Doing the Minimum | No Mercy / No Malice

Another much ignored trend at the time was the incredible labour force growth as a result of the women’s movement. The participation by married and single women in the workforce started growing in the mid ‘60s, which propelled the participation rate from a steady 59% to 64% by 1980. Since wages continued to grow despite the extra supply of labour,

A basic, or guaranteed minimum, income is far from a new idea. In the context of the contemporary American political landscape, a guaranteed income is likely to be disparaged as “socialism” and a massive expansion of the welfare state.

Just as businesses seek to have government impose tariffs on imported goods that compete with their products, so labor unions use minimum wage laws as tariffs to force up the price of non-union labor that competes with their members for jobs.

Keep in mind that median income growth has been slow, and stock prices—the valuation of capital—haven’t made lasting progress in a long time. As of the fall of 2010, the S&P 500 is more or less back where it had been in the mid-1990s. As economist Michael Mandel puts it, if neither labor nor capital is reaping much gain, can we really trust the

How about also posting starting wages? Platforms such as DoneGood and Buycott steer customers toward businesses fairly compensating their workers.