Nationally it is estimated that workers are not paid at least $19 billion every year in overtime[14] and that in the US $40 billion to $60 billion in total are lost annually due to all forms of wage theft.[15] This compares to national annual losses of $340 million due to robbery, $4.1 billion due to burglary, $5.3 billion due to larceny, and $3.8 billion due to auto theft in 2012.[5]
In short: wage theft is many multiples of all other types of theft combined.
Obvious solution is obvious: Eat the corporate overlords.
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I would settle for perp-walks. I just had lunch.
ReplyDelete40 billion spread out at 12,000 a person would lift 3,300,000 (one percent of the US population!) out of poverty.
ReplyDeleteMore and more, I think we have the money to eliminate poverty (maybe through a MBI, but I am agnostic) simply by redistributing wealth in straightforward ways.
I don't need an extra 12k... It would just get taxed out of my pocket anyway, so if you gave it to the poorest of us only, it would do when more good.
ReplyDeleteSure, Lex Larson! I just don't want to create yet another bureaucracy choosing who is worthy and who is not.
ReplyDelete[ Granted: Better bureaucracy than capricious patriarchy, but better still universality. ]
We have a bureaucracy already that can assess income levels and direct deposit money, all while keeping track of all transactions: the IRS.
ReplyDeleteLex Larson is essentially proposing that the IRS needs to tax more from the extremely wealthy and then use that to negative tax the poor. Negative taxation should be relatively straightforward once you just set income level cutoffs.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I think about other options - housing vouchers, food vouchers, government housing projects or government foods (government cheese), I see problems.
ReplyDeleteGranted: better these than nothing. And better these government programs than relying on the largesse of corporations or the charity of churches.
Still.
I feel there must be a more satisfactory someone, which also doesn't necessitate people use spreadsheets to understand taxes.
I'm not sure what that solution is, but anything with a phase out likely demands a spreadsheet to calculate.
Michael Moceri No. You don't know what I'm proposing because I haven't shared any proposition. I'll thank you to refrain from putting words in my mouth.
ReplyDeleteWhat I did actually say was this: we have the infrastructure in place to redistribute wealth any time we have the political will to do so.
Like being able to set aside quibbling reservations about any given plan in order to make incremental progress toward equity.
Lex: I read Michael as filling in blanks, not as attempting to speak for you. That is, I read him as interpreting charitably, not as being a jerkface.
ReplyDeleteThat being said: would you please fill in more blanks, such that we know better what you are suggestions and can have discourse?
I'm not debating here, because this commentary has already shown that the interest here is in shooting holes in any ideas, rather than discussing a path to progress. I already clarified what I intended to share in my previous comment.
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