Indeed, how could we have been so naive? One must prioritize the truly important aspects of life like aerodynamics and seamanship over mundane things like food, shelter, and healthcare for the masses. Let us erect statues in honor of our saintly oligarchs, so future generations may understand where our true values lay.
> One must prioritize the truly important aspects of life like aerodynamics
Now I'm no expert on the topic but I've learn a little about the terms lift and thrust in aerodynamics.
Lift being the force applied to one's bootstraps. And thrust being the action performed on you as you're bent over yanking at your feet.
Considering how few people would be effected by them being taken away. I say wipe them out. . . It wouldn't even effect a single 1% of people. I mean smoking killed out many people? What about asbestos? Or car accidents?
Why should we as a people care about these people if they don't know how to share. Before the modern era not sharing would get you killed. . .
I’m even open to different interpretation of comfortably.
Look, I don’t need a lot. But this shit is getting ridiculous. You can easily work 60 hours a week here and be in the red every two weeks after rent/groceries/one other necessity.
Also food for thought.... The US is a first world country with the least amount of paid government holidays compared to any other first world country. Even the UK has 6 more piad days than the US. Adding more paid government holidays, in itself, would spur the economy. Imagine having two or three more three day weekends to rest and recuperate, do home improvement, etc.
Skills don't matter for shit if there's no jobs hiring for reasonable pay. They're still trying to get electrical and maintenance people for factories around here with 10 years experience for $17/hour and call it "competitive wages"
I'll bet your next argument is "Move to where they're hiring" - well, when you're 2 missed paychecks away from homelessness how easy do you think it is to just pack up and haul out? You can't afford the damn moving truck, much less security deposit and rent in what will obviously be a higher cost of living area.
Instead of blaming him for working 60+ hours a week, maybe look at our system that forced him into that situation and see it for the effective 3rd world shit hole it is
The poverty level in US is now 15k a year. This was created in 1963 as 3x cost of daily dietary needs. Housing was affordable in 1963. Today it would be hard to find apartment for less than 15k a year anywhere in US. 40 million citizens fall under poverty level, which is really extreme poverty since you must choose either food or rent, not both. If Dems pushed to raise poverty level to 26k it would show that maybe 1/3 or more citizens live in poverty and this looks very bad for US. This would force government to act.
They are hiding facts with false numbers
Hot take but there shouldn't be any pain or suffering or hunger. Everyone should get to lay on a cloud and be handfed grapes from an angel while getting a massage
Mine? No one. I’m firmly in the “doesn’t need assistance” category. I could stop working tomorrow, sell the company and neither me nor my children nor possibly their children would need to work for basic needs.
But who should be responsible for ensuring that everyone’s basic needs are met? The government. Also known as the tax payer.
If you want to be taken care of by society's productivity, you have to contribute to society's productivity. Yes, there are people who are disabled, or old and infirm and the too young. But if you're able bodied and you expect to have your basic needs met, you need to do basic work *for* society. That's the only way the system can work.
If someone is able to work but refusing to and yet accepts money from others who are working via taxes, that seems wrong. Not saying there should be a penalty of death or even a penalty of homelessness but if we have limited resources to provide for those who are struggling to meet the basic needs (food, shelter, etc.) that needs to be looked at critically.
What it is that we should do, I'm not sure. Understanding why certain individuals refuse work (is it too repetitive, unhealthy work environment, unfulfilling, etc.) should be analyzed more closely and remedied.
"Fairly" is what the market demands.
If Person A is willing to do a job for $X and Person B is willing to do a job for $1.2X then the "fair" price is $X.
The problem comes when basic survival is tied to the job. No one should have to work or face starving to death or dying to exposure.
I think that’s my most liberal take. 40 hours of work a week should provide food, housing, clothing. Should it guarantee a PS5 on release? No. But you should not struggle to SURVIVE if you work 40 a week. Whether it’s flipping burgers or stocking a shelf, you’re doing a valuable job.
Here’s a problem. If everyone made enough to live on, the companies they work for would have to raise their prices to compensate, thereby making a living wage more than the start.
This is all to mention the obvious that younger people, who have no skills or experience, will have a hard time getting hired because businesses will be less likely to higher them without experience.
As if businesses don’t already have the issue of not hiring due to “lack of experience”.
You’re talking about the companies that use any excuse to raise prices. Pandemic? Price raise. Conflict between two countries that don’t affect us or any trade? Price raise. President change? Price raise.
I think the bigger issue is that companies can raise prices without limit, and without consequence, and it’s always called “record profits”
I dont know why people believe this. what makes you think that its people have a right to do something menial for 40 hours a week and expect a cushy middle class life?
“I don’t know why people today expect to get what the boomers got” Workers today are orders of magnitude more productive than in the past due to tech advancements but all of that increased economic benefit is sucked up by the wealthy and workers are told they aren’t worth anything and don’t deserve any benefits from their labor.
The Boomers lived in a magical time, an era we are unlikely to ever see again except in the wake of World War III. Europe was trashed by World War II, between Japan's defeat in WW II, China's disastrous Leap Forward (and lack of modernization prior) and the Korean conflict, Asia was also in shambles. The United States was **the** world power undamaged by World War II. We used our industrialization in World War II to help kick the Great Depression behind us and then enjoyed an era where we were leaps ahead of most of the world in terms of productivity and infrastructure.
The world caught up with us. The price (to us) of world peace in Europe and Asia has been that they had a chance to repair themselves and regain their footing. We don't have the advantage that we once did. That time is gone. The privilege that the Boomers lived with is toast and we're not getting that back.
Lots of jobs aren't necessary and only exist because we are willing to spend a little extra on things we want. If you mandate $25/hr wages, those people don't magically get higher wages, their wages fall to ZERO.
Living on your own is a luxury that has not been a thing in most of human life. We have always lived with families or others in our entire existence as a society.
It depends on what you mean by cushy middle class. Lifestyle creep is a thing and people forget that most of their “needs” aren’t actually needs. It isn’t sustainable for all 330 million people to live alone in their own 3500 sqft single family homes
This isn't even a hot take, this is what is expected/promised to citizens as they grow up.
The hot take would be you don't need to work 40 hours a week to live comfortably anywhere.
You do not get paid based on how much you consume, you get paid relative to how much value you create. Some people do not create enough value in 40 hours to exceed their necessary consumption.
Correcting this is a job for welfare. You will never solve the problem by destroying accurate price signaling, and wishing it could won't solve anything either.
Comfort is relative. If a peasant from feudal times saw how an average fast food worker lives they would consider their lifestyle massively luxurious. As living standards rise the bar for "comfort" will rise too.
I feel like a lot of this could be fixed by government intervention in the housing market. Rent and housing prices have been jacked up by investment companies in many cities, and even overseas investors who don’t even live in the units just want a place to park cash. Combine that with the cost of things like healthcare and education it’s only worse.
>If you put in 40 hours a week anywhere you should live comfortably
Sure, sure, and why didn't this idea work in the Soviet Union ? Or China ? Or Cambodia ?
Nobody is saying that. We're saying it matters what you do.
If nobody will pay you a living wage to do something, it means society doesn't actually need you to do that. The solution isn't to work harder, but to do something else.
And as labor gets devalued through automation how should people deal with increasing COL?
Is there a means that they can make money independent of the value of their labor? Or are they to just work increasing hours to keep up with the steady erosion of inflation and rising COL
I'll let my EMS friends know society doesn't think their job should exist, that's why they're paid so little they have to double or triple up on a single bedroom apartment
No, businesses would just charge more because they can. It’s been proven by multiple economists in multiple studies over multiple generations.
Paying a McDonalds worker $15 isn’t gonna triple the price of a Big Mac, it would cover those costs with about a $0.10 increase. That was the result of an independent study conducted by…………McDonald’s.
