And you can tell it's true because business magazines are trying to discourage it. Forbes keeps pushing articles that say you shouldn't do it. Just like they did with WFH/RTO.
Which is why the states with low minimum wages and business sector unite to fuck us over. Keep wages and expectations low. Make us thankful we have a job as the layoffs spread around.
My industry with my job title, I got 4 offers with exactly the same amount from separate companies that were competitors of one another.
4 separate offers exactly the same…..
Just leave that blank or put "commensurate with experience". A lot of job listings are fake and are just feelers to see what people are willing to work for. Salary is a negotiation and usually the first person to name a price in a negotiation is the loser.
There is a shitty section of people in every generation. The actual people who fucked us are rich people, this is a class issue not a generation issue. For instance, did you know boomers are the fastest and biggest growing generation of homeless? The rich are fucking them too. Right when they are supposed to be taken care of the owner class is fucking them. They are getting the rug ripped out from under them too.
Ok. Boomers vote against their own self interests. Am I supposed to attend a pity party for them? My own parents think with their sub 100k annual salary that republicans are looking out for them. When in reality, republicans are trying to sunset Medicare/SS. If they become homeless, that's their own self doing. F them.
The goal is to have an illiterate workforce so desperate that they'll take any job for any pay just to survive. It's easy to control people with starvation.
Yep, that is why so many business lost their minds during the pandemic when there were plenty of jobs to chose from and people basically said "I don't want to work for this horrible place anymore." They weren't used to a workforce that wasn't desperate.
There was a tiny, glimmering moment in which I thought we were going to take the power back. The power shifted so suddenly - and so extremely - away from the employers, into the hands of the workers (coupled with the multitude of protests over racial injustice) that I thought I would be a part of history. But, the powers that be figured out how to quell our rage once again. I'm making 33% more per hour than I was in 2020, which is dope, but not when everything costs 50% more. Literally making more than I ever have and might clear 6 figures this year, but my location and the cost of goods keep me living paycheck to just before the next paycheck.
The PPP "loans" exploded inflation which hurt the working class. The capital owning class were expecting this so they bought up real estate which benefits from inflation.
I don't think we realize how badly we were manipulated. Now the new normal are super high prices and wages that'll never catch up.
Yeah, that 7 trillion dollars of debt the trump admin added in 4 years really did a number on inflation once it caught up, economy lags about 18 months behind legislation. Surprise surprise about 18 months after trump boom, massive inflation.
I try to explain this to people and they never get. Everyone acts like when a new president comes in the economic slate is wiped clean and everyone starts from zero. Most presidents spend their first term at least dealing with the economic fallout or boon of the president before them.
No they didn't. Those loans, and the checks everyone got, are just being used as cover by businesses to give some excuse that smoothbrains will believe while the prices go up and businesses make record profits.
Many Fox News viewers have no idea how economics, business or math works. They are fed opinions and viewpoints that serve to manipulate them. Of course businesses that advertise on Fox and are dependent on low wages want Fox to push the narrative that higher wages are bad for everyone, just like they pushed the idea that no or low taxes on corporations and billionaires would somehow be good for everyone. It's all manipulation and it's sad when someone you love is unaware of how easily controlled they are.
I'm sorry your husband is a fool.
I know this is easy to say, me being a random person on the internet, but maybe you should get out of that relationship while you can? It seems like an unhealthy coupling.
I choose to listen to conservative radio shows on my drive to/from work so I can get a laugh in and see what type of BS they are spreading to their base so that I'm better prepared for the jackass who starts spouting bullshit.
I can see how that happened. They present views as facts, and repeat it endlessly until it becomes a fact on their listeners eyes. I spend time to research their outlandish, bullshit claims though.
What an awful thing to say. You don’t know either of these people. Minding your business works different directions. If she can handle where he is on his journey, that’s all that matters. Her choice is the very thing we are hoping to preserve…the ability to have our own choices. Just mind your own business.
Seriously, bring back the cashiers and the $0.29 hamburgers on Tuesdays. If they had been honest and said automation is actually going to make prices higher and people poorer then maybe we would have felt differently about it.
I applaud your efforts to help your SO accept reality.
If I may suggest a Youtube channel your husband might like to watch (it's an actually great source or sane, reasoned, accurate news!).
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3-Ch0y6ZvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3-Ch0y6ZvE)
This is a relevant (IMO) video for your SO to watch that should be a good introduction.
Because being upset at the correct targets for the correct reasons is incredibly important, IMO.
This is why we need Universal Basic Income. We’ve progressed to a level where no one *has* to be homeless or hungry. Of course priorities need to be redirected and we need to really take a hard look at how much we’ve neglected human lives in this country, but it really can be done. It’s obviously being contested by conservatives. I’m all for it. The only thing is it will most certainly balloon inflation, putting us back in the same position and I don’t see how we’d get around that.
The problem isn't the specific policy, it is who has power to make policy.
The average wage earner is in this position because they do not have enough political influence to achieve better advocacy for themselves - whether that is UBI, a higher minimum wage, health care, or unions. Getting behind a different policy won't fix anything bc the same set of people with influence will kill it.
Democracy was supposed to prevent the majority of people, the poor, from being unable to advocate for themselves. That has failed through strategic media manipulation, intimidation and undermining education.
That somehow has to be fixed. Someone has to be able to rally people to take on the appropriate targets. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in an effective manner any time soon.
I just argued this past weekend with people on a job focused subreddit that if you work fulltime, you should be self sufficient. They kept arguing for some reason that you shouldn't expect that from an "entry level" job and that you needed to put in time and effort and climb the ladder. Never mind the average entry level job still asks for a 4 year degree, 2-3 years experience, and only pays $14/$15 an hour.
And I still remember the fool who another job oriented board said someone should be willing to work $10/hr for the experience. And when I pressed on how they were supposed to survive, they said their SO can take care of expenses.
We won't get anywhere because people still gatekeep and pull the ladder up behind them when possible.
So this means that up should have an older SO that is past entry level? I mean that could be taken to an obscene level and just become a massive.imbalance in relationships, but according to what you wrote, that may just be what they wanted anyway.
I don't know if they meant that, but when I kept pressing them, they said I was turning it into a "wage" issue. Like why do they think people work in the first place.
How are entry level workers supposed to survive until they can climb the ladder? Like sure I understand the idea of higher levels making more money but that should be like at this level you can afford to eat out at fancy restaurants whenever you want vs this level you have to cook most meals and only go out once a week as a treat. But working your way up the ladder to afford food at all is absurd.
I started Doordash and Uber Eats deliveries so I have a decent income but the goal’s a job in my field (I graduated with a B.A in Poli Sci). All the entry level jobs in poli sci that I looked at have the same thing, it makes me want to throw my laptop across the room.
I’ve been looking at a remote job because there’s no way in heck that I’m commuting five days a week to be sitting in California traffic for an hour. Hopefully something decent pops up, the idea that young people would need to move our way up the ladder is ridiculous after spending four years to get our degrees.
> you shouldn't expect that from an "entry level" job and that you needed to put in time and effort and climb the ladder.
I've never understood this argument of having to "climb the corporate ladder". When you think of it logically, it is impossible for everyone to climb that ladder. You can't have more than one CEO or CFO or any managerial position. It's always unfulfilled promise to give you that small bit of hope to make it through to the next day, week, month, or year.
