By no means I am an economist nor an American but I think it would be better to increase goods and services first before raising wages because the inflation alone will offset the benefits of a high minimum wage. 

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This money could be put to good use by allowing free tuition (paid for by the government, plenty of countries do it) and universal health care.

When I was watching Bernie during the primaries in YouTube he often talks about UBI, tuition free colleges and universal health care. For me I'd take universal health care first before UBI. Then solve the problem of student loans which I was surprised was high in America.

I think that minimum wage should more then cover for living expenses.  Not by a ridiculously huge amount, but you get the idea.

And inflation is rising higher then minimum wage rates.

I get payed a bit less then 15 dollars an hour, but my union covers all medical expenses, so i'm content for now.  I don't want to have this job for the rest of my life, but hey, somewhat free medical care where I can choose what doctor I want.

The big problem of college tuition here is that "competitive" fields cost a LOT to get the education for. If the medical fields need more manpower (sexist jokes aside for now), why aren't we allowing medical assistants to get their higher classifications/degrees like nurses have? Why are we segmenting jobs at an alarming rate? The health care system is essentially trying to choke itself until the caregivers, i.e. hospital and pharma, step too far. 

Why are we buying million-dollar MRI's and requiring people to get six weeks of physical therapy, x-rays, and more BEFORE THEY CAN GET AN MRI? The schedule and time table for MRI procedures are not congested AT ALL. NIA is turning people away for MRI's when the hospital has a radiologist, staffed nurses, AND a free slot for a patient! Why? It's a $2000 procedure. Why are we turning away a patient for no reason other than to prolong diagnostics and use more energy and time than needed? 

Doctors need to make X dollars per year to pay off insurance and tuition (which most hospitals help pay off or pay completely). Why don't we lower the tuition cost for these very necessary fields, lower and stabilize the costs of services (one hospital's service could be astronomically higher than another's), and also do more to prevent insurance rates from climbing? There's a lawsuit for everything and, while compensation should be given, it is sometimes far over what would be deemed acceptable, "eye for an eye" or "does the punishment/compensation fit the crime". 

There's a massive underutilization of procedures just because protocol mandates it. If someone goes in for knee pain, the doctor palpates the joints, flexes the ligaments and tendons to check RoM and tenderness, and for any signs of edema. If the doctor thinks an x-ray would show nothing, why is he mandated to perform an x-ray? Why after an x-ray does the patient have to undergo six weeks of physical therapy? What happens if the knee gets worse in the meantime? The imaging department can't be found liable due to protocol, yet they're slowing down potential screening. The doctor has to take the brunt of it as he's the PCP and holds most liability for something out of his control. 

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Why? It's a $2000 procedure

Wut? two grand for an MRI? My mom had two MRIs with gadolinium contrast in the head few years ago and all she has two pay for those two MRIs is around the equivalent of $800. 

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why aren't we allowing medical assistants to get their higher classifications/degrees like nurses have? Why are we segmenting jobs at an alarming rate? The health care system is essentially trying to choke itself until the caregivers, i.e. hospital and pharma, step too far. 

Not to diss doctors and nurses in America but I think I now why I should take USMLE Step 1, not to practice in the US but just to have a better medical street cred. 

@Ryujin2003 Dude is gonna be gone by star date... [use calculator] [toss calculator] tomorrow. 

IDK about what the minimum wage should be honestly. I work part time as a Pizza cook making 10.50 USD an hour. Anywhere from ~16 to 26 hours a week. IDK how I'm supposed to survive without my family as it is. Try to get full time and have no quality of life? I mean the job's not awful because I'm a great worker and even better pizza chef, but I hate the customer service+cashier aspect they try to cram into my position. I'd almost rather go homeless than do this full time they way it is. I'd like to blame housing and consumer prices for being so high rather than my wage being so low because I feel if my wage were given that bump by the government companies would retaliate by making commodities that much more expensive.

@captain_to_fire Manatee Memorial's MRI service, w/o insurance, is approximately $2000. Blake Hospital's MRI service, w/o insurance, is $1200. HUGE DIFFERENCE, right? This isn't the only case, there are some larger disparities for simpler services like a room or even blood draws and diagnostics. It's ludicrous that we have to shop around for hospital care. 

Got shot? Better ask Google for "budget ambulatory and emergency care [enter zip code]". 

@ARikozuM this reminds me 

@ARikozuM @Cinnabar Sonar Why not just eliminate the idea of wage limits in general? Minimum wage, like Social Security, was never meant to be something that you lived off of. It was meant to either supplement your current income, or give you convenient pocket change while getting in your first few months/years of valuable experience in the workforce. Something to cushion your bank account, sure - not something to write home about. Readjusting minimum wage will not help anyone, because the free market will re-adjust in response. In addition to this, you also have other adverse factors to account for - like market bubbles. Look at how the 1990s and early 2000s were. A market bubble (or two) dragged prices for certain commodities sky high, before dashing their respective market sectors into the ground. Anyone involved got tanked - minimum wage wasn't enough to power through months of unemployment by any means if your employer was hit. And that's without going into the concept of inflation. The only reason for why one would need a 'minimum wage' is because the cost of living is getting higher. But, why would the cost of living increase? If food and other essentials go up in price, it's usually due to a cost that was on the company - that is now being passed on to the consumer. If the cost of workers (and their insurance) goes up, so does the cost of the final product - that's the cost of business. The only way businesses can actually combat this is by using less workers - which is part of the reason for the mass layoffs America went through in recent years. The largest cost of business is workers. Do you really want to feed into this cycle? It's been tried before. And having a maximum wage might not help either - why should I strive in my field if there's only but so much that can be made? Due to legal restrictions?! Why fight to be as (well-) funded as any other CEO? What purpose is there to be a better <insert_position_title_here> if I'll get paid the same as the slacker to the left of me? Way to kill the drive of business - money. It's not about limiting money. It's about getting it to move freely through the market. Having any limits on wage will not help - only hurt.

