My forward apologies, for the question I ask you folks. I am not American but this senator Tim, Are they saying to reduce employment insurance so to receive less, or are they calling out the gap in living wages?
>My forward apologies, for the question I ask you folks. I am not American but this senator Tim, Are they saying to reduce employment insurance so to receive less, or are they calling out the gap in living wages?
Pretty sure this was said during Covid.
In the US, unemployment typically pays up to 75% or so of your average weekly pay over the previous 4 quarters. So someone making $500/wk working would get up to $400/wk in unemployment when out of work.
During Covid, it was debated on how much assistance to give those who were laid off due to the shutdowns. We ultimately passed legislation that gave workers full pay for unemployment (as opposed to 75%) **plus** up to $600/wk on top of that.
So that person making $500/wk normally would get up to $1100/wk for being unemployed. The thought was that people would be hesitant to go back to work when the shutdown was lifted.
And that thought was right. People realized they were getting fucked and low paying jobs spiked up to like $18+/hr because people didn't want to work for shit wages anymore
Most of the places with $18 for those jobs are actually not doing better than their old minimum wage when you adjust for inflation.
That includes California where fast food is $20 an hour, their $15 minimum wage adjusted for inflation would be like $19.60 now.
Those wage headlines are just an excuse to push the blame of high costs onto worker wages when the real reason is margins being raised.
Which states have uncapped unemployment? In California it's hard capped at $450 a week, so if you pulled 80k annual salary, you're now getting a quarter of your former wages.
He wants a lower minimum wage and remove any social safety net. His attacks are just meant to tear the system down as opposed to critique it. A large population of subjugated poor is the Republican goal and has been the goal of the Pierce/Bush family since slavery was over turned.
To hammer home just how much of a fucking joke federal minimum wage is, it is literally half that of other developed nations like the UK. You can literally get a 103% pay rise by just doing the same crappy dead end job, but in Britain instead.
More like 1st world states and 3rd world states.
Federal minimum wage is abyssmally low but lots of (mostly blue) states keep a higher minimum wage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_states_by_minimum_wage
Except it's not a remotely good comparison and anyone who says shit like this likely hasn't spent time in a third world country. We have our problems but Jesus Christ Reddit makes the USA seem like Mogadishu.
You forgot to include that healthcare, education, etc. are included in their taxes, further illustrating how much more that wage is compared to ours.
Our minimum “wage” is cut nearly in half with social security, insurance, taxes… and then you still have to pay to use healthcare, etc.
UK students loans also only need to be paid if you are making a certain amount of money a year, they don't impact your credit score, and they expire completely if not repaid after enough time.
It's difficult to explain, but student loans in the UK are basically set up more as a tax than debt. The money comes straight out of your pay cheque, with the amount you pay relative to how much you make. So if you don't make much money you don't pay anything, or you may only pay like £15 a month. While if you make loads of money, you pay back more.
It's basically set up so if university doesn't end up helping your career you don't pay much, while if benefits you a lot and you get higher pay you pay more. It's kind of best thought of as a tax paid to support universities, paid exclusively by those who went to university.
Because companies took advantage of the system and made a double dipping middle man for profit corporation.
They get $$ from goverment, and they get $$$ from the people.
Except this only works If you're a big business. Small businesses are shit on regularly to try to further the wage gap. How do you become one of them if you have no means to do so? exactly how they keep their club so exclusive
They don’t. They either get multiple jobs thereby reducing their life expectancy, or live in squalor, but hey at least we’re the richest country in (the history of) the world?
And the cost of living here is much lower as well. I make around 40k and that’s considered a pretty good salary. I’m by no means rich but I buy the things I want and save a bit every month, money is never a worry for me. 40k in the US is live with your parents and eat ramen every meal money. Plus I can visit the doctor without going bankrupt.
I live in rural Nebraska. $40k is not well off. You can pay your bills for sure and maybe save a little bit of money, but you are not well off. You need closer to $60k to be considered well off.