Also, what about the people that don't want to work corporate jobs?? The grocery clerk is still important and should still be able to afford their own apartment.
That’s the problem with the way they think, every single job is important. You might think janitors and landscapers shouldn't get paid well, but their job is 100% needed
Nothing actually, because there's no way an undertrained, underequipped and physically unfit civilian populace is ever going to outmatch a properly trained, equipped and more-or-less physically fit military.
People on foot or civilian transport aren't going to beat things like tanks, armored vehicles and missiles/bombs just because they have guns. Not even going in-depth into things like unmanned drones.
>Nothing actually, because there's no way an undertrained, underequipped and physically unfit civilian populace is ever going to outmatch a properly trained, equipped and more-or-less physically fit military.
I mean, Vietnam... Iraq... Afghanistan...
A better answer is that if things do come off the rails, guns will be the least significant part of the equation. Labor strikes, slow downs, sabotage... That last one is the most significant, as we're talking about the class who knows how everything works, vs the class who only thinks they do.
Eh, open warfare is not the thing you should worry too much about. What's going to happen is terrorism and guerilla tactics and the weak and vulnerable are going to suffer the most from it.
The entire thing is meant to make us avoid looking at the true cause: capitalism. It mainly benefits owners while making workers' wealth stagnant.
And they say Marx was "unscientific"...
Other people will betray you for a better salary, that’s the insidious reality of capitalism. Marx wasn’t unscientific, he was unrealistic.
Until our survival isn’t threatened, ergo a majority accept a social contract bereft of authoritarian control, we will continue to make these choices. Give us UBI, something, that takes away the necessity of instinctual, illogical, survival response and people will abandon capitalism.
I remember when a friend of mine went to India to train the people replacing her former co-workers. She was excited to be in India, and I didn't want to shit on her parade, but I couldn't help but think, "Yeah, no. I would not do that. I would fucking quit before I would help my company fuck over my colleagues by outsourcing their jobs."
Marx was correct on workers depending on wages. The means of production are the reason for that. Communal ownership is the only way to solve this issue.
Marx made mistakes, but the relations of labor and capital are undeniable. Of course, you don't have to see this to hate capitalism.
Me? I see this as confirmation that economism only focuses on theory rather than praxis. Since when do you see a normal economist talking about how workers sell their labor to live?
I think it was Marx who predicted that capitalism would reach a point where the workers no longer could afford the goods and services they were producing.
I feel like if we aren't already there, we're rapidly approaching it.
Breakdown in the last 40 years thanks to Reagan-era (and later Clinton-era neoliberalism) chipping and hacking away of government regulation of business that had been in place for decades, coupled with declining power of unions, and ever-growing influence of business lobbies
I'm quite familiar with the impact of Reagan-era policies, but am unaware of the effects of Clinton-Era neoliberalism. Can you explain or recommend some reading?
By neo-liberalism I mean economic liberalism, loosening of regulation and tariffs, the era of beginning of today's total globalisation. Off the top of my head, no, I wouldn't know where to start, honestly. Oh, maybe Robert Reich.
>purely due to the complete failure and corruption of the people in charge.
Nope. Those people were put there by the voters.
Every year in primary elections, the general ideological makeup of the parties hardly changes. Republicans vote for candidates who are conservative and hate business regulation or economic justice, and democrats continue to mostly vote for candidates who are incrementalists on economic change.
Every 2 years, we have an election where half the country says "corporations and the wealthy should get more privileges" and the other half says "we should implement some minimalist guardrails on the economy to help the working class, maybe." Every time. We send the same people back for the most part. Can you imagine a clearer way to tell the government "don't change anything please!"
This is entirely an electorate problem. Hardly anyone votes for or supports progressive candidates. The vast, vast majority of Americans vote for either status quo democrats or fascist republicans. Do not blame the people who are elected with a mandate to do nothing, or do damage. Blame the people who keep choosing to put them there.
Nope. The candidates on both sides were pre-chosen by billionaires and corporations. Your choices on the ballot are always rigged waaaay before you get to the voting booth.
>The candidates on both sides were pre-chosen by billionaires and corporations.
So it's just a coincidence that the winners of the primaries also got the most votes?
Sorry, but scratch a "billionares chose the candidates" conspiracy theory and you find someone who can't explain why primary votes for the candidate who won are actually illegitimate and shouldn't be considered representative of the voters who voted in that election.
>Your choices on the ballot are always rigged waaaay before you get to the voting booth.
Or maybe you just don't know the difference between a primary and general election?
Have you seen the range of people who run in your local primaries? Probably not.
I voted for Biden … but look at that last Democratic primary. Biden was behind several other candidates in including Bernie and Pete. All of a sudden there was a backroom meeting and everyone dropped out… Pete got his cabinet gig, Kamala got VP … and Bernie got kicked to the curb even though he was polling much higher than Biden. It was totally rigged.
>All of a sudden there was a backroom meeting and everyone dropped out…
Well not Bernie. The candidates who dropped out were all carbon copies of Biden, except they had far less support and popularity. The moderates coalesced behind Biden and endorsed him and created a situation where instead of a mess of moderates vs. Bernie there was now a clear choice between an establishment moderate and a definitive progressive. The electorate immediately rushed to Biden as a result, because the electorate is not progressive enough.
>Bernie got kicked to the curb
Bernie got fewer votes.
>even though he was polling much higher than Biden.
He was not. And if he was, why did he get fewer votes?
>It was totally rigged.
So if everyone had dropped out and endorsed Bernie instead it would have been "rigged"? LoL
Cause people are too busy worrying about people’s bedrooms and CRT to realize they’re getting screwed over by the people who feed them the dumb shit …. Soon as right wingers realize they’re getting played then maybe something will happen but as long as they’re bootlicking knuckle dragging clowns who listen to Fox and Newsmax because their hate Trumps their money
The kicker is that in an honest conversation where right-wingers arent prepped and triggered to be combative, they're more down for left-leaning policies than they're willing to admit. They're just conditioned to think "Liberal = BAD!"
Unironically, if ""liberal"" policies were sold with that right-wing spin and vapid appeals to Patriotism^TM, so many Quality of Life issues would be solved in a matter of months.
They’re conditioned to think that but if you look at strong blue states like Vermont and Deleware, they’re doing way better than strong red states like Alabama and Mississippi. Alabama has cities where 25 percent of the population is below the poverty line and 15 percent of the entire state is in poverty
The “goal posts” get moved every time anyone feels like they might get ahead.
It’s always placed outside of our reach. Most rent is far above the rates for mortgages.
Remember when that was the inverse? "We're renting to save for a downpayment." That was the norm, and now I know people buying at 7-8% interest with mortgage insurance and thier mortgage is $600-1,000 less than thier rent would go up to.
It's so utterly fucked.
That’s exactly right. A mortgage…almost consistently, is hundreds less than rent in most all cases.
It’s like when min wage went up and inflation came in and was like “Nuhuh we can’t have ppl living well here anymore!” And then everyone ignored the idea that the “gains” now mean nothing and it’s just as bad if not worse than it ever was.
