mpearsonJul 25, 2023
Qasim Rashid, Esq.

Exactly 14 years ago today—on July 24, 2009—the minimum wage was set at $7.25 while top 1% were worth $5T. Today, billionaire wealth is $45T+, meanwhile the min wage is still $7.25.

This is what generational wage theft looks like. Pay workers. Tax billionaires. #RaiseTheWage

Jul 24, 2023 at 11:21pmMastodon for iOS
Show threaddominic 🌱Jul 24, 2023
@QasimRashid makes sense that 70k is kind of the new minimum needed to live with kids. The numbers add up pretty close
Show threadBlueintheSouthJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid Thank goodness there have been no price increases in that time!
Show threadMoriJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid Numbers don’t lie
Show threadJUPetersonJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid didn’t the squad vote no with republicans the last time Biden wanted to tax billionaires?
Show threaddawnfryJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid @JJPeterson
To present that as “the squad voted against the bill” is an over simplification to the point that it completely misrepresents their action. Why don’t you look into their reasons instead of trying to vilify them.
Show threadNosirrahSec 🏴‍☠️ guillotine enthusiastJul 25, 2023
@JJPeterson @QasimRashid didn't take long for the "both sides" inbred bots to make it here.
Show threadPermacultureandpoliticsJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid and in those 14 years since minimum wage was set at $7.25, nearly everything and every service has doubled in price. Minimum wage workers haven’t even received a COLA.
Show threadGar LipowJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid I would call that class warfare by the rich rather than generational wage theft. Kids of the 2009 billionaires are doing fine.
Show threadComrade elronxenuJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid s/Tax/Eat/
Show threadPetesmom *has moved*Jul 25, 2023

@QasimRashid

Its seems worth mentioning that federal tipped minimum wage, which applies across many if not most red states, is also still $2.13 per hour SINCE 1991. Two dollars and thirteen cents per hour. A little over $16 per 8 hour day, a little over $80 for a 40 hour work week.

Show threadreddawn141Jul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid we must seek public funding only for elections to remove the corruption that reeks in this country.
Show threadDonThomJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid In June of 1940, Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act, effectively creating the 40-hour work week. Over eighty-three years later, it is 2023, and the 40-hour work week is still the norm. John Maynard Keynes, the most respected economist of the time, argued that by 2030, increased technology paired with increased efficiency would result in no more need for labor than for an average person to work at most fifteen hours a week.
Show threadDonThomJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid To compare some statistics, in 1940, corporate profits were sitting around $6.8 billion. Today, I'm sure we have all heard that “corporate profits are at an all-time high,” which is true! Earlier last year, at the beginning of the “cost of living crisis,” corporate profits had reached an astounding $2.9 trillion. Another figure I'm sure you've heard recently is that in 1950, CEO pay compared to worker pay was 20 to one, while today it is 350 to one.
Show threadDonThomJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid We reside in a weird society in which we are creating artificial intelligence that is capable of creating some of the things that humans try to perfect simply for enjoyment, such as our love for art, literature, and music. Currently, we are creating these models to perform artistic tasks for us while we continue to enslave ourselves to jobs that only bring satisfaction to the small few who benefit from the fruits of this labor.
Show threadThe Evil MicrowizardJul 25, 2023
@AcesAreWild @QasimRashid And he wasn't wrong, broadly, but instead of that leading to reduced worker hours for the same output it led to reduced workers and the same or increased hours for massive increases in output, all of whose profits ended up captured at high, high levels with really no trace of the much vaunted "trickle down." 😞😔
Show threadDonThomJul 25, 2023
@evilmicrowizard @QasimRashid I have attached a link about a study that was recently done viewing the effects of “Trickle-Down Economics” on 17 different countries. I have not finished reading the whole paper itself yet, but *SPOILERS* the result may NOT surprise you. (An article from CBS is linked, Study asks not to circulate without permission of Authors but you can search for it for free) https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/
50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

Tax cuts for the wealthy didn't boost the economies of the U.S. and 17 other countries — but they did worsen income inequality.

