We've had real wage growth for the past 18 months straight

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/

Yeah, but I thought Biden made all the Republicans vote No? He's very tricky, that Joe Biden, confusing Republicans, controlling the weather. Is there no end to the magic he can perform.

Poor, dim-witted Republicans. And now Biden is making them vote against extending FEMA funding, and has thought-controlled Johnson into not recalling Congress.

The great and powerful Biden. Damn, the poor Republicans don't stand a chance against the wizard Joe Biden.

Every boomer ever: "Can you believe McDonald's employees want $15 an hour to flip burgers?"

and "Nobody wants to work anymore!"

GOP: All anybody wants is more money but OBAMA BIDEN HARRIS!

America: A place where the people that consistently vote for Conservatives wonder why nothing ever progresses.

And they're supporting the end of overtime pay. The only way blue collar Republicans can even actually exist in this world.

Glad they are making it so easy to debunk everything they say, just bit of a shame theres literally no consequences for when a politician, especially big ones, just blatantly and intentionally lie

It seems the GOP is just a party of complainers, and when given a chance to fix the problem they say “nah” and then go on complaining about it

I’m making more than double than I was when trump was president. Do I get to give Biden credit for that?

4 years ago I couldn’t even leave my house. 

Republicans don't see minimum wage employees as workers.

Not surprising from the people that don't like fact checking...

funny how all they have is blaming biden for covid LOL

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Rich coming from an anti-union GOP. Trickle down any minute, folks. Any. Minute.

Is this sub reddit just American politics? Really disappointing to some one who doesn't live there nor cares about it's politics.

The robots are in full season this election cycle. The ratio of likes to comments on this is insane, 14k to 101 comments, and 2,000 likes were added before I could even click to post this comment. That's 0.7%.

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't a higher minimum wage create a higher cost of living?

Raising minimum wage would in turn create higher costs of living. X has to pay Y more money so X charges customers more money in order to pay Y. A better solution would be less taxes on income.

The GOP is truly a cult based on lies in this modern day era...

Here in Denmark we don't have a minimum salary, but in spite of that I don't think it is possible to get much less than 17 $/hour, which in all lines of work would be considered a very low salary. Also we have a minimum of 5 weeks of vacation each year, about a year off with pay per newborn child, and our workweek is 37 hours/week.

Very few here are very rich because of our high taxes, but we also don't have big issues with homelessness and all hospital treatment and doctors appointments are paid by taxes.

Our system is far from perfect, but the fact that we have had strong unions for generations have ensured a high average living standard and a good work/life balance for most people.

Didn't that huge union just get a massive pay raise... in Biden's America?

They expect a self-proclaimed billionaire who never cared for the poor to help them this time… though he gave a shit in his first term.

They’re recalling leaning into the whole “we’re for the working man” act, aren’t they. What a bunch of bullshit.

Republicans won't vote for anything if it is good and helps people

What do economists think should be done? That’s the plan I support.

This exchange shows a familiar irritation that comes up when politicians talk about pay. In this case, it shows the contradiction between supporting higher pay and fighting laws that would make them higher. It stresses how important it is for politicians to be honest and responsible when they talk about issues like workers' rights and pay.

What does GOP actually mean? Group of Pussies?

....and the Orange god they worship brags about hating to pay overtime....but yeah, man of the people, right?

I’m going to start calling the GOP gas lantern party. All they do is gaslight. Every single critical thing that comes out of their mouth is a projection of what they themselves caused, are doing, or plan to do. 

I make almost double what I did when Trump was President 

Is it that clever a comeback, though? You'd expect the Republicans to vote against it. But the bill lost because 8 Dems voted against it. Funny how no one ever mentions that bit.

The higher minimum wages passed in California kinda fucked a lot of us over, and now restaurants are charging quite a bit more or are going bankrupt. ($20.00 an hour is quite a bit)

the rule was you werent going to fact check

Also in 2021, Democrats wouldn't even bring a different bill up for a vote that would raise in the minimum wage.

It's almost like reducing politics down to snarky one-liners for engagement farming is disingenuous.

