Whenever I hear people talking about the minimum wage I want to know why they don't talk about the earned income tax credit instead.
EITC: Money is given to the poor people that need it most. The money that goes to them comes out of progressive taxation. Very little dis-employment effect.
Minimum wage: Money mostly comes from higher prices, which fall disproportionately on poor people. Fairly substantial dis-employment effect.
The only reason to favor the later is that politicians can rely on the public not noticing that they're paying for it.
Tax credits rely on someone who is struggling to stay afloat to fill in yet another set of forms, correctly and then wait for the government to process it.
They were and still are a disaster in the UK - something like 20% of eligible people have never claimed and now billions have been overpaid - yes, clerical error and overly complex systems means the UK government is trying to claw back over payments from some of the poorest in UK, who have already spent it anyway. It's ridiculous.
No - keep it simple stupid, almost everyone can work out what they have to spend by looking in their pay packet. Working out what complex tax credit - no way
Huh? The EITC only pays you if you work, it was enacted under Nixon, and Reagan, Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger all signed expansions of it.
At least this Republican thinks it's a way better anti-poverty choice than raising the minimum wage, for many of the reasons already argued here.
As to any difficulty the eligible have in claiming it: How hard would it be to add another checkbox to the W-4 asking about other sources of income? If your total income including the job you're filling out witholding for is estimated to be less than X, it's your employer's responsibility to claim the EITC for you and add it to your paycheck. Perhaps grease the skids on this a bit by giving the employer some tax benefit for doing so.
I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek with the "moochers" comment. There are a lot of working poor in the 47%, and those are the ones that I was talking about. The GOP views the poor as responsible for their plight and not victims of circumstance. Obviously, the truth is somewhere in between.
Government handouts of taxpayer money only creates dependency. If you wish to give money to the poor, then give YOUR money to the poor. Do not vote to have government give your neighbor's money to the poor. Your neighbor's money does not belong to you. When you vote for politicians who favor government handouts of taxpayer money, then you are acting as a thief who lacks the courage to perform the act of robbery himself. Socialism is therefore simply a cowardly form of theft.
The minimum wage, however, while not theft, is a destroyer of jobs. The minimum wage increases unemployment. Raising it, further increases unemployment. Additionally, you are telling people under what terms they may enter into voluntary business arrangements with each other, which is none of your concern. You have no natural right to direct the affairs of others.
Two reasons, from two different political ideologies.
Right: because it's giving money to moochers. Period. Makers and takers, man. (This is what the Republican Party actually ran their campaign on this past November.)
Left: because it's an effective subsidy for sub-living-wage employers.
"Both parties"? The Democratic Party is not the Left. They're the center to center-right corporatists. There is no Left in the United States at the governmental level.
EITC: Money is given to the poor people that need it most. The money that goes to them comes out of progressive taxation. Very little dis-employment effect.
Minimum wage: Money mostly comes from higher prices, which fall disproportionately on poor people. Fairly substantial dis-employment effect.
The only reason to favor the later is that politicians can rely on the public not noticing that they're paying for it.