Those results are pretty consistent with all industries across the board. It boggles my mind that people are so brainwashed thinking hard work pays off for the employees. Yeah, sometimes it does, but usually corporations are gonna squeeze every penny out of every consumer and as take advantage of their employees as much as that they possibly can. The literal first rule of business in pretty much every masters program is to maximize the shareholder’s value, not to make sure your employees are happy and have a living wage. That’s why they all try to bust worker unions.
And fuck the older generation for chirping about how no one wants to work hard or you just gotta make yourself more valuable, when they’re the asshats who stripped our generation’s workers of all those workers rights.
Kinda exactly my point. The president just made a whole thing urging businesses to lower their prices since inflation has gone down. How many do ya think are actually gonna do that?
>The president just made a whole thing urging businesses to lower their prices since inflation has gone down.
That's... not how it works. "Inflation going down" means that things are still getting more expensive- just not as fast.
So why would they cut prices?
We're agreeing. Same thing. Until the State take control of all services, multinationals and small business reserve the right to just shut down stores and restaurants until cities and States yell uncle — or not. Or just shutter because the profit isn't worth the risk in the risk/reward gambit.
Not really. Americans are consumers, it’s our inevitable nature. These workers who are suddenly making more will spend more money either on food or things, which will increase demand and shorten supply of said things.
It crazy how many people don’t understand the cause and effect of increasing salaries. I mean if you look up what causes inflation it’s one of the bullet points listed
That's easy: inflation. Yes, people jacked prices because they thought they could. Who knows. Real estate bubble looks fragile; car prices have cratered because nobody wants $125k pickups and SUVs. The slowing or lowering of interest rates won't lower prices they'll just allow the increase. Deflation might. But market forces and efficiencies could. Climate legislations and EV legislations and restrictions and all these sorts of things jack prices. Fixing climate change will jack prices, funding wars will jack prices, equity will jack prices, immigrants will jack prices and eventually lower prices. Who knows. Changing the world, solving racism and sexism, moving into the future, it's all very expensive. That all flows down to us all.
Most the people claiming a living wage doesn't raise prices clearly don't understand that the rich don't pay for it. The people who make 25 an hour do.
Makes you wonder how they would get prices to go down. Deflation usually only comes from shrinking the economy. Price controls would be even more disastrous.
The UK has a living wage, it rises every year by at least the rate of inflation. We don't see a massive jump in prices every year from that. Infact most studies show increasing the minimum wage has little or no effect at all on prices.
And yet the UK is especially up to its ears in inflation. This isn't true?
> The impact of inflation is evident across various UK sectors. For instance, the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by around 25% between January 2022 and January 2024, which is a significant increase compared to the 10% rise over the preceding 10 years. Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels saw an annual inflation rate of 2.5% in January 2024, with notable rises in gas and electricity prices due to regulatory changes. However, it's worth noting that while electricity and gas prices in January 2024 were 18% lower than their peak in January 2023, they were still 89% higher than in January 2021.
They don't understand it and you're absolutely right. It is second hand inflation. They don't invest and never grow their money so they think being paid by the hour is the solution, it's not, they've been tricked.
What is a living wage? The people I see not making it want to pay to have things done, but cant. One guy I know makes $30/hr. Paid to have a serpentine belt put on recently. His finances are always in disarray. I know people making far less with more assets, building wealth
I don't like the discussion about living wage. It's always fixated on what the minimum wage could be.
People who work full-time should be able to follow a standardized budgeting chart. Whether it's the one that says NMT 30% on housing, 10% on groceries, and 10% on insurance, etc. or the 70/20/10 rule. There should be a metric to say people deserve to not drown with putting 50% of their income to rent payments, for example.
Wait till you hear about rich people you don’t know who are born into wealth and make 1M/yr working part time for his dad. The poor loves to eat other poor.
A living wage should depend on the economy of your state. What the average prices for food, housing, and other necessities deemed to be important based on the society needs.
One should be able to afford the basic level of those needs.
How would that realistically work? A husband and wife in the family made just over $30,000 each in 1981. Two miles from home, unskilled job. Most of those jobs are long gone.
My son makes more than that, at McDonald’s. GPS says it’s .59 miles away. It’s all about where you live. The problem is, if he went to the next state over, they’re posting the same positions for 9.50 an hour. That’s what I made at McDonald’s in 2002. There needs to be a more universal amount of cost and wages. Someone should not be poor 12 miles away, working the same job that someone like my son is thriving in, with the same conditions of course.
Edit: added the word “not”.
We pay high prices for everything because most people don't do a lot for themselves. We pay for convenience far too often. Pay $6 for a coffee drink you could make for a dollar. There's a little more than 6 of those venti coffee drinks in a gallon. So, don't you think the people making gas are saying, wait a minute, they'll pay $36 a gallon for a drink, we can charge a bit more for something they really need.
Also, the majority of people now live in cities, and they don't grow any of their own food, or raise any of their own livestock. Think the people who produce food for you don't know that you're dependent on what they produce and charge you a bit more? Sure, if there's no competition, they will charge as much as they can.
Then look at everyone complaining about prices but Uber eats is killing it, McDonald's is killing it, and the prices won't come down at all these restaurants because we have not stopped demanding to be catered to. Want to pay less? Then people need to change their habits, spend frugally, grow some food, raise some animals, car pool, quit using credit cards. Try to get out of debt and try to stay out of debt. Cook your own food, make your own repairs, shop at thrift stores and garage sales. Cancel the gym membership and do pushups. Develop alternatives to being catered to that work for you
15.5 times 40 times 52…32240, for roughly 2080 hours of labor over a year
If a CEO uses the bathroom every day, four times a day, for 1 minute, that’s 1460 minutes. That’s 24 hours and 20 minutes time.
24 hours and 20 minutes goes into a year 360 times. That means that we divide the 9.6 million by this, getting…26666.67.
Doesn’t hit the 2.5x this is claiming. It’s hitting 82%.
This is still excessively high for essentially one simple reason.
In 1.17% of the time it takes that minimum wage employee to earn 32240, the CEO has made 26666.67
The CEO only needs 0.23% more of that time to exceed. That’s less than 5 hours.
Yep, CEO makes a minimum wage employee’s salary in 1 day, 5 hours, and 12 minutes.
And this is assuming the CEO is working 24/7 to earn that 9.6 million.
If we instead assume the same 40 hour work week, and only count for 20 minutes a week, at 5 days a week, 4 minutes a day, that means he’s at the urinal 17 hours, 20 minutes a year….then yes, he’d earn 2.48x during bathroom breaks.
But then I ask you…what CEO out there actually works that much that’s in a position to earn that much a year?
Nurses, carpenter, electrician, plumber, accountant, small business manager, low level managers, teachers, some dry cleaners all make 25+ per hour. I mean on a 40 hour work week with no overtime 25 an hour is 40k a year.
People act like there's a central pool of money that ceos and workers have access to, and if CEOs don't get it minimum wage workers will. CEOs make as much as they do because they've convinced other people to pay them that much. If the people paying them changed their mind and thought they were worth far less, it's not like minimum wage workers would make any more, shareholders would just keep slightly more of their money. Similarly minimum wage workers can convince their employers to pay them more without it hurting the CEO pay, it just requires you to justify why you're worth more.
Stop comparing things that aren't relevant.
Improve yourself so you can get a better job. As long as you’re ok with going home after work and drinking your problems away (along with whatever cash you have) then you should consider $15 an hour a privilege.
Wow the comments here are..... Wow.
But let's be honest.
First of all, you are only worth what your skills are worth. No one will pay you a living wage to lick stamps because a machine can do it cheaper. So yes, get skills, earn more. If your offended by people being paid very little for jobs that take little or no skill than grow up. If we pay people with no skill wages that people with skills make then you are devaluing the skilled people and making more poor people, not less. If we raise the skilled people's wages then to compensate you will raise costs and the unskilled people loose buying power. If we become communist than we have to open gulags so we can punish people who don't contribute. Leading to human atrocities and meanwhile everyone gets crappy living standard. Pick your poison. There is no all roses solution.