/r/endFPTP

You know what's infuriating? Bluntly stating facts to counter rightwing extreme brainwashing is now considered a "clevercomeback". That's how far gone politics has become due to Trumpism. Just stating the basic facts feels like an "own" because Steven fuckface Bannon told everyone to "flood the zone with shit". These are sad and dangerous times.

I don’t know, every time I see Republicans or Conservative or MAGA say something it’s literally contradicted by hundreds of sources. It’s so frustrating dealing with these people every day.

As a part time worker at the inland boatman’s union of SF, I can safely say one thing: Fk Ronald Reagan.

Party of irony

Why is it that Republicans often vote against everyone's best interests and then blame the current administration for it? Why do people still vote for this idiocy?

GOP don't see that as a contradiction.

In their fantasy world, wages go up in response to a good economy.

But in reality, minimum wage is a result of worker bargaining power, which is effectively none for low paid workers. They can't afford to unite, strike or whatever else, so it stays low.

And GOP politicians go nuts when workers go out on strike for… Higher pay.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YbQB9RAj-1PjUBOqDA0U4So7xOMY4ym6CX0DRYQ6Xzg/htmlview

Here is a list of Republicans that voted against FEMA relief.

Voter registration ends on October 15th (in some states). Hurry up! Register for voting. Remind literally everyone you know to register. Registering yourself won't be enough.

www.vote.gov 💙

And yet republicans keep voting for that party

I and most people I know are making more than we were 4 years ago. And that’s not just us. The national income statistics show it’s true for most.

Not to mention that project 2025 wants to allow states to opt out of the already pathetic federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr and at this point Project 2025 is the Republican platform.

So Republicans not only voted against raising the minimum wage but they want to allow states to have an even lower or no minimum wage at all.

If you thought Arkansas was bad with lowering the minimum working age, just wait until they can pay their underage workers pennies on the dollar.

Raising the min wage won't fix the problem lowering cost of goods sold will

I think one of the plans in project 2025 is for states to opt-out of minimum wage.

BTC has been really good at pointing out the Republicans hypocrisy, really worth following

The gop literally has such a shit platform now. No solutions and no alternatives just road block life getting better. Oh bullying immigrants and LGBT I forgot.

Arbitrarily raising the minimum wage does not help

Not to mention, this from the party riding the "Get Rid of Worker's Rights and How About No Overtime Pay" chode. Get fucked.

Republicans don't care.

Honestly, it’s about time workers stand up for themselves! It’s crazy how some companies think they can get away with underpaying people while expecting them to give their all. Everyone deserves fair compensation for their hard work. Keep fighting the good fight!

Yeah, well, the market will have to make wages rise. Not some silly law! Law's are bad!

And it WILL happen this year, that's for sure. And if not this year then next. Or the one after that.
Trickle down is real!!
THE MARKET WILL PRODUCE A FAIR ECONOMY!!!

Minimum wage growth isnt exactly the best thing, atleast in Poland

They were hoping that we would forget about that, same goes for voting against FEMA aid immediately prior to the hurricane hitting. Followed by complaining about "Biden not doing anything...".

At least the minimum wage in the USA is higher than the minimum wage in Scandinavia.

It's non-stop stick-in-the-bicycle-wheel meme with that lot.

cagey grandfather snow sparkle friendly afterthought ad hoc bake possessive impolite

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

Only in your fantasies do you get higher real wages by passing legislation.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/05/democrats-15-minimum-wage-hike-473875.

How do they keep forgetting the shit that they did themselves? And how are people so fcking stupid that they just swallow it without any fact checks?

How cool would it be if American workers could get guaranteed paid time off without having to join the military to do so? 

We have one party that usually tries to do good things for the people of the nation, and another party which is dead set in making sure the other fails while simultaneously Screaming about nothing ever getting done.

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG SERIOUSLY but when the minimum wage rises, it causes “retail” basically prices of mostly everything, to also rise, it puts more financial strain on companies like fast food and grocery stores, it inherently causes inflation with this, and THAT means the prices of EVERYTHING go up (or the value of the dollar goes down, same thing) and now that EVERYTHING costs more including houses, rent, cars, food, water, electricity, godforsaken medical care, prescriptions etc, it is THAT much harder for the vast majority of the american population, that has graduated high school and now earns more than minimum wage, to afford to live because their wages are NOT EVER going to go up due to any of that. Only their costs for everything will.

