaurant, fine, but do not expect to support a family of 4.

As someone else stated, if you take a family of 5 to a movie, get popcorn and drinks, it is 100 bucks at least. Disney for a family of four is not almost 500 dollars to park and get in the front door. This is not Mickey Ears and food inside. That is another 100 bucks at least.

If you lower taxes, it works even if you are not making 15 bucks an hour. The current front runners all want more taxes on the DNC side.

a reply to: matafuchs

I think you're on the right track but it's to pay off the debt, to devalue the currency (inflation) to get rid of those who could challenge them with their money and from the hoarders. They won't raise it until they stop borrowing money I think. But you could be right, the question is, why does someone who can legally print money need more money, they don't. We do because there is a new trillion dollar copper mine being opened in the southwest, there are many newly opened oil and natural gas wells which we need more money because there is more added value.

a reply to: matafuchs

Slight misunderstanding here. Where did you get the idea that the "government wants $15/hr minimum wage"? I've heard activists (like "Fight for $15"), actual workers, and specific candidates say they support it. But where is the government itself championing this? There are several municipalities which have been increasing their minimum wages, but this is largely due to demands from the public/voters.

Also, you mentioned the GOP & DNC, but which Republican candidates are calling for a $15/hour minimum wage? And in all honesty, even the DNC & its ideal candidate Hillary aren't calling for a $15/hr minimum wage. Bernie Sanders is the one calling for it, and once again, that's because of the demands of the activists and workers.

Or to put it another way, the federal government is in power right now. If they actually wanted a $15/hr minimum wage like you implied, they could pass legislation mandating it right now.

a reply to: CantStandIt

Insurance is not a tax as the government does not receive the revenue (other any any premium taxes).

Motor insurance is mandatory not due to the risk to your vehicle but the risk to other road users.

Is home insurance legally mandated in the US? Here it is generally required as part of mortgage agreements but is not a legal requirement.

Insurance is simply the transfer of funds from the lucky to the unlucky, With hindsight you might well view it as money wasted but if your house burned down would you feel the same way?

Actually I think its something a bit more depressing.


Fact is the way technology is moving, more a more low skilled jobs are becoming obsolete.

People that 30 years ago who would find good work in a factory that would support them are now stuck in retail and service industry jobs, and even those are starting to go.

20 years time you will hit a point were that are 300 million + people who need work but only 20-50 million jobs that can actually support a person.

a reply to: ScepticScot

Thanks ScepticScot, for the reply. I used to think about insurance as the sharing of risk among a pool of the insured. If it ever truly was that, it certainly is not that any longer.

I would argue that the government is most certainly a direct beneficiary of the fact that I am mandated by law to have insurance. Just because those dollars don't trickle down into direct government services doesn't mean the government isn't getting its cut.

For any insurance type...

My premiums aren't just used for payouts to cover accidents.
My premiums are used to pay salaries/commissions at the insurance company. Which are taxed as income.
My premiums are also used to fund political campaigns in the form of donations from insurance company employees, PACs and direct contributions.

My premiums are also used to cover all the payouts that aren't completely legit (aren't true needs) in my opinion.

Had a hail storm a few years ago in the neighborhood, and there were more new roofs in the neighborhood that year than you would believe. One person on the block had a tree limb that obviously damaged the integrity of the roof, yeah, insurance should cover a replacement for that. There was also an abundance of people that got insurance payouts for new roofs when repairs would have sufficed. Do you think their insurance premiums are the only ones that increased after that? Nope.

I was mentioning to my Dr at my last physical that in the future when I can afford it, there is a procedure that I would like to have done that I thought would be completely elective and non-coverable. Thinking he could recommend someone I could trust to do the work. Instead, he made a note in my chart of "symptoms", and voila, coverage approved. This procedure would surely improve my quality of life and my confidence, but my health... not really.

I refuse to use insurance for that. And maybe I am the dumb one, because God knows there aren't many people that would refuse that.

For health insurance in particular, because the IRS is the administrative arm of the mandate that all Americans be covered by health insurance, my premiums are a tax in everything but name, and any penalties I would pay for not having insurance go right to the IRS straight away.

That is money the government tells me what to do with, that I can't spend on other things (including my own medical care or that of my family).

Those who now have coverage who didn't before are the direct beneficiaries of the fact that the only choices I have are to carry insurance, or to give a penalty to the government.

It makes me ill to look at how much money the health insurance sector donated to the political campaigns in 2014... and who paid for that?