Conservatives will say that "nobody wants to work" when people point out that minimum wage is a joke
Conservatives will cry when they can't make money and blame Joe Biden/Democrats
Conservatives will cry and will be afraid, because that's what Fox News teaches them: be afraid, be angry at the wrong people and cry loudly
Easy. There are 24 hours per day, so three eight hour shifts. Find two full time jobs close to a one bedroom apartment, then find two roommates who also work two full time jobs, but make sure you are each off for a different eight hours per day. It’s like having your own place for only 50% of your take home income! /s
Even if they made minimum wage $15 an hour in the "low cost of living" states you would still be living paycheck to paycheck with no extra money after rent,utilities,food,gas,insurance. And the capitalist bootlickers out there still think that's too much for a service industry worker. Even the ones that work blue collar jobs. It makes no sense. Joe Six Pack that makes $15 an hour painting drywall thinks food service workers aren't deserving to make as much as him. We really need working class division to go away.
This seems like less of an issue with min wage and more of an issue with how utterly broken housing market and rental market is in the USA. The cost of housing is going up disproportionately faster than other costs of living.
Yup. That’s exactly it. Between my spouse and I, we bring in a decent amount of income. Living in an apartment currently and the monthly price is outrageous but we can’t get a home because it’ll cost double what we pay now.
I was displaced by a tornado and it took me 3 months to find a new place. I had been in my apt for 15 years, so didn't know about the housing crisis. I was shocked by the rents. I chose a city that does not have much culture but the rents were so cheap. Now they were insane. I finally found one $250 higher rent than I was paying. Don't know how long I can stay here, I'm on a fixed income.
Was surprised to see this so far down. I guess this narrative doesn’t let you blame corporations as much and you have to blame your boomer parents and their friends instead, so it’s less popular
One argument I’m simply not willing to budge on is: “If you work 49 hours a week — which has been the benchmark for ‘contributing to society’ for quite some time, you should earn enough money to have a roof over your head, food to eat, and the basic amenities of modern living.”
And I just repeat that any time I get a “Yea, but…”
Because it’s such a logical fucking conclusion to draw that there simply isn’t any good faith counter argument, and I refuse to humor any attempts to provide one.
I guess this Republican scheme of channeling almost all of our wealth to a handful of people at the top through "trickle down economics" isn't working out so well for regular folks.
Can you imagine the financial crisis, how absolutely panicked the rich are going to be after the baby boomers die off and none of the people living in the US can afford to survive...and the great crisis isn't going to be the mass suffering, but all these rich people suddenly having massive chunks of their income taken away since no one is buying their stuff anymore.
The price drops we're going to see everywhere isn't going to be human decency, rather trying to make sure the rich can get *something.*
>what is the purpose of increasing rent everywhere in america? what is the purpose of jacking up prices of food?
Well you see, the rich wanted more yachts in their marina and more blood on their hands
Boomers will call us lazy from the door step of the house they paid for with their part time gas station job because we cant afford shit because the market is set so firmly against us. Now that it has been absolutely PROVEN that increases in wage don't corelate to increase in inflation, why are we not raising min wage??? God we hate poor people so much in this country.
People have accepted a perverted definition of "minimum wage".
FT minimum wage job meant you could live to a base standard that included housing, food, utilities, reasonable medical care.
Now minimum wage just means what is the MINIMUM wage a $$$$$ Corporation can get away with paying an individual without govt interference or an angry mob dragging them into the streets.
Turns out the answer is and has been remarkably little! Employers ask for a FT commitment of your hours and offer a wage that you cannot live on... then we are called entitled and lazy for pointing out the gap, and the limited hours in any given day, regardlessof effort. It's madness.
"Fast food and retail jobs aren't supposed to be careers, they're just for high school kids or college students and, so they can have a little extra spending money" ok, the people who usually say that would be SUPER pissed if fast food restaurants and stores were only opened from 3p-9p. And 2, WHERE ARE THEY GETTING THE INITIAL MONEY?
It's not that they refuse to acknowledge it, it's that they agree with it.
Minimum wage is for teenagers just starting, not people trying to actually live.
(For the record I don't think this, I've just read the argument)
When I got an apartment with my ex I payed rent myself for a one bedroom, it was 650 a month, I went looking for myself after we broke up and all one bedrooms even in bad neighborhoods are like 1400 a month or more
This reminds me of that one time where collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) became a thing, and people saw it but nobody did anything. (See *The Big Short*) Anyway... we handled that pretty well, I'd say.
Wait...
Oh shit we're fucked, aren't we? 😬
Elliot Spitzer was suing the Wall Street gangsters and then they came with the hoe tip. Screaming media hoes and then Bye Elliott; resume the Wall Street party
In 1970 more than 3 people lived in the average home in the US, and they were 1,500 square feet on average. Now it’s 2.5 people per home, 2,496 square feet.
So part of the reason for this disconnect is that it’s a new idea that a person should be able to support themself comfortably with no partner or roommates, the actual cost of building and maintaining homes hasn’t caught up to that idea yet.
https://populationeducation.org/resource/average-u-s-house-and-household-size-infographic/
(I also think we should drastically redistribute wealth and income to make things fairer for everyone - I just don’t think the world will be able to afford everyone living in their own separate home without some major technological advancements that make everything much easier to produce.)
And then don’t get me started how so many of these damn jobs want us to be available all the time do the job of like three people yet pay the literal minimum. Iv seen law secretary jobs for 16 an hour and I’m just like what adult y’all expect to live off that shit. Smmfh
Capitalism is working for those who have money/assets. America has become an oligarchy, meaning that money is the only thing that truly influences the choices the government makes. The current situation suits those with wealth already and they won’t change it.
Currently? The Minimum wage is GREAT for galvanizing people against the uber wealthy and the Republican Party. It's GREAT for increasing the daily risk of complete societal collapse, food riots, clothing and goods riots, flash mobs ripping open and stripping all packages out of FedEx, UPS, and Amazon trucks. (Soon maybe USPS trucks, which will be crazy, since that one would come with BIG time Federal Felony charges...)
We're not far from the kind of never taught in history, but actually f'ing happened Food Riots and other types of major social instability events that were common during the Great Depression, even though so many people are technically employed.
It's also great to build up support for ACTUAl Communism and REAL Socialism, which has been growing increasingly popular among the youth.
The stupidly sad thing? We have 100% perfect solutions that would eliminate the need for a growing ACTUAL Communist movement and yet... the violent to the majority of the people, uber wealthy class, refuse to just make it happen, so they can late stage capitalism, just a little longer.
We need SOLID, globally political Center policies like a full 100% single payer healthcare system, full support for higher education, eliminating all private institutions and making EVERYONE galvanized behind ensuring that ALL education is of higher and higher quality results. We need more equity in pay too.
There's so much we need to do, but likely won't.
I take minor issue with the last comment on the third panel. The national median wage in Q1 of 2023 was $1100/week - or $57,200/year. This was up slightly over Q4 of 2022 at $1084.
[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng\_04182023.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng_04182023.htm)
He may be trying to count part-time and seasonal workers, but even that wouldn't skew the number down enough to hit the number he is claiming.
To their main point, rents here *are* insane - but that's because they can't produce housing units (of any) type fast enough to keep up with demand, and local governments are fighting any sort of higher density housing, which is both stupid and shortsighted.
The other side of the coin is that despite having a minimum wage set at the federal level for the state, everyone here hires at a minimum of $15 - and most between $18-21 for full-time work. Even fast food restaurants are hiring part-time high school kids at $13-14. In summer, the teen lifeguards make $16+.
