The US should institute Progressive Wage Laws.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A progressive wage scale would force employers to pay their workers based upon how much profit the company makes, it is essentially forced profit sharing... There are two ways the wage scale could be determined: * A flat percentage, so the dollar value would always be equally proportional to the size of the company, or * Exponentially, the larger the company gets the bigger percentage the workers get The entire wage could be determined this way or simply the base minimum. I will allow my opponent to make these distinctions, if they so decide. For now, I will argue against the broad concept. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The U.S.A. is currently suffering from severe inequality, and an improvement in the redistribution of wealth is called for by many. A progressive minimum wage scale is one idea to help the middle-class reclaim their fair share of the wealth they have helped create, however this particular scheme is not compatible with the way the economy functions: The health of an economy is not measured by the GDP -- how good it is at devouring foreign economies -- but, rather, by the cash flow within it; the rate at which a dollar gets cycled around. Analogous to the way a blood cell cycles through a living organism. Cash flow is increased when people and companies spend their money at higher rates, typically because they feel like they will receive good value in exchange. When it comes to labor, good value is achieved when education/skill/experience are available at a competitive wage. Competition is increased as more competitors enter the game. Therefore, the health of the economy is related to the number of competitors in the marketplace. A progressive minimum wage scale ties the worker's financial reward, partially or in whole, directly to the performance of their employer as a whole. This creates a disincentive to these employees leaving their jobs and, potentially, becoming competitors, which is a good thing for their employers. However, this is actually a bad thing for the economy at large because it creates an incentive for people to band together under big companies, who will be diluting the job market with crappy, low wage jobs to compensate for their reduced freedom. People will have less money to spend, which means less tax revenue, which means less funding for education, which means less competition, which means higher prices/less value, which means people have less money to spend... ...America's downward spiral will continue. The cause of economic inequality is the injection of bias and discrimination into democracy and economics. As soon as the government is able to tell the difference between two citizens somebody is getting the short end of the stick. It doesn't matter if it is positive or negative discrimination, the act of telling people apart automatically biases things, and a progressive wage scale would be no different. It would be better to raise a SINGLE minimum wage at a value that would elevate any working person to the middle class and then allow the ebb and flow of the marketplace to take things from there. Such a marketplace would be more attractive to entrepreneurs, who would leave their jobs to become competitors, which increases value and lowers price, which entices people to spend more money, which increases tax revenue, which the gov can invest in education, which increases the level of skill/education/experience, which increases competition in the marketplace and on and on the cycle goes!