SENATE BILL: Living Wage Act (Law'd)

[Marokai Backbeat]

I would be willing to support and sign an increase to 11.50, but beyond that I would rather not go, at this point. I agree with Nix that there would be more efficient ways to raise the standard of living than just constantly jacking up the minimum wage.

In an ideal world, I do not believe employers should be solely responsible for raising the standard of living for most Atlasians. I don't take this view outside of this game, of course, because the real-world is much more screwed up, but here in Atlasia, we do things much more sensibly. We provide much more relief for the poor, much more public services for everyone, much more generous retirement and disability pensions. We provide ways to lift the poor in a targetted way that do not place an undue burden on employers; so we raise employment separately from our other efforts to raise the standard of living, raising the standard of living and overall income of Atlasians without lowering hiring. I would rather continue down that route rather than increasing the minimum wage again.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Wouldn't this actually lower the minimum wage set by the previous Living Wage Act?

https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Right_Wages_for_the_Right_Regions_Act

[Marokai Backbeat]

Would it be a crazy idea, then, to propose an amendment that extends the work week to 35 hours, raises the minimum wage to 11.00 flat, and increases tax rebates for the poor? I feel like that's a very balanced approach that accomplishes what everyone here wants and is reasonably fair to the private sector.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm sorry, I cannot sign that, with or without the inflation adjustment mechanism. Though, I expect if this passes I won't be able to stop it either way..

[Marokai Backbeat]

Here's what I would be comfortable with, then.

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[Marokai Backbeat]

We need a strong and mobile wage to ensure that no one who works a full week is ever in poverty.

And we do have policies ensuring that Atlasians do not fall into poverty; with targeted state programs and rebates, not by forcing businesses to pay an unnecessarily high wage as a minimum. Atlasia has one of the most robust welfare states, and one of the fairest systems of taxation, of the first world. It's more important that we have as many people employed as possible to keep expanding the tax base to fund the wide array of state programs we have, rather than raise unemployment by continuously raising the minimum wage on top of all the taxes and welfare programs.

We have a program that pays for family's home energy bills for years, we have dramatically more generous food stamp benefits than in RL, we have a generous public healthcare system, our income tax practically barely taxes people making the minimum wage and the rebates for poor families are huge, our public housing system is dramatically more generous than in RL, Social Security is safe, unions are stronger, and I intend soon to introduce a national daycare system. We are a hop skip and a jump away from a literal cradle-to-grave welfare state. That's good, I'm fine with all of that. But all of that means are less well off are taken very good care of.

Things aren't perfect, but it is more protective of the economy to introduce greater state benefits into our welfare state to take care of the lower class than it is to just force businesses to keep picking up the slack.

[Marokai Backbeat]

At this point, I'll sign this damn thing just to get it off the floor.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Happy that Napoleon got that important amendment in on time!

[Marokai Backbeat]

It's not perfect, it's not necessarily what I would've liked, I wish it could've been more finely tuned, but I will trust that the Atlasian economy can sustain the wage increases and hope it leads to a better standard of living for all.

x Marokai Blue