Oughta be a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage law

[fadedrose]

Ying and Yang sort of thing..

Even at an all-you-can eat restaurant, they don't let you take stuff home and leave the food table empty....

[gopiscrap]

1. I fully agree

[hack89]

2. What would your max be? nt

[TBF]

6. Ten times minimum wage -

that would slow y'all down a bit.

[hack89]

9. Not there yet so it works for me

you don't plan limits on investment income do you?

[TBF]

10. Personally I don't think they'd even have to limit salary -

if they doubled the minimum wage and also put the capital gains tax back where it was in 1980. Cutting that tax (which presidents of BOTH parties have been doing in the past 30 years) is the thing that has really allowed investment income to increase out of control (it has given huge investors a big advantage).

[fadedrose]

63. ++++

[Blue_In_AK]

3. I've said that so many times.

If you can't live on, say, $1 million a year, you need to seriously examine your spending habits.

[Nye Bevan]

4. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) has a salary of $81,840 per year.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezoss-salary-is-only-14000-more-than-the-average-facebook-interns-2013-4

[TBF]

8. Do you know what Amazon stock options are worth?

That is how they keep the salaries lower.

[RC]

5. All that would happen would be more stocks and bonuses.

Anything that can be called something other than wages for the well to do.

[cali]

7. I don't see how that's constitutional. Why not just reinstate a marginal tax rate

of 94%?

[fadedrose]

16. That would work

[MANative]

11. Can't put a dollar amount on that, but what might work...

is that max compensation is capped at a certain multiple of average workers' wage within the corporation. For example, CEO can't be compensated more than 10 times worker average. Today's CEOs are often comped in the multiple hundreds of worker comp. Remember, too, that compensation and salary are two different things. Doubt you could do it through legislation, but it could be done in publicly held companies through board policies. Good luck getting the board to vote that in, though.

ETA: Also couldn't do it in privately held companies, and dog only knows what that would do to corporate structures, ownership, and stock.

[bigwillq]

12. No (nt)

[Decaffeinated]

13. +1

[fadedrose]

15. No?

Okay. Am easy to get along with. You can make as much as you like.

Better?

[FirstLight]

14. awesome idea

shouldn't be one without the other

I've been thinking what they will offer the 'new' minimum wage to be?

We shouldn't take less than $10 ...even that's not really a living wage

[Prophet 451]

24. I'll settle for $13 at a minimum

I worked out a while back that, assuming a 40-hour work week, it takes $13 an hour to haul a family of three above the federal poverty line. Therefore, the minimum we should accept for a federal minimum wage is $13 an hour.

[Cal Carpenter]

25. The federal poverty line is a joke though

For a family of 3 in 2013 it is $19,530. -- HHS

That's not good enough.

Why is the Federal Poverty Line So Far Off?

--snip--

I am a single Mother and work two jobs which equal about $18,000 per year. We barely afford rent, electric, cable, phone, water, food, taxes and vehicle expenses. [But] the federal poverty level is $11,060. My daughter and I have zero, no, zilch money left after paying the bills for medical or clothing. How on earth does the Federal Government expect us to pay for cars….There just is NOT enough money left at the end of the month for a car payment….Please tell me…how they expect people to live on under $20,000 per year.

The poverty line in the email, $11,060, was the federal poverty guideline in 1999 for a family of two. Today, that figure is $15,510 — still less than what the woman was struggling to get by at the time.

That raises a crucial question: why is the federal poverty cutoff so far off?

“In some ways, the poverty measure such as it is today made a lot of sense in 1965, 1966, in the late ’60s. The problem is we haven’t really updated it in a meaningful way,” says Shawn Fremstad, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic Policy Research. “We’ve updated it for inflation, but that just means you’re measuring what it means to be poor today in what are essentially early 1960s terms.”

The share of a family’s income spent on food has changed dramatically — some recent studies place the share of a family’s income spent on food as low as six or seven percent of total household expenditures. That would mean Americans today are spending roughly 1/14th of their income on food, compared with the one-third figure used to calculate the poverty guidelines.

---snip---

“The fact that other basic needs have increased in cost more rapidly than food is one reason why the old poverty line is out-of-date and, in fact, is too low: It hasn’t kept up with our new necessities, it hasn’t kept up with new ideas of what our basic needs are.”

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/18/why-is-the-federal-poverty-line-so-low/

[Prophet 451]

30. I didn't know that

So add a re-calcvulation of the poverty line to my earlier post.

[FirstLight]

31. ...and yet

you can't have more than $2000 in total property (car value, bank acct, etc) if you are on welfare... so you fall off the cliff once you begin making more...but it still isn't enough to live on.
So there is a BIG gap between the edge of the welfare cliff and living wage, too.