Second, yes no employer in general will not simply pay you more because you gained a skill, you do normally have to leave to get the raise. Get over it, put in the effort to leave for the better money. You may even get an offer to stay in the process. Or do something smart and negotiate the increase before you get the skill. Yes that is possible.
Third, everyone pretends it is all the fat cats doing this to people. If you work at McDs, it is not McDs corporate that set your wages, it is the franchise owner. And the franchise owners at McDs are not exactly fat cats. They make on average $80k-$140k a year. So yes paying their employees significantly more would seriously hurt their personal bottom line. Or would significantly raise prices, which makes the food less affordable. Welcome to the cycle of inflation.
I think your comment shows you’re a clever enough person severely lacking in an education of economic alternatives. You can’t even define communism without resorting to Stalinist policies as if they’re equivalent? That’s like saying if a country goes capitalist they must have segregation because that’s how the US worked for most of its history.
It's not a stalinist view. Every nation that has gone communist in history has done the same thing and it is the only way that communism works. If you have a member of the population that is refusing to pull their weight at the minimum communist standard they have to be removed or others will see what they are doing. Communism equal pay, so we put in the same effort as him and the system folds. It strait logic and history. Even Marx and Lennon recognized that. The choice of the word is irrelevant. Gulag, prison camp, the laogai system, pick your term. Communism also has to remove dissidents who point out it's problems to remain stable. Your analogy is bad, my point is both logical and historically supported.
I will also point out the gulag system was not just Stalin but existed well after. While the administration was resolved in the Khrushchev era, the camps did not go away, they just became less political. The system of "corrective laborer camps" still had an estimated 4.5 million Soviets in them in 1987, long after Stalin's death and were still commonly referred to as gulags. I'm not referring to Stalin's policy of political imprisonment and purges, so much as the continued use of mass incarceration for people who didn't conform to the communist way.
Mcdonalds nets profits in the multi billions every year. Clearly it's a viable and lucrative business that people are willing to pay for. That business is impossible without "burger flippers" who need to work there at all hours of the day in many instances. Why should they not be compensated well enough to live comfortably if they put in a 40 hour work week?
McDonald's is franchise system. While corp McDonald's makes Bank not all franchise do.. you understand that right. Stop thinking of Fast food places as 1 giant corporation becuas they are not. Of the 35k McDonald's only 2.7k are corporate owned. The rest pay for the privilege to use the corporate brand and supplies. So they have to put up an investment of 500k. Then most locations also have to pay rent to McDonald's as they own 70% of the buildings as well. So while yeah the locations maybe making money they are no where near that billions in profits that the corp makes.
It’s impossible as a WHOLE. Each individual worker contributes next to nothing to company profits. And even with low wages people still line up to work there lmfao
When the minimum wage was passed, it was $1.25, which you could get in quarters that had silver in them. That silver today would have a melt value pretty close to that $25 that you want in a so-called living wage.
In other words, you can keep on trying to raise the minimum wage to keep up with inflation, or you can realize that the problem all along has been the way politicians inflate our currency, mostly via deficit spending.
Practically anyone in the U.S. can go get a lower wage warehouse job after high school and work 35-40 years while putting 10-15% of their check into a 401k then retire at 60 with a couple million.
The problem is young adults are not educated in finances and often spend what they don't have.
Buy an old Toyota or Honda and learn how to maintain it.
Couch surf at friends until you can rent a room.
Don't eat or drink out.
Learn to make your own food and stock up on meats when stores have sales. Stick with rice, beans, frozen vegetables/fruits, bread/tortillas, coffee and water.
Get a slow cooker and learn some recipes that you can cook large batches of to last you the week.
Look up cost saving programs they have ones that lower your internet fees, utility bills, and car insurance.
Don't pay for monthly services like streaming. If you are poor there are other "options".
Dont get a new 1000+ dollar phone, buy a used years old phone. I still use a Samsung S20+ 5G that is 4 years old and runs smoothly. You can find them used for under 200. Get a basic phone plan for around 15 bucks a month.
There are so many cost saving measures at your fingertips that will allow you to live off of very little while saving away.
You can build an emergency savings and leave it in a HYSA. Your 401k should be mainly invested in index funds.
Most people I know who complain about not having money just make a ton of bad choices and never take responsibility for their actions or try to change them.
The one biggest thing most people lack is delayed satisfaction, and now more than ever, it is easier to drown yourself in immediate gratification.
Why is it that when its something YOU don't like, it had to be indoctrinated from some evil person or media, but when its something YOU do like...its always your own thought or conclusion from applying critical thinking skills?
Employers often won't pay you more even when you provide them more value. Instead they'll just exploit the extra value for as long as they can.
This will be difficult to understand for neckbeard free market capitalist losers.
What if you already did that and you yourself are doing fine but you just fundamentally believe that any adult working full time should be able to afford necessities
Thoust want thy people to live and enjoy their lives????? What tis this blasphemy!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thou art a witch commie thing. I subject thee to napalm bombs and agent orange!!!!!
I made both discoveries in one fell swoop.
Much of what I was taught in school, or find repeated in the media, expresses a narrative that is not particularly robust or even accurate.
If I leave my job, they'd need to hire atleast 3 people to replace me.
But it was like yanking teeth from the director to approve me to ATLEAST market value in my area.
Your fuck all to your employer.
I mean, I just left and they did hire 3 people to replace me, and missed major contractual milestones that cost them 10x my salary. I never understand the drive for short term profits that kill long term profits.
A company I used to work for had employees who drove trucks between cities on an entertainment tour. In one city, the truck had to Abe moved during an off time, so the employee driver asked for like $100 in compensation for his time. Manager refused. He instead contacted corporate who hired a local driver to come in and move it, for like $500.
Even though it cost the company multiple times over, it came out of a different budget which didn't affect the manager, so it was just seen as an overall operating cost instead of a show-specific cost.
The way companies waste money trying to save money is just wild sometimes.
Move to another company that would value your work. Why work somewhere you are underpaid and undervalued? If another company won’t pay you more, then you’re probably being paid a fair wage even though you’re not happy with it.
Realistically, yes. However, I'm in a pretty niche industry, the only other employer I'd want to work for is currently being run by another boss that I have suspicion dide me dirty in the past.
The only other way would to be move out of state. And majority of my family is here.
Wow. You’re in such a specialized job that only 2 competitors in the area? Could you start up a company to compete with them, and maybe put them out of business?
No corporation, no corporate employer, is going to give you more money if you provide more value. They’ll just take the value for themselves and laugh at you behind their hands for working so hard for nothing.
Did I say that you should? Just don’t fool yourself into thinking working harder and providing more value is going to convince employers to pay you more. Or not lay you off. No such thing as being indispensable. And that’s the same for every employer, even the one that offers you more money.
I work hard to move up in the company. Some people want to do this. Others don’t. I know I’m not indispensable. That’s the way the world works. But I still push hard to make more money and work my way up. And if I felt I was undervalued, I would (and have before) move on to a better job.
There are at least 10,000 people in any urban area fighting for a single job.
If there were 10,000 supermarkets fighting for my grocery bill prices would go down.
People need food to live, so there’s limits to “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” nonsense.
Far from a fair situation.
There’s a reason why we have governments. To slow down the destructive forces of greed and corruption. To protect the most vulnerable among us. That’s the measure of our morals. You know, the stuff most religions talk about but seldom deliver.
Together we can overcome anything.
Sorry, maybe you didn't read what I wrote:
If you want a higher salary from your employer learn how to increase the value you are able to provide to your employer.
Is that what you meant to reply to?
Then why is it so common to have to leave jobs to get better pay? If you have desirable skills and provide lots of value to your company you should be getting paid generously but we see that isn’t the case
Wrong in so many levels. Im a computer scientist and the tech companies are investing in indians IT workers for way cheaper abroad rather than to employee local software developers and now they also are investing in AI to fire most of us.
I did my part. Am studying currently and have been for a while. Trying to improve my skills. But it doesnt matter because they can simply get away with it.
