Path to $30 by 2030: A Plan that Lifts Wages Without Crushing Small Business

The working class coal miners in the 1920’s required an armed insurrection just to help establish the 40 hour work week and the 2 day weekend. What is our generation willing to fight for?

Defining a living wage.

The living wage is the hourly rate that an individual in a household must earn to support themselves and/or their family, working full-time, or 2080 hours per year. The tables below provide living wage estimates for individuals and households with one or two working adults and zero to three children. In households with two working adults, all hourly values reflect what one working adult requires to earn to meet their families’ basic needs, assuming the other adult also earns the same.

https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/37179 Click the link to be taken to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator and see why I landed on $30, data based on Union County, NC.

$30 an hour is nearly $60,000 a year before taxes, it is not an absurd amount. If WE THE PEOPLE want it, we need two things. One is a firm, phased federal wage floor; and second a funded transition that helps small and mid-sized employers bridge the gap—paid for by taxing extreme profits and ultra-wealth, not by squeezing workers or Main Street.

$30 by 2030 — with 1950-style Tax Fairness

If we’re serious about a living wage, we need a plan that (1) forces large employers to lift pay quickly, (2) protects truly small businesses, and (3) pays for the transition by taxing extraordinary corporate profits and ultra-high personal incomes—as the U.S. did in the mid-20th century. Here’s a concrete blueprint that hits all three. Coverage: all employees on federal contracts immediately; all others per schedule. Tipped sub-minimum and disability sub-minimum phases out on the same timeline. Certain exemptions may exist for small family-owned businesses or farms.

1) A tiered national minimum wage based on employer size

Goal: a universal $30/hour floor by 2030, with larger firms moving first and micro-businesses getting breathing room and full support.

Employer size 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

≥500 employees $20 $24 $27 $29 $30

100–499 $18 $22 $26 $28 $30

20–99 $16 $20 $24 $27 $30

<20 (micro) $16 $19 $22 $26 $30

• Indexing: From 2026 onward, each rung also receives an annual adjustment for median hourly wage growth to prevent backsliding; 2030 becomes the common floor thereafter.

• Tipped & sub-minimum wages: phased out on the same schedule (one floor for all).

• Public contractors: must follow the largest-firm schedule regardless of headcount.

2) Micro-business guarantee: 100% wage-delta subsidy (<20 employees)

For employers with fewer than 20 employees, the federal government fully subsidizes the wage delta—the difference between a worker’s current rate and the required floor each year—with a refundable payroll credit, no sunset.

How it works (automatic via quarterly payroll filings):

• Credit = (Required wage − Base wage) × hours (capped at 1,800/yr).

• Deposited in near-real time against payroll tax; any excess is refunded.

• Guardrails: no eligibility for firms splitting to dodge the 20-employee line (see aggregation rules below); no credit for owners’ own pay above $150,000.

Why permanent? Micro-businesses are high-churn, low-margin, and place-based. We want them open and competitive, not priced out by giants. The subsidy makes the policy pro-worker and pro-Main-Street at the same time.

3) Pay-for: restore top tax rates to 1950-era fairness—plus a modern excess-profits backstop

A) Corporate income tax with a 70% top bracket (as directed)

• 21% → 28% base rate for C-corps.

• Progressive surtax brackets on domestic profits above large thresholds, culminating in a top corporate rate of 70% on extraordinary profits (e.g., profits above $10B U.S.-sourced or 15% return on U.S. equity—whichever is greater).

• Purpose: stop monopoly-style windfalls from financing low pay.

B) 1950-style top personal rates for ultra-incomes

• Reinstate very high marginal brackets on true ultra-income (e.g., 70%–90% marginal rates above $50–$100M in annual taxable income), combined with a Billionaire Minimum Income Tax (mark-to-market for liquid assets; deferral with interest for illiquid).

• Close the step-up loophole; equalize capital and labor rates at the top.

$1 Billion dollars would give you $50k a year for 20,000 years.

C) Excess-profits surtax (modernized)

• A 10% surtax on current pre-tax profits above 125% of firms’ 2018–2019 inflation-adjusted average (the “normal profits” benchmark).

• Prevents price-gouging cycles from funding low wages and buybacks.