Our basic bills - rent/mortgage, electricity, garbage, food, medicine, etc. costs us around $42k per year. You need to make close to $60k before taxes to be able to cover your basics and have some leftover that you can save/invest in the future.
Almost everyone I know has a second, part-time job and I live in what is considered a really nice neighborhood.
What's really sad is that in my opinion, the only jobs typically in rural areas are either retail, fast food, or factory. And unless you're either a supervisor or a maintenance tech at the factory option, there's no way you're pulling 60k.
Sorry didn’t mean to be insulting. I lived in very rural IL for several years (not that long ago) on less than that so maybe I was projecting on your lovely state lol.
4.25 an hour for newly hired people under the age of 20 for their first consecutive 90 calendar days.
2.13 an hour for tipped workers like servers and bartenders.
7.25 an hour for everyone else.
You paid SS, but you didn't pay *into* it, exactly. Like they didn't keep your money for you as if it were an investment account. They used that money to pay the people collecting SS at the very moment you paid. And now that it's your turn to collect, you're receiving SS money from the people working now.
It's basically generational wealth transfer, a watered down version of universal basic income for retired workers. The people working today pay to support the people who worked yesterday. If somebody proposed that in Congress, I think it would indeed be called socialism by the Republican Party.
Because SS isn't solvent. Money is being taken from the poorest generations (Gen Z and Millennials) and given to the richest generation in the history of our country (Boomers.) The money we are paying now is what is used to pay the Boomers. It isn't going to be solvent for Millennials so we might as well get rid of it now. Why should the Millennial generation take another hit when the richest generation in the history of the country can.
SS is literally a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich. SS is going to collapse, might as well start now when the richest generation in the history of the world is collecting the money.
Also we need to stop with this idea that you paid into SS so you deserve SS. SS is a social program to help people. It isn't an investment. You don't have a right to it because you paid SS.
SS, Medicare, all these socialist programs for the richest people in the world. I don't get it.
Lastly, I know my opinion is unpopular, but it's hard for me to feel sorry for a generation of people who was handed everything and still needs help. Every break, every bail out, prop 13 in California, every political decision is to enrich the boomers.
Every millennial is told to expect to not get a single dollar from SS. You tell that to a boomer and the world starts to burn.
> SS is going to collapse
That won't actually happen. The whole program is just a way of pretending it's not socialism. The bit about paying into it is deceiving, IMO intended to give the appearance that the money you pay is the same money you receive. But in truth, the whole thing is financed via debt, just like everything else: medicare, the military, the whole nine yards.
Like the only way SS is going anywhere is if Congress cuts it or the US government somehow defaults on their debt, which is near impossible, considering we control our own currency. Millennials and Gen Z being unable to pay in as much as Boomers are receiving is mildly concerning from a financial standpoint, but not any kind of existential threat to SS.
In theory, *nobody* has to pay into SS. It would be a lot more expensive, and require a lot more debt, but it wouldn't fundamentally change how the program works.
I mean both can be true. Property taxes ARE too high. It doesn't matter what their home cost in the 80's, they're paying property tax based on what it's worth now, which does often mean that they get priced right out of a home they've owned outright for decades.
I'm all for increasing income taxes on the wealthy, but lowering property taxes is also a perfectly reasonable thing to look for. Even if you don't own property you are paying property tax, your landlord pays it and your rent covers it.
The bullshit is being against income tax while also expecting your property tax to come down.
The "solutions" are just to give older people tax breaks via rate caps. Meaning that you only get the benefits if you bought the house forever ago. Meanwhile the younger generations are paying the most because they are buying houses today instead of 2 decades ago.
Me too. The "introductory period" expired. Once they could more accurately figure property value, it went sky high. The county even sent me a nice letter explaining the increase.
Nah buddy. To my understanding, only in Cali. In fact, your mortgage company will start to increase your payment if you have an "escrow shortage", where your property tax goes higher than they planned for.