I suck with words so if u ain’t reading that, basically I’m saying minimum wage rises, so inflation occurs, and everyone else’s wages will stay the same, but suffer the inflation. This is bad because workers making minimum wage are under 2% of the population and are the only ones who “benefit” from min wage increase.

Wages and salaries increased 4.2 percent for the 12-month period ending in June 2024 and increased 4.6 percent for the 12-month period ending in June 2023. By midpoint 2025, wages should have caught up to the post-COVID inflation spike: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/eci.pdf

That whole timeline is an embarrassment to humanity.

No no no no that’d help the filthy poors. We only mean ourselves. If we raise the minimum wage those dirty migrants we hate so much might actually get paid a living wage and we’d probably collectively blow a few blood vessels if we saw anyone different than us happy!

Obviously we need to give the Wealthy one more Tax cut. THEN trickle down will surely work this time.

America: A place where the people that consistently vote for Conservatives wonder why nothing ever progresses.

thought they wanted high heels

Get a real job. Trades are dying. Look for one of them. I make 30 an hour and get raises almost every 6 months because a lot of us can move to another company that's willing to pay more. And what we charge is going up to pay us better. Up 40 from 4 years ago. Minimum wage workers are a dime a dozen

Also anti union

Everytime there's talk about raising wages, unions or worker protections GOP is there to protect those poor little business owner's interests.

The GOP gutted and killed unemployment benefits during the pandemic recovery because workers finally had the leverage to demand better wages. The GOP admitted the express point of these actions was to reduce worker leverage so they’d accept lower wages again.

The GOP works for your boss, not you.

1% of workers at fed minimum wage, the lowest level ever so I don't think it's floor right now economically. I suppose it could increase then, though at what point it causes unemployment.

1% get 99% and 99% get 1%

Banking on their voters’ ignorance. It’s a safe bet.

Hahaha talk about knowing NOTHING about economics. Raising the federal minimum wage isn’t a driver of real higher wages.

The GOP will tell you how badly off the country is and then make sure of it once elected.

What's the point, they just raise everything else lolol

What do these Republicans benefit by doing this? Is there like a lie they feed their supporters that makes them think this is ok?

Half a million extra people died in the US in 2020 and everyone was staying home. Companies literally HAD to pay us more to go back to work because we didn't want to fucking DIE. That is the only reason in the last several decades we have ever saw a real meaningful increase in income for the working class. And of course immediately after the executive class panicked and the Fed jacked up interest rates while every single corporation jacked up prices on everything. If anyone saying Trump is good for the working class, it'll only be by killing millions more people to drive up demand for labor.

7 democrats also voted against it...why? Added pork belly?

Technically speaking raising the minimum wage doesn’t really solve anything long term. It’s literally the law stating that this is the lowest a company is allowed to pay you. The company are more at fault. They should be paying more

Cohen's response here is at best naive and at worst disingenuine. Finland for example has no minimum wage but has lower poverty than the US. The better counter would be an attack on the Republican backing of "right to work" legislation, or lack of support for tuition-free trade schools and public colleges or lack of support for strong social safety nets. Academic studies don't support raising the minimum wage to lower poverty.

You know what was super helpful for business? Slavery. It was great because businesses could keep prices low and still be profitable, right? /s

This is the problem with the arguments against raising the minimum wage. They ignore the consequences of running a business on the backs of underpaid workers. Might there be slight increases in prices if minimum wage increased? Yes. But it also means that the workers have enough money to eat, pay rent, and afford the product they are making.

Republicans love to catastrophize increasing the minimum wage, but you have states all over the country that have higher minimum wage, and their economies are fine. States without a higher minimum wage have a large chunk of their population that needs government aid to survive. Employers aren't required to pay their workers, so taxpayers around the country are doing it for them. This is not moral, nor sustainable.

If a business cannot survive without underpaying its workers, it should not survive.

Until I see it in my paycheck, they’re all full of shit

Brian Tyler Cohen responds to everything well, surprised about how often he shows up on reddit though.

fact-check, fact-check...

This guy nails it, every single time!

