Everyone can have enough in this world - with all the technology and advancement we have been able to do together. The only thing stopping that is the parasitic hoarder class who lets the half the world suffer to exalt themselves.
Honestly what’s the point of minimum wage if you can’t survive? Why even bother to have a minimum wage at all?
May as well just do crime 🤷♂️
They should also be able to afford a little bit of fun too.
I have managed to roll some of my healthcare, self care/exercise, and hobbies into one by playing a musical that weighs I don’t want to do the math but the partial instrument I just built weighs 78 pounds.
Minimum wage shouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s a round about way of accepting that the current structure takes everything you have indefinitely with constantly increasing costs. Why do we pay for taxes, for them to fund things to be used against us? I’m sorry if this comes off wrong, but the cost goes to fat paychecks and not helping us.
I think minimum wage isn’t sufficient. Inflation will keep striking, employers will continue wage theft and abuse, billionaires will keep engineering laws that benefit them at the expense of all others.
Replacing the entire economic system outright is the true minimum. At best, minimum wage alone is just a tiny bandaid covering a spurting stump. To save society, abandoning capitalist tradition is key.
Yep, it’s a treadmill. Raise wages and cost of living will rise to meet it. That’s why I’m not convinced a UBI on it’s own will be helpful. You need to find a way to govern end costs; but how you do that I have no idea.
Personally, I think the key is to create an income bottleneck: Each type of job falls into a rank, each rank giving a fixed income each year. Rank of a job type is determined by the effort, risk, and knowledge required. So a migrant working the fields, gets higher pay than a waiter, because that involves effort and possible damage from being out in bad conditions. There are only 7 or so job ranks. By limiting incomes, we also fight inflation, because sellers have to work within predictable income bands.
Rank 0 is UBI of $10,000 for citizens, which is replaced by job income if a citizen gets a standard job - but schooling grades adds to their pool. Jobs give more money than UBI. Students are payed $2,000 to $10,000, depending on their grades. Waiters and other basic roles get $20,000. $40,000 for managers, cops, and the like. $60,000 for produce pickers, delivery drivers, and soldiers in safe conditions. $80,000 for regular teachers, doctors, and researchers, fire fighters, lumberjacks, ambulance drivers, and so forth. $100k for surgeons, university-grade researchers, and astronauts.
Workers vote for their leaders within their unit and for leaders above their unit. They determine who gets to lead, and sets their pay rank every 3 months. This makes it harder for leaders to get entrenched and abuse workers.
I have more thoughts on this sort of thing, but the key thing is to seriously limit the power and authority of individuals: Limit total incomes each year to a hard cap, absolute limits on wealth and assets, guarantee universal services that allows people to quit and avoid bad jobs without risking their wellbeing. Free universal healthcare, basic food, generic goods, and basic shelter with internet, all of these freely given without means testing. Migrants also get universal services. The government gets the bulk of taxes from companies, and assigns a rotation of book-keepers from the state and federal government to ensure that companies aren’t lying.
The free stuff provided by the government also grease the wheels of genuine capitalism - paid goods and services have to be better than the universal items, else they won’t sell. That helps against inflation, since the government is basically setting the base price of things.
So then what do you do with all the extra money made by independent salesman? Already people cook books in order not to declare some if their income. Plus there are so many self employed professions that make money based on how much work they do, how do you scale them when their work might be seasonal or not a regular income?
Or do the ranked salaries only apply to certain sectors?
People who do personal work or have income from a product, has their income passed through the hands of the government. They, like the highest ranked profession, have a $100,000 income cap each year. The government extracts the taxes and takes any amount of money that is over the $100k limit, be the source from works, personal sales, or stock dividends.
As to seasonal workers, one idea is that government enforces a contract. The worker actually has two jobs - during the seasonal work, they do the job for one of two employers. Off season, they work for some other job sector, such as a warehouse. Employers for each respective season pay for the worker jointly. A seasonal employer is obligated to partner with an off-season employer before they can offer jobs.
Failure of joint job offers, means that the government will prevent the two employers from hiring anyone. In turn, the government can drop the hammer if the employers are hiring people and making money off the books.
In the event that a seasonal worker is prevented from doing their second job, the government pays for an income that is equal to the worker’s first seasonal job if it was full time. This gives the government more incentive to keep employers on the level.
The implication here, is that government controls hiring practices. Abuse like ghost jobs exist, because employers dictate the terms of the proverbial battlefield. Employers in our current society create tests, scheduling requirements, enforce non-DEI policies, do nepotism, and so forth.
I think that government should be the clearinghouse for job offers and hiring standards, containing the resumes of employee and determining whether the employer is offering jobs in good faith. Positions for jobs are publicly posted, and workers can send a universal resume to the government that can be used for any position. If there are missing details, the worker can have their resume expanded and clarified, replacing their old resume.
In 1978, DJing at a small town daytimer, I made 70 cents above minimum if you don’t count all the mandatory unpaid OT. I kept an apartment, ate OK, had a cat, paid my utilities, and was able to take my new girlfriend out on weekends. NO ONE could do that now. Also, my parents had given me a year of cable as a gift.
