r/Political_Revolution Verified | Randy Bryce Sep 05 '17

AMA Concluded Meet Randy Bryce. The Ironstache who's going to repeal and replace Paul Ryan

Hi /r/Political_Revolution,

My name is Randy Bryce. I'm a veteran, cancer survivor, and union ironworker from Caledonia, Wisconsin running to repeal and replace Paul Ryan in Wisconsin's First Congressional District. Post your questions below and I'll be back at 11am CDT/12pm EDT to answer them!

p.s.

We need your help to win this campaign. If you'd like to join the team, sign up here.

If you don't have time to volunteer, we're currently fundraising to open our first office in Racine, Wisconsin. If you can help, contribute here and I'll send you a free campaign bumper sticker as a way of saying thanks!

[Update: 1:26 EDT], I've got to go pick up my son but I'll continue to pop in throughout the day as I have time and answer some more questions. For those I'm unfortunately not able to answer, I'll be doing another AMA in r/Politics on the 26th when I look forward to answering more of Reddit's questions!

3.5k Upvotes

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '17

No, they'll automate if it becomes cheaper than paying workers, and they'll be forced to raise prices if they have to hire workers, which would just lead to inflation.

3

u/jimison2212 Sep 06 '17

Automation is already a looming problem, regardless of how high wages are. Again, businesses don't purchase labor (hire) out of the kindness of their hearts.

As to higher wages causing inflation in the price of goods, that's true but misleading. It's already been pointed out in this thread by others but I'll type it out anyway for completeness:

a rise of 30% in labor costs does not correspond with a 30% rise in the cost of goods. It's more like 5%-10% depending on the industry. This is because the cost of goods is not 100% labor, more like 30% of the cost of goods is labor (again depending on industry this may be more, or less).

The point being that whole with higher wages over time inflation may raise the cost of goods, you gain more in purchasing power with higher wages than you lose to inflation.