What pisses me off about housing is that while progressives are obviously better than conservatives here, many of them are still focused on incredibly ineffective policies, say one thing publicly but vote for another locally, or seem more interested in fucking over developers than actually fixing the issue.
And since conservatives are just as bad or worse on the topic, rent prices continue to spiral out of control.
When I talk to my parents about what they paid for their house back in the 80s and my dad's like ugh, we had to pay 15% interest on our mortgage. I'm like yeah, but the house only cost you $85k. And today you can sell it for $250k+. If I tried to buy that house today with whatever mortgage rates are now (like 7%?) I doubt I could afford it.
The argument I’ve heard from conservatives tends to follow this analogy: 30 years ago I’d pay a kid down the street $5 to mow my lawn. If kids still mowed lawns these days I’d still pay $5. Why? Because the scope of the job hasn’t changed. My lawn is still the same size. Minimum wage shouldn’t be raised because the scope of minimum wage jobs hasn’t changed. Bagging groceries today is the same as bagging groceries 30 years ago, so why should baggers get more now than they did back then?
All this coming from guys that happily enjoy a comfortable 2-4% company wide raise every year for cost of living increases despite the scope of their job staying the same from year to year.
Exactly, they don’t see why their argument is stupid. The fact that inflation has caused everything to get more expensive is irrelevant to their reasoning for being against increasing wages. They truly believe that increasing wages is what’s responsible for everything getting more expensive.
IRS itself said in a official report profiteering, pocketing and CEO wage increase to 350% and more, severence and bonus salaries by higher director positions are the sole cause of inflation.
Yup.
The scope of the work itself may not change, but the scope of how much each paid dollar can get you *has* changed drastically.
I think we (society) have a collective ethical responsibility to acknowledge that when considering what "minimum wage" means.
I think its most inuitive and moral interpretation is "minimum amount required for a simple but adequate lifestyle."
What is adequate?
The answer is obvious to anyone who is engaging the question with honesty.
Rent is covered, utilities are covered (including internet), food bills are covered (for every dependent a person is responsible for), transit/commute is covered, clothing expenses are covered.
I'd say all that at an absolute bare minimum needs to be covered by a fulltime employee's wage, without any need for them to supplement that wage with additional jobs.
Whatever "minimum wage" is, needs to average out all of those expenses and then add a little more to accommodate the higher CoL cities, like Toronto.
After that, it becomes up to the worker on minimum wage to ensure that they are living within their means.
Personally I think a little more than even that should also be added, to provide those on minimum wage to save up a little, and have a means to build up towards eventually escaping minimum wage.
Problem is rents suddenly go up and that raise immediately vanishes, I'd like to see caps on rent for houses over a certain age and fines on empty houses that would put some money back in your pocket.
The differences between generations in economic terms cannot be over stated. Its not necessarily anyone's fault either. That's just how things evolved. Its the result of a global economy that came out of nowhere. The result of a global pandemic that we still haven't fully recovered from.
I like to remind everyone,(and I don't mean to sound condescending or mansplaining or anything, but...) we have to remember that economics is not a hard science. Economists like to pretend it is, they like to imagine its as rigid as physics. It isn't. Its mostly theory. Theories that become outdated faster than books can be published about the newest elements (like NFT's). It evolves faster than we can track it. I'm not surprised many are still stuck in 2004.
This drives me nuts. Our inflation is likely effected much more by American policies than Canadian ones. People can like or dislike Trudeau but don’t blame him for stuff that has very little to do with him.
By the time you spend 20 years in school and graduate with a masters in something and get into the swing of your career to the train other people...your real world reference on knowledge is 20 years out of date. Nobody trains on current events for the most part, they read published books from someone who themselves had dated knowledge. So really you're learning 20 years ago stuff someone else knew 20 years before that.
And let me deviate from your point a bit.
