By Michael Bielawski
A proposed national minimum wage hike to $17 per hour by 2029 would come at an estimated cost of 700,000 American jobs according to the nation’s Congressional Budget Office.
The bill is S.2488 – Raise the Wage Act of 2023. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the listed sponsor. It has been introduced but it hasn’t been passed by either chamber of Congress yet.
Sanders was on social media on Monday railing against the wealthy elite.
“Corporate greed is Mark Zuckerberg becoming $3.4 billion richer TODAY while building a $100 million mansion in Hawaii with 30 bathrooms and an underground bunker. Meanwhile, a record-breaking 653,000 Americans are homeless & over 60% of our workers live paycheck to paycheck,” he wrote on X.
Some stats in the report support Sanders’ effort. This includes that an estimated 8.9 million workers with wages under $17 per hour could be affected. It is estimated that 400,000 could be lifted out of poverty by such increases.
The full report can be read here.
The report also notes that anytime wages are raised, the cost of the goods or services will rise accordingly.
“Higher prices for goods and services—stemming from the higher wages of workers who are paid at or near the minimum wage (such as workers who provide long-term health care)—would contribute to increases in federal spending.”
Another part of the report states more about how much would be gained in wages versus lost in jobs.
It states, “Those gains in earnings would be larger than the aggregate earnings losses from higher rates of joblessness. Thus, the income of families with low-wage workers would increase, on average, and the number of families below the FPL [Federal Poverty Level] would decrease. Higher-income families would experience a decline in purchasing power because prices for goods and services would increase.”
It continues that there will be other economic impacts. For example, with 700,000 new unemployed that means the cost of unemployment benefits will go up. The report also suggests that the of programs like food stamps will go down.
“The largest spending increases would be for the government’s major health care programs and unemployment compensation; the largest revenue decreases would be from income taxes,” the report states.
Sanders doesn’t like tipping?
Another component of the bill would be to do away with tipping. The report addresses this aspect as well.
“It would boost the earnings of most of those workers through higher wages but also reduce the earnings of some through higher rates of joblessness. Part of the increase in earnings through higher wages would be offset by lower income from tips,” it states.
Interest rates would go up
Another assessment from the report is that interest rates go up.
“In CBO’s assessment, the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would cause interest rates to be slightly higher than they otherwise would have been over the 2024–2033 period. The Federal Reserve would adjust short-term interest rates to counteract the increase in overall demand and inflation stemming from the rising minimum wage.”
Been tried before
Over the years mandates in other states to aggressively bump up minimum wage have shown that the net impacts are sometimes unfavorable to the very people it is intended to help.
TrueNorthReports noted one such study that took place in Seattle.
“A 2017 study of Seattle’s wage increase by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that ‘the second wage increase to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs by around 9 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent.’”
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Congress, National News, News Analysis
Give everyone a raise…….lower twenty five percent of the taxes. Everyone will benefit.
Haha, yes. Except that almost 50% of individuals already don’t pay any income taxes at all. When you add in all the free handouts, income-based exemptions etc., that number is probably practically closer to 60%.
Hey Bernie, take a walk down Church St and see the sign that has been up for quite some time in the window of the Bagel Bakery that both their downtown and Shelburne Rd locations are offering $20/hour starting wage. The sign on Shelburne Road is in full view of an intersection quite often occupied by roadside panhandlers. If you are wondering why people wont take jobs like that, you need to be aware that we have a president that is thumbing his nose at the Supreme Court and using public money to pay off college loans for people with worthless degrees, so they can continue with their couch potato existence. Stop worrying about Mark Zuckerberg.
How many homes does Sen. Sanders own? He and his wife would be considered the ” wealthy elite ” based on their assets and income and yet he condemns those who bust their butts and earn money. Kind of like his honeymoon site of the old Soviet Union.
Bernie is also one of the cheapest when it comes to spreading HIS wealth
Really it doesn’t matter how many homes he owns. What matters is how much he envies those that own one more than him.
This pathological envy is what drives him to drag everyone down to his own level. Anyone who has been more successful than Lord Sanders must be denounced, chastised and condemned.
And while his envy drives him, what attracts him towards his goal is the fact that his wealth, power and sense of moral superiority increases in proportion to the number of people he condemns. This is why he is so passionate about what he does and likely why he’ll never see any problem with it. He is both driven-to and attracted-by his goal.
(Notice how he used to level all his hate on millionaires. Not so much anymore now that he’s reached that lofty level himself. Now the real villains, to him, are the evil scheming billionaires.)
The only people bernie sanders has lifted out of poverty is himself, his wife and her family.
Should the bombastic socialist really want to help the working man, extending permanently the 2018 tax cuts would be a start. Sponsor that bill, mr. sanders.
Time to send the sand man packing period !! Don’t you think !!
hey bernie does this minimum wage increase include your staff???
your in a debt credit system///need more inflation or this system will implode///the central bankers are the problem///raise the wages you will cause more inflation///like paying higher prices the last three years for food, cars, houses
bernie has 3 homes; shouldn’t he give up 2 of those until everyone has 1
bernie sanders works for the bankers///a central bank is a plank of the communist manifesto///sanders has never produced any thing///your not going to get a house with interest rates going up more///sanders is a con job and so is his wife///this is how they have three houses///they control the money system
I can’t even find employees at $20 per hour. The only reason people will except the job is to work long enough to collect unemployment then they can quit. So many young people are living off the government but all seem to have cars and IPHONES and smoke brand named cigarettes while they stand in line at the food shelves instead of using their food stamp money which they save for steaks and lobsters. They live in subsidized apartments even the ones built for seniors. They keep saying that the young can’t buy houses because of the interest rates but most don’t want a house to own because they would need to do the maintenance. Seniors can’t get any help with rent because there are no programs for them only for the younger generation with children. All the while Bernie has 3 houses to live in. What is he worth? I worked 30 years as a nurse and never made $20 an hour. Actually never made $18 an hour. And I dealt with life and death daily. Now kids in high school can make $18 an hour flipping burgers in McDonald’s if this proposal goes through.
Ms. Sicard: Several years ago, John McClaughry, of the Ethan Allen Institute, astutely pointed out that:
“Vermont ranks eighth in pretax wage equivalent of the welfare benefit package, at $42,350. This number, representing what the household would have to earn to pay for the benefits after taxes, has increased by $10,770 since 1995, by far the largest increase of any state.”
This epiphany was published ten years ago.
https://vtdigger.org/2013/08/19/mcclaughry-vermonts-welfare-cornucopia/
One can only speculate at what that commensurate pre-tax wage is today.
I gotta believe it’s close to $100k. The annual premiums for the (lowest bronze-level) health insurance plan *alone* now come to over $26,000 for a family of 4 (2 adults, 1 child.) That’s with nothing but one preventative visit each yearly covered and a $15,000 annual deductible for everything else.
**2 adults, 2 children.
$100,000 in pretax benefits, averaged over 2000 hours of labor per year (40 hrs. a week, 50 weeks a year) equals $50/hour.
Good luck employers.
Bernie Sanders and Bernie Madoff are in the same ballpark…
You think customer service at the drive-thru is bad now… just wait ’til they’re getting paid $17/hr for it.