I had a lot of random notes so I am going to use more of a bullet point style for this post.
- I found myself confused about whether neoliberalism was "good" or "bad". I'm still not sure where the balance is between governmental intervention and laissez-faire. As with every conflict or decision, the answer is probably somewhere in between.
- Where is the balance between farmers making enough money (which is correlated to higher market prices) and having prices all consumers can afford (which is correlated to lower prices and farmers making less money)?
- I was interested to hear the fact that natural food stores dominated in 1997, but in 2008, half of this natural food was sold in places like Walmart.
- I was thinking a lot about the food deserts in cities and how that is something I've been passionate about since I was a little kid, but have just now pieced together and named.
- I enjoyed the small mention of food banks working with local farms to provide fresh food. The CSA I've worked for frequently donated surplus to food banks. While I was just happy to get a few hundred pounds of cucumbers out of the way, its pretty cool that our hard work put into those crops would help feed other people.
- I loved the idea of the community owned food co-operations like Mandela. That seems like a holistic way to handle an issue like urban food deserts because it both provides jobs and fresh healthy food. I'd like to learn more about this concept.
- If found it crazy that in some places the minimum wage has been that $2.13 for the past 20 years!
- Does raising minimum wage add to and encourage inflation, thus rendering the pay raise useless? This is a argument I've heard before and I'm wondering how much validity there is to that claim.
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In terms of your question about minimum wage, I believe that it is essential for us to have a living wage be the minimum wage. Workers, no matter how “skilled”, all deserve to be able to afford 24 hours of rent, food, utilities, clothes, and even have a little left to save for emergencies. Our minimum wage has stayed almost the exact same despite rampant inflation in this country. Because of this, the minimum wage has been significantly devalued over time. When adjusted for inflation, minimum wage in 2023 is 40% lower than in 1970. We must accept that it is literally impossible to live above the poverty line with a 7.50 minimum wage (even 13, 15 dollars is not enough in some states). Despite rampant inflation, big corporations are making more than ever, with record earnings. Some of this is due to raising prices on products for consumers (which is what people claim will happen if we raise the minimum wage–but we haven’t raised minimum wage and it is still happening…ugh). Despite these record breaking profits, workers have seen almost none of it trickle down the corporate chain. Trust me–Amazon and Mcdonalds can afford to pay their workers. They just choose not to. I see the claim that raising minimum wage = inflation as a lazy argument to cover up the idea that unskilled laborers don’t deserve a better quality of life. It is somewhat tied into a toxic “meritocracy” idea that we have in America that believes that hard work, intelligence and skill is enough to “make it” in this country, and if you can’t climb the wealth ladder up it must be because of some fault of your own. This ignores all of the socioeconomic factors that go into a person’s ability to accumulate wealth.
By raising minimum wage to a living wage, we can boost the quality of living for lower class individuals. These people can contribute more to the economy, leading to increased consumer spending. This boost in demand can, in turn, stimulate economic growth and job creation. There have been many countries and cities that have experienced economic growth after increasing minimum wage.
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