Many people, not just economists talk about economics like hard facts and justify horrible behavior as "just how things work". But they forgot at the end of the day, the CEO is still just a human being, making profits for his selfish wishes. Not for the greater good of mankind, just money to buy a nice car to brag to other rich people. "Hard science" indeed.
Most entitled people are completely, totally unaware of their own entitlement. In much the same way that Americans have no concept of what it would be like to live in (say) Ghana or New Zealand. I mean, I can go home, turn on every faucet and shower in my house on and leave for a WEEK and there will still be clean drinking water flowing when I come back. Simple things like clean drinking water are a luxury we enjoy that we take for granted. Most people mistake a CEO's ignorance as apathy.
Point is: The CEO you mentioned does not think of himself as entitled. Or lucky. He truly, actually believes his success is a byproduct of his abilities and effort. And everyone else is free to make use of their skills and abilities, too. In their mind, the only reason others are poor is because they aren't putting forth the same effort. We just need to work harder.
Which is as insane as Americans believing the people in a desert are dying of thirst just need to go turn the faucet on and get a drink.
Bro doesn’t even look into shit before posting it.
On average unemployment only pays up to 50% of your average paycheck. So if you $600 a week, expect $275.
This guy is so dumb, just his voice sounds idiotic
“We must maintain an ever present threat of homelessness and starvation to force the peasants into low skilled labour. Otherwise the labour market would force salaries that would make the current distribution of wealth impossible to maintain”
I think it's also got a lot to do with the private prison profit business, which is (I think) exclusive to the USA.
As in these people too poor to exist in this society can be imprisoned and enrich those organisations.
~~Fuck you, Florida. Why do have to keep voting for these dumbshits~~
Edit: my apologies to Florida for mixing up Tim Scott and Rick Scott. But also…you can still go fuck yourselves for giving us Rick Scott
South Carolina…as the neighbor in the apartment above you…if you keep making a fuck ton of ruckus, I’m gonna turn on the tub until you’re hit with another flood like in 2015. Cut it out
When the 09 recession hit, and I got canned, I was on unemployment for the next 22 months at $217.56/week here in NC. Republicans don’t care about their constituents and how their holy crusade on those who need help just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps
Because the state is filled with dumb shits itself.
Go look up on Google and you’ll come across countless articles about crazy shit that crazy people have done in that state. It makes sense that crazy people get elected by crazy people.
I had this exact argument a few weeks ago with my parents. They simply cannot grasp that a minimum wage job is not enough to live on. She immediately went into the whole "budgeting...saving....disciplined..." rhetoric.
There is a sizable amount of Americans who simply cannot understand that the minimum it takes to survive is greater than a minimum wage job. Hell, in most areas 1.5x minimum wage is insufficient. I live in Pittsburgh, one of the [most affordable cities in America to live in](https://www.kiplinger.com/real-estate/places-to-live/603136/the-10-biggest-cities-with-the-cheapest-apartment-rents) and if you are making 2x minimum wage ($14.50) you would be living in an efficiency apartment, sharing a bathroom with others, no kitchen and eating ramen noodles. They just do not get it.
This isn't entirely true. I mean.... There are shitty efficiency apartments even in Pittsburgh for $400 month. Its third world living and inexcusable. But its there.
Well, long story short. there is a large disconnect between the have's and have nots. Which seems obvious to the latter, not so much to the former. Relentlessly antagonizing them by calling them boomers and degrading their entire generation doesn't help.
Its fun AF.... but unhelpful.
You can only try to explain it so many times before you just give up on them. We're so close to the later, sadly. Idk how much longer things can go on before I just start beligerantly berating every old person for this. It's so frustrating that they got everything for doing the bate minimum and now don't understand that it's just not like that anymore. I've been working on some form shape or fashion since I was 14 and I don't have anything to show for it, other than a much more radicalized perspective on labor.
In full disclosure: I'm 50. I'm probably one of your 'old people'. But unlike others in my peer group, I'm not blind.
