Costco: pays workers well, same prices as Walmart's Sam's Club
In-n-Out: pays workers well, same prices as McDonald's
Best Buy, Target & Home Depot: raised pay 20% in pandemic, same prices
All 5 pay over $15. They made $15B+ profit in 2020.
Funny, when there's a plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, big businesses say "we''ll have no choice but to raise prices."
But when they got $1.9 trillion in corporate tax breaks, not one big business said "good news! we're able to lower prices."
Jeff Bezos net worth when Amazon enacted $15/hour min wage: $135 billion
Jeff Bezos net worth now (2.5 years later): $192 billion
Amazon quarterly profit grew 120% in that span
Anyway I think a lot about that Chris Rock quote, how a corporation paying minimum wage means, "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law."
Minimum wage in July 2009: $7.25
Minimum wage in January 2021: $7.25
In that span, the average cost of goods went up 21%. And corporate profits went up 56%.
Folks, prices go up regardless. And so do profits. What doesn't change, usually, is wages for service workers.
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The revenue from a wealth tax on Washington's billionaires would singlehandedly make up our state's $3.3 billion budget shortfall while leaving taxes the same for 99.999% of residents.
It makes no sense to gut education and critical services further to protect the rich.
Washington is one of the few states with no income tax. We have the most upside-down tax system in America: low-income residents pay 18% of their income on taxes. The rich pay 3%.
Compared to white people:
*Black-owned homes devalued 23%
*Black-owned property taxes 13% higher
*Bank fees 2x higher for black customers
*Black-owned biz closed at twice the rate in pandemic
*Black people w/ NO criminal record earn $10k less than white people w/ criminal record
*Black college grads have 50% less wealth than white high school dropouts
*Top 10 most-audited counties are 79% people of color
*Black-white homeowner gap is bigger now than 120 years ago
*Electoral college gives white people 16% more voting power than Black people
There are a lot of easy and popular public policy wins we could go after right now
But we are all too hung up on hating the other side and the horse race to force our elected officials to do anything about it
Want examples? A small UBI, mental health care access, educational access including early childhood and before and after school care, shoring up social security, medicare, and medicaid, expansion of medicare to cover everyone who wants it,
immigration reform with guest worker programs and a path to citizenship, adoption reform to make adoption way easier and without sacrificing safety, ending mass incarceration, beefing up gun safety protections, police reform,
The brilliant 1st century jewish rabbi Jesus was executed at 33 years old because his message was threatening to the unjust power and wealth establishment at that time
He was asked about taxes and if it was theft -- He said "if Ceasars picture is on the money, how can it be theft for Ceasar to ask for a cut?"
Taxes are generally something the rich attack more than anyone else
It's no secret that avoiding taxes is one of the top priorities for many rich people -- They think it's beneficial to them to be able to use all public resources and infrastructure and not pay for it
In March my company made news when our employees voluntarily took temporary 20% pay cuts to ensure 0 layoffs
Our situation has improved & I just announced to our employees that everyone will be paid back in full - at a personal cost of $1M. They saved our company and deserve it.
let me adjust something here: the full cost to me is actually closer to $750k; I had miscalculated one of the figures and want to be transparent about that.
The backpay will be sent to employees as soon as next week as a separate paycheck.