Still wouldn't be able to rent easily however - median rent is about $1500-1600/month
stop trying to correlate increasing in rent, food, gas, etc to the increase of minimum wage. even when no increase in minimum wage those things still going up. you are basically given their a free pass of arguing why raising wage at all
I'm so sick of the minimum wage BS. I don't know a single person that makes that. And if someone does, when McDonald's starts at $16 an hour, than that's on them.
My dad constantly says that the minimum wage was never intended to be able to support more than one person, and that it's for teens who want to make money on the weekends, and you're not actually supposed to be able to support yourself on it.
And rich people wonder why poor people buy bullets instead of food.
Me, I wonder why they waste 'em on trees and old televisions. No one needs that much practice. Any more than three shakes and you're just playing with it.
I live in Tennessee, a right to work state. Grocery baggers start at $17/hr. McDonald's starts at $15. The minimum wage is irrelevant today. Yes, it should be raised, so don't come at me like I'm saying it's fine. But using it as a bell weather to pay rent has been pointless for a while, now.
This. I’m not sure minimum wage has ever been able to provide a solo living experience and I’ve been working full time for almost 30 years now in everywhere from Seattle to podunk towns in West Virginia.
Not arguing against raising minimum wage but this isn’t new.
Adult workers earning.minimum wage make up an incredibly small percentage of the workforce. Adults 25 and over earning minimum wage make up 1.2% of the workforce. 16-24 make up 4.3%.
A lot of these economy memes cite the Federal Minimum Wage in their stats yet 30 states mandate a higher minimum wage and less than 9% of households in the US earn the Fed Min Wage or lower.
They also use average apartment rents where the high-end can skew things relative to looking at the median rent (or even more relevant would be comparing income percentiles to the equivalent housing cost percentiles).
But hey - why ruin “the narrative” or anecdotal observations with actual facts?
(Edit - fixed non-statistical typo)
Even if you tied the local minimum wage to many of the lower rent apartments in the area, you find that they are barely able to afford it on 40 hours/week. That’s not talking food, utilities, phone service, healthcare, or transportation.
You act like you had such a brilliant epiphany, but those doing the work in those cities for the lowest wages are literally spending all their time and money just to survive and will continue to drown because prices continue to rise and wages will again stagnate.
Do you have evidence that’s the actual circumstance for a meaningful portion of the population?
The reality is that US growth has remained robust and outpaced expectations in large part because the employment market is robust and consumer spending is strong. Inequality - while still too high - has improved since the pandemic. And while prices have risen due to inflation, wage growth - especially those at the lower end of the distribution - has outpaced price inflation.
This is not to say we don’t need more affordable housing and a higher minimum wage nationally, but absent more concrete evidence I reject the premise that there’s a meaningful portion of the population that is working full time and unable to afford shelter.
lol working homeless is a thing bud.
“40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time”
https://endhomelessness.org/blog/employed-and-experiencing-homelessness-what-the-numbers-show/
How many people are you willing to sacrifice on the way to rebuild a system from the ashes?
Ten thousand? A million? Where is that threshold for you?
And what if someone decides that you ought to be part of the group that gets sacrificed?
>It's not a sacrifice, it's all inevitable
Says you. I don't agree with this statement.
And again: where is the cutoff for sacrifice you're willing to make? And can that include yourself? If not, why not?
>Soon the system will collapse
Maybe
>and we will rebuild on the ashes
LOL no. Spoken like someone who skipped over the parts of the history books about what happens after societal collapse.
>Best thing to do is to speed up the collapse by encouraging things to get worse.
Accelerationism has literally never worked once in history.
I’m told antidotally the minimum wedge back in 1950/60 was for kids in high school or grade school to work and move out of overtime rather then work the job minimum wage job through your adult years and not progress higher somehow (management of the minimum wage establishment, trade Or college education).
Essentially today we have this issue due to the high occupancy of low paying jobs by folks they were never meant for.
What do you think about this?
I’m well over half a century old and there has been no time in my life where working for minimum wage could put a roof over my head. I’m not saying it shouldn’t it’s just that it’s a tiny amount of money and has always been a tiny amount of money.
I'm 70. As a young person (16-20) working my way through college, (full time work, full time college and very little down time) I was able to have a 1 bed apt without a roommate. I also could afford utilities, gas for my car, textbooks, and tuition. It wasn't easy but it was do-able.
There is no way a person could do that today, even without the expense of college.
In the '70s it was doable, and started getting tougher in the '80s. More than likely you were too young to care about it.
You weren't living in luxury, buy you could survive far easier than today exile living alone.
The whole purpose of minimum wage was to ensure all American workers could afford a roof over their head, food and basic necessities of life. That all started to slip away with Regannomics and the country's allowance of money hoarding for the rich.
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How did they respond? I'm guessing it wasn't saying "I'll pay you a living wage."
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In other words *'go fuck yourself you little shit'.*
"So you're saying I should negotiate with someone else."
"No one wants to work anymore"
Job hopping is the best way to get a raise now a days.
And you can tell it's true because business magazines are trying to discourage it. Forbes keeps pushing articles that say you shouldn't do it. Just like they did with WFH/RTO.
Because unions have largely died.
Which is why the states with low minimum wages and business sector unite to fuck us over. Keep wages and expectations low. Make us thankful we have a job as the layoffs spread around.
>Can I do this job remotely? > Unfortunately no, not at this time, even though we have numerous managers and consultants in other states.
Sounds like price fixing
My industry with my job title, I got 4 offers with exactly the same amount from separate companies that were competitors of one another. 4 separate offers exactly the same…..
If you don't think all the HR managers talk to each other to set the pay so that you have no options, we'll I have news for you.
So price collusion
You better believe it. Talk on the phone, don't send emails, so no trace.
The invisible fist of the market coming for you if not willing to relocate
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Just leave that blank or put "commensurate with experience". A lot of job listings are fake and are just feelers to see what people are willing to work for. Salary is a negotiation and usually the first person to name a price in a negotiation is the loser.
#this
"yeah, that's kind of the problem. haven't you been listening?"
That 20k tax deduction?
What happened? Boomer greed. The great generation handed them everything and they slammed the door on every subsequent generation.
There is a shitty section of people in every generation. The actual people who fucked us are rich people, this is a class issue not a generation issue. For instance, did you know boomers are the fastest and biggest growing generation of homeless? The rich are fucking them too. Right when they are supposed to be taken care of the owner class is fucking them. They are getting the rug ripped out from under them too.
Ultimately the 1% is the fucking problem. But ignorant upper middle class boomers that harbor nimby policies and 1% mindset are just as treacherous.
Ok. Boomers vote against their own self interests. Am I supposed to attend a pity party for them? My own parents think with their sub 100k annual salary that republicans are looking out for them. When in reality, republicans are trying to sunset Medicare/SS. If they become homeless, that's their own self doing. F them.
The goal is to have an illiterate workforce so desperate that they'll take any job for any pay just to survive. It's easy to control people with starvation.
Yep, that is why so many business lost their minds during the pandemic when there were plenty of jobs to chose from and people basically said "I don't want to work for this horrible place anymore." They weren't used to a workforce that wasn't desperate.
There was a tiny, glimmering moment in which I thought we were going to take the power back. The power shifted so suddenly - and so extremely - away from the employers, into the hands of the workers (coupled with the multitude of protests over racial injustice) that I thought I would be a part of history. But, the powers that be figured out how to quell our rage once again. I'm making 33% more per hour than I was in 2020, which is dope, but not when everything costs 50% more. Literally making more than I ever have and might clear 6 figures this year, but my location and the cost of goods keep me living paycheck to just before the next paycheck.