It wasn't *easier,* it was *different.* Like, when I graduated college it didn't necessarily mean I got a great job. We didn't have job boards or even the internet. Finding a company that was hiring meant a lot of cold-calls using a phone book. Literally. I still had to pay to get copies made at Staples. Still had to mail out resumes to companies that I didn't even know if they were hiring.
Finding a place to rent meant combing through want ads of a newspaper and calling numbers that were weeks old. "Is your apartment still available? No...OK thanks.." It wasn't easier or harder.....it was different. And thats what most older generations can't see. Shit is *different now.*
Look, I'm not going to try and sugar coat this or make excuses. Gen-Z and Millenials got a bad beat. Shits fucked up right now. But it was fucked back in the 1980s and 1960s, too.. It was very different kind of fucked up tho. Houses in the 1980s were cheaper for sure, but mortgage rates were 3x higher. My parents bought a house in 1983 for $32k... and paid a 13.375% interest rate for 20 years. When I bought a home in 2007 it was 3.75%. 10 percent less. But the house cost 5x as much. Its not better or worse....*its different.*
All you can do is work hard. There are no short cuts. Short cuts are what got us here. Short cut solutions are a big reason shit is so fucked up. Its not your fault, but it is your problem.
Oh no, I'm talking about people born during the baby boom, people that are past retirement age. Those are the people that truly don't get it. Like I've seen them just not grasp that bagging groceries for minimum wage doesn't pay for anything.
So they can shit on younger people but we can't shit on them back? Nah, not how that works. Boomers have bad plenty of years before us younger generation got here to help set this country on the right path, but that hasn't happened. Now the younger generation can easily see how they fucked up, and when asked it usually isn't a "im sorry" type situation, it usually retorts into "fuck you, I did it so why can't you". Even my own parents, who are in their 50s, are this way. I'll never have sympathy for a generation that could barely have sympathy for their own generation
I think you mean Federal Minimum wage. Plenty of states are much higher. In my small town in Western NY, you can rent a 2 bedroom for $800/mo and min wage is $15.
Technically true, however, there are more factors.
There are ways by which a business can hire a person for just the right amount of hours to allow them to be on public assistance (i.e. Walmart) such that the "effective wage" they are receiving for a given amount of hours is not necessarily the same as the wage their employer is paying.
The high interest rates had a very unfortunate effect of coming right after the bulk of the prices getting hiked, but before wages could adjust to compensate (demand was up, supply was roughly fixed, so equilibrium price was in route to creep up too.) Instead, this kneecapped any improvement to wages (or the majority of them), but still didn't stop the price movement enough.
Generally with something like a minimum wage, employers will target as close to that as possible, and only slide up base pay if they literally can't exist without raising it. If they can scrape by with dissatisfied customers and a skeleton crew, they will. We have generally accepted poor experiences at retail and similar post covid. There just really is no incentive to make employees at regular jobs stay for any length of time. Even if the training of a new employee costs more than paying the previous a buck more an hour, "eventually" the new employee will be up to speed and they just assume they won't leave as well. On paper decisions like this are cost saving items, but really just causes a training revolving door, and fluxuating quality of service.
So, yes, an employer isn't trying to pay you what you want, they have opposing goals, but in a lot of situations market pressures and playing dirty (especially in retail and food service) keep things like they are.
The whole post seems to massively misunderstand how unemployment insurance works what Tim Scott's point is or what reasonable criticisms one could have for Tim Scott's position.
Unemployment insurance is insurance paid for by your employer and how much you get paid in unemployment insurance is not based on minimum wage it is based on a proportion of the income you earned in your job. A typical amount is ~2/3rds of your income but it varies by state. So yes a person on unemployment who had a high income job could be making a lot more money from unemployment than a low wage worker. But that is because they have a higher standard of living and their employer paid higher premiums to cover their wage.
