Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a great idea. He just ordered most state workers to work for the month of July at minimum wage — 7.25 per hour. For him, it is just temporary until the California legislation passes a budget, but let’s ignore that part. Let’s guarantee everybody a minimum wage.
Just think, if everybody in the country had a guaranteed minimum wage, there would be no more unemployment, no welfare, and nobody without a means to support. For decades, minimum wage has been advocated as a living wage. Well, let’s just assume that is true for the moment. Then, everybody can have a guaranteed minimum wage and pay no taxes on any of it — no federal, state, or sales taxes. Zippo. Everybody gets to spend the 40 hours per week, $7.25 per hour, as they see fit. Then start taxing the next $7.25 per hour at 20%, the next $7.25 per hour at 40%, etc. Right up until it is taxed at 100%. Use all those taxes to pay for the minimum wage and whatever else government needs. It seems like a great way to redistribute the wealth, provide for all the citizens, and make sure nobody gets too greedy.
There would be no such thing as unemployed benefits — everybody is guaranteed a minimum wage. If people want more than a minimum wage they could get a job and earn some more money. If they couldn’t find a job, they would still have their minimum wage. The minimum wage would be for every single citizen, regardless of age. So, a family of four would have four minimum wages guarantees.
If the minimum wage just wasn’t enough, it could be raised but it would be raised for everybody. It could also include some basic benefits, like health care, housing and public transportation. So, every citizen would receive a minimum wage and benefits. It would be a much fairer system. There would be plenty of incentives to work as well.
By working, people could get something more than the minimum. It would also allow people to explore areas that didn’t traditionally pay so well, such as journalism, music, and art. They could work for themselves, start their own businesses, etc. If certain jobs were 
particularly important, wages could be higher to attract people, but not high like professional athletics high. They would pay 2 to 5 times the minimum wage. There would still be plenty of people to play baseball, be doctors, etc. People would gravitate to things they liked to do which is almost always the things they do best.
Everybody gets a minimum level of income, there are still incentives to work, and nobody gets greedy wealthy. Let’s give it a try — it has got to be better than the rich getting richer, people struggling to find jobs, and 30% of the nation’s children on welfare or hungry. Did I mention, there would be no more welfare ? — everybody makes a living wage, including the children.
For now, Obama pretends that the economy is improving. Republicans complain that it is the government’s fault that private business is not hiring. They are both wrong. This economy is getting worse as the jobs’ report demonstrated today. There are now 8 million fewer people at jobs than before the financial crisis in 2008. It is getting worse and if something is not done about guaranteed income for all citizens, people are just going to die. It’s that simple.
America is Doomed.
Admin:
Your idea is not a new one. I have written many articles myself supporting the idea. It has been referred to as a negative income tax, guaranteed minimum income, or basic income. Its many supporters over the years include economist Milton Friedman, Martin luther King Jr, Thomas Paine and Richard Nixon. Alaska has a program similar to it….where the residents of the state receive about 3 grand a year from oil revenues. The best part of the plan is that in a consumption based society….the economy is driven by spending. The money spent on such a program more or less filters back into the government coffers through taxation on businesses where the money gets spent. Such a plan would render recessions and depressions obsolete and that would benefit civilization immensely. It will never happen though because the rich and powerful will never let it happen. See if people have access to minimums they will have no incentive to work at the slave wages that corporations want to offer. Keep people desparate and competing with each other and they will views the scraps from the oligarch’s table as if its a mighty feast. In 20 years I think America will consist of 3 classes….The 1% super rich who own the corporations…the 95% of the population surviving on a dollar a day…. and the 4% of the military tasked with protecting the rich and powerful.
thanks for the comment — i always learn things from the people who comment. i really appreciate it. it is just so frustrating to see people suffer and congress do nothing.
I support the idea of eliminating welfare, but guarenteeing a public sector job for those willing to work who cannot find one they like better in the private sector. The entire idea of paying someone NOT to work is counterproductive to the work ethos of a society, and leads to it’s demise, but providing work for those willing to work, and education for those who want to learn, is a positive incentive. Coupled with free housing and medical care, this would effectively transform potential energy to kinetic energy, with the entire society going into theoretical full production mode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Jf9s23uF0
Time for me to chime in. Lester can’t resist this one. both of you make really good points. But don’t you really think that AmeriKa is too far gone to implement these types of policies?
Minimum wage might keep the electricity on, if you live in a single wide, but it won’t even put fish on the table. If you agree to work for this mythical “minimum wage” , Jaun and Pedro will do it for 3 bucks!! Beats that Mexican$1.29 in the maquilladoras. Jaun and Pedro will bring in the relatives, do a little work, have their wives/girlfriends shit out an anchor baby, get on welfare, suck up some medicaide, get a voting card, get a drivers license, go to the food bank, take on 25 to 30 boarders in their single wide, demand a Gubsamunts HI! Skrool EdjeemaKashun, require classes be taught in Spic, and on and on and on…. The $8.00 dollar/hour legal US citizen will pay for their “minimum wage”. When you add in all of their parasitism and predation, they are making 80 dollars/hour while the toiling/laboring AmeriKan citizen makes about $10, with no benefits.
