What is the
price of your labor and do you believe you are being properly compensated? Today, the federal minimum wage as listed in the U.S Department of Labor
website is $7.25 per hour. A full-time minimum wage employee working 40 hours a
week makes a gross weekly income of $290. Let us assume this person works all
52 weeks of the year and without taking any days off or adding overtime for
holidays, assuming this individual works the holidays, he or she would make a
gross yearly income of $15,080.00. Only 29 states and the District of Columbia
have minimum wages higher than the Federal minimum wage. The website www.livingwage.mit.edu
Let us utilize the example of my hometown of
Falls Church, VA to calculate the amount needed for those making minimum wage
to have a livable income. There is a $9.59 difference in the hourly rate and a
$1,534.40 difference to reach a monthly living income. How does an individual
manage to make up the difference? Even if a person were to work an additional 40
hours minimum wage job that would add $1,160.00 to his gross monthly income, he
or she is still $374.40 short from having a living wage. Of course, this is not
the case for everyone as an individual who has achieved higher education tends
to earn more than the living wage and therefore has no need to work an
additional job to live comfortably.
Friedrich A.
Hayek wrote in 1976 a book titled “The denationalization of money”. He put
forward a novel proposal to privatize money. In theory, anyone can create their
own currency just as the government can print as many dollar notes as they considered
to be needed. These private currencies would compete in the market with the
government issues notes. Bitcoin is clear example of how this theory is possible. This form of electronic currency is deregulated and currently, as I am writing this blog, the value of
bitcoin is listed at an exchange rate of $10,712.40 per 1 Bitcoin. Unfortunately,
government issued currency continues to be the norm and in order to survive you
need to live by the dollar.
Let us
consider for a moment the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). In simple
terms, it is a policy proposal of monthly cash grants given to all members of a
community. Most politicians and opponents of this policy argue it to be
socialist by nature as it seeks to give to everyone regardless of economic
status. Well, Socialism as described by Karl Marx is a “society which serves
the need of man”. The market in our capitalist economy is said to be designed
to serve the needs of the man as large corporations seek to provide what the
people “need”. Karl Marx's idea of socialism focuses on the true needs of the
man rather than the wants made to be perceived as needs seen in today's U.S. economy.
UBI is by no means a Capitalist policy but its neither Socialist if we pay for
it as we do for all services provided by the government. Should we not be free
to decide how our tax money is utilized? Public schools, public transportation,
unemployment benefits, food stamps, and the salaries for government officials
are all paid by our taxes. Then again, without restrictions and regulations,
UBI will provide monthly grants to everyone, including the wealthy. Let us say
we increase the minimum wage, assuming there is no ceiling establish for rent,
goods, and services, prices would adjust accordingly and we would be back to square one. In summary, UBI is just a policy set forward to form an economy that does not start from zero and where the grant money
gets cycled back into the market. It would allow for everyone to be able to reach a decent standard of living regardless of the minimum wage.
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