It is utterly embarrassing that “pay people enough to live” is a stance that’s even up for debate.
Override the parliamentarian and raise the wage. McD’s workers in Denmark are paid $22/hr + 6 wks paid vacation. $15/hr is a deep compromise – a big one, considering the phase in.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 3, 2021
Denmark doesn’t have a statutory minimum wage though.
Per-capita income in the US is about the same as in Denmark, even though we are a multi-cultural nation of around 330 million people that naturalizes another 900,000 people every year, many from poor nations, and that Denmark is a homogeneous country of fewer than 6 million citizens that, in recent years, has effectively shut down its borders to poor immigrants.
Also, in Denmark, everyone pays high taxes, not just the high earners.
A Danish fast-food employee at $22/hr (about $45,000/yr) pays around half their earnings to the government, plus a 25% value-added tax on most purchases. In return, it must be noted, Danes receive all kinds of government-provided services.
Ocasio-Cortez says, “when we keep the minimum wage artificially low, it’s at a huge cost to our government, . . . they’re essentially enormous subsidies to Walmart.”
She’s against subsidies?
Regarding McDonald’s, every one of their restaurants I’ve patronized recently has touch-screen self-service kiosks. Grocery stores have self-service checkouts. I also noticed today for the first time that CVS had installed a couple of self-service checkouts.
Minimum-wage workers are being replaced by robots.
Ocasio-Cortez is correct in saying that a minimum wage is artificial, but it’s just as artificial at $15 as it is at some lower number.
The Congressional Budget Office says that 1.4 million people would lose work due to a $15 national minimum wage. That would put them at the only non-artificial minimum wage: zero.