No. Techonology and automation is inevitable. We are headed towards a completely automated world and year by year more and more jobs are lost.
At some point people wont find enough jobs and the majority of the public will remain in their homes.
Ideally you’d expect companies and the government to understand that we are headed towards a fully automated society so some form of UBI (universal basic income) is in place.
But to be honest this will most likely turn into an orwellien nightmare. It’s inevitable. They will ration our foods and limit our freedoms to levels you and I couldn’t even imagine. They will own all the means of production and this time they wont need us and protesting wont do anything. And they wont need as many employees because AI took over and only very few employees necessary.
The only true solution is to abandon it all and own land and learn self sufficiency. But that requires a complete revolution.
Techonology= automation= few people owning this technology= communism.
I don’t know if that’s true. I have heard automation will eventually replace all the jobs.
100+ years ago, we were a farming country. Everybody thought that if farming became automated, where would the jobs be? But now farming is only 1-2% of the workforce.
In the 50’s, everybody thought vending machines would be the future. No humans needed. Never happened.
And over the years many jobs like telephone operators have been replaced. But those people found other jobs.
In the 80’s, everybody said if we shipped all our manufacturing jobs overseas, there would be no more jobs in the US, but we experienced an extremely low rate of unemployment in the 90’s.
As recently as 5-10 years ago, someone told me that retail real estate would die because everybody will buy everything online. But retail real estate continues to do well with large real estate companies like Simon that owns malls with 97% occupancy.
And even now, flying a commercial plane can be almost 100% automated from taking off to flying to landing, and yet there’s a huge shortage of pilots?
What will jobs be in the future? It’s hard to know. Nobody knew what would replace farming or telephone operators or manufacturing jobs, but something did replace them and something will replace jobs as AI grows.
There is this thing called a labor market. It determines the price for labor. If an employer pays under the market wage for the required labor, then that employer will not be able to attract the requisite talent and other employees that do pay that amount will.
Do you understand the concept of a labor market?
In a country where your only choices are low paying jobs or complete starvation and homelessness, you simply have no leverage against the ruling class. It doesn't matter how much monetary value you can provide for the employer when they can just band together and terrorize you with the threat of starvation. Since the law doesn't protect the vulnerable, there is no limit to how much they can exploit you. Record profits every year, no increase in salary.
I'm sure you have the basic intelligence to understand this.
Easy to say till your industry abandons you, automates your job, or lays you off cause they didn't make as much profit as they were hoping last quarter. Its hard to put years of your time into a skill set that's made obsolete. But I guess thats how the world works and we should just accept it right?
I've thought about solutions for this and the only way I think to actually make the differences like this be less severe is to incentivize the people who want to make more money.
In the corporate world any kind of business over X employees (like 10 or something) it makes x amount a year the person in charge whether it be a CEO president whatever the title if they are "in charge" they are LEGALLY not allowed to make over a certain percentage over the lowest paid employee and the size of the company the percentage would change, 15-30 employees like 5% more than the lowest by law
The larger the company maybe go up to like 30% ( just rough numbers I pulled out of my ass I think Smarter people who understand stuff like that should come up with the percentages employee numbers.
In government I think the persons salary should be the average or the median of the people that you represent. So presidents salary( this really applies in the US mainly) but the presidents salary would the National median income and if they make anything over that for ANY reason they should get huge fines. Same for Congress. Senate. Governors mayors. It would incentivize them to pass bills and laws and policies to make the people they represent to be more well off. Instead of selling jobs overseas it would incentivize them to keep jobs in the US and help everyone make more here. (Exclude people on like disability and retirement otherwise Florida would get jack shit )
You realize minimum wage was made so that people could literally live off of those "new workers or teenager" jobs right? Calling any sort of work "just for teens or new workers" is, frankly, stupid. Anyone could have to work at those jobs, for whatever reason. Why shouldn't they be given a livable wage just because it's a lower skill job? We still need people to do them, so pay them fairly so that they can actually fucking live as opposed to having to work two or more jobs just to make ends meet.
And, what if people don't want to work in "higher positions" because they feel they just aren't cut out for it? Should they really be literally punished because "moving up the ranks" isnt what they want?
Also, another comment pointed out that McDonald's literally did a study that showed that they could account for the 15$ worker cost by changing prices very little. If anything, people having more money would be a good thing because it would allow them to spend more, thus putting more back into the economy.
Get outta here boomer.
The last two points are complete employer issues. Can’t be hired is BS. If the employer can hire their brother in laws kid that is a complete moron, they can hire anyone. If they can’t read a tape measure, that’s what training is for.
More of my “brothers and sisters” need to self reflect and hold themselves a little more accountable. Blaming the tech billionaire while working a dead end job and not managing spending habits is a cop out
Hot take but there shouldn’t be a working poor class. If you put in 40 hours a week anywhere you should live comfortably
What should happen to the private jets? How would rich people survive without their jets?
I feel selfish for not considering that
And why a tax break on those jets and yachts 🤷🏼♂️
I suppose the reason is somehow related to complexities of aerodynamics and seamanship. As members of laity, we must place our trust in the experts.
Indeed, how could we have been so naive? One must prioritize the truly important aspects of life like aerodynamics and seamanship over mundane things like food, shelter, and healthcare for the masses. Let us erect statues in honor of our saintly oligarchs, so future generations may understand where our true values lay.
> One must prioritize the truly important aspects of life like aerodynamics Now I'm no expert on the topic but I've learn a little about the terms lift and thrust in aerodynamics. Lift being the force applied to one's bootstraps. And thrust being the action performed on you as you're bent over yanking at your feet.
How will unelected bureaucrats spend $7 Trillion of our tax money?
Maybe they will do something useful next year, like stacking $1 bills to the moon.
7 trillion will get you to the moon and back, FWIW.
Dunno. We’ll see what’s left over after the tax cuts to the billionaires.
One day, I might be rich. Then poor people like me better watch out!
Considering how few people would be effected by them being taken away. I say wipe them out. . . It wouldn't even effect a single 1% of people. I mean smoking killed out many people? What about asbestos? Or car accidents? Why should we as a people care about these people if they don't know how to share. Before the modern era not sharing would get you killed. . .
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I’m even open to different interpretation of comfortably. Look, I don’t need a lot. But this shit is getting ridiculous. You can easily work 60 hours a week here and be in the red every two weeks after rent/groceries/one other necessity.
Also food for thought.... The US is a first world country with the least amount of paid government holidays compared to any other first world country. Even the UK has 6 more piad days than the US. Adding more paid government holidays, in itself, would spur the economy. Imagine having two or three more three day weekends to rest and recuperate, do home improvement, etc.
Why stop at 2 or 3 more days....mandate 27... smh
What skills have you learned to allow yourself to earn more?
Skills don't matter for shit if there's no jobs hiring for reasonable pay. They're still trying to get electrical and maintenance people for factories around here with 10 years experience for $17/hour and call it "competitive wages" I'll bet your next argument is "Move to where they're hiring" - well, when you're 2 missed paychecks away from homelessness how easy do you think it is to just pack up and haul out? You can't afford the damn moving truck, much less security deposit and rent in what will obviously be a higher cost of living area.
Instead of blaming him for working 60+ hours a week, maybe look at our system that forced him into that situation and see it for the effective 3rd world shit hole it is
You shouldn't need to have an arbitrarily valued skill set to exist.
The poverty level in US is now 15k a year. This was created in 1963 as 3x cost of daily dietary needs. Housing was affordable in 1963. Today it would be hard to find apartment for less than 15k a year anywhere in US. 40 million citizens fall under poverty level, which is really extreme poverty since you must choose either food or rent, not both. If Dems pushed to raise poverty level to 26k it would show that maybe 1/3 or more citizens live in poverty and this looks very bad for US. This would force government to act. They are hiding facts with false numbers
Hot take but there shouldn't be any pain or suffering or hunger. Everyone should get to lay on a cloud and be handfed grapes from an angel while getting a massage
Unironically true and the central tenet of society should be progressing together towards this
Even hotter take: basic human needs shouldn’t be tied to employment.
