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We Desperately Need Maximum Wage Laws
(jacobin.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Let’s make it 5 times minimum wage.
That's like $70k a year as a cap. There are jobs that are critical to the function of society but are remarkably dangerous or require unique skills that many cannot obtain. Suggesting there shouldn't be greater compensation than what a truck driver makes means no one will be willing to do these necessary yet hazardous jobs. Why would anyone weld underwater if there are other jobs that will pay just as well that aren't like.y to kill you!
Okay, how about 15 times minimum wage.
Also, CEOs do not have specialized skills and their work pushing pencils can hardly be considered dangerous.
All of the 23 underwater welders can earn the maximum wage. CEOs must prove that their job is dangerous and that nobody has their skill set to earn as much as those welders.
You started at such a remarkably low point that I would suggest you consider this might not be a subject for you to opine on.
CEO's don't have specialized skills? That's silly as many do.
If ypu want to learn why your ideas are flawed and what solutions might be more likely to work macro 101 is available online from MIT and unsurprisingly it is very good.
It’s a negotiation. You managed to point out underwater welders for being a specialized and dangerous job.
What CEOs have something that is irreplaceable? United Healthcare CEO recently died and the business is still going on as if nothing had happened. He made $10,000,000 in 2023. Starbucks suffers more from a barista calling in sick.
I understand that the only thing that matters in that is shareholder value no matter what the human cost of their decisions. As a human I don’t not care if my decisions make costs higher for shareholders. They already have plenty.
https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2023/
Can you or anyone justify a 24% pay increase for workers while CEOs got 1,000%? It ridiculous that a CEO is somehow 1000% more valuable or skilled now than they were decades ago.
You aren't coming from an informed perspective. Maybe start by getting educated because your thinking here is a mess.
"I understand that the only thing that matters in that is shareholder value no matter what the human cost of their decisions. As a human I don’t not care if my decisions make costs higher for shareholders. They already have plenty."
Statements like the above make it hard to take you seriously as no one has suggested this.
Again, macro 101 is free. You should take it if you would like to see why this is so much more complex than most here seem to think.
Learning about macroeconomics is conceding that capitalism is anything but a sham. When our side takes over the economy and controls wages and prices, we won't need to understand macroeconomics. We'll just forbid things from going awry.
/s
Ooh, what if we raise minimum wage to something sensible, like $25/hour? That would put the max pay at $250,000/year which is pretty damn good.
Or raise the factor to 10 times, or 20 times. Just not, like, the 100,000 times it is right now.
It’s really hard to give a specific number because what the purchasing power of that money is can vary wildly. When I lived in NYC me and my roommate’s income was good enough to have a high QoL anywhere outside of major cities but in NYC we were solidly lower-middle.
Yeah, there's definitely some variation in that. But there's a point in wealth that can get you a luxurious QoL anywhere in the world. And that's the point we're talking about.
For example, for annual income: $80k/year is a comfortable living in low cost-of-living areas, and barely making it in others. But anyone making $500k/year is fine anywhere.
But that's why tying it to minimum wage makes sense. Because minimum wage should account for a reasonable cost-of-living regardless of where you live (perhaps with some variation, but not the poverty wages it provides now).
minimum wage is $7 an hour somewhere???