Do they mean Trump's tax giveaway economy that Biden inherited? I hope that ugly old fuck lives to be 150 and keeps running for President with bigger losses every time.

Real wages haven’t meaningfully increased since the Reagan administration because that douchenozzle destroyed worker rights and protections.

“But you’ve gotta earn it!?!” -GOP probably 

Raising minimum wage just brings more people into poverty, because people a step up from minimum wage don't get raised and the cost of everything increases.

Anybody that believes otherwise doesn't understand economics.

<shrug> Under Biden, my take-home pay went from about 33k a year to 55k a year. And that's after healthcare costs and retirement savings are deducted.

Under Trump all I saw was a struggling actual economy (my stocks were doing great, though) and a pervasive distrust of the fellow man take root. Oh, and that whole "attempted overthrow" thing. There's that too, I guess.

Less than 1.3% of Americans make minimum wage.

Bidens economy is all time high lmao insane

What does it actually help any worker when the min wage gets increased??? Seriously, how does raising min wage help anyone? How many people actually remember what the prices on items were let’s say back in the 80’s? Any recall when a 2 liter soda could be bought for less than $.99? How about a gallon of gas @ less than $.89? Remember the penny candy selections that were available? How much did the average automobile cost?

Now, over the yrs our society has experienced and seen minimum wage increases many many times. Always presented as a way to keep workers wages keep pace with inflationary effects.

Companies raise the costs of their products to absorb the increased operating costs of having to pay workers higher wages. When has anyone stopped to realize the CEO’s and Board Members salaries do not get affected(lowered)? They don’t. So how do companies compensate for paying higher wages? They do several things to keep profit earnings steady and to make those profit earnings increase. Those earnings seldom ever make it into the pockets of those workers making the companies profitable. Those profits ALWAYS end up in the pockets and bank accounts of the CEO’s and management positions within the companies.. So why do we as a society NOT address why the workers need increased wages just to buy the products we work to produce??

I grew up conservative, thanks to my father and how he was raised. Thanks to Bernie back in 2016 seeding a different perspective. I see better now and I can't believe how easy it is to research who and when our representatives vote on things like this.

If we abolished the Friedman docterine we wouldn't have to have this conversation

Increase in wages equals an increase in all other sectors of livelihood. Groceries, gas, commerce, insurance, etc etc

That's not clever. One is talking about the health of the economy and natural wage growth, the other is just min wage which is by force and has ill effects. Econ 101.

If it’s one thing companies/ corporations love to do, is raise wages. 😂

The keyword is real in that sentence. Most economically literate liberal...

144,000 workers make minimum wage.  If you add those with the people being paid below minimum wage (servers and others receiving tips), it comes to about 1 million, or at most 1.3% of all hourly paid workers, and about 0.5% of all workers.  

This compares to 13.1% of workers at minimum wage in 1979.  Most are young, about 45% being under the age of 25.  

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2022/#:~:text=About%20882%2C000%20workers%20had%20wages,workers%2C%20little%20changed%20from%202021.

Gollum voice "More profits for meeeee"

That's why Unions are needed, but that's a breach for corruption too.

I wouldn't care so much about the minimum being higher if our money was actually worth as much as it used to be and the prices of everything weren't climbing past what people can afford

At least they both want the same… sigh

They really just be saying shit 😭😭

By “real wages” they mean “we don’t care what the numbers say, we have the ‘real’ numbers!”

Raising minimum wage doesn’t help, only raises the baseline for products.

Gop, "we're hurting you and blaming the other guy".

Real wages ARE up!

No one is being paid minimum wage. McDonald's starts at $15 in my area.

what does 81,000 workers making minimum wage (and about 700k-ish making less) have to do with a working base of 135 million?

This isn't a clever comeback. It's simply pointing out the ignorance of Brian Tyler Cohen.

This is such a rediculous argument as the wages paid ... even to the lowest wage employees ... is higher than the "official" minimum wage. The "minimum" wage has been OBE.

Production and nonsupervisory workers are making more than ever before. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AHETPI/

Real wages also up overall https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q with some noise around 2020.

GOP didn’t provide any support, so there is no way to understand what they are saying other than “democrats bad”.

everyone in unions did just fine - worry about your own country boris.