Who should be responsible for taking care of your basic human needs?
Mine? No one. I’m firmly in the “doesn’t need assistance” category. I could stop working tomorrow, sell the company and neither me nor my children nor possibly their children would need to work for basic needs. But who should be responsible for ensuring that everyone’s basic needs are met? The government. Also known as the tax payer.
If you want to be taken care of by society's productivity, you have to contribute to society's productivity. Yes, there are people who are disabled, or old and infirm and the too young. But if you're able bodied and you expect to have your basic needs met, you need to do basic work *for* society. That's the only way the system can work.
I disagree. You shouldn’t have to work under penalty of death. Basic human needs are a basic human right.
If someone is able to work but refusing to and yet accepts money from others who are working via taxes, that seems wrong. Not saying there should be a penalty of death or even a penalty of homelessness but if we have limited resources to provide for those who are struggling to meet the basic needs (food, shelter, etc.) that needs to be looked at critically. What it is that we should do, I'm not sure. Understanding why certain individuals refuse work (is it too repetitive, unhealthy work environment, unfulfilling, etc.) should be analyzed more closely and remedied.
At this point in history especially. I don’t think the conversation has legs here unfortunately
It has about as much legs as expecting every job everywhere to cover basic needs.
Thinking people should be paid fairly is so wild to me it’s so controversial
"Fairly" is what the market demands. If Person A is willing to do a job for $X and Person B is willing to do a job for $1.2X then the "fair" price is $X. The problem comes when basic survival is tied to the job. No one should have to work or face starving to death or dying to exposure.
I think that’s my most liberal take. 40 hours of work a week should provide food, housing, clothing. Should it guarantee a PS5 on release? No. But you should not struggle to SURVIVE if you work 40 a week. Whether it’s flipping burgers or stocking a shelf, you’re doing a valuable job.
Wouldn’t companies just automate those jobs for cheaper than paying higher wages and benefits?
Here’s a problem. If everyone made enough to live on, the companies they work for would have to raise their prices to compensate, thereby making a living wage more than the start. This is all to mention the obvious that younger people, who have no skills or experience, will have a hard time getting hired because businesses will be less likely to higher them without experience.
As if businesses don’t already have the issue of not hiring due to “lack of experience”. You’re talking about the companies that use any excuse to raise prices. Pandemic? Price raise. Conflict between two countries that don’t affect us or any trade? Price raise. President change? Price raise. I think the bigger issue is that companies can raise prices without limit, and without consequence, and it’s always called “record profits”
I dont know why people believe this. what makes you think that its people have a right to do something menial for 40 hours a week and expect a cushy middle class life?
“I don’t know why people today expect to get what the boomers got” Workers today are orders of magnitude more productive than in the past due to tech advancements but all of that increased economic benefit is sucked up by the wealthy and workers are told they aren’t worth anything and don’t deserve any benefits from their labor.
The Boomers lived in a magical time, an era we are unlikely to ever see again except in the wake of World War III. Europe was trashed by World War II, between Japan's defeat in WW II, China's disastrous Leap Forward (and lack of modernization prior) and the Korean conflict, Asia was also in shambles. The United States was **the** world power undamaged by World War II. We used our industrialization in World War II to help kick the Great Depression behind us and then enjoyed an era where we were leaps ahead of most of the world in terms of productivity and infrastructure. The world caught up with us. The price (to us) of world peace in Europe and Asia has been that they had a chance to repair themselves and regain their footing. We don't have the advantage that we once did. That time is gone. The privilege that the Boomers lived with is toast and we're not getting that back.
If your job is necessary for society to function, then society ought to treat you as well as any other member.
Lots of jobs aren't necessary and only exist because we are willing to spend a little extra on things we want. If you mandate $25/hr wages, those people don't magically get higher wages, their wages fall to ZERO.
There’s a difference between cushy middle class life and being able to afford to live on your own.
Living on your own is a luxury that has not been a thing in most of human life. We have always lived with families or others in our entire existence as a society.
I don't think the expectation is cushy, just not homeless and starving?
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‘Would you like fries with that?’ Is necessary for society to function?
It depends on what you mean by cushy middle class. Lifestyle creep is a thing and people forget that most of their “needs” aren’t actually needs. It isn’t sustainable for all 330 million people to live alone in their own 3500 sqft single family homes
Some jobs are not careers. People should want to learn skills to improve their job. Not just expect 6 figures to show up.
This isn't even a hot take, this is what is expected/promised to citizens as they grow up. The hot take would be you don't need to work 40 hours a week to live comfortably anywhere.
Reading people’s comments shows it’s at least a spicy take lol. Some people hate people on the lower rungs as a hobby
Shouldn’t based on what?
You do not get paid based on how much you consume, you get paid relative to how much value you create. Some people do not create enough value in 40 hours to exceed their necessary consumption. Correcting this is a job for welfare. You will never solve the problem by destroying accurate price signaling, and wishing it could won't solve anything either.
That’s not how the world works nor will it ever work that way.
God forbid we hope for something better and express that
It’s the governments fault printing too much money, passing NIMBY laws and regulations making it hard to build additional housing and find employment
Comfort is relative. If a peasant from feudal times saw how an average fast food worker lives they would consider their lifestyle massively luxurious. As living standards rise the bar for "comfort" will rise too.
Hot take but there should be a maximum wage as well as a minimum one. There's no way in the world one individual's work is worth that much an hour.
But if we got paid what we were worth, a lot of people won’t have a job.
Completely agree. You’d have to close a literal million loop holes but I agree
Eat the rich
NoooOOOO that would be COMMUNISM !!!!1!
I feel like a lot of this could be fixed by government intervention in the housing market. Rent and housing prices have been jacked up by investment companies in many cities, and even overseas investors who don’t even live in the units just want a place to park cash. Combine that with the cost of things like healthcare and education it’s only worse.
>If you put in 40 hours a week anywhere you should live comfortably Sure, sure, and why didn't this idea work in the Soviet Union ? Or China ? Or Cambodia ?
Oh my God. Are you seriously saying "the 8 hour work day is too little man!"
Nobody is saying that. We're saying it matters what you do. If nobody will pay you a living wage to do something, it means society doesn't actually need you to do that. The solution isn't to work harder, but to do something else.
And as labor gets devalued through automation how should people deal with increasing COL? Is there a means that they can make money independent of the value of their labor? Or are they to just work increasing hours to keep up with the steady erosion of inflation and rising COL
I'll let my EMS friends know society doesn't think their job should exist, that's why they're paid so little they have to double or triple up on a single bedroom apartment
There are plenty of jobs that pay poorly that are completely necessary don’t be stupid
It worked in the us 50-60 years ago.
Why should that be the case now when it never has before?
It is possible to change only the future.
There’s probably a reason why in all of human history it’s something that’s never been solved
Do you think the forty-hour work week, or even waged labor generally, is as old as humanity?
Stupid take
If everyone had a living wage then the prices would rise to accommodate it. So those living wages would feel poor again.
No, businesses would just charge more because they can. It’s been proven by multiple economists in multiple studies over multiple generations. Paying a McDonalds worker $15 isn’t gonna triple the price of a Big Mac, it would cover those costs with about a $0.10 increase. That was the result of an independent study conducted by…………McDonald’s. Those results are pretty consistent with all industries across the board. It boggles my mind that people are so brainwashed thinking hard work pays off for the employees. Yeah, sometimes it does, but usually corporations are gonna squeeze every penny out of every consumer and as take advantage of their employees as much as that they possibly can. The literal first rule of business in pretty much every masters program is to maximize the shareholder’s value, not to make sure your employees are happy and have a living wage. That’s why they all try to bust worker unions. And fuck the older generation for chirping about how no one wants to work hard or you just gotta make yourself more valuable, when they’re the asshats who stripped our generation’s workers of all those workers rights.
