The alternative to the living wage.

[Heywood]

lets attack the problem from the other end with a maximum wage.

A maximum wage, also often called a wage ceiling, is a legal limit on how much income an individual can earn.[1] This is a related economic concept that is complementary to the minimum wage used currently by some states to enforce minimum earnings. Both a maximum and minimum wage are methods by which wealth can be redistributed within a society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_wage

Ben and Jerry's Ice cream tried this and ultimately had to give it up.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/companies...d=19920634

I think CEO pay is too high, however I think it is more of a nuisance than a real problem. If you took executive compensation and divided it up among the workers.....it wouldn't make much of a difference.

Same goes for people who claim the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor. If you took all the stuff rich people owned and divided it up among everyone, it wouldn't make a difference. Its a "problem" that appeals to peoples emotions....which is why it get press....but it really isn't a problem at all.

What we should be striving to do is create an environment which maximizes peoples options and then let the market work. A universal guaranteed income does this. A living wage prices some labor out of the market and locks people into jobs. A living wage takes options away from people instead of giving options to them.