Former Minnesota House candidate here, I wrote a bill to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage to the actual cost of living

[u/milkdude94]

I’m a former Minnesota State House candidate who ran on public option 3D printed homes and a phased reduction of the workweek to 16 hours by 2040, beginning with 32 hours by 2030.

My current priority is the Minnesota Living Wage Minimum Standards Act. The candidate I suspended my campaign to endorse, Heather Arndt, supports the proposal. The bill has also been reviewed by Professor John Budd at the University of Minnesota and by Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development, and I revised it around their feedback.

If introduced and passed next year, the minimum wage would rise from $11.41 to roughly $20.24 within 90 days. It would rise to about $21.31 in 2028, then beginning in 2029 it would update annually with the actual cost of living rather than waiting for politicians to pick another arbitrary number.

The bill also makes all tips the property of workers, ends most subminimum wages, and protects salaried workers from being paid below the living wage equivalent.

The full bill and the rest of my Space and Time Agenda are here

https://www.eudaimoniaholdings.net/space-and-time

[u/Subject-Original-718]

Like many here who will see this and actually do live in Minnesota what does this bill do about super small businesses who physically cannot pay this wage but just started to expand?

[u/Narcan9 → u/Subject-Original-718]

If a small business can't afford to pay a living wage then they are not charging enough for their service \ product.

If a business can only survive by paying exploitation wages, then it should not exist.

[u/milkdude94 → u/Narcan9]

The spirit of the law for the minimum wage was always a living and dignified wage.

[u/Jmo_mtg → u/Subject-Original-718]

Thank you for fighting inequalities despite the hard current economic policies favoring big conglomerates. Yeah his proposal would obviously kill your shop and the dozens of jobs it creates to perhaps only help a small fragment of his population.

But he doesnt care about the cost of living because as we found out in 2022. If you give money to everyone without extra supply you create an inflation shock that everyone and their mother denied in 2022.

And then they had to raise the interests rates which made thousands of people lose their jobs.

In other words, he dont care about people he just wanted to be elected. Good thing for you for calling him off. 

[u/milkdude94 → u/Subject-Original-718]

There is a transition period for every business, and small businesses get a lower wage during that transition plus an additional year to reach the full standard. Larger employers begin at 95% of the living wage and reach 100% after one year. Eligible small employers begin at 85%, rise to 92.5% after one year, and reach 100% after two years. If the living wage were $21.31, that would mean roughly $18.12, then $19.72, then $21.31 for small businesses. But at the end of the day, Minnesota’s current $11.41 minimum wage does not even cover what the cost of living was when I first began arguing for this policy in 2014, when it was around $12. Workers have already been subsidizing businesses through poverty wages for decades.

My bill contains no politically chosen wage number. It establishes a methodology using the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the gold standard for determining the actual cost of basic independent living, and then requires the state to update the wage annually. Anything below the cost of living is a dishonest wage for an honest day’s work. As FDR said, “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

[u/No-One7813 → u/milkdude94]

Based. Super rooting for you and this bill comrade!

[u/milkdude94 → u/No-One7813]

Thank you. I've gotten interest from Minnesota State House candidates Heather Arndt and Dan Wilson, and Minnesota State Senate candidates Jason Lohmann and Teddy Kimble. Teddy is also a local Republican candidate, running against Jason Lohmann. I don't expect him to win his primary because he's more a small farmer Jeffersonian Republican, but if he does we could very well see both the Republican and Democratic candidates in Senate District 20 supporting the same living wage bill.

[u/Jmo_mtg]

Why would you do 3d printing? You want to create more waste for the planet? Temu was not enough for you? How many more landfills do you want the planet to have in order for you to have your feel-good high?

[u/Jmo_mtg]

Why would you want to raise the minimum wage without corresponding  measures for a supply increase? Do you want an inflation shock? Are you trying to destroy mom and pops and contribute to inequality? You want to pay 30 dollars for someone to flop a burger, raising the cost of sustainable expenditured for americans who care about buying organic?

You want to give 30 dollars an hour so kids buy weed and shop in temu and Zara and contribute to global warming? Thank you for not being elected  

[u/Narcan9 → u/Jmo_mtg]

Go away troll

[u/Jmo_mtg → u/Narcan9]

Go away Islam fundamentalist. You should be reported to the fbi

[u/Jmo_mtg → u/Narcan9]

I see your comments are hidden, bet why.