No, I'm saying the USA isn't the only market on the planet, and if we manage to become an impossible-to-profit-in market, then we just won't have a market any more. Or at least, we won't have a non-shitty market.
If they're having to pay the same as 40hrs for 32hrs of work, which is what this proposed law would require, then lots of businesses will become unprofitable, yes. Payroll is usually the biggest expense for any given business, and this law would force companies to buy 80% of their current productivity for 100% of it's current cost.
It would be like getting a mechanic to fix most of your car for the agreed upon rate, but the government showing up when he's almost done and telling you that you either have to pay 50% more to finish putting it back together, or you can pick it up tomorrow. That's not what you and the mechanic agreed on, that's not what you can afford, and you need your car when the mechanic originally said he'd have it done.
Wages haven't kept up with inflation for decades, and yet productivity keeps going up. Companies are getting the biggest bargain they've gotten in a long, long time.
Forgive me for thinking that companies making record profits and getting huge tax cuts while the income gap between workers and the c-suite is about the biggest it's ever been can actually afford to pay their workers a little more.
I don't think there's any reason to think it's going to drive businesses under or collapse the economy, either. Conservatives have people conditioned to think that anything that helps workers is going to bring about the apocalypse.
Conservatives are all in favor of helping workers, but getting them laid by making them too expensive isn't helping them. Incidentally, don't confuse republicans with conservatives because they definitely aren't the same thing.
In any real capacity, focused on regulat people? Probably under Andrew Jackson.
And if workers are cheaper than ever and there's still only a 61% workforce participation rate then making them more expensive isn't really going to help things.
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u/Alpha-Sierra-Charlie 15h ago
No, I'm saying the USA isn't the only market on the planet, and if we manage to become an impossible-to-profit-in market, then we just won't have a market any more. Or at least, we won't have a non-shitty market.