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Originally Posted by KevinG  The top 5% of wage earners pay more than 80% of the tax burden. Fairness? I think not. Our current tax code punishes achievement and promotes stagnation. |
Actually,
according to this data the top 5% pay between 53% and 57%. That's a large amount but certainly not 80% or more. What's even more disturbing though is that 50% of the population pays 96% of the federal tax revenue. I didn't realize there was such a huge gap developing between the wealthy and the poor in this country.
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Originally Posted by Adam As far as people in the lowest class who can't afford to pay rent and eat at the same time, I think that it is far past time to raise the minimum wage, split the nation into distinct regions (such as by county/parish) and set the minimum wage according to the actual cost of living... |
States are allowed to set minimum wages that are higher than the federal amount (this was instated by Clinton). According to Wikipedia, 18 states and some counties and cities set their own minimum wages. But frankly I'm not sure if a minimum wage is really that necessary. In the area where I live, a cashier in a supermarket is paid $8-10 (or even more now) per hour. That's about twice the current minimum wage. Probably reflects high turnover, but also the fact that cost of living here in the NYC metro area is very high.
In a free market economy wages go up on their own if labor demand is not met, and in that sense a high minimum wage hurts the economy because it allows people to do low value work for disproportionately high wages. This means means higher overhead and thinner profit margins for the employer, or higher prices and inflation if the cost is transferred to the consumer. In that sense I agree with KevinG that minimum wage is not a good thing. But in the US the minimum wage is very low, so I don't think it hurts the economy.