Health insurance consumers did, in the form of higher premiums. high deductibles, and policy benefit maximums. The hell of it is, my family has a high deductible plan, which forces us to be "smart consumers" of healthcare... because I am under insurance contract, I pay doctors, drug companies and labs 3 times more for contracted services than I would pay as a self-covered person, and it all comes out of my pocket because the insurance doesn't cover anything until we meet our deductible.

Cap that with the fact that my 'employer funded' plan is not a 'benefit' but part of my 'compensation package' (which basically means "We would pay you thousands more per year for your skills, but we are paying part of your insurance premiums instead"). My employer can deduct the "value" of the benefit on their taxes at the end of the year (not the actual cost in premiums they pay, but the "value"... i.e. they can deduct more than they are actually paying out), which is less money in government coffers also.

I don't see direct benefit from any of the money that changes hands here, except for the triple-cost I pay my Dr for the privilege of being part of the insurance pool.

OK. rant concluded. Carry on

a reply to: matafuchs

There is another reason.. its so that Employers who used to pay a higher income can now say to new employees there is a Minimum wage i can pay you and I dont have rto pay you anymore than the Minimum wage!

a reply to: onequestion

And why has the cost of living surpassed income?

There is a down side to the 15 dollar an hour that so many people want and I do not think that they have considered, or choosing to ignore:

When a person's hourly pay is raised up, the first thing that happens is that they go into a new tax bracket. So initially they see the increase and bigger pay check. Then after about 6 months, the downside hits and hits hard. First is that they lose things like public assistance, for food, rent, medical and child care. Right now, they are not tracking such, and it appears as though, in the initial cities, there has not been a significant dent in the number of people getting off of the public assistance roles.

But there does appear to be a trend, where people who were bumped up in pay, chose to cut their hours down to remain on public assistance. They quickly found out that rent, food, child care, even medical costs and when one is now earning more money, they lose out on the assistance that they would normally receive. We much wonder if such a raise in pay was a blessing or a curse to all of those people. And many of the small businesses are now struggling to keep their doors open and make ends meet, to make payroll they are having to come up with ways to keep prices low and have an increase volume in business. It is starting to show a real sign and fracture, yet in many of those cases, they can't see or connect a higher wage for low end jobs may be part of the problem and not the solution.

Copy & Paste from another thread;

Current minimum wage $7.25 = $14,500/yr @ 40hrs - $420.00 tax = $14,080 in pocket

Enter the ACA/Obamacare which declared 30hrs/wk full time prompting many small businesses to cap the work week at 29hrs/wk;

Current minimum wage $7.25 = $10,513/yr @ 29hrs - $21.00 tax = $10,492 in pocket
ACA Bronze $257.68/mo = $3,092/yr
$10,492 in pocket - $3,092 ACA = $7,400 in pocket

With just the implementation of ACA/Obamacare the Government has lost $400.00/yr/individual in taxes and the individual has lost $6,680 out of pocket - damn near 50% out of pocket with one law passed.

Now the government knows this won't fly, that's why ACA get implemented in waves - boiling frog in pot

So they push for minimum wage increase- ever wonder about the timing of the push for $15.00/hr?

Now we are looking at the following;

New minimum wage $15.00/hr = $21,750/yr @ 29hrs/wk - $1256.00 tax = $20,494 in pocket
ACA Bronze $257.68/mo = $3,092/yr
$20,494 in pocket - $3,092 ACA = $17,402 in pocket

So with ACA & new minimum wage here's what we have;
Individual from $14,080 to $17,402 in pocket = $3322.00 = $1.66/hr wage increase (at initial 40hrs/wk) = 24% increase
Government from $420.00 to $1256.00 tax = $836 tax increase = 199% increase
Insurance companies get their money

I'd like include that the individual get's insurance but living on minimum wage and having a deductible of $5731.00 it's pretty much useless, even with subsidies.


Notice the percentage of taxes vs in pocket

WAKE UP!!!

The Government could care less about the $15 per hour Minimum Wage. It is the UNIONS that want it. In most areas the union pay scale is tied to the Prevailing Wage. The Prevailing Wage is tied to the Minimum Wage. By raising the Minimum Wage it effectively gives Union employees a pay raise that doesn't have to be negotiated for. This increases the amount of dues that the Unions collect. This enables the Unions to make larger campaign contributions to the politicians that supported the increase.

As I have stated in a previous thread, if the $15 per hour Minimum Wage is so good why are Unions getting exemptions from it?
If the $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage is so Good Why Are Unions Getting Exemptions From It?

One last thing. A rule of economics states that all costs are borne by the Consumer. So an increase in the Minimum Wage to $15 per hour would raise the cost of living proportionally resulting in no gain in buying power. This would leave us right back where we started from.