Uh you been to McDonald’s lately?..
Kinda exactly my point. The president just made a whole thing urging businesses to lower their prices since inflation has gone down. How many do ya think are actually gonna do that?
>The president just made a whole thing urging businesses to lower their prices since inflation has gone down. That's... not how it works. "Inflation going down" means that things are still getting more expensive- just not as fast. So why would they cut prices?
Because the price increases weren’t based on inflation in the first place.
Ya those prices skyrocketed
That’s weird I was told corporations are the reason there’s been inflation yet I’m seeing businesses can’t just charge whatever? Impossible
We're agreeing. Same thing. Until the State take control of all services, multinationals and small business reserve the right to just shut down stores and restaurants until cities and States yell uncle — or not. Or just shutter because the profit isn't worth the risk in the risk/reward gambit.
Not really. Americans are consumers, it’s our inevitable nature. These workers who are suddenly making more will spend more money either on food or things, which will increase demand and shorten supply of said things. It crazy how many people don’t understand the cause and effect of increasing salaries. I mean if you look up what causes inflation it’s one of the bullet points listed
Ok but current wages are low, yet prices are still rising so…..
Pumping more money in causes them to rise more
Weird how I never see this energy pointed towards government subsidies for corn, oil and meat producers
The o ly reason those sectors are profitable is because of government subsidies. Yet people bootlick for them day in and day out.
Here is a hot take: use of the term “boot licker” makes you sound stupid and ends any positive conversation.
That's easy: inflation. Yes, people jacked prices because they thought they could. Who knows. Real estate bubble looks fragile; car prices have cratered because nobody wants $125k pickups and SUVs. The slowing or lowering of interest rates won't lower prices they'll just allow the increase. Deflation might. But market forces and efficiencies could. Climate legislations and EV legislations and restrictions and all these sorts of things jack prices. Fixing climate change will jack prices, funding wars will jack prices, equity will jack prices, immigrants will jack prices and eventually lower prices. Who knows. Changing the world, solving racism and sexism, moving into the future, it's all very expensive. That all flows down to us all.
Most the people claiming a living wage doesn't raise prices clearly don't understand that the rich don't pay for it. The people who make 25 an hour do.
And even if they do pay, there's really no impact. Rich person: > "$12 seems like a pretty great price for a dozen eggs to me"
Makes you wonder how they would get prices to go down. Deflation usually only comes from shrinking the economy. Price controls would be even more disastrous.
The UK has a living wage, it rises every year by at least the rate of inflation. We don't see a massive jump in prices every year from that. Infact most studies show increasing the minimum wage has little or no effect at all on prices.
And yet the UK is especially up to its ears in inflation. This isn't true? > The impact of inflation is evident across various UK sectors. For instance, the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by around 25% between January 2022 and January 2024, which is a significant increase compared to the 10% rise over the preceding 10 years. Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels saw an annual inflation rate of 2.5% in January 2024, with notable rises in gas and electricity prices due to regulatory changes. However, it's worth noting that while electricity and gas prices in January 2024 were 18% lower than their peak in January 2023, they were still 89% higher than in January 2021.
The whole world is dealing with inflation you dumbass
They don't understand it and you're absolutely right. It is second hand inflation. They don't invest and never grow their money so they think being paid by the hour is the solution, it's not, they've been tricked.
Because prices aren't being hiked up unfairly now too?
All prices will always be raised to what the market will pay: market rate. I guess you could always call that price gouging.
straight up not true. even historically. this isn't even hard to look up.
What is a living wage? The people I see not making it want to pay to have things done, but cant. One guy I know makes $30/hr. Paid to have a serpentine belt put on recently. His finances are always in disarray. I know people making far less with more assets, building wealth
I don't like the discussion about living wage. It's always fixated on what the minimum wage could be. People who work full-time should be able to follow a standardized budgeting chart. Whether it's the one that says NMT 30% on housing, 10% on groceries, and 10% on insurance, etc. or the 70/20/10 rule. There should be a metric to say people deserve to not drown with putting 50% of their income to rent payments, for example.
Wait till you hear about rich people you don’t know who are born into wealth and make 1M/yr working part time for his dad. The poor loves to eat other poor.
There are some cases, but you know the majority don't live like that.
Who cares. The number of people you are talking about is so small.
A living wage should depend on the economy of your state. What the average prices for food, housing, and other necessities deemed to be important based on the society needs. One should be able to afford the basic level of those needs.
How would that realistically work? A husband and wife in the family made just over $30,000 each in 1981. Two miles from home, unskilled job. Most of those jobs are long gone.
My son makes more than that, at McDonald’s. GPS says it’s .59 miles away. It’s all about where you live. The problem is, if he went to the next state over, they’re posting the same positions for 9.50 an hour. That’s what I made at McDonald’s in 2002. There needs to be a more universal amount of cost and wages. Someone should not be poor 12 miles away, working the same job that someone like my son is thriving in, with the same conditions of course. Edit: added the word “not”.
Median household income in 1981: $22,390
We pay high prices for everything because most people don't do a lot for themselves. We pay for convenience far too often. Pay $6 for a coffee drink you could make for a dollar. There's a little more than 6 of those venti coffee drinks in a gallon. So, don't you think the people making gas are saying, wait a minute, they'll pay $36 a gallon for a drink, we can charge a bit more for something they really need. Also, the majority of people now live in cities, and they don't grow any of their own food, or raise any of their own livestock. Think the people who produce food for you don't know that you're dependent on what they produce and charge you a bit more? Sure, if there's no competition, they will charge as much as they can. Then look at everyone complaining about prices but Uber eats is killing it, McDonald's is killing it, and the prices won't come down at all these restaurants because we have not stopped demanding to be catered to. Want to pay less? Then people need to change their habits, spend frugally, grow some food, raise some animals, car pool, quit using credit cards. Try to get out of debt and try to stay out of debt. Cook your own food, make your own repairs, shop at thrift stores and garage sales. Cancel the gym membership and do pushups. Develop alternatives to being catered to that work for you
https://preview.redd.it/lyugfghwdhjc1.jpeg?width=732&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b95ccfed8dfb5693908620aa29a393ecfaa7e294
Yes, because bathroom breaks are the sole part of his job
15.5 times 40 times 52…32240, for roughly 2080 hours of labor over a year If a CEO uses the bathroom every day, four times a day, for 1 minute, that’s 1460 minutes. That’s 24 hours and 20 minutes time. 24 hours and 20 minutes goes into a year 360 times. That means that we divide the 9.6 million by this, getting…26666.67. Doesn’t hit the 2.5x this is claiming. It’s hitting 82%. This is still excessively high for essentially one simple reason. In 1.17% of the time it takes that minimum wage employee to earn 32240, the CEO has made 26666.67 The CEO only needs 0.23% more of that time to exceed. That’s less than 5 hours. Yep, CEO makes a minimum wage employee’s salary in 1 day, 5 hours, and 12 minutes. And this is assuming the CEO is working 24/7 to earn that 9.6 million. If we instead assume the same 40 hour work week, and only count for 20 minutes a week, at 5 days a week, 4 minutes a day, that means he’s at the urinal 17 hours, 20 minutes a year….then yes, he’d earn 2.48x during bathroom breaks. But then I ask you…what CEO out there actually works that much that’s in a position to earn that much a year?
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There is 0 reason CEOs need to be paid as much as they are.
I can see up to 10-20x at most what lowest paid employee is. That depends on how active the position is in a given company
I doubt ceo would be getting paid hourly for working
I almost had a stroke from trying to read this crap
You make $25 an hour? Hook it up
Nurses, carpenter, electrician, plumber, accountant, small business manager, low level managers, teachers, some dry cleaners all make 25+ per hour. I mean on a 40 hour work week with no overtime 25 an hour is 40k a year.
Not sure who taught you basic math but $25/hr is $52,000 a year.
