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現在の単語数: 711語

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作成日: 2025/12/20 06:34

更新日: 2025/12/20 06:36

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Warren Buffett Said Anyone Working 40 Hours a Week Deserves a 'Decent Living' —But Raising Minimum Wage Isn't the Answer. Here's What He Proposes
Jeannine Mancini

Nearly a decade before "livable wages" became a political buzzword and people started asking why full-time work barely covers the bills, Warren Buffett had already said the quiet part out loud.

The Berkshire Hathaway CEO was asked a simple but heavy question in a CNN interview after the 2016 election: does capitalism need to change so everyday workers stop getting left behind?

Buffett answered with a mix of market faith and policy savvy. "In a super rich country, anybody who's willing to work 40 hours a week should have a decent living," he said. But rather than call for a federally mandated hourly floor, he turned the spotlight to a different lever: broadening the earned income tax credit.

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He explained that rather than focusing on forcing up hourly pay across the board, the solution should be about income. "You don't need a minimum wage. You need a minimum income," Buffett said. "The wage comes to you from your employer. The income comes from your employer plus whatever the government does."

Buffett was clear about the trade‑offs. For employers in tight‑margined industries, he warned that artificially jacking up guaranteed hourly wages could lead to fewer jobs. "If you tell me I've got to run a business that pays $15 an hour in many industries, I'm going to employ fewer people than before," he told CNN. What he didn't want, he said, was fewer jobs — only better conditions for workers who do have them.

His pitch was for an expanded earned income tax credit that tops up lower earnings so someone making, say, $7.50 or $9 an hour would still effectively take home the equivalent of $15. That, in his view, preserves employer flexibility while ensuring workers aren't stuck at the bottom. "It isn't how much you get in wages, it's how much you get in income," he said.

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Designed well, the credit could also reward skill building, boosting real earning potential without penalizing smaller wage bumps. "You would give them a feeling of self‑worth and you wouldn't hurt any jobs," Buffett said.

Back in 2016, Buffett estimated the cost of a stronger earned income tax credit system at about $60 billion annually, roughly twice what the government was spending at the time. His point: an economy as large as the U.S. — with a GDP now roughly $30.5 trillion — had the capacity to make this work.

Buffett also acknowledged that if a mandated wage floor did somehow keep everyone working, he wouldn't oppose pushing it higher. "If you can have a minimum wage that kept everybody in the country working, you'd make it $20 or $25 an hour," he told CNN. But he added bluntly that forcing that structure could leave people with limited skills worse off in the job market.

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His comment landed at a time when the fight for a $15 minimum wage was gaining steam, and it still echoes in today's wage landscape where many employers are voluntarily bumping starting pay toward $18 an hour and beyond to compete for talent — even as lawmakers stall on raising the legal minimum.

Buffett tied the broader concept to the American Dream. "American Dream should be that if you work productively at 40 hours a week, you can have a decent life," he said. It was a simple, memorable line — and a reminder that the argument about income, opportunity, and fairness is far from settled.

Nearly 10 years later, with wage pressure still headline news, that message resonates again: there's more than one way to think about making work pay in America.

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