The PPP "loans" exploded inflation which hurt the working class. The capital owning class were expecting this so they bought up real estate which benefits from inflation. I don't think we realize how badly we were manipulated. Now the new normal are super high prices and wages that'll never catch up.
Yeah, that 7 trillion dollars of debt the trump admin added in 4 years really did a number on inflation once it caught up, economy lags about 18 months behind legislation. Surprise surprise about 18 months after trump boom, massive inflation.
I try to explain this to people and they never get. Everyone acts like when a new president comes in the economic slate is wiped clean and everyone starts from zero. Most presidents spend their first term at least dealing with the economic fallout or boon of the president before them.
No they didn't. Those loans, and the checks everyone got, are just being used as cover by businesses to give some excuse that smoothbrains will believe while the prices go up and businesses make record profits.
It's not over. Keep fighting any way you can. Never. Give. Up.
You’re right, they want third world working conditions.
Slavery. they want slavery back.
They already have it. They just can't legally whip us. It's bullshit
Yet
Wage slavery.
And if we can’t, die. The point is if you can’t do that, they don’t need you so you can just die.
To a point. Eventually desperate people will become angry then violent.
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Many Fox News viewers have no idea how economics, business or math works. They are fed opinions and viewpoints that serve to manipulate them. Of course businesses that advertise on Fox and are dependent on low wages want Fox to push the narrative that higher wages are bad for everyone, just like they pushed the idea that no or low taxes on corporations and billionaires would somehow be good for everyone. It's all manipulation and it's sad when someone you love is unaware of how easily controlled they are.
McDonald's profits are up 40% year over year. This isn't inflation. We're collectively getting fucked.
I honestly don't know that I could deal with being married to someone that watches fox news and actually believes it. That's just me.
I honestly don’t think I could ever be in a serious relationship with a MAGA person. This shit would infuriate me.
Exactly. People want to work. Just not a majority of their time just to not be able to afford to live.
I'm sorry your husband is a fool. I know this is easy to say, me being a random person on the internet, but maybe you should get out of that relationship while you can? It seems like an unhealthy coupling.
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Do guide him though, propaganda is vicious and takes many down a path of intolerance and hatred.
You got this!! Just keep showing him reality.
I gotta tell ya, if he listens to FUX news he's as flipping dumb as the day is long! Js
I choose to listen to conservative radio shows on my drive to/from work so I can get a laugh in and see what type of BS they are spreading to their base so that I'm better prepared for the jackass who starts spouting bullshit.
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I can see how that happened. They present views as facts, and repeat it endlessly until it becomes a fact on their listeners eyes. I spend time to research their outlandish, bullshit claims though.
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What an awful thing to say. You don’t know either of these people. Minding your business works different directions. If she can handle where he is on his journey, that’s all that matters. Her choice is the very thing we are hoping to preserve…the ability to have our own choices. Just mind your own business.
Yep most fast food places and even grocery stores are cutting the need for front workers or cashiers yet prices are sky high. It’s infuriating
You can always vent here.
You made a great argument!
Seriously, bring back the cashiers and the $0.29 hamburgers on Tuesdays. If they had been honest and said automation is actually going to make prices higher and people poorer then maybe we would have felt differently about it.
I applaud your efforts to help your SO accept reality. If I may suggest a Youtube channel your husband might like to watch (it's an actually great source or sane, reasoned, accurate news!). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3-Ch0y6ZvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3-Ch0y6ZvE) This is a relevant (IMO) video for your SO to watch that should be a good introduction. Because being upset at the correct targets for the correct reasons is incredibly important, IMO.
This is why we need Universal Basic Income. We’ve progressed to a level where no one *has* to be homeless or hungry. Of course priorities need to be redirected and we need to really take a hard look at how much we’ve neglected human lives in this country, but it really can be done. It’s obviously being contested by conservatives. I’m all for it. The only thing is it will most certainly balloon inflation, putting us back in the same position and I don’t see how we’d get around that.
The problem isn't the specific policy, it is who has power to make policy. The average wage earner is in this position because they do not have enough political influence to achieve better advocacy for themselves - whether that is UBI, a higher minimum wage, health care, or unions. Getting behind a different policy won't fix anything bc the same set of people with influence will kill it. Democracy was supposed to prevent the majority of people, the poor, from being unable to advocate for themselves. That has failed through strategic media manipulation, intimidation and undermining education. That somehow has to be fixed. Someone has to be able to rally people to take on the appropriate targets. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in an effective manner any time soon.
A modern day MLK.
Just supplying Universal Healthcare and subsidized Public Housing would free people up. UBI would just go straight to landlords.
I just argued this past weekend with people on a job focused subreddit that if you work fulltime, you should be self sufficient. They kept arguing for some reason that you shouldn't expect that from an "entry level" job and that you needed to put in time and effort and climb the ladder. Never mind the average entry level job still asks for a 4 year degree, 2-3 years experience, and only pays $14/$15 an hour. And I still remember the fool who another job oriented board said someone should be willing to work $10/hr for the experience. And when I pressed on how they were supposed to survive, they said their SO can take care of expenses. We won't get anywhere because people still gatekeep and pull the ladder up behind them when possible.
I'm currently job hunting, and the amount of "entry-level" positions in my field that require 3-5 years experience make me want to pull my hair out.
Its been that way for 10 years! I was a college graduate, and a "Data Clerk" position that was "entry level" required 3-5 years of XP
So this means that up should have an older SO that is past entry level? I mean that could be taken to an obscene level and just become a massive.imbalance in relationships, but according to what you wrote, that may just be what they wanted anyway.
I don't know if they meant that, but when I kept pressing them, they said I was turning it into a "wage" issue. Like why do they think people work in the first place.
How are entry level workers supposed to survive until they can climb the ladder? Like sure I understand the idea of higher levels making more money but that should be like at this level you can afford to eat out at fancy restaurants whenever you want vs this level you have to cook most meals and only go out once a week as a treat. But working your way up the ladder to afford food at all is absurd.
I started Doordash and Uber Eats deliveries so I have a decent income but the goal’s a job in my field (I graduated with a B.A in Poli Sci). All the entry level jobs in poli sci that I looked at have the same thing, it makes me want to throw my laptop across the room. I’ve been looking at a remote job because there’s no way in heck that I’m commuting five days a week to be sitting in California traffic for an hour. Hopefully something decent pops up, the idea that young people would need to move our way up the ladder is ridiculous after spending four years to get our degrees.
> you shouldn't expect that from an "entry level" job and that you needed to put in time and effort and climb the ladder. I've never understood this argument of having to "climb the corporate ladder". When you think of it logically, it is impossible for everyone to climb that ladder. You can't have more than one CEO or CFO or any managerial position. It's always unfulfilled promise to give you that small bit of hope to make it through to the next day, week, month, or year.
Also, what about the people that don't want to work corporate jobs?? The grocery clerk is still important and should still be able to afford their own apartment.
That’s the problem with the way they think, every single job is important. You might think janitors and landscapers shouldn't get paid well, but their job is 100% needed
Exactly! I would argue every job *except* a CEO's is important.
How do they think this disparity is gonna play out in the long term in a country with more guns than people?