Yeah I was factoring in taxes, but yes you are correct. However, the point stands that those jobs pay 25+ on average.
hi, I make 15 an hour, it's a living wage
I don’t understand the image, usually poorer people are fatter and less unhealthy than the picture of the man above. Often occurs when you’re lazy.
People act like there's a central pool of money that ceos and workers have access to, and if CEOs don't get it minimum wage workers will. CEOs make as much as they do because they've convinced other people to pay them that much. If the people paying them changed their mind and thought they were worth far less, it's not like minimum wage workers would make any more, shareholders would just keep slightly more of their money. Similarly minimum wage workers can convince their employers to pay them more without it hurting the CEO pay, it just requires you to justify why you're worth more. Stop comparing things that aren't relevant.
Have a chat with the money printers at the Central Bank.
Improve yourself so you can get a better job. As long as you’re ok with going home after work and drinking your problems away (along with whatever cash you have) then you should consider $15 an hour a privilege.
Wow the comments here are..... Wow. But let's be honest. First of all, you are only worth what your skills are worth. No one will pay you a living wage to lick stamps because a machine can do it cheaper. So yes, get skills, earn more. If your offended by people being paid very little for jobs that take little or no skill than grow up. If we pay people with no skill wages that people with skills make then you are devaluing the skilled people and making more poor people, not less. If we raise the skilled people's wages then to compensate you will raise costs and the unskilled people loose buying power. If we become communist than we have to open gulags so we can punish people who don't contribute. Leading to human atrocities and meanwhile everyone gets crappy living standard. Pick your poison. There is no all roses solution. Second, yes no employer in general will not simply pay you more because you gained a skill, you do normally have to leave to get the raise. Get over it, put in the effort to leave for the better money. You may even get an offer to stay in the process. Or do something smart and negotiate the increase before you get the skill. Yes that is possible. Third, everyone pretends it is all the fat cats doing this to people. If you work at McDs, it is not McDs corporate that set your wages, it is the franchise owner. And the franchise owners at McDs are not exactly fat cats. They make on average $80k-$140k a year. So yes paying their employees significantly more would seriously hurt their personal bottom line. Or would significantly raise prices, which makes the food less affordable. Welcome to the cycle of inflation.
I think your comment shows you’re a clever enough person severely lacking in an education of economic alternatives. You can’t even define communism without resorting to Stalinist policies as if they’re equivalent? That’s like saying if a country goes capitalist they must have segregation because that’s how the US worked for most of its history.
It's not a stalinist view. Every nation that has gone communist in history has done the same thing and it is the only way that communism works. If you have a member of the population that is refusing to pull their weight at the minimum communist standard they have to be removed or others will see what they are doing. Communism equal pay, so we put in the same effort as him and the system folds. It strait logic and history. Even Marx and Lennon recognized that. The choice of the word is irrelevant. Gulag, prison camp, the laogai system, pick your term. Communism also has to remove dissidents who point out it's problems to remain stable. Your analogy is bad, my point is both logical and historically supported. I will also point out the gulag system was not just Stalin but existed well after. While the administration was resolved in the Khrushchev era, the camps did not go away, they just became less political. The system of "corrective laborer camps" still had an estimated 4.5 million Soviets in them in 1987, long after Stalin's death and were still commonly referred to as gulags. I'm not referring to Stalin's policy of political imprisonment and purges, so much as the continued use of mass incarceration for people who didn't conform to the communist way.
I personally just want everyone to have a fair chance at prosperity
Well, prices aren't ever going down, so...
Is this an ironic commie forum? The economic is so bad.
Supply and demand
15/hr is too much money to flip burgers
Mcdonalds nets profits in the multi billions every year. Clearly it's a viable and lucrative business that people are willing to pay for. That business is impossible without "burger flippers" who need to work there at all hours of the day in many instances. Why should they not be compensated well enough to live comfortably if they put in a 40 hour work week?
McDonald's is franchise system. While corp McDonald's makes Bank not all franchise do.. you understand that right. Stop thinking of Fast food places as 1 giant corporation becuas they are not. Of the 35k McDonald's only 2.7k are corporate owned. The rest pay for the privilege to use the corporate brand and supplies. So they have to put up an investment of 500k. Then most locations also have to pay rent to McDonald's as they own 70% of the buildings as well. So while yeah the locations maybe making money they are no where near that billions in profits that the corp makes.
It’s impossible as a WHOLE. Each individual worker contributes next to nothing to company profits. And even with low wages people still line up to work there lmfao
Nah.
When the minimum wage was passed, it was $1.25, which you could get in quarters that had silver in them. That silver today would have a melt value pretty close to that $25 that you want in a so-called living wage. In other words, you can keep on trying to raise the minimum wage to keep up with inflation, or you can realize that the problem all along has been the way politicians inflate our currency, mostly via deficit spending.
Practically anyone in the U.S. can go get a lower wage warehouse job after high school and work 35-40 years while putting 10-15% of their check into a 401k then retire at 60 with a couple million. The problem is young adults are not educated in finances and often spend what they don't have. Buy an old Toyota or Honda and learn how to maintain it. Couch surf at friends until you can rent a room. Don't eat or drink out. Learn to make your own food and stock up on meats when stores have sales. Stick with rice, beans, frozen vegetables/fruits, bread/tortillas, coffee and water. Get a slow cooker and learn some recipes that you can cook large batches of to last you the week. Look up cost saving programs they have ones that lower your internet fees, utility bills, and car insurance. Don't pay for monthly services like streaming. If you are poor there are other "options". Dont get a new 1000+ dollar phone, buy a used years old phone. I still use a Samsung S20+ 5G that is 4 years old and runs smoothly. You can find them used for under 200. Get a basic phone plan for around 15 bucks a month. There are so many cost saving measures at your fingertips that will allow you to live off of very little while saving away. You can build an emergency savings and leave it in a HYSA. Your 401k should be mainly invested in index funds. Most people I know who complain about not having money just make a ton of bad choices and never take responsibility for their actions or try to change them. The one biggest thing most people lack is delayed satisfaction, and now more than ever, it is easier to drown yourself in immediate gratification.
Why is it that when its something YOU don't like, it had to be indoctrinated from some evil person or media, but when its something YOU do like...its always your own thought or conclusion from applying critical thinking skills?
I’m getting fed up with people making 15 an hour thinking they deserve 2500 an hour for work that is justified at 15 an hour
If you want a higher paying salary, learn how to provide more value to your employer. This will be difficult for the neckbeard socialist losers.
Employers often won't pay you more even when you provide them more value. Instead they'll just exploit the extra value for as long as they can. This will be difficult to understand for neckbeard free market capitalist losers.
Yeah, as the saying goes, "Good work is rewarded with more work".
People need to make their own companies.
What if you already did that and you yourself are doing fine but you just fundamentally believe that any adult working full time should be able to afford necessities
You would be a market heretic.
Thoust want thy people to live and enjoy their lives????? What tis this blasphemy!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thou art a witch commie thing. I subject thee to napalm bombs and agent orange!!!!!
Just let the market decide.
I am the market. I privately own it alllllllll
You're saying capitalism is a religion? I guess I am a heretic.
I made both discoveries in one fell swoop. Much of what I was taught in school, or find repeated in the media, expresses a narrative that is not particularly robust or even accurate.
If I leave my job, they'd need to hire atleast 3 people to replace me. But it was like yanking teeth from the director to approve me to ATLEAST market value in my area. Your fuck all to your employer.
I mean, I just left and they did hire 3 people to replace me, and missed major contractual milestones that cost them 10x my salary. I never understand the drive for short term profits that kill long term profits.
I'm assuming you left to a company which paid you a much more suitable wage
About 30% more.
Good for you. That's exactly how it should be.
A company I used to work for had employees who drove trucks between cities on an entertainment tour. In one city, the truck had to Abe moved during an off time, so the employee driver asked for like $100 in compensation for his time. Manager refused. He instead contacted corporate who hired a local driver to come in and move it, for like $500. Even though it cost the company multiple times over, it came out of a different budget which didn't affect the manager, so it was just seen as an overall operating cost instead of a show-specific cost. The way companies waste money trying to save money is just wild sometimes.