D) Buyback & distribution brakes

• Raise the buyback excise from 1% to 4% (net of new issuance).

• No buybacks or special dividends for firms that fail to hit the wage schedule; violations trigger loss of deductions and penalty surtax.

Together, these measures recreate the mid-century social contract: strong profits are fine, but society comes first—and windfalls don’t come tax-free while workers struggle.

4) Anti-avoidance: no games on headcount, profits, or payrolls

• Aggregation rules: Headcount and profits are calculated across commonly controlled entities (parent-subsidiary, brother-sister, PE roll-ups). Splitting a firm to duck a bracket triggers joint liability and a 3× penalty.

• U.S. nexus: Large multinationals compute the wage floor on U.S. payroll and the tax brackets on U.S.-sourced profits after a global anti-profit-shifting top-up.

• Contracting & franchising: Lead firms are jointly responsible for compliance in core operations (warehousing, logistics, retail franchises) to block offshoring of payroll responsibility.

• CEO-pay link: Firms with a CEO: median pay ratio > 20:1 lose access to accelerated depreciation and certain credits until compliant.

5) Inflation & small-business protections (so raises stick)

• Competition enforcement: fund DOJ/FTC to police margin-hiking in concentrated sectors (food, shipping, health-care supply).

• Procurement standards: federal and state buyers require compliance with the wage schedule and neutrality in organizing; this rewards high-road employers.

• Startup safe harbor: new firms (<3 years old, <20 employees) get automatic micro-business credits with simplified filing.

• Rural support: a supplemental micro-merchant grant for rural Main Street (under $2M receipts) to cover non-wage transition costs (accounting, POS upgrades).

6) Administration: simple, fast, auditable

• One portal (Treasury + DOL) where employers attest headcount and upload payroll; credits auto-apply to Forms 941/944.

• Public dashboards show coverage, wage gains, prices by sector, and enforcement actions—so the public can see who’s paying fairly.

• Whistleblower awards for workers and accountants who report evasion.

7) What it costs—and why it’s worth it

• The micro-business wage-delta subsidy is the key new outlay. With roughly 10–12 million workers in sub-20-employee firms, the federal credit peaks in the early years and stabilizes as base wages converge toward the floor.

• The revenue package (70% top corporate bracket, modern excess-profits tax, high-end personal brackets, buyback excise) is designed to exceed peak costs, leaving room to fund public-sector wage catch-ups (teachers, nurses, EMTs) and IRS enforcement to keep the playing field honest.

8) Why this is the most worker- and Main-Street-friendly way forward

• Workers get a dated, guaranteed path to $30 by 2030—nationwide.

• Micro-businesses keep their doors open with a permanent 100% wage-delta subsidy, so neighborhood diners and repair shops aren’t collateral damage.

• Large corporations that have captured windfall profits shoulder the burden—as they did in the 1950s—instead of treating low wages as a business model.

• The plan rewards real value creation (production, service quality, training) rather than financial engineering (buybacks, tax games).

The Long Game — Why Higher Wages Help the Whole Local Economy

• More paying customers: When millions move from $12–$18 to $20–$30, cash registers ring—at diners, auto shops, hardware stores, childcare, and clinics. Businesses prefer steady volume to coupon-chasing.

• Less turnover, higher skill: Better wages cut churn and absenteeism. Training finally sticks; service improves; mistakes fall. Those are direct cost savings that rarely show up in the first-day math.

• Fewer “junk costs”: Families current on rent and utilities generate fewer collection losses for landlords and power co-ops. Hospitals eat fewer charity-care bills. Local governments collect steadier sales and property taxes without hiking rates.

• Real competition again: When all employers live under the same wage floor, the game shifts from “who can pay the least” to “who can run the best shop”—better management, tech that complements people, smarter scheduling, honest pricing.

Why Not Keep the Old System?

The old model—poverty or near-poverty wages—looks cheap on payroll but expensive everywhere else:

• Constant turnover and re-training.

• “Help Wanted” signs as a business model.

• Customers who can’t afford the very goods and services local businesses sell.

• Public systems quietly subsidizing low wages (food stamps, ER care, housing crises) while mega-corporations book record buybacks.

We’ve been paying the bill—just not at the register.