@TopHatProductions115 I don't think I explained the maximum wage limit well enough.

IF you're a CEO, you can only make up to this point, [insert dollars]. The CEO above and below you from other companies will make the same amount, give or take. This isn't saying that the CEO will make as much as their intern, it's saying that any CEO doesn't need more than this as there is no need for it. The intern's wage limit will still be far lower as the track record for the intern doesn't substantiate such a high limit. There would be a maximum wage for different positions based on skills required, time worked (often work more hours than most full-timers), how much responsibility to a company's well-being this position has, and the median training time and difficulty the occupation generally requires. 

For example:

Doctors would make $150K per year, this is to off-set education (continuing or previous), insurance, and licensing. 

Nurses would make $80K per year, this is off-set education (continuing or previous), insurance, and licensing. 

* Specialists would make more or less depending on their scope. 

For example: 

Anesthesiologists and specialized surgeons would make quite a bit more to cover their more expensive protections. 

@CUDAcores89 I'm not too familiar with unions, but Exelis in Clifton, NJ had a huge strike where the union allowed no one into the building for a frivolous pursuit that very few members wanted to be involved in. My friend's father was a chairperson and loathed having two or three guys at the top willing to slow the workers' hourly wages just to make a point to the company. Did they do good things? Yes, they did. A lot of good things, in fact. But they also got in the way for needless objectives. 

@captain_to_fire ahh them Vancouver boys.

Under no circumstance should anyone (other than the employing company) dictate a maximum wage. You can easily live off of $40k a year, so then no one should be allowed to make more than that. 

@BlueChinchillaEatingDorito They made a video aboot that eh 

@CUDAcores89 labor unions have been effective in the past, but labor unions can be very VERY broken. I want to be clear that I'm no expert when dealing with unions, but I have made many observations that have put a bad taste in my mouth. For example, it's impossible to get a position in public education and many automotive fields (may be state dependent) without being being forced to join a union and pay dues to that union. Often times these unions (especially teachers unions) reduce the quality of goods and services by stifling the very people they claim to represent. This can occur through providing adverse incentives based on time spent with an organization (regardless of performance) rather than merit. Compound this with the fact that unions can make firing problem employees incredibly difficult (you can't tell me you haven't had a POS teacher(s) that doesn't teach a damn thing but the school can't get rid of him/her) and you are gathering all the ingredients you need to brew a true shit stew.

Basically, IMO unions have their place but can be just as cancerous as any other broken single entity or conspiring groups of entities be it government(s), business(es) (moreover insurance providers emboldened by government mandates), local organizations, or individuals when they garnish too much power. If regulations can be placed on unions to prevent them from becoming too powerful so they stay true to fighting for the worker instead of the bottom line of the union's financial portfolio (I know I'm using really broad terms here, again, I'm no expert and don't know any specific fixes) then I'm all for the spread of labor unions.

@captain_to_fire can confirm it's vey accurate. 

@CUDAcores89 Labor Unions have, and still can be, exploited. Too easy for them to devolve into pandering for lazy workers who don't do their jobs well:

• https://www.inc.com/magazine/19820301/635.html
• https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/do-americans-today-still-need-labor-unions

We need newer safeguards in place for traditional unions to ever work well again, while not hindering business/productivity.

This feels like one of many areas where Americans don't take the time to properly examine other countries that have already done something of that nature to far better effect than the current US system.

Australia found that collective bargaining through unions was insufficient in the 19th Century (so I was surprised to recently find that Germany still relied on it). We've had a living minimum wage in Australia since early 20th century. It will be indexed to a bit over $18AUD (approx 13.76USD) per hour next month (new financial year). It grants a high degree of social mobility, and reduces many additional costs to society that poverty can cause.

I feel like many people misrepresent the associated increased price of goods and services as inflation. It raises the price of goods and services because it more accurately represents their cost to society, instead of externalising/subsidising the cost as suffering of the poor. In other words, US prices are deflated.

That said, tripling the minimum wage overnight would absolutely cause economic shockwaves and put many businesses under. That's no reason to not implement a gradual change though, especially if you started with larger companies. Under a certain amount of income, people spend effectively everything they earn, so those increased wages go straight back into shops and businesses.

Anywho, small businesses in Australia remain abundant, and our unemployment rate is similar to the US. Although it would probably be better if our governments hadn't so aggressively pursued free trade with countries that don't have anything close to the kind of societal and environmental regulations we do.