What percentage of income do Americans spend on medical insurance?
About 6%.Americans spend 17% of their income on healthcare, a third via insurance, a third through medicare/medicaid and a tenth out-of-pocket.[1]Since a country’s GDP represents its income, healthcare-spending as a fraction of GDP represents the fraction of income its citizens spend on healthcare.As you can see from the chart below “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”*To put his in perspective:It is about 3 times the amount spent on all forms of educationIf the US managed to reduce its health-spending to the level of the next-highest spender, Switzerland, it would save 5.5% of GDP. With that money, it could make all education free (1.5%), pay for the world’s most expensive military (3.5%) and have money left over!Apologies to Denmark, which spends a very normal 10.5% of its GDP on healthcare.Footnotes[1] https://www.cms.gov/Research-Sta...
How can a family live off a $7.25 per hour minimum wage?
I recommend you read the book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. She details her efforts to find a job in a low paid service industry (waiting, retail, cleaning etc) and pay living expenses for herself alone (no dependents) and she demonstrates quite heartbreakingly that it is impossible. This is without factoring in any dependents, mind you!! It is a really powerful book and I wish the people who crap on about how “the working poor are to be blamed for their own situation” would read it!!“Ehrenreich concludes with the argument that all low-wage workers, recipients of government or charitable services like welfare, food, and health care, are not simply living off the generosity of others. Instead, she suggests, we live off their generosity:When someone works for less pay than she can live on ... she has made a great sacrifice for you .... The "working poor" ... are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone. (p. 221)”Nickel and Dimed
Would increasing the American minimum wage to $15 destroy the economy?
Minimum wage increases during the 20th century were always followed by long term (and usually short term) GDP growth. This is simply the facts of history. 58% of Republicans are in favor of raising the federal minimum wage. The vast majority of the American democracy favors it, which is why every time it appears as a ballot initiative it passes. However, maybe the most intelligent economists should be left to make these kind of judgments in the end. Well if you see it that way, then 600 of them that are not in the pocket of wealthy industries which benefit from keeping wages low, and include Nobel winners, MIT, and Harvard credentials believe the opposite of what you are asserting in your question. Over 600 Economists Sign Letter In Support of $10.10 Minimum Wage: Economist Statement on the Federal Minimum Wage A quote from their statement: "In recent years there have been important developments in the academic literature on the effect of increases in the minimum wage on employment, with the weight of evidence now showing that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market. Research suggests that a minimum-wage increase could have a small stimulative effect on the economy as low-wage workers spend their additional earnings, raising demand and job growth, and providing some help on the jobs front." There is a disturbing pattern I have seen all my life which is that political positions of an economic nature that opponents do not agree with will often be opposed with the argument that they will "destroy the economy." It was said about Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. The economy is far from destroyed and is growing. The minimum wage has been increased numerous times in the 20th century and since and the economy has not been "destroyed" yet. It's hyperbole plain and simple and should not be the argument of thinking people.
If minimum wage suddenly disappeared, should I, as a McDonald’s worker, expect a decrease in my hourly wage if I’m already getting the minimum wage, which is $11.50?
If you were providing less than your wage in value to your employer, then the job would not be yours now. Your wages would not simply drop, there is a cost in training a new employee, and you already have the job. However, if you never develop your skills to provide higher than "unskilled" productive value to your employer then you would eventually be completing with new unskilled job seekers who will work for less.
What if all the illegal immigrants from Mexico just keep moving north into Canada?
The problem is a matter of markets: agricultural work is estcional. Sometimes you require a lot of manpower in a couple of weeks and nothing the rest of the year. So many of the (legal or illegal) migrants are changing from crop to crop and from field to field. But it is uneconomical to pay them all year for seasonal work.Canada has an climate even more extreme than US and much of its production is mechanized. Therefore they require relatively few agricultural and shorter periods for workers. That's why many workers stay in US. And as they learn the language and the ways of the country, they stop working on fields and become low level workers at cities. It's part of a process.Just remember: The minimum wage in the US is eight times higher than in Mexico. And while living costs are higher, so they are not in the same proportion. That's one of the causes of migration.