> Costumers can also shift to lower cost alternatives. Online retailers have less overhead and lower labor costs. If you make Walmart more expensive than Amazon, Walmart will shutter stores laying massive numbers of people off.
Yes, that's a good reason why we shouldn't subsidize capital intensive businesses over labor intensive business by taxing capital income less than "normal" income and then adopting additional taxes on labor income on top of normal income taxes, but should instead treat all income alike for tax purposes without regard to source (and also, therefore, for benefit-eligibility purposes for past-income-qualified benefits for which dedicated taxes on income are taken to fund benefits.)
> But this is way outsides of a normal rise in minimum wage.
Not really. The article claims that $12 in 2020 would bring it above its 1968 peak level in inflation adjusted terms (the 1968 peak level, $1.60, is about $10.97 now, so $12 now would be a little bit ahead of it, with 2% annual inflation from now to 2020, $12 would be almost exactly the 1968 peak level.) So, a $15/hr. federal minimum wage in 2020 would be a higher-than-historical minimum wage, but not by a large margin.
And a little-over-doubling from 2009 to 2020 wouldn't be an unprecedented jump over an 11 year period, either (from 1945 to 1956 it got a 2.5 multiple from $0.40 to $1.00 -- and over 12 years, from 1938 to 1950 -- it tripled from $0.25 to $0.75.)
Yes, that's a good reason why we shouldn't subsidize capital intensive businesses over labor intensive business by taxing capital income less than "normal" income and then adopting additional taxes on labor income on top of normal income taxes, but should instead treat all income alike for tax purposes without regard to source (and also, therefore, for benefit-eligibility purposes for past-income-qualified benefits for which dedicated taxes on income are taken to fund benefits.)
> But this is way outsides of a normal rise in minimum wage.
Not really. The article claims that $12 in 2020 would bring it above its 1968 peak level in inflation adjusted terms (the 1968 peak level, $1.60, is about $10.97 now, so $12 now would be a little bit ahead of it, with 2% annual inflation from now to 2020, $12 would be almost exactly the 1968 peak level.) So, a $15/hr. federal minimum wage in 2020 would be a higher-than-historical minimum wage, but not by a large margin.
And a little-over-doubling from 2009 to 2020 wouldn't be an unprecedented jump over an 11 year period, either (from 1945 to 1956 it got a 2.5 multiple from $0.40 to $1.00 -- and over 12 years, from 1938 to 1950 -- it tripled from $0.25 to $0.75.)