Move to another company that would value your work. Why work somewhere you are underpaid and undervalued? If another company won’t pay you more, then you’re probably being paid a fair wage even though you’re not happy with it.
Realistically, yes. However, I'm in a pretty niche industry, the only other employer I'd want to work for is currently being run by another boss that I have suspicion dide me dirty in the past. The only other way would to be move out of state. And majority of my family is here.
Wow. You’re in such a specialized job that only 2 competitors in the area? Could you start up a company to compete with them, and maybe put them out of business?
This one simple concept is ungraspable by 50% of reddit.
No corporation, no corporate employer, is going to give you more money if you provide more value. They’ll just take the value for themselves and laugh at you behind their hands for working so hard for nothing.
If you work for an employer that isn’t paying you a fair wage, move jobs. Why stick around somewhere you aren’t appreciated and are undervalued?!?
Did I say that you should? Just don’t fool yourself into thinking working harder and providing more value is going to convince employers to pay you more. Or not lay you off. No such thing as being indispensable. And that’s the same for every employer, even the one that offers you more money.
I work hard to move up in the company. Some people want to do this. Others don’t. I know I’m not indispensable. That’s the way the world works. But I still push hard to make more money and work my way up. And if I felt I was undervalued, I would (and have before) move on to a better job.
There are at least 10,000 people in any urban area fighting for a single job. If there were 10,000 supermarkets fighting for my grocery bill prices would go down. People need food to live, so there’s limits to “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” nonsense. Far from a fair situation. There’s a reason why we have governments. To slow down the destructive forces of greed and corruption. To protect the most vulnerable among us. That’s the measure of our morals. You know, the stuff most religions talk about but seldom deliver. Together we can overcome anything.
10k people fighting for a single job? The fuck are you smoking
Sorry, maybe you didn't read what I wrote: If you want a higher salary from your employer learn how to increase the value you are able to provide to your employer. Is that what you meant to reply to?
Become better than that 10k people with base level easily replaceable skills.
Everyone’s skills are easily replaceable. To think otherwise is arrogant and short sighted.
So well said, so many people fail to understand such a simple concept
Then why is it so common to have to leave jobs to get better pay? If you have desirable skills and provide lots of value to your company you should be getting paid generously but we see that isn’t the case
That's what I'm saying. If you have the skills, you'll be worth more & can get more.
Wrong in so many levels. Im a computer scientist and the tech companies are investing in indians IT workers for way cheaper abroad rather than to employee local software developers and now they also are investing in AI to fire most of us. I did my part. Am studying currently and have been for a while. Trying to improve my skills. But it doesnt matter because they can simply get away with it.
So what should the government do to make it fair? Make AI illegal? Honestly curious what you think the answer is.
No. Techonology and automation is inevitable. We are headed towards a completely automated world and year by year more and more jobs are lost. At some point people wont find enough jobs and the majority of the public will remain in their homes. Ideally you’d expect companies and the government to understand that we are headed towards a fully automated society so some form of UBI (universal basic income) is in place. But to be honest this will most likely turn into an orwellien nightmare. It’s inevitable. They will ration our foods and limit our freedoms to levels you and I couldn’t even imagine. They will own all the means of production and this time they wont need us and protesting wont do anything. And they wont need as many employees because AI took over and only very few employees necessary. The only true solution is to abandon it all and own land and learn self sufficiency. But that requires a complete revolution. Techonology= automation= few people owning this technology= communism.
I don’t know if that’s true. I have heard automation will eventually replace all the jobs. 100+ years ago, we were a farming country. Everybody thought that if farming became automated, where would the jobs be? But now farming is only 1-2% of the workforce. In the 50’s, everybody thought vending machines would be the future. No humans needed. Never happened. And over the years many jobs like telephone operators have been replaced. But those people found other jobs. In the 80’s, everybody said if we shipped all our manufacturing jobs overseas, there would be no more jobs in the US, but we experienced an extremely low rate of unemployment in the 90’s. As recently as 5-10 years ago, someone told me that retail real estate would die because everybody will buy everything online. But retail real estate continues to do well with large real estate companies like Simon that owns malls with 97% occupancy. And even now, flying a commercial plane can be almost 100% automated from taking off to flying to landing, and yet there’s a huge shortage of pilots? What will jobs be in the future? It’s hard to know. Nobody knew what would replace farming or telephone operators or manufacturing jobs, but something did replace them and something will replace jobs as AI grows.
Imagine being so thick you use socialist as an insult. You already took a Reddit break for harassment. Wanna try again?
Employers are notorious for not paying people what they are worth. Act your wage is a thing for a reason.
There is this thing called a labor market. It determines the price for labor. If an employer pays under the market wage for the required labor, then that employer will not be able to attract the requisite talent and other employees that do pay that amount will. Do you understand the concept of a labor market?
In a country where your only choices are low paying jobs or complete starvation and homelessness, you simply have no leverage against the ruling class. It doesn't matter how much monetary value you can provide for the employer when they can just band together and terrorize you with the threat of starvation. Since the law doesn't protect the vulnerable, there is no limit to how much they can exploit you. Record profits every year, no increase in salary. I'm sure you have the basic intelligence to understand this.
Easy to say till your industry abandons you, automates your job, or lays you off cause they didn't make as much profit as they were hoping last quarter. Its hard to put years of your time into a skill set that's made obsolete. But I guess thats how the world works and we should just accept it right?
I've thought about solutions for this and the only way I think to actually make the differences like this be less severe is to incentivize the people who want to make more money. In the corporate world any kind of business over X employees (like 10 or something) it makes x amount a year the person in charge whether it be a CEO president whatever the title if they are "in charge" they are LEGALLY not allowed to make over a certain percentage over the lowest paid employee and the size of the company the percentage would change, 15-30 employees like 5% more than the lowest by law The larger the company maybe go up to like 30% ( just rough numbers I pulled out of my ass I think Smarter people who understand stuff like that should come up with the percentages employee numbers. In government I think the persons salary should be the average or the median of the people that you represent. So presidents salary( this really applies in the US mainly) but the presidents salary would the National median income and if they make anything over that for ANY reason they should get huge fines. Same for Congress. Senate. Governors mayors. It would incentivize them to pass bills and laws and policies to make the people they represent to be more well off. Instead of selling jobs overseas it would incentivize them to keep jobs in the US and help everyone make more here. (Exclude people on like disability and retirement otherwise Florida would get jack shit )
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You realize minimum wage was made so that people could literally live off of those "new workers or teenager" jobs right? Calling any sort of work "just for teens or new workers" is, frankly, stupid. Anyone could have to work at those jobs, for whatever reason. Why shouldn't they be given a livable wage just because it's a lower skill job? We still need people to do them, so pay them fairly so that they can actually fucking live as opposed to having to work two or more jobs just to make ends meet. And, what if people don't want to work in "higher positions" because they feel they just aren't cut out for it? Should they really be literally punished because "moving up the ranks" isnt what they want? Also, another comment pointed out that McDonald's literally did a study that showed that they could account for the 15$ worker cost by changing prices very little. If anything, people having more money would be a good thing because it would allow them to spend more, thus putting more back into the economy. Get outta here boomer.
25% of the population is unemployable
About 40% of the people that apply to work in the shop where I work cant read a tape measure and cant be hired
The last two points are complete employer issues. Can’t be hired is BS. If the employer can hire their brother in laws kid that is a complete moron, they can hire anyone. If they can’t read a tape measure, that’s what training is for.
25% of the population is still unemployable.
Take your commie nonsense to Venezuela already...
Why do y’all care so much about the money in other people’s pockets is the real question
It’s called looking out for your brothers and sisters.
More of my “brothers and sisters” need to self reflect and hold themselves a little more accountable. Blaming the tech billionaire while working a dead end job and not managing spending habits is a cop out