Show threadLuna chanJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid
It's mind numbing there are politicians who do not see anything wrong with this.
At the bare minimum wage should be $12.25 an hour this would have the same buying power as $1.60 in 1971.
We need a massive wealth tax on billionaires as they are actually doing harm with their wealth now.
Show threadArotriosJul 25, 2023

Raising the minimum wage just kicks the barrel down the road. In ten years, inflation and political apathy will have us right back where we started.

What's needed is not a new number, but a law that dynamically binds the minimum wage to the local cost of living, updated automatically on a yearly basis. The point of the minimum wage was to ensure that a full time worker had the financial capacity to house and feed themselves. Without that guarantee, the minimum wage will never be anything more than a symbolic breadcrumb of equality tossed to the poor.

Show threadReginarJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid which is why the colonists might have to leave Amerindia.
Approx 200 millions close Amerindians descendamts might choose peace prosperity and freedom
Show threadAleciaJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid This trajectory of wage deprivation is disgusting, and gets buried whenever anyone tries to talk about it. It's not even just a minimum wage proble. Paramedics, Home Health Care Workers, Factory Workers, Medical Techs - and so many more - supposed to feel grateful for wages $15/$16 an hour.
Show threadCanadian CurmudgeonJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid That's in the USA. The minimum wage in Canada is at least double in most provinces and federally is $16.65 per hour. But even that is barely a liveable wage.
Show threadSteven BodzinJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid just adding here, the *US* minimum wage
Show threadKerri LevineJul 25, 2023

@QasimRashid

This is before tax, btw.

#MinimumWage

Show threadLonesomeDoveJul 25, 2023

@QasimRashid a burger these days SHOULD COST $10.. and wages should have followed so that real costs & capacity to purchase tracked. Instead, we have subsidies to BigAg … the rich get filthy rich.

$300+M in fed fines - JBS, Perdue, Tyson, Smithfield, Natl Beef.. for price fixing.

But no execs went to prison??

Show threadPablo MartiniJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid eat billionaires !
Show threadKyle CordesJul 25, 2023
@QasimRashid @marick Setting the minimum wage when they adjusted the law in 2009 to automatically scale with the cost of living index is so incredibly obvious that one assumes there was quite substantial lobbying to make it not happen.
Show threadBrian MarickJul 25, 2023

@kylecordes @QasimRashid There are still lots and lots of people who accept that increasing the minimum wage will lead to increased unemployment. Various studies of actual increases that show the effects are not dramatic (at worst) and that “it’s complicated” have not had much of an impact.

Who ya gonna believe? A long-time highly-credentialed theoretician or some grubby person who spends their time wallowing in data?

Show threadKyle CordesJul 26, 2023

@marick @QasimRashid In the sense that claim is obviously true - at some level, a minimum wage would chop off jobs that can't be made workable at that level. Of course people argue how high the level would be to cause this problem.

But that is zero excuse to not index the minimum to CPI/inflation; the old number that wasn’t in the dangerous range back then, would not be dangerous now if it were merely indexed.

Show threadGeeden_Of_ArdenJul 28, 2023
@QasimRashid No need to raise the minimum if we can just get more teens out of school and into the workforce.
Show threadPreservedoneJul 28, 2023
@QasimRashid I would agree and this should be happening but the grifters on both sides of the aisle will never allow a fair living wage. It is beneficial to them that no one with "unskilled" jobs has a living wage.
Show threadI)ruidJul 29, 2023
@QasimRashid
Show threadBronMason For Kamala 2024Aug 1, 2023

@QasimRashid

“Stop inter generational wage theft. Pay Workers. Tax Billionaires!”
Ironically, that’s exactly what made America great in the past — and it could Make America Great Again!

#RaiseTheWage #taxtherich

Show threadHarry TuttleOct 7, 2023
@QasimRashid Since we forgot our history we are repeating it, it was the Great Depression that created the progressive income tax, separation of savings and commercial banks, strict regulations on Wall Street, Social Security, Medicare, and the social safety net. As we are "de-regulating" ourselves back to 1929 we can only expect the same results, again.