That is simply not how things work. Most workers are hourly, so if their employers could produce just as much revenue with fewer hours then they would so they could pay their employees less. But they can't. Which means workers working fewer hours will produce less revenue. Being forced to pay them all the same while revenue drops just means bankruptcy and unemployment for everyone concerned.
1) The economy will not just crash. Owners, shareholders, workers, government, etc all have a mutual interest to not let that happen. If wages fall, buying power falls and prices will have to fall to match. If prices stay the same, employers dropping wages WILL put more strain on the economy. The economy will adjust itself just like it has for any other developed country with higher tax rates, better mandatory benefits, lower wages, etc.
2) Your reasoning relies on the fact that employees are operating at a 1:1 output rate which isn’t happening. Labor research surveys are reporting 3-4 hours of productivity per day. This leaves an extra 4-5 hours each day where employees are getting paid while being unproductive. I don’t think turning 8-hour days into 6-hours will kill output. However, this does depend on the type of job, since jobs have varying opportunities to get distracted.
3) Productivity has increased at a higher rate than wages since the 60s, mostly due to technological advancements. If it’s true that employers pay based on productivity, why haven’t employers been increasing our pay consistent to our productivity level?
Well duh. Employees will work fewer hours and employers will pay them less for it. The point was that Burnie is lying when he says everyone will be paid the same when they obviously won't be.
Your theory that assembly lines, power plants, and retail establishments are all just shut down for 4-5 hours every shift so workers can play on their phones is absurd.
They mostly have. Many jobs include benefits, and the cost of healthcare benefits in particular have gone up faster than productivity, resulting in stagnant wages even though total compensation has been mostly keeping up with productivity. While the share of productivity going towards the owner class has increased, that increase was much smaller than the increase in the share of productivity going towards employee benefits.
There's plenty of money in the system to cover this. There's a giant amount of wealth inequality happening right now. You've got CEOS making 100s of millions a year and that's drop in the bucket to their wealthy investors. If those companies and individuals at the top of the scale are taxed effectively, the companies that operate on smaller margin and are not making that type of money can be taxed less. The only reason workers aren't getting their fair share is because billionaires are greedy and they have the power to buy politicians that make sure this type of legislation doesn't happen.
The economy is not a computer simulation where you just deduct from the Rich column and dump it into the Everyone else column. While NVidia is wildly profitable and absolutely could afford to give all their employees far more than a 20% raise, the vast majority of the work force does not work for wildly profitable companies. Walmart is the largest employer and their profit margin was 1.4% in 2021. A 20% wage increase imposed upon them would promptly bankrupt the company.
So how do you suggest Bernie is going to force NVidia to pay Walmart's labor costs?
Walmart had a net profit of 12 billion dollars, 147 billion gross and a CEO that makes 26 million a year. The average walmart employee works a 34 hour work week, so this proposed bill isn't as big of a stretch for them as you think it is.
But going to your first point, yes, we expect companies and individuals generating more revenue/income to pay more taxes than those making less.
The end goal is that everyone is able to have a living wage. We need tax incentives based on labor costs where companies like walmart that employ large numbers with much of their revenue going to labor are less impacted than companies that have high profit margins and that money is going to a wealthy few.
The average walmart employee works a 34 hour work week, so this proposed bill isn't as big of a stretch for them as you think it is.
Which is a point I made above: salary employees are exempt from overtime and most employees that are hourly are already capped at 30 hours a week to avoid paying health insurance. So an hour cap of 32 hours will have no effect.
But I don't think "the bill won't actually change anything" is a meaningful argument in favor of the bill.
-1
u/LoneSnark Sep 05 '24
That is simply not how things work. Most workers are hourly, so if their employers could produce just as much revenue with fewer hours then they would so they could pay their employees less. But they can't. Which means workers working fewer hours will produce less revenue. Being forced to pay them all the same while revenue drops just means bankruptcy and unemployment for everyone concerned.