[WinkyDink]

17. 100% qgree. I'm radical enough to say that no-one ought be a billionaire.

[TBF]

18. I'd rather have a resource-based economy than

a monetary one, but at the very least no one should be a billionaire while others are homeless and starving.

[tblue37]

39. Some DUer--I think maybe it was grantcart--once said that no one should be so rich

that he has nothing left to buy but the government.

[WinkyDink]

43. Heh. I just said that, too, in the "Do you hate the rich?" thread.

[brooklynite]

19. So you're saying there's no way to legitimately earn more than your maximum...

...Care to tell my wife what she should REALLY be earning?

[PETRUS]

22. Sure, glad to.

She should be earning the respect and gratitude of the people whose lives are affected by her actions.

[Bluest4t3]

28. Is she a 1%er????

[brooklynite]

33. She is...she works hard and her legal experience is heavily in demand.

[Bluest4t3]

46. Around $250,000 is what the maximum income should be IMHO.

All income past that should be 100% taxed. I'm sure she is a great progressive, but if she is a 1%er than she is taking more than her fair share.

[brooklynite]

47. Maybe she works harder to earn a larger share...

...and why $250,000? How about $500,000 if you live in an expensive City? And do you limit it to income, or do you confiscate unacceptably high savings?

[Bluest4t3]

49. Anywhere in the country that amount would provide a decent living.

And in most places it would constitute upper class.

Hadn't thought about savings. I would probably ding those at $500,000 with an 85-90% estate tax.

[gopiscrap]

44. welcome to DU

[Dr. Strange]

20. Stephen King makes around 30 million a year.

Is that too much? And if so, what does your law do?

[Logical]

29. And he earns it. I have no issue with it. n-t

[LanternWaste]

52. And Charles Koch has a net worth of over 45 billion. Is that too much...?

And Charles Koch has a net worth of over 45 billion. Is that too much? And if so, what do the current laws do...?

[Dr. Strange]

54. The current laws tax income.

I'm fine with that, although I'd like some higher rates at the upper end.

I'm not too keen on the "maximum" wage idea. I'm wondering what's supposed to happen when, say, Radiohead hits that maximum amount after releasing an album? Does the extra money then go straight to the government? Or to the record label?

[Half-Century Man]

21. Start from

5 million dollar income cap, including all forms of salary, investments, dividends, expanded health insurance, and fiscal extensions over base travel /per diam expenses.
No stock options unless corporate wide at the same rate.
No personal incorporation for tax purposes.
No personal offshore tax shelters
No inheritances exceeding 7.5 million dollars.
Personal wealth only raising 5 million a year.


End dynasties. No American royalty. Once beneficiaries receive their cut of a fortune (7.5m each) 100% taxation.

[gopiscrap]

45. I would limit inheritance to 2.5 million a person

[Half-Century Man]

53. I went with half again my yearly limit

If you can't make it on 7.5 million dollars, you can't make it.

[Lurker Deluxe]

70. How do you recoup investment?

Let's say I own a machine shop, and over the coarse of a decade I accumulate 30M with of equipment and tooling, pay off the building and property and decide I've done my time and would like to retire.

How do I get my investment back out of the buisness? What can I sell it for? And how much of a tax burden should I have to deal with for the sale of the buisness?

Assume a selling price of 35M.

[Half-Century Man]

73. This is why I said "start"....Now to work out the details

I am assuming we are discussing a privately owned business entity (no stock).
Amassing 30M in value over 10 years of time fits within the guidelines I suggested. Selling the machine shop is just converting one measure of value for a different one (material to currency). You could set the starting price at 50M and still fit in.

I also think there is room for a "Motherload Strike" option as well. A one time exception for a new invention, lottery winning, or something similar could be worked out.

And the existing fortunes don't cease to vanish. Just their growth is slowed down.

If you start life within a wealth family you get the benefits of good environment, education, and above board opportunities combined with 7.5M inheritance (on top of what you might have earned yourself). Worse case, You just start with many advantages and 7.5M, earn 5M each year for 20 years and retire with 107.5M. Job well done.

[Prophet 451]

23. I'd rather it was a ratio than an absolute cap

Something like, the CEO may only get X times the salary of the lowest paid worker (and we can discuss what X should be). That way, you encourage wage hikes. And we write the legislation carefully to include stock options, deferred pay and all the other little dodges.

Right now, I'm leaning away from putting limits on what a sole trader can make as they're risking their own time and money.