And the problem is not with the individual. The problem is that capitalism is working exactly the way it’s designed to.
It’s in the name. Minimum wage to live!
Where I live, if you don’t have a car or access to one you are worse off than if you’re living in your car. Most of the homeless in my area have cars they live in.
First time I experienced this was in the US. I went to San Diego on a student summer visa and you were fucked without a car. Large metropolis. It took me a while to actually cop it.
Luckily for us we made friends with some lovely rednecks from Alabama and they drove us around a good bit but that gift from them really impacted our whole summer.
SoCal/Bay Area is a place where the average house is 1M$. People making that kind of money have a car, and those without a car leave California or live with roommates.
California infrastructure was built in the 20th century by hard right wingers, and by time Cali became a blue state at the turn of the century, it was too late and expensive to build public transit.
The entire state as a whole is fucked as far as public transit is concerned, and since everyone moving there is already financially successful, it makes it impossible to force in the legislature.
since everyone moving there is already financially successful,
I would like to live in that reality please. Financial success is at least a year away.
*from a single job.
Every full time job should pay a living wage.
Unless ‘full-time’ is 30 hours a week or less, even a part-time job should be enough to earn a living.
In some countries it actually is, but mentioning that would be communist propaganda.
It really should be 20 hours or less.
Speaking as one of the 1980s latchkey kids, we don’t allow our adults the time or energy to parent. Nor do we allow anyone the energy to be civically engaged.
Since the 1970s there’s been an onslaught to capture government so it only serves business interests, which allows big business to flourish even when they are run incompetently, or in bad faith.
We are seeing the owner class cannot function even in their own best interests, rather they manage industry entirely on vibes and feels. And the feels usually are I deserve everything and workers are trying to steal from me.
I’ve heard rumors that back in the 90s is was considered normal to work a 20hr part time job and split a 2 bedroom apartment with a friend that also worked 20hrs or so. With a bit left to spare even.
Not sure how true it is
Are there not worthwhile services or items that someone may want to or have to do that don’t profit 50k/yr per person? Should all of those things just go away or be banned?
If there’s work that needs doing, that work should pay a living wage. If it doesn’t, yes, it shouldn’t exist. Raise prices until it can support those workers, and if people won’t buy it at that price, get rid of it. Otherwise, the argument you’re making is that someone needs to do this work, but that person should be destitute.
If someone wants to do something on the side as a hobby, that’s fine, and that’s not what we’re talking about here, obviously.
Lots of things are nice to have’s, almost everything actually. Door greeter, ice cream server, shoe shiner, small gyms, and probably a million more. There are so many small things that by themselves, cannot generate even 2 or 3 employees worth of revenue, which is like at least 250,000 a year. Lots of jobs have to be part time or side hustles, and when you allow that, some people will take those jobs as their primary full time job even though it is not a livable wage. Sometimes because that’s what’s available, and sometimes because that’s all they can do. If you open that door then someone will walk through it, and if you close that door, I bet a shit ton of things we all enjoy would disappear. For better or worse, without UBI, there will be jobs that don’t and cannot pay a living wage, that will exist, that people would like to exist, and that people will do. Any rules or sentiment surrounding that must take all that into account.
A lot of jobs only exist because we need people to be working. There’s no societal need for a door greeter. If your ice cream shop doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay someone working there a living wage, it isn’t a viable business, or your prices are too low.
You mention UBI and really, that’s the answer, but without it, everyone needs to work to survive and when there isn’t enough work that needs doing, we invent bullshit work just to say we’re employing someone.
And this is how we get Amazon as the only source of ice cream, and no other social pleasantries to make it cost effective or viable. Everyone here is just virtue signaling, the reality is shit would collapse or at least consolidate to total garbage without low wage jobs. The only solution is UBI, and that can work in societies with extreme logistical excess who also have a culture that wants to help the less fortunate. That’s surely not the US.
Amazing how some countries have much more survivable minimum wages, more vacation time, low cost health care, and still have local ice cream shops
And I’m just talking about Western European nations
Low-wage jobs are just exploiting desperate people. If the cost of living were more reasonable, it wouldn’t be an issue - it doesn’t need to be an ice cream shop paying $40 / hr, it needs to be housing and necessities being cost-limited or subsidized. Subsidies for necessities and increased taxes on luxuries would help.
Most of these services are exactly the places that expect the most demanding work for the lowest pay. Easy to fix: make sure the c-suite does not get more than 10x of the lowest salary in the company, and suddenly there is enough money available for a living wage.
Everyone should be able to afford their necessities even if they’re unable to work
There’s more than enough wealth in this world to do it too. We just let greedy parasites hoard it for no good reason.
Euthanize people once they’re too old to work and most of the problem is solved. Euthanize everyone with a hundred million dollars or more and it’s all solved.
Friendly reminder that people over 55 own 52% of the US and boomers as a generation own about 8x more than billionaires
The entire concept of retirement is the problem in an aging society, it only works with population growth because you need young people whose labour to live off of.
I’m unable to work and on a disability pension. I’m objectively a burden on society, I’ll be siphoning far more money from the system than any retiree in my lifespan.
