"I'm happy for him and his family, but there's also a negative aspect to labor costing 3-4x what would be competitive in an open market."

Id consider such arguments if they applied to CEO's or similarly were reducing corporate expenses on things of questionable value. I find most of the companies that aay they can't pay workers overpay upper management and have a lot of frivilous spending.

This. The levels of expenses paid for senior people in big organizations is insane.

A friend recently rented out an apartment in central London to people working for a nonprofit org at £10k per month and this is only scratching the surface of ludicrous corporate expense culture. Meanwhile these upper management say they can't pay their staff a living wage...

A non-profit? Lol. Quick way to fix that is to let donors know about those ridiculous expenses. A private for profit company should be able to do whatever it wants because they are competing in a free market. Those high expenses might be justified as part of their strategy to recruit top management talent. Basically, those expenses are paid back by the output of those incurring them. A non-profit on the other hand — they are tax exempt, so taxpayers get to subsidize that 10k apartment.

"Those high expenses might be justified as part of their strategy to recruit top management talent. "

I really don't buy the argument that normal workers deserve to be paid crap because of "free market", but for some reason executive compensation needs to be amazingly outlandish.

> Id consider such arguments if they applied to CEO's or similarly were reducing corporate expenses on things of questionable value

No argument from me; I think it's absurd at both ends. If I had to keep one I would absolutely keep paying my friend ~60k / year.

How do you know that's the case? And it's pretty clear the company is making enough money to cover it, so it makes sense that the people actually doing the work get to share in the rewards.

> How do you know that's the case?

How do I know what is the case? The fact that anyone with functioning limbs could do his job? That comes from him and the job description he gave me.

> And it's pretty clear the company is making enough money to cover it

Yeah I think you forgot about those factories which don't reside in the US.

"How do I know what is the case? The fact that anyone with functioning limbs could do his job? That comes from him and the job description he gave me."

There are lots of jobs like that where people are paid lots of money. I'm not buying your argument. Hell, most CEOs do a completely awful job, and still get to command much, much higher salaries. If you want to complain about people being overpaid, start with the executives.

60k is about the minimum to live comfortably in the US. Corporations have taken advantage of people by not paying them even close to a fair wage. 60k should be about minimum wage in reality, and there's no reason why that can't be done except for greedy ceos and shareholders.

> 60k should be about minimum wage in reality, and there's no reason why that can't be done except for greedy ceos and shareholders.

$60k is way beyond the minimum in most of the US. It’s a good living even in major cities like Atlanta. Also, paying $60k to all 125 million full time workers would basically eat up all US wage income. The income range would have to be $60-70k.

$60k is well beyond the minimum needed in rural areas. Hell, I went to college hoping to get a wage around $60k. I have a friend in the Indianapolis area who is supporting a wife and two children and owns a house and I would be shocked to discover that he is making more than that these days. It's always sort of funny to me how distorted the idea of a 'living wage' in flyover country is to those that live on the coasts in big cities. My sister's husband made $40k in the mountains of western NC (about 2 years ago) and was able to just barely support my sister and their three children. Now, that was a pretty untenable situation, so that's probably about as low as you can scrape (at least with a bunch of kids), but even they managed to buy a small house on that single (!) income. They were certainly on the poverty line at the time, but they were able to survive until he found something better.

> Hell, I went to college hoping to get a wage around $60k

In the sake of full disclosure, what year did you graduate college?

I got hilariously lucky and dropped out in 2013 with an awesome offer in hand, but I was aiming for a graduation in 2014. My hopes were calibrated by the salaries I was seeing my friends get (in the midwest) with mediocre grades similar to my own.

It depends on if that 60k also comes with good health insurance though. Medical debt is a huge cause of bankruptcy and financial distress in the US, even for those who ARE insured:

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/05/01/this-is-the-no-1-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/upshot/lost-jobs-houses-s...

You’ve been downvoted and I have no idea why.

I make around that and without health insurance my chronic illness would be a disaster financially. Fortunately with decent insurance it’s just a disaster physically and emotionally.

> there's no reason why that can't be done except for greedy ceos and shareholders.

What a generalization. Nevermind the thousands of small businesses operating on razor thin margins. They wouldn't be negatively affected by $60k minimum wage in the least bit.

Yes, nobody contemplates what the amazon-plankton thinks of the situation. Because they do not influence the development and outcome of the current situation. And if they all get the same burden put upon them, the price adjusts and nothing ever happened.

We could look more closely at the cost structure of those small businesses, especially the many financial intricacies which underly real estate costs.

> 60k is about the minimum to live comfortably in the US

My friend lives in Loves Park IL, near where I (we) grew up. You're delierious if you think it costs even 60k (120k since most families have two earners) to live there. Go experience the rest of the country some time.