Neither political party is willing to touch this hot potato, or should I say this Hott Tamale!!! One of my dearest friends and clients showed up for the long weekend tonight and told me that all of my problems with my “bidnuss” ( I say “bidnuss” so that people think I know people like the 2 Reverunds and then they know that I don’t bee Racciss and shitzuz) is that I won’t hire Mexicans. He knows lots of Mexicans that I can hire through his RICH DumbaKrap friends.
I flat told him that I hire AmeriKans and that I would never hire an illegal brown boy. Now you are probably thinking that I hate the Brown Boys. No such thang’. I just like AmeriKans better. In my eyes, everything isn’t “eekal”. If I even see a brown boy working for a contractor around her I call ICE. They won’t do shit so I call the local Sheriff and tell them that I “feel” threatened by these invaders. They come and arrest them, just like in Arizona.
Now does that make me a Raciss and shitzuz? I don’t think so. Why should I have to pay for their parasitism and criminal, drug dealing affinities when I want to live in a low stress environment. Why should my Negro assistant be deprived of work because Juan wants to send tax free buckos back to the war zone? Shit on Mejicans!!!
I have traveled extensively in Mejico. In Mejico, I do as the Mejicans do. If I were in Rome, I would do as the Romans do. In the fucked up US of A, you need to do as the US of Aers do.
There was a contractor here who only hired illegals for the last 5 or 6 years. I turned him in to anybody who would listen. Apparently, my words and warnings finally found receptive ears. The man is now bankrupt, begging for work, and all of his brown boys have returned to their native lands or some other corrupt,cheating, POS contractor. But my county has finally been purged of this scourge. He now calls me daily and begs for work. I always tell him that I don’t have any and if I did, it would go to native AmericKans who don’t shit us and don’t cheat. Sorry Charlie!!
I am so glad to see this country purged of the invasive “Brown Scourge”. Everybody who works for me is a Negro, because where I live, just about everybody is a Negro. Hell, I consider myself to be a White Negro.
The Negros like the fact that I pay them twice the amount the the brown boys are willing to work for. The rich people don’t like me but they have to hire me because out here, I’m the only game it town. Sorry Charlie.
I love Arizona. Send their asses back and US wages will rise. Nobody can compete, here, with 25 Mexican roofing a house. We have to pay our own mortgages, doctor bills, property and Skrool taxes, income taxes, food bills, auto insurance, etc… The Mexishits do none of this. And if they get busted they just turn themselves into the Border Patrol and they get a free bus ride (free to them, we pay for it) back to the border.
Enough is enough. We don’t really need a minimum wage. Get rid of the 5th world garbage and everyone can make 10 to 15 bucks/hour. No need for a minimum wage.
Vacation in Arizona this year. Spend alot of money and help them get rid of their nits. Remember, nits turn into lice.
The US does not need to be a relief valve for the unGoshly corruption of the Capitalist Pigs in Mexico. Can’t stand Mejico? go North, young hombre.
Mejico for Mejicans, US for USians. No need for a minimum wage.Follow the lead of Arizona, and all living standards will rise again.
Very timely article. You can’t put it more succinctly than what you said at the end of your article: “There are now 8 million fewer people at jobs than before the financial crisis in 2008. It is getting worse and if something is not done about guaranteed income for all citizens, people are just going to die. It’s that simple. America is Doomed.”
We’ve been writing about minimum income guarantee since the late 90s. When we started out we were kinda shocked to find out there had been a big movement for guaranteed annual income in the 1960′s-early 70s and that Martin Luther King said in 1967: “The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.” (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Chaos or Community, 1967)
In Canada there was a pilot project called the Manitoba Mincome where the entire town received a GAI for 3 yrs. Then the idea was dropped, and the data never analysed… till now. A researcher has found especially positive health outcomes. Find a link to the report here:
http://www.livableincome.org/reports.htm
and an article from the 1970s here:
http://www.livableincome.org/mincomeclip1.htm
And it is well known that the biggest determinants of health are related to income security. So it should be obvious that a guaranteed livable income or minimum income guarantee, or basic income guarantee, or citizen’s dividend or what ever we choose to call it… is far more practical than the impossible goal of living wage jobs for everyone. Not to mention the essential unpaid care work that is the glue that holds human societies together… this work would no longer be financially penalized. Ergo, there would be so many benefits it is impossible to calculate. The costs of poverty, the costs of the poverty industry, the costs of unending economic growth to the environment, the costs of compulsory consumption on health and enviro to keep the economy going etc. etc. will doom the entire world… but needlessly, as we could decide to at least try a guaranteed livable income, minimum income etc.