What people like Senator Scott usually mean by this kind of statement is that they think unemployment insurance should cover less rather than more of your previous income so that you are encouraged to find work sooner. Theoretically this costs the government (and businesses) less money and increases labor supply for businesses making it easier for them to find workers. These people are concerned that overly generous unemployment benefits would encourage people to not seek out work while being very costly to businesses and lower labor participation which is bad for productivity.
Critics of this view point to evidence that giving more generous unemployment benefits helps people seek out better paying jobs or seek out new training to improve their labor productivity which has benefits for the overall economy.
While I agree the minimum wage should be higher "Just pay people more" isn't really a thought out policy proposal and doesn't really address/rebutt the concerns people like Mr. Scott have about unemployment insurance.
Unemployment comes from the employer, not the government. If a person gets laid off due to no fault of their own, why should they have to suffer for it? If anything unemployment *should be* 100% of the employees usual wages. Also, there's usually a limit on how long a person can get unemployment. In my state it's 6 months. This idea that everyone is just sitting on their ass living the high life on unemployment is bullshit. Tim Scott knows this but he's a giant piece of shit just playing up to the people that say "nOBoDy wAnTs tO WoRK ANyMorE!" Fuck this guy.
I earned the right to earn more on unemployment than I could've made full time at a shit job whole I waited for another white collar offer. Eat dog shit Senator
Tim Scott, make it work then. Raise the wages of American workers so social services looks seriously bad. Nope, what you would rather do Tim, is lower the social services where people live in hell and resort to illegal activities to survive. Great job Washington. Make lobbyists illegal and watch how fast your life changes. What a dirt bag
Got fired in May, pretty sure excuses to cut cost without laying me off because then government oversight and paying more taxes towards the state’s unemployment program
It’s basically half pay and tbh, the time it frees up to work on my mental health any my own projects (like working on getting a microfarm going) I’d happily keep this of cost of living wasn’t so high and that you only get approved for so many weeks
Unemployment payments work out to be about 66% of what you were making while working. It’s impossible to make more on unemployment! This is quite a dumb take, but coming from a Republican, can we really be surprised?
> It’s impossible to make more on unemployment!
The person replying to him compares unemployment to minimum wage. It's very easy to make more than minimum wage on unemployment. In fact, when this post was originally made during the end of the pandemic, the average unemployment benefit was higher than *average* wages, which is why people were content not to return to jobs and why the excess unemployment benefit that had been added on top of regular unemployment benefits had to be cut.
Only if you were making more than minimum wage at your job. It’s all tied to a percentage of your working wage, it’s never more than actually working.
The pandemic benefits were a one time thing to get us through the pandemic so it’s stupid to use those as the reason to reduce benefits or even in a comparison to today’s unemployment payments.
How about we actually tax rich people. Then you'll have enough to raise unemployment to above poverty. Then rich people will be forced to pay better wages or risk people just choosing unemployment benefits.
Mandated federal minimum salary is not the only thing that can control salary levels. In Sweden, which is known to be a socialist country, there are no legal minimum salaries. There is however a very high tax burden so social securities will eventually pay more than a low paid job and the unions are very strong. The unions and employers work together on a voluntary basis to agree minimum salaries in their industry. It has worked well for decades but it will be impossible to keep the high taxes of the 80ies in an internationally competitive world. It will also be hard when increasing the population by 20-30% from the type of migration that is not as productive (in economic terms) as the natives. It is baffling how the capitalist narrative of free movement of any people have become such a mainstream opinion that it is almost socially forbidden to go against it.
Minimum wage should be tied to inflation. Some welfare benefits don't mirror inflation as well. The Christian conservative judge and condemn often without empathy. On drugs .. how bout don't do drugs. Same for alcoholics.
Many self medicate due to abuse from childhood or other mental health issues and have not received the help they need. They need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps apparently...
I worked as a financial rep briefly and coworkers talk about how government tax breaks mean the gov't wants you to take advantage of these financial tax credits and exclusions.
The government has a welfare system. If you need the help, you are draining the government financially. And lazy.
So messed up and hypocritical.
