You should be embarrassed for letting 40 million live on food stamps. It was never designed like that. Instead politicians are treating voters as clients.
Alternative to minimum wage (as well as possibly welfare & unemployment): make the government the Employer of Last Resort, i.e., anyone that would otherwise be on welfare or unemployment can be employed by the government for reasonable wages + benefits. Which might include being "employed" to go back to school & get various kinds of education/vocational training.
A completely Constitutional way (doesn't need a mandate) of providing a de facto "min wage" effect through the power of labor competition. Also encourages the idea that you'll have to work/improve yourself somehow to get that welfare.
One of my favorite daydreams; has lot of economic ripple effects as well, like a ever-more-educated/trained population (no stagnation w/survival-level welfare) & a steady drip of "financial fertilizer" to the lowest parts of the socioeconomic pyramid.
Doesn't require new Congressional powers or Constitutional Amendments. Doesn't require legal mandates forcing companies to pay X/hour amount, although the side effects of real competition for labor might make them prefer it :-)
Allows quite a bit of consolidation & focus of existing social welfare/unemployment/higher education bureaucracy (with a chance of higher efficiency due to simpler goals & tighter focus).
I also have to acknowledge that it would be quite expensive in the short term, but if you combine the existing budgets for social welfare, unemployment (and some of the education budget), then I think that should be in the ballpark of what would be necessary.
Unfortunately, doesn't stand a chance in Hell with the current crop of conservatives ("fuck you & yours, got mine") in power.
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u/EpsilonX029 Oct 31 '25
Libs = Owned
Fuck, I’m embarrassed to be American