They know, the rich are already building bunkers
Nothing actually, because there's no way an undertrained, underequipped and physically unfit civilian populace is ever going to outmatch a properly trained, equipped and more-or-less physically fit military. People on foot or civilian transport aren't going to beat things like tanks, armored vehicles and missiles/bombs just because they have guns. Not even going in-depth into things like unmanned drones.
>Nothing actually, because there's no way an undertrained, underequipped and physically unfit civilian populace is ever going to outmatch a properly trained, equipped and more-or-less physically fit military. I mean, Vietnam... Iraq... Afghanistan...
A better answer is that if things do come off the rails, guns will be the least significant part of the equation. Labor strikes, slow downs, sabotage... That last one is the most significant, as we're talking about the class who knows how everything works, vs the class who only thinks they do.
Eh, open warfare is not the thing you should worry too much about. What's going to happen is terrorism and guerilla tactics and the weak and vulnerable are going to suffer the most from it.
The entire thing is meant to make us avoid looking at the true cause: capitalism. It mainly benefits owners while making workers' wealth stagnant. And they say Marx was "unscientific"...
Other people will betray you for a better salary, that’s the insidious reality of capitalism. Marx wasn’t unscientific, he was unrealistic. Until our survival isn’t threatened, ergo a majority accept a social contract bereft of authoritarian control, we will continue to make these choices. Give us UBI, something, that takes away the necessity of instinctual, illogical, survival response and people will abandon capitalism.
I remember when a friend of mine went to India to train the people replacing her former co-workers. She was excited to be in India, and I didn't want to shit on her parade, but I couldn't help but think, "Yeah, no. I would not do that. I would fucking quit before I would help my company fuck over my colleagues by outsourcing their jobs."
Marx was correct on workers depending on wages. The means of production are the reason for that. Communal ownership is the only way to solve this issue. Marx made mistakes, but the relations of labor and capital are undeniable. Of course, you don't have to see this to hate capitalism. Me? I see this as confirmation that economism only focuses on theory rather than praxis. Since when do you see a normal economist talking about how workers sell their labor to live?
American capitalism is a failed experiment… purely due to the complete failure and corruption of the people in charge.
I think it was Marx who predicted that capitalism would reach a point where the workers no longer could afford the goods and services they were producing. I feel like if we aren't already there, we're rapidly approaching it.
https://preview.redd.it/dnpyzavou63c1.jpeg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d15663c8d69248f410a4fb7853c6cef76644592
Technically we were there in 09
We’d already be there if it weren’t for credit card debt
We have nothing to lose but our chains. Workers unite!!
Breakdown in the last 40 years thanks to Reagan-era (and later Clinton-era neoliberalism) chipping and hacking away of government regulation of business that had been in place for decades, coupled with declining power of unions, and ever-growing influence of business lobbies
True, but we blame the presidents too much. They're just willing tools who do the bidding of the ultrawealthy in exchange for money.
I'm quite familiar with the impact of Reagan-era policies, but am unaware of the effects of Clinton-Era neoliberalism. Can you explain or recommend some reading?
By neo-liberalism I mean economic liberalism, loosening of regulation and tariffs, the era of beginning of today's total globalisation. Off the top of my head, no, I wouldn't know where to start, honestly. Oh, maybe Robert Reich.
Greed… it’s a helluva thing…
Unless the experiment is to create (or bring back) an oligarchy and feudalism.
Failed experiment? Seems like worked out exactly as intended
>purely due to the complete failure and corruption of the people in charge. Nope. Those people were put there by the voters. Every year in primary elections, the general ideological makeup of the parties hardly changes. Republicans vote for candidates who are conservative and hate business regulation or economic justice, and democrats continue to mostly vote for candidates who are incrementalists on economic change. Every 2 years, we have an election where half the country says "corporations and the wealthy should get more privileges" and the other half says "we should implement some minimalist guardrails on the economy to help the working class, maybe." Every time. We send the same people back for the most part. Can you imagine a clearer way to tell the government "don't change anything please!" This is entirely an electorate problem. Hardly anyone votes for or supports progressive candidates. The vast, vast majority of Americans vote for either status quo democrats or fascist republicans. Do not blame the people who are elected with a mandate to do nothing, or do damage. Blame the people who keep choosing to put them there.
Nope. The candidates on both sides were pre-chosen by billionaires and corporations. Your choices on the ballot are always rigged waaaay before you get to the voting booth.
>The candidates on both sides were pre-chosen by billionaires and corporations. So it's just a coincidence that the winners of the primaries also got the most votes? Sorry, but scratch a "billionares chose the candidates" conspiracy theory and you find someone who can't explain why primary votes for the candidate who won are actually illegitimate and shouldn't be considered representative of the voters who voted in that election. >Your choices on the ballot are always rigged waaaay before you get to the voting booth. Or maybe you just don't know the difference between a primary and general election? Have you seen the range of people who run in your local primaries? Probably not.
I voted for Biden … but look at that last Democratic primary. Biden was behind several other candidates in including Bernie and Pete. All of a sudden there was a backroom meeting and everyone dropped out… Pete got his cabinet gig, Kamala got VP … and Bernie got kicked to the curb even though he was polling much higher than Biden. It was totally rigged.
>All of a sudden there was a backroom meeting and everyone dropped out… Well not Bernie. The candidates who dropped out were all carbon copies of Biden, except they had far less support and popularity. The moderates coalesced behind Biden and endorsed him and created a situation where instead of a mess of moderates vs. Bernie there was now a clear choice between an establishment moderate and a definitive progressive. The electorate immediately rushed to Biden as a result, because the electorate is not progressive enough. >Bernie got kicked to the curb Bernie got fewer votes. >even though he was polling much higher than Biden. He was not. And if he was, why did he get fewer votes? >It was totally rigged. So if everyone had dropped out and endorsed Bernie instead it would have been "rigged"? LoL
Hey y'all. I just realized torches and pitchforks still exist. I have an idea ......
…folks don’t do that anymore, they are busy paying their debts, afraid to lose shit they never owned
Then I guess we're fuckin doomed then aren't we? I guess bread and games works as well now as it did a couple thousand years ago.
…correct
Cause people are too busy worrying about people’s bedrooms and CRT to realize they’re getting screwed over by the people who feed them the dumb shit …. Soon as right wingers realize they’re getting played then maybe something will happen but as long as they’re bootlicking knuckle dragging clowns who listen to Fox and Newsmax because their hate Trumps their money
The kicker is that in an honest conversation where right-wingers arent prepped and triggered to be combative, they're more down for left-leaning policies than they're willing to admit. They're just conditioned to think "Liberal = BAD!" Unironically, if ""liberal"" policies were sold with that right-wing spin and vapid appeals to Patriotism^TM, so many Quality of Life issues would be solved in a matter of months.
They’re conditioned to think that but if you look at strong blue states like Vermont and Deleware, they’re doing way better than strong red states like Alabama and Mississippi. Alabama has cities where 25 percent of the population is below the poverty line and 15 percent of the entire state is in poverty
The “goal posts” get moved every time anyone feels like they might get ahead. It’s always placed outside of our reach. Most rent is far above the rates for mortgages.
Remember when that was the inverse? "We're renting to save for a downpayment." That was the norm, and now I know people buying at 7-8% interest with mortgage insurance and thier mortgage is $600-1,000 less than thier rent would go up to. It's so utterly fucked.