[PowerToThePeople]

26. What if they were the same? n/t

[Logical]

27. And this is why people hate liberals! Tax them I understand. But no limit. n-t

[dionysus]

58. +1

[RKP5637]

32. No tax loopholes and a realistic progressive tax system would do it. Capitalism ALWAYS

has the fallacy of easily becoming disaster capitalism, which we have now. Problem is, they worm their way into positions of power to influence legislation in their behavior and often the ignorant and information limited voters put them into office thinking, well, they are just like me. We have tons of suckers like that in the US.

[wundermaus]

34. I publically pledge that if and when I ever own my own company...

or form a corporation, it will be held to a moral and ethical standard where the maximum total income for the highest paid person will be limited to no more than 10 times the least paid person of that company.

Do you think there are people in the United States willing to kick start my electronics services company?

- Computer optimization, repair, and refurbishment.
- Home and SOHO network configuration, installation, and support.
- Multimedia installation, configuration, and support.
- Home and SOHO security installation, monitoring, and support.
- Energy management, installation, optimization, automation, and support.

40+ years electronics experience in ALL facets of industrial and consumer electronics.

My goal: To facilitate solid, dependable middle class employment for every one of my employees by providing best in class products, support, and services.

[karadax]

59. Isn't that kickstarter funding a form of income ?

How will you pay your employees if you yourself have a maximum wage as suggested in the OP ?

Small business owners dump a lot of their own capital into their dream.

[Cleita]

35. Wages and/or income are not the same as wealth.

I would insist that it be illegal to accumulate more than a billion in wealth and I'm being generous. More wealth than that like the Koch Bros. and the Walton's have should be considered criminal. Many sinfully wealthy people actually don't take huge amounts in income. They accumulate assets in millions and billions instead that they use to spend to buy politicians, think tanks, religions, news outlets etc. to make them very powerful as well as rich.

[Nye Bevan]

36. How would illiquid assets be valued under your proposed law?

And what do you think the reaction of billionaires living in the United States would be if a law was proposed to put them in prison unless they reduced their wealth to less than or equal to 1 billion dollars? Thinking through all of the implications, would you expect that the net impact on the US economy of this would be positive, or negative?

[Cleita]

37. Assets are assets on the balance sheet liquid or otherwise.

Income can become assets for us mere mortals, but acquisition of wealth doesn't have to pass through the income filter for the filthy rich. Since redistribution of wealth was accomplished after the era of the robber barons with a positive impact on the US economy, why would it be different this time? This is a complicated issue to answer your questions in depth right here, but I'm sure you know that.

The fact is, to be brief, I believe all resources of the country belong to the people of this country, not a few individuals, foreign corporations or industries running the private sector. All oil, minerals, ores and lumber belong to us. All manufacturing and corporations serve the people who work in them, not the other way around. So this is what this socialist pinko thinks about how our economy should be run and there is no room for the top 10% owing everything in it.

[tblue37]

40. They usually accumulated that wealth through criminal and borderline criminal activities anyway.

Remember the saying that behind every great fortune is a great crime?

[Cleita]

41. I truly believe it because it's the way the system is set up.

In order to make money you have to compete with the rest of the industry. If the system is set up to underpay people, to not pay attention to safety regulations and a thousand others or not to have regulations at all, in order to be competitive you have to lower your standards as well. Now CostCo pays their employees a living wage. Walmart doesn't. CostCos owners do well but they don't have the billions the Waltons do. That's how it goes. If you can turn your back on the fact that you are getting rich on the backs of those who are poor; if you can make money on Wall Street in the MIC and the blood of young Americans and murdered civilian foreigners; if you have no concern over the pollution your industry creates that kills people, then you can make money.

[lumberjack_jeff]

69. Agree. That kind of wealth concentration is socially destabilizing.

No social good comes from it, and it is a reasonable expectation that government promotes the social good.

[joshcryer]

38. Max wealth law. Share Our Wealth.

Solves all our problems.

[Joel thakkar]

42. 2 rules are needed

1) Minimum salary per hour needs to be at-least $12 per hour.

2) Have a ratio of 1:20 or something like that for ceo's salary.

I have no problem for a CEO getting $10M in salary (including all other benefits) as long as each and every employee of the company gets $500k salary.

[diane in sf]

48. Make it a ratio like the Swiss proposal, of 1/12, and include all options and bonuses.

[hughee99]

50. So if one makes all the money they're allowed to by April,

they won't get paid to work for the rest of the year? Jeez, hope I don't have a heart attack at Thanksgiving, there may not be any heart surgeons still working. I guess that sucks for those people that worked in their office as well. Without the surgeon, they don't have much to do, even though they haven't maxed out yet.

[karadax]

62. AKA a cap in production.

You've made all of the money you're gonna make for the year. What's the incentive to keep working ? The company either has to pay doctors less or they get an exemption from the government.

You know how the government loves to give people exemptions.. For the right price.