Should I be euthanized too? Genuinely asking.
You don’t have a hundred million dollars, so according to their logic it’s not needed.
The USA, the richest country in the world by far, has been surpassed by Poland (about the same population as California alone)
https://www.dudkowiak.com/employment-law-in-poland/employee-benefits-in-poland
TLDR They have universal healthcare, family leave, vacation, and retirement that the vast majority of US workers can only dream of. No state in the union has this many benefits to my knowledge (but we do have 50, I apologize). Their minimum wage is almost as much, and they pay fewer taxes than many Americans (again, some states may be an exception).
An Eastern Block nation has managed to surpass the USA with far less money, in just a few decades.
Our politicians are not that stupid. They could pass legislation tomorrow with a simple majority vote (no need for super majority, let’s not be silly) and change our laws whenever they would like to. They choose not to, it’s a calculated choice.
They could pass legislation tomorrow with a simple majority vote (no need for super majority
But that would eat into shareholder profits, and we can’t have that, especially with insider trading politicians.
Honestly, this needs to be fixed. Mamdani has proven that the politicians have been trash, and it needs to go.
Basic healthcare should be covered without any wage.
While disconnecting health care from a wage, may as well disconnect the others also with a UBI. People shouldn’t be living on the street, no matter their circumstances.
I see a lot of people rightly disagreeing with this meme for not just having this stuff baseline regardless of work, forcing rent instead of ownership and no comforts. But i dont see anyone attacking the “basic” healthcare. It should be ALL healthcare. Fuck off with this basic bullshit.
I argued for “great healthcare” for everyone. I can’t imagine how people think some people deserve better healthcare than others. Liberals need to get their priorities straight.
I guess it depends on what’s meant with basic healthcare. All matters regarding your health? Yes. Purely cosmetic things like bleaching your anus? I don’t think so.
But bleach tastes nasty. How am I supposed to do the presidential bleach challenge if I don’t boof it?
Yeah but some of those colors can be bruttle. I say you include it
Rent nothing, minimum wage should enable home ownership.
That depends a lot on the housing market of the specific country. Here in Vienna, renting is the normal thing to do. we have lots of Apartments which are property of the city, renting them out to make sure living space stays affordable as much as possible, and that is a valid way of doing things too. I am currently living in one of these, and i never had a living space that cheap while also in good condition before (my last apartment on the open market was 1.5x the price, while being not a lot bigger and being utterly outdated regarding heating, electricals and isolation, with walls so thin that you could hear the neighbor sneeze)
One of the smaller but still really bad problems with renting (at least in the UK) is that you can’t redecorate and all the landlords have the shittest taste in decor. So much crap white paint on every surface.
Swear when I have my own place there won’t be a single white wall. It will be maximalist as fuck, and very colourful to make up for all the years of hideous ‘landlord specials’.
I have the possibility to color my walls in whatever way i want, but these apartments come with the condition that when you give them back, the have to be in the same condition as before - so if you wanna paint your walls black, by all means, go ahead, but you have to make them white again when you move out.
The only things that came with my living space were a shower cabin, a toilet and a sink - i even got a financial bonus because there was no kitchen which is normally included, but in my case this also meant i could decide what i want (didn’t exactly splurge on the kitchen, but got a great deal on a nearly unused kitchen with oven and dishwasher incl dismantling/transport/montage for around 1200€, which is an absolute steal)
There are some regulations regarding permanent modifications - you have to get the ok of the city (for nearly everything you might want to commonly do they have a standard form to fill out), because the houses themselves are often old - socialised living spaces have a 100-year tradition in Vienna, and they were and still are often designed by pretty popular architects, which means the facade is often under protection. After this summer tho, they softened the regulations regarding AC split devices, making it a lot easier to get the ok to add it to your apartment. (since the end of this summer there have already been over 400 ACs installed under the new rules, which is a pretty fast pace)
So long as “home” doesn’t mean “house.”
Duplexes, townhomes, etc are necessary to limit sprawl. If everyone has a separate home, driveway, and lawn that’s a lot of land use.
Duplexes and townhomes aren’t that dense, you’d want apartment complexes for most people.
I came to say the same thing. It’s a good message but we could improve it by not having too low of a bar. Fuck landlords, everyone should own their housing.
Why do liberals so often want people to suffer?
How about meeting people’s needs not giving them the bare minimum levels of things if they perform “minimum wage”/lowest price point capitalists can get away with giving jobs?
Why can’t you just argue for great healthcare for everyone? Why can’t people just be entitled to a house, food, needs met, etc?
This radical centrism is why things never improve.
I’d love a maximum wage, amirite? LOL
Although, we should get rid of the social security cap on high earners. It’d solve a lot of this insolvency talks, promptly.
Yeah its the liberals that got us into this. Very observant.
In a world with infinite resources where these things require no labor to produce, you would be right. Sadly we don’t live in that world.
Because the smaller goal is more achievable and is a step towards the bigger goal.
Saying “let’s not even try to go for the more achievable goal because it’s not quite enough” is counter-productive.