Our website is full of articles, links, history, arguments and more.
and this is not a right/left issue. there are people in favor on both sides.
http://www.livableincome.org/
you can also get news and updates from us on twitter: @Livable4All
FULL EMPLOYMENT PLAN – steal this idea
PREMISE – MAJORITY OF WORLD CLASS ECONOMISTS SAY
*US ECONOMY HAS BEEN 70% CONSUMER SPENDING
*CONSUMER SPENDING WILL NOT COME BACK BECAUSE NEITHER tax cuts, nor government spending nor monetary easing nor low interest rates will cause people or businesses to spend. They will save because they lost a terrific amount in the crash of 2008 ( witness Japan and Great Depress)
THEREFORE WE WILL NOT REDUCE 10% UNEMPLOYMENT AND HOUSING SLUMP WILL CONTINUE
unless we implement A NEW SOLUTION – AMERICANS ARE COMPETITORS AND WE NEED TO COMPETE
NEW SOLUTION
INDUCE CORPORATIONS TO COME HOME AND REOPEN THEIR FACTORIES IN THE US, INSTEAD OF CHINA, BRAZIL, ETC
HOW?
AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL WORK FOR A WAGE THAT IS COMPETIVE WITH THE ASIAN/BRAZILIAN WORKER
BUT-
INSTEAD OF FORCING BUSINESSES TO SUBSIDE SALARIES THROUGH A MIN. WAGE LAW, THE GOVERNMENT WILL SUBSIDIZE WAGES. THE BUDGET DEFICIT WILL BE REDUCED BECAUSE
1. BUSINESSES WILL COME BACK TO US IN DROVES AND LOCATE PLANTS HERE
2. FULL EMPLOYMENT
3. ELIMINATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSUR. CHECKS TO COMPENSATE FOR WAGE SUBSIDIES-SUBSIDIZE THE UNEMPLOYED TO TAKE THE LOWER PAYING JOBS
3. COMPETITIVE PRICES AND WAGE
4. NCREASED CORPORATE CAPTIAL GAINS TAXES
5. RAGINGINLY HIGH STOCK MARKET, GENERATING MORE CAPITAL AND CAUSING BUSINESSES TO INVEST IN PLANT AND EQUIPMENT INSTEAD OF THE CARRY TRADE
The big question is what do you do with all of those sorry people who expect the government to raise them and their children while they never plan on working? Do they have a time limit or do we keep carrying them around like an albatross?
lesterfiggler … ur a funny white boy who probably got teased by aal the mexicans in skool n probably boned ur girls in front of u n r mad. you gotta look at is this way. The white race is going to hell. We the mexicans americans that r legal r taking over because all of u fags r so lazy that u guys have to cme out to the street n beg for money. When do u see a mexican or hisapnic beggin for money or food. never. Y. because we learned that u have to work to get what u want. me myself, i was born here and im a 3rd generation american. my family worked hard to get where were at right now. All u white people have the opportunites to do whatever u want but dont take adavantage of n e thing besides mooch of us who actualy work. I also have a business and very i mean very succesful business. i will never hire n e illegals of white americans. y. theyre lazy as fuck who want big pay for small work so for that i only hire MEXICAN-AMERICANS that actually like to work and do it right the 1st time. I cant wait for all these cartels that r already in all over the US come n fuck u up because of people like u is that this countrys already more that 50% hipanics cuz we like to work. And just for the fact. illegals do pay taxes. Learn the sysstem u idiot
Yayo… Since you’re a racist who hates all whites, you’re only a part of the problem here. Forunately, only a like-minded, bigoted asshole like you would even consider working for you. The rest of us are smarter.
I am a white, upper-middle class constitutionalist who is tired of all the B.S. We should not hate our brown brothers and sisters or any other ethnicity simply because of the color of their skin or some sense of ownership of this beautiful country. My ancestors came from the British Isles to take full control of this country from my ancestors (somewhat ironic how the conflict of enemies can lead to a peaceful compromise such as myself). My European and Cherokee forefathers would be aghast at the current state of affairs; they would turn their steely gaze from one another to cast upon us. Everyone who wants to earn his fair share and live a happy, fruitful life should be given a chance; however, the same person who tried and failed should not be supported by “government sugar-daddies.” What should end right now is the entitlement mindset. It has led to: first, the taking for granted of all current liberties afforded to us by the blood and sweat of our ancestors, and now, the utter disdain for the same system that has made the have-nots into the have-toos. We are now seeing the backlash of people who have been raised on the government teat for decades: flash-mob violence anyone? You can’t really blame these people, honestly. They have never tasted true freedom, never felt the utter joy of earning a long days wages. I, myself, worked up from a poor family that scraped meals together with a whole chicken for three days worth of sustenance to my current state of “the American Dream.” Only the disabled, elderly, and children should deserve the fruits of my own labor taken by taxation. Everyone else should earn his own way–however he sees fit–as long as it does not interfere with my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founders were imperfect men, as we all are, but they had the right idea. Never should a man be taxed to equal the pay rate of another simply because he earned more–that is the definition of socialism. Inevitably, this will lead to the decline in ambition to “do better than your father,” and the eventual fall of the U.S. True patriots see this, whether black, white, brown, yellow, red, cyan, or violet. The only colors that matter are red, white, and blue. Everyone who wants to wants to be a money-grubbing capitalist–or at least provide the necessities and conveniences to his family–is always welcome in my beautiful country.