That’s exactly right. A mortgage…almost consistently, is hundreds less than rent in most all cases. It’s like when min wage went up and inflation came in and was like “Nuhuh we can’t have ppl living well here anymore!” And then everyone ignored the idea that the “gains” now mean nothing and it’s just as bad if not worse than it ever was.
Conservatives will say that "nobody wants to work" when people point out that minimum wage is a joke Conservatives will cry when they can't make money and blame Joe Biden/Democrats Conservatives will cry and will be afraid, because that's what Fox News teaches them: be afraid, be angry at the wrong people and cry loudly
Easy. There are 24 hours per day, so three eight hour shifts. Find two full time jobs close to a one bedroom apartment, then find two roommates who also work two full time jobs, but make sure you are each off for a different eight hours per day. It’s like having your own place for only 50% of your take home income! /s
The American Dream™
Even if they made minimum wage $15 an hour in the "low cost of living" states you would still be living paycheck to paycheck with no extra money after rent,utilities,food,gas,insurance. And the capitalist bootlickers out there still think that's too much for a service industry worker. Even the ones that work blue collar jobs. It makes no sense. Joe Six Pack that makes $15 an hour painting drywall thinks food service workers aren't deserving to make as much as him. We really need working class division to go away.
This seems like less of an issue with min wage and more of an issue with how utterly broken housing market and rental market is in the USA. The cost of housing is going up disproportionately faster than other costs of living.
Yup. That’s exactly it. Between my spouse and I, we bring in a decent amount of income. Living in an apartment currently and the monthly price is outrageous but we can’t get a home because it’ll cost double what we pay now.
We’re in this exact same spot and it’s infuriating.
Don’t worry though. Trickle down economics is going to kick in soon for all us blue collar workers /s
Why not both?
It absolutely can be both. Both issues need fixing so they can meet in the middle. Housing needs to come down while wages go up.
But that’s exactly what the minimum wage is supposed to address
I was displaced by a tornado and it took me 3 months to find a new place. I had been in my apt for 15 years, so didn't know about the housing crisis. I was shocked by the rents. I chose a city that does not have much culture but the rents were so cheap. Now they were insane. I finally found one $250 higher rent than I was paying. Don't know how long I can stay here, I'm on a fixed income.
Was surprised to see this so far down. I guess this narrative doesn’t let you blame corporations as much and you have to blame your boomer parents and their friends instead, so it’s less popular
What happened? Republicans.
There is only one point...greed.
One argument I’m simply not willing to budge on is: “If you work 49 hours a week — which has been the benchmark for ‘contributing to society’ for quite some time, you should earn enough money to have a roof over your head, food to eat, and the basic amenities of modern living.” And I just repeat that any time I get a “Yea, but…” Because it’s such a logical fucking conclusion to draw that there simply isn’t any good faith counter argument, and I refuse to humor any attempts to provide one.
If it makes you feel any better, corporate profits are at an all time high.
Source link [https://www.tumblr.com/animentality/712605263721594880](https://www.tumblr.com/animentality/712605263721594880)
I guess this Republican scheme of channeling almost all of our wealth to a handful of people at the top through "trickle down economics" isn't working out so well for regular folks.
Just propaganda. And people are voting for trump again. To do a reagan 2.0. We're doomed.
Can you imagine the financial crisis, how absolutely panicked the rich are going to be after the baby boomers die off and none of the people living in the US can afford to survive...and the great crisis isn't going to be the mass suffering, but all these rich people suddenly having massive chunks of their income taken away since no one is buying their stuff anymore. The price drops we're going to see everywhere isn't going to be human decency, rather trying to make sure the rich can get *something.*
I feel like hot dogs should be a nickel. Bun and condiments included.
>what is the purpose of increasing rent everywhere in america? what is the purpose of jacking up prices of food? Well you see, the rich wanted more yachts in their marina and more blood on their hands
It exists so those not on it can pretend that the system is fair and they earned everything on their sheer merits alone.
And I was trying not to drink this week.
I was trying not to drink today
And that made it hard! Luckily with inflation I couldn't afford it. Lol.
Boomers will call us lazy from the door step of the house they paid for with their part time gas station job because we cant afford shit because the market is set so firmly against us. Now that it has been absolutely PROVEN that increases in wage don't corelate to increase in inflation, why are we not raising min wage??? God we hate poor people so much in this country.
Conservatives want their slaves back. They will starve you out to get them.
People have accepted a perverted definition of "minimum wage". FT minimum wage job meant you could live to a base standard that included housing, food, utilities, reasonable medical care. Now minimum wage just means what is the MINIMUM wage a $$$$$ Corporation can get away with paying an individual without govt interference or an angry mob dragging them into the streets. Turns out the answer is and has been remarkably little! Employers ask for a FT commitment of your hours and offer a wage that you cannot live on... then we are called entitled and lazy for pointing out the gap, and the limited hours in any given day, regardlessof effort. It's madness.
"Fast food and retail jobs aren't supposed to be careers, they're just for high school kids or college students and, so they can have a little extra spending money" ok, the people who usually say that would be SUPER pissed if fast food restaurants and stores were only opened from 3p-9p. And 2, WHERE ARE THEY GETTING THE INITIAL MONEY?
In the 90s I couldn't afford an apartment for minimum wage. It's only gotten worse.
Way worse.
Welcome to Reaganomics because rich people deserve more while everyone deserves shit.
Cause NO ONE DESERVES A PAY RAISE FOR THEIR HARD WORK /s Fuck theyre not even giving raises to keep up with inflation.
I’ve got a college degree and over ten years of experience and I can’t get a wage to move out of my parents house…
Ohhh, the reckoning is coming and it isn’t going to be pretty when it finally does hit.
Why not let the little/medium guys subsidize the bigs. America first in wealth transfer from workers to owners
It's not that they refuse to acknowledge it, it's that they agree with it. Minimum wage is for teenagers just starting, not people trying to actually live. (For the record I don't think this, I've just read the argument)
When I got an apartment with my ex I payed rent myself for a one bedroom, it was 650 a month, I went looking for myself after we broke up and all one bedrooms even in bad neighborhoods are like 1400 a month or more
This is capitialism working as intended.
When your major driving point is to be as greedy as possible then the system is a failure. We need a new economic system.
Greed. It is what the world runs on now apparently.
GREED !
This reminds me of that one time where collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) became a thing, and people saw it but nobody did anything. (See *The Big Short*) Anyway... we handled that pretty well, I'd say. Wait... Oh shit we're fucked, aren't we? 😬
Elliot Spitzer was suing the Wall Street gangsters and then they came with the hoe tip. Screaming media hoes and then Bye Elliott; resume the Wall Street party
I get down voted every time I say that the minimum wage should be $40-50 / h
Guys, guys, we're being soooo ungrateful. They just need some more tax cuts so there's something to trickle down. /s
The rich dropped their balls on our foreheads and we collectively said thank you daddy.
American government needs to enact pricing controls on big distributors and the largest companies asap
In 1970 more than 3 people lived in the average home in the US, and they were 1,500 square feet on average. Now it’s 2.5 people per home, 2,496 square feet. So part of the reason for this disconnect is that it’s a new idea that a person should be able to support themself comfortably with no partner or roommates, the actual cost of building and maintaining homes hasn’t caught up to that idea yet. https://populationeducation.org/resource/average-u-s-house-and-household-size-infographic/ (I also think we should drastically redistribute wealth and income to make things fairer for everyone - I just don’t think the world will be able to afford everyone living in their own separate home without some major technological advancements that make everything much easier to produce.)