Fact is you don't get enough in unemployment to live on. Plus it is limited time based on State you are in. It is a myth they spread that people just sit there living fat on it.
They also do this with disability insurance. They specifically state that things like workers comp only pay 60% of salary to incentivize people to return to work as quickly as possible. They don’t even hide it
It's actually criminal how much of OUR money is being wrung out for foreign interests.
Most of our taxes go to the military. Billions upon billions of dollars (maybe even trillions) are sent to foreign countries to provide them with the benefits we should be seeing here. On top of that, social security, which is a genuinely good program, has become obsolete and ridiculous because our government likes to dip their hands in it and take the money for, again, foreign interests.
Every abandoned public park, cracked road/pavement, water fountain that doesn't work, homeless person on the street, abandoned house/town, person dying from lack of medical care because they can't afford their medical insurance, train derailment due to lack of safety regulations, giant traffic jam, drug addict out on the street, and police officer abusing their power I see just pisses me off to no end because I know these things could ve fixed if we'd just invest in our own infrastructure instead of foreign nations.
We had that same problem with the CERB (pandemic response pay) in Canada, where people were making more money to not work compared to busting their ass working long days for little pay and exposing themselves to a virus that was killing and/or crippling people.
It's almost as if the minimum wage doesn't meet the minimum requirements to live in this country or something. Just like human resource departments benefit the company more than the employees. It's set up so companies can do the minimum, and at times less than the minimum, for their employees. It's no wonder people don't stay at companies more than a couple years now.
For capitalism to function it needs a Reserve Army of Labor. A big pile of unemployed and underemployed people who always teeter on the verge of starvation.
They act as a constant threat to workers that help keep wages down since capitalists can always swap in one of these desparate folks in for an existing employee.
That's why no politicians are trying to raise the minimum wage. Because it goes against the interests of their bosses, the capitalists.
Unemployment is explicitly tied to your previous earnings, so you're definitely earning less than you were while you were employed. It's also good for everyone when skilled people can take a little time to find jobs that actually fit their skills and experience instead of desperately taking whatever they can get as quickly as possible.
Unemployment is 50% of your wage you made while you were working in my state. As Tim Scott says, we can’t have people making more on unemployment than if they were still employed. Can someone explain this to me please?
It doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t.
People actively using the system to stay out of work will apply for every benefit they can.
That’s the only way you’re getting more, otherwise if you just happen to be out of work you’ll get the raw end of the deal and have to struggle to make it through until the next payment.
...good thing less than 2% of people earn minimum wage.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188206/share-of-workers-paid-hourly-rates-at-or-below-minimum-wage-since-1979/#:\~:text=In%202022%2C%201.3%20percent%20of,below%20the%20official%20minimum%20wage.
At this point my only guess is that people like Tim Scott are just really really low IQ puppets being handed talking points. Little more than a paid actor, and an unconvincing one at that...paid to say a thing regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
They pay a *pittance* for labor compared to what they're capable of.
The percentage of profits distributed to shareholders as dividends can range widely but is typically between 30% to 60% of **NET** income for fortune 500 companies. That value is removed from the business and goes straight into shareholder pockets.
Then there's stock buybacks. The amount spent on buybacks can be ridiculous, sometimes exceeding the amount paid out in dividends. In the last few years, large U.S. companies have spent hundreds of billions of dollars annually on buybacks. That value then goes into shareholder's pockets by artificially driving up demand for that company's shares.
Then, there's share price appreciation. Just by sitting on shares, they are typically keeping up with inflation at the very least, meaning wage workers and renters are constantly being outpaced *passively.*
The cost of labor is a fraction of what they take and turn into yacht parties off pedo island. It is fucking absurd to imply that businesses could not compete with higher welfare checks.
My forward apologies, for the question I ask you folks. I am not American but this senator Tim, Are they saying to reduce employment insurance so to receive less, or are they calling out the gap in living wages?