[hughee99]

64. So paying the doctors LESS is the solution to keeping them working on all year?

I don't think you're on the right track to making this viable.

[Gothmog]

51. You would not believe the crap that the SEC is getting for proposing disclosure requirements

The SEC proposed a set of disclosures that were mandated by Dodd-Frank http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539817895

Washington D.C., Sept. 18, 2013 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted 3-2 to propose a new rule that would require public companies to disclose the ratio of the compensation of its chief executive officer (CEO) to the median compensation of its employees.

The new rule, required under the Dodd-Frank Act, would not prescribe a specific methodology for companies to use in calculating a “pay ratio.” Instead, companies would have the flexibility to determine the median annual total compensation of its employees in a way that best suits its particular circumstances.

“This proposal would provide companies significant flexibility in complying with the disclosure requirement while still fulfilling the statutory mandate,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “We are very interested in receiving comments on the proposed approach and the flexibility it affords.”

The proposal will have a 60-day public comment period following its publication in the Federal Register.

The SEC proposed a weak rule and even with this weak rule, it is getting some pushback http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2013/11/12/sec-skeptical-on-pay-ratio-disclosure/

The SEC has received hundreds of public comments already on the proposal, mostly from investors, and many have said the SEC’s proposed flexibility would hurt the effect of the rule. But SEC staff says it is unlikely the rule will result in comparable data. “It seemed as if trying to enforce a comparability among companies might be a goal that is not achievable in any event, and we thought providing flexibility and reducing the cost of compliance was better,” Keith Higgins, director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance.

The SEC is looking for companies to provide more specific details about expected software expenses, employee hours and other costs in comments. The comment period is open until Dec. 2. U.S. regulators expect to issue a final rule next year, but companies would not be expected to provide the data until 2016, the SEC said.

[fadedrose]

57. This is close to wonderful news...

We ain't there yet, and thanks for posting this.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted 3-2 to propose a new rule that would require public companies to disclose the ratio of the compensation of its chief executive officer (CEO) to the median compensation of its employees.

[Egalitarian Thug]

65. The last thing the parasites want is for the suckers they fleece to know just

how much they steal and how little effort they expend.

[Boom Sound 416]

55. I'm trying to make as much as I can

For my family and extended family and opportunity to make the world better

I invite anyone to join me.

[sibelian]

56. pffffffff....... I've always liked the idea... but...

How to enforce? How to stop people who could earn higher overseas moving there? You'd need a global agreement, otherwise money leaves the country.

[rbrnmw]

60. that sounds like a plan that would never work here

the 1% would definitely kill that in a hot minute.


on edit: in fact they would be screaming communist from the rooftops

[FarCenter]

61. The really rich people do not make their money from wages.

They make their money by trading and investing.

[NCTraveler]

66. Wouldn't a substantial increase....

Wouldn't a substantial increase in minimum wage bring down the wages of top earners?

I would much rather see a substantial increase in the minimum wage along with a serious tax increase on income over $100,000/year.

[lumberjack_jeff]

67. The problem isn't maximum *wage* it's maximum *income*.

That's why we have an income tax, not a wage tax.

[Egalitarian Thug]

68. Excellent point. The entire tax code needs to be trashed and re-developed from zero.

This also needs to be done to the entire federal budget as well.

[stevenleser]

76. Exactly. The wealthy (1%) haven't got that way from wages. It's dividends and such that

has done it.

There should be a tax on wealth for those in the top 1%.

[liberal_at_heart]

71. I love this idea.

[EOTE]

72. I like having a CEO's wage tied to his lowest employees' wages.

Perhaps having a certain ratio or something. I think the average ratio of CEO to workers salary in this country is about 400:1 . I think 20:1 would make things immeasurably better, but perhaps a 50:1 ratio could be worked out.

[FreeJoe]

74. I don't understand what you are proposing

How do you compare hourly wages to salaried exempt employees? Do you determine the latters total income and divide by their reported hours work to make them comparable?

Would this apply only to public corporations or anyone running any business? If I've got my own business and can easily fill my hours at a really high billing rate, are you saying that I should reduce the number of hours I work or that I should cap my billing rate?

Would this apply to all compensation? What would happen if I have stock grants or options and my companies stock skyrockets during the year, putting my compensation over the maximum? Do I have to defer some of that income or does it just get taxed at 100%?

What about none wage income? If someone writes and performs a one-hit-wonder song and has a huge, but short-lived, spike in income, how would that work? Is the maximum wage based on their compensation for the hours they worked on that one song, or on all the time they worked on all the songs they worked on, including all the flops?

I'm a big fan of steeply progressive annual income taxes, but a maximum wage law seems really problematic.

[fadedrose]

75. What I was proposing was an impossibility

and just a bit of sarcasm....