With the Federal minimum wage currently at $7.25/hr, that’s just $15k/year at full-time. That puts many minimum wage workers below many countries’ average wages [1]. But that’s before adjusting for purchasing power parity.
Being a single earner on minimum wage effectively guarantees you and your family will be in poverty in the US. That is effectively not true in most countries in Europe, even the poor ones. You don’t get to live well or anything, but you certainly aren’t planning on poverty.
[1] California, and San Francisco in particular, have a higher minimum wage but also higher expenses. Worse, many low-education workers are waitresses, which often have a “tipped minimum wage” as low as $2.15/hr before tips (again, San Francisco doesn’t do this, but it’s expensive to live here).
What are some optimal tax rates? What are the target individual finances (food, housing, retirement, etc)? What should government spend money on?
I manifestly do not care what the absolute values are for minimum wage, fees, various tax rates, government spending, etc.
I do care about fairness, equal opportunity, rule of law, and empowerment. I care that people can feed and educate their kids, grow old, and play with their grandkids.
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I want a SimCity for IRL policy.
Policy makers first simulate their proposals. Then repeat their experiments in the real world.
First a little, then a lot.
Hypothesis, experiment, evaluate. Rinse, lather, repeat.
As circumstances change and new ideas crop up, better strategies displace old strategies.
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We're geeks. We should be thinking about this stuff systematically. Lead by example.