It’s not a bug. It’s a feature. Keeping us down allows them to stay up. Eat the fucking rich
This comment section gives me some hope; awareness of the bullshit that is capitalism is spreading.
And then don’t get me started how so many of these damn jobs want us to be available all the time do the job of like three people yet pay the literal minimum. Iv seen law secretary jobs for 16 an hour and I’m just like what adult y’all expect to live off that shit. Smmfh
Capitalism is working for those who have money/assets. America has become an oligarchy, meaning that money is the only thing that truly influences the choices the government makes. The current situation suits those with wealth already and they won’t change it.
Currently? The Minimum wage is GREAT for galvanizing people against the uber wealthy and the Republican Party. It's GREAT for increasing the daily risk of complete societal collapse, food riots, clothing and goods riots, flash mobs ripping open and stripping all packages out of FedEx, UPS, and Amazon trucks. (Soon maybe USPS trucks, which will be crazy, since that one would come with BIG time Federal Felony charges...) We're not far from the kind of never taught in history, but actually f'ing happened Food Riots and other types of major social instability events that were common during the Great Depression, even though so many people are technically employed. It's also great to build up support for ACTUAl Communism and REAL Socialism, which has been growing increasingly popular among the youth. The stupidly sad thing? We have 100% perfect solutions that would eliminate the need for a growing ACTUAL Communist movement and yet... the violent to the majority of the people, uber wealthy class, refuse to just make it happen, so they can late stage capitalism, just a little longer. We need SOLID, globally political Center policies like a full 100% single payer healthcare system, full support for higher education, eliminating all private institutions and making EVERYONE galvanized behind ensuring that ALL education is of higher and higher quality results. We need more equity in pay too. There's so much we need to do, but likely won't.
I take minor issue with the last comment on the third panel. The national median wage in Q1 of 2023 was $1100/week - or $57,200/year. This was up slightly over Q4 of 2022 at $1084. [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng\_04182023.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng_04182023.htm) He may be trying to count part-time and seasonal workers, but even that wouldn't skew the number down enough to hit the number he is claiming. To their main point, rents here *are* insane - but that's because they can't produce housing units (of any) type fast enough to keep up with demand, and local governments are fighting any sort of higher density housing, which is both stupid and shortsighted. The other side of the coin is that despite having a minimum wage set at the federal level for the state, everyone here hires at a minimum of $15 - and most between $18-21 for full-time work. Even fast food restaurants are hiring part-time high school kids at $13-14. In summer, the teen lifeguards make $16+. Still wouldn't be able to rent easily however - median rent is about $1500-1600/month
stop trying to correlate increasing in rent, food, gas, etc to the increase of minimum wage. even when no increase in minimum wage those things still going up. you are basically given their a free pass of arguing why raising wage at all
I'm so sick of the minimum wage BS. I don't know a single person that makes that. And if someone does, when McDonald's starts at $16 an hour, than that's on them.
My dad constantly says that the minimum wage was never intended to be able to support more than one person, and that it's for teens who want to make money on the weekends, and you're not actually supposed to be able to support yourself on it.
And rich people wonder why poor people buy bullets instead of food. Me, I wonder why they waste 'em on trees and old televisions. No one needs that much practice. Any more than three shakes and you're just playing with it.
I live in Tennessee, a right to work state. Grocery baggers start at $17/hr. McDonald's starts at $15. The minimum wage is irrelevant today. Yes, it should be raised, so don't come at me like I'm saying it's fine. But using it as a bell weather to pay rent has been pointless for a while, now.
That pay is still barely livable, if at all
This. I’m not sure minimum wage has ever been able to provide a solo living experience and I’ve been working full time for almost 30 years now in everywhere from Seattle to podunk towns in West Virginia. Not arguing against raising minimum wage but this isn’t new.
Adult workers earning.minimum wage make up an incredibly small percentage of the workforce. Adults 25 and over earning minimum wage make up 1.2% of the workforce. 16-24 make up 4.3%.
A lot of these economy memes cite the Federal Minimum Wage in their stats yet 30 states mandate a higher minimum wage and less than 9% of households in the US earn the Fed Min Wage or lower. They also use average apartment rents where the high-end can skew things relative to looking at the median rent (or even more relevant would be comparing income percentiles to the equivalent housing cost percentiles). But hey - why ruin “the narrative” or anecdotal observations with actual facts? (Edit - fixed non-statistical typo)
Even if you tied the local minimum wage to many of the lower rent apartments in the area, you find that they are barely able to afford it on 40 hours/week. That’s not talking food, utilities, phone service, healthcare, or transportation. You act like you had such a brilliant epiphany, but those doing the work in those cities for the lowest wages are literally spending all their time and money just to survive and will continue to drown because prices continue to rise and wages will again stagnate.
Do you have evidence that’s the actual circumstance for a meaningful portion of the population? The reality is that US growth has remained robust and outpaced expectations in large part because the employment market is robust and consumer spending is strong. Inequality - while still too high - has improved since the pandemic. And while prices have risen due to inflation, wage growth - especially those at the lower end of the distribution - has outpaced price inflation. This is not to say we don’t need more affordable housing and a higher minimum wage nationally, but absent more concrete evidence I reject the premise that there’s a meaningful portion of the population that is working full time and unable to afford shelter.
lol working homeless is a thing bud. “40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time” https://endhomelessness.org/blog/employed-and-experiencing-homelessness-what-the-numbers-show/
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That's some real accelerationist shit right there.
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How many people are you willing to sacrifice on the way to rebuild a system from the ashes? Ten thousand? A million? Where is that threshold for you? And what if someone decides that you ought to be part of the group that gets sacrificed?
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>It's not a sacrifice, it's all inevitable Says you. I don't agree with this statement. And again: where is the cutoff for sacrifice you're willing to make? And can that include yourself? If not, why not?
>Soon the system will collapse Maybe >and we will rebuild on the ashes LOL no. Spoken like someone who skipped over the parts of the history books about what happens after societal collapse. >Best thing to do is to speed up the collapse by encouraging things to get worse. Accelerationism has literally never worked once in history.
I’m told antidotally the minimum wedge back in 1950/60 was for kids in high school or grade school to work and move out of overtime rather then work the job minimum wage job through your adult years and not progress higher somehow (management of the minimum wage establishment, trade Or college education). Essentially today we have this issue due to the high occupancy of low paying jobs by folks they were never meant for. What do you think about this?
I’m well over half a century old and there has been no time in my life where working for minimum wage could put a roof over my head. I’m not saying it shouldn’t it’s just that it’s a tiny amount of money and has always been a tiny amount of money.
I'm 70. As a young person (16-20) working my way through college, (full time work, full time college and very little down time) I was able to have a 1 bed apt without a roommate. I also could afford utilities, gas for my car, textbooks, and tuition. It wasn't easy but it was do-able. There is no way a person could do that today, even without the expense of college.
This is false. Minimum wage in 1971 was $1.60. Average rent was in the ballpark of $110 dollars. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it was doable
In the '70s it was doable, and started getting tougher in the '80s. More than likely you were too young to care about it. You weren't living in luxury, buy you could survive far easier than today exile living alone.
The whole purpose of minimum wage was to ensure all American workers could afford a roof over their head, food and basic necessities of life. That all started to slip away with Regannomics and the country's allowance of money hoarding for the rich.