Guess how much the minimum wage would be today if it kept up with worker productivity over the years?

Guess how much more the minimum wage would buy if government hadn’t spent decades “making life affordable” while depreciating the dollar. And higher productivity isn’t proof that workers suddenly started working proportionally harder. Much of it comes from capital investment, better machinery, software, technology and organization, often financed by the employer. Buying a worker a $100,000 machine that doubles his output doesn’t magically mean the worker created the machine’s contribution and is “owed” all the resulting gain. Reich takes every increase in productivity as another excuse for politicians to dictate someone else’s paycheck, while giving the government that helped erode the paycheck’s purchasing power a free pass.

Imagine how much it would be if we didn’t flood this country with unlimited immigrants and Chinese crap

less than 1% of jobs are minimum wage. Back in the 50s that percentage of all jobs was much higher. Bobby knows this.

If we still had a market economy, barely anyone would be making less than $30 per hour with current prices. Democrats killed the market and replaced it with expanded welfare. How can I help you?

I'm way more productive than I used to be because the technology I work with makes that possible not because I quintupled my efforts.

Answer: ~$24/hr — instead of $7.25 frozen since 2009. Workers created the wealth. The productivity gap is undeniable. The question is whether Congress has the will to close it. #MinimumWage #WorkerProductivity

Nobody makes the minimum wage. If you look at the mean wage.... wow, it's grown the same as mean productivity.

-At most of the unionized firms I worked for over 50 yrs, productivity remained STAGNANT, DESPITE firms investing in better equipment! -WHY? -Union workers "featherbedded"!! -Min wage should be $0.00/hr!!

That worker productivity isn't actually coming from workers' work, it's coming from better design systems, software, electrification, robotics, etc.

The real minimum wage is always $0. Comrade won’t learn this though.

Unfortunately, voting for the lesser evil isn’t a solution for the corruption. The Billionaires and Oligarchs who control the USEmpire🇺🇸 operate as a Transnational Criminal Syndicate. The US🇺🇸 Constitution combined with the DNC GOP duopoly are an extreme wealth protection system for Oligarchs. Legalized political bribery is a feature and not a defect. “The Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections.” ( Oligarchy is worse than you think via @YouTube

I hope you become part of the next administration and they listen to you.

That’s a highly disingenuous way to look at that. Output was increased at great cost and vast additional debt & debt service costs. 1. Companies paid vast sums of money on equipment and equipment manufacturing labor providing jobs to those equipment manufacturing or tech companies. So there were jobs created someplace else! Take a combine corn harvesting machine, for instance. In 1900, it took 400 men, and 500 horses to harvest as much corn as (1) combine can harvest in a day! You’re saying the one combine driver should get a huge slice of that savings, but not the thousands of people who participated in building the combine? Further, the combine, in a tax and regulatory free environment, would be delivering the corn to market far cheaper than corn cost in 1900! In a free market everyone gets wealthier because everything gets cheaper to produce, so prices decline over time! The only reason prices continuously rise is because the government keeps adding more and more taxes and fees on every step from the beginning to end of every item and service. If there were no taxes, there would be no inflation! Both parties do the same thing but for different groups. Democrats destroy manufacturing and skilled labor jobs to create more government funded jobs & voters. Republicans destroy government funded jobs to create manufacturing and skilled labor jobs & voters. But, the manufacturing jobs and skilled labor produce a healthier economy because it can produce wealth without fiscal stimulus. Neither is the ideal. Libertarian is most stable system. However at this time, manufacturing is more necessary than more highly inflationary taxpayer funded government services jobs, entitlements, and fiscal stimulus.

All 70,000 high school kids who are making minimum wage congratulate you for your amazing but stupid analysis…🤣🤣🤣

Technology productivity improved, not worker! What happened in 1971 that changed the dynamics? AI Overview The world's first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004, was invented and released in 1971

And you know that if you increase the mandatory minimum wage it doesn’t actually have more buying power, it just devalues the dollar, and brings everyone else closer to the minimum regardless of their job, and at the same time the government is the only one who wins by taking in more taxes…

Robert thank God that Labor Day only comes around once a year. You have diarrhea brain today.

According to the federal wage and hourly report 1% of all jobs pay minimum wage or less. 1%. Obviously most people do not stay in minimum wage jobs

Why should a worker receive higher wages if the same task produces more goods than, say, 10 years ago? The increased productivity should benefit the entire population, or the state, through a machine tax.

Was minimum wage actually $5 an hour in 1950?

That’s because our bipartisan leaders became traitors: Beholden to the Hollywood Milken Bilken, deep state banker capitalist overlords, who used Nixon, Reagan, HWB, GWB & DJT <40% mandate presidencies & @BillClinton’s keystone #SlipperyZipper Failure to let the Trojan horse run free inside our institutions, to bilk US & take away liberty & our national wealth. It is a clearly detailed, fully explained, premeditated, well orchestrated 60 year bipartisan complied & sponsored undermine. The call to unionize is part of the ongoing leadership abuse, of limited range, deep state operative fools like you. We demand a return to respect of Labor, The People & Our Constitution. Abused by leadership real fools. 🙏✌️ Chris

The same thing as it is today because it’s only meant for entry-level positions. No one is supposed to be a Walmart greeter for their entire life or asking if they want fries with that. And secondly, there wouldn’t be an economy if your prediction actually took place. Everything would be bankrupt and we’d still be in the same spot. We’re in now.

When silver was removed from US coinage in 1965, the minimum wage was $1.25/hour--5 quarters. Five of the quarters then in circulation would have a melt value today of $60. Mandating wages to keep up with inflation is as useless as a dog chasing its tail. FIX THE MONEY, SIR!

The federal gov should not be setting workers wages for the country. It acts no as a minimum but as a maximum for companies.

Listening to your reasoning, it’s hard to believe you were anybody’s cabinet member, but especially as labor secretary. Technological innovation that improves productivity increases the profits that fuels business expansion and job growth. Instead you offshored production &amp; jobs

The minimum wage is, and always will be, $0. Increases in MW means fewer jobs, and erodes the wages of those earning more than MW.

Minimum wage should be tied to the poverty line as it’s not a living wage, it’s a minimum wage. It’s should be 40 hours X 50 weeks / poverty line.

The workers themselves aren’t any more productive. It’s the capital infrastructure and system improvements that are responsible for productivity gains.

The minimum wage has NO MEANING. Very few workers actually make this wage, especially when factoring the "benefits". I would like to see this number abolished because it just enables Marxists like Reich to create false and misleading information.

A company pays a driver $35/hr to drive an 8,000# GVW van. The company grows. The company replaces the van with an 80,000# GVW semi-trailer. The company pays for the driver’s training to get a CDL. Is the driver entitled to $350/hr?

This guy has turned into a real fucking clown. He should be on the Saturday morning cartoons. @RBReich WITAF have you created? What risks have you taken. What have you put on the line in the US of capitalism??

Don't care

And yet corporate profits keep getting higher and higher. Eg, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia posted a record $11billion profit last quarter, but I guarantee that hasn’t been passed on to employee wages.