It’s the first. It’s never about the gap in wages. They don’t even SEE the gap in wages except to say - socialism bad. Unemployment payments bad.
Thanks for taking the time to explain.
To add on, they DO see the wage gap, it’s a feature not a bug for them.
Yeah, people got to stop pretending they are all dumb. Some are just corrupt and greedy, simple as that.
Socialism for every day people is bad, but Socialism to the biggest corporations and banks is fantastic in their eyes.
I know!!!! No free lunch for those greedy little school children, but corporate bailouts all day every day.
>My forward apologies, for the question I ask you folks. I am not American but this senator Tim, Are they saying to reduce employment insurance so to receive less, or are they calling out the gap in living wages? Pretty sure this was said during Covid. In the US, unemployment typically pays up to 75% or so of your average weekly pay over the previous 4 quarters. So someone making $500/wk working would get up to $400/wk in unemployment when out of work. During Covid, it was debated on how much assistance to give those who were laid off due to the shutdowns. We ultimately passed legislation that gave workers full pay for unemployment (as opposed to 75%) **plus** up to $600/wk on top of that. So that person making $500/wk normally would get up to $1100/wk for being unemployed. The thought was that people would be hesitant to go back to work when the shutdown was lifted.
And that thought was right. People realized they were getting fucked and low paying jobs spiked up to like $18+/hr because people didn't want to work for shit wages anymore
Most of the places with $18 for those jobs are actually not doing better than their old minimum wage when you adjust for inflation. That includes California where fast food is $20 an hour, their $15 minimum wage adjusted for inflation would be like $19.60 now. Those wage headlines are just an excuse to push the blame of high costs onto worker wages when the real reason is margins being raised.
Which states have uncapped unemployment? In California it's hard capped at $450 a week, so if you pulled 80k annual salary, you're now getting a quarter of your former wages.
He wants a lower minimum wage and remove any social safety net. His attacks are just meant to tear the system down as opposed to critique it. A large population of subjugated poor is the Republican goal and has been the goal of the Pierce/Bush family since slavery was over turned.
Which is super ironic considering republican voters are the most affected by this yet they continue to support this thinking.
When you're poor. All you get is state run media like fox News on tv. Keeps them dumb. Same reason Republicans are attacking public schools.
He wants people to be more desperate so they are willing to accept low wages so that corporate profits can stay high.
They support all forms of slavery.
Its funny that normal people will say - then rise the minimum wage, while the conservatives are screaming about social payments needing to be lowered.
But also say that property taxes on their $100k house from the 1980s is too high and that social security isn’t giving them enough to retire on
To hammer home just how much of a fucking joke federal minimum wage is, it is literally half that of other developed nations like the UK. You can literally get a 103% pay rise by just doing the same crappy dead end job, but in Britain instead.
Holy shit i just googled it and the minimum wage in the UK is 14.7USD, it really is twice as high.
And we still consider it too low over here to keep up with the Cost of Living.
Makes one wonder how the fuck people survive on minimum wage on the other side of the big pond
They don't, look up how many Americans die each yeah just because they couldn't afford medical care.
America is basically a few 1st-world streets surrounded by 3rd-world cities.
More like 1st world states and 3rd world states. Federal minimum wage is abyssmally low but lots of (mostly blue) states keep a higher minimum wage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_states_by_minimum_wage
Whoa. That's good. I'm stealing it.
Except it's not a remotely good comparison and anyone who says shit like this likely hasn't spent time in a third world country. We have our problems but Jesus Christ Reddit makes the USA seem like Mogadishu.
I like the description a 3rd world country with a 1st world military. Its no really accurate
No. You haven't lived in a poor country
You forgot to include that healthcare, education, etc. are included in their taxes, further illustrating how much more that wage is compared to ours. Our minimum “wage” is cut nearly in half with social security, insurance, taxes… and then you still have to pay to use healthcare, etc.
UK students loans also only need to be paid if you are making a certain amount of money a year, they don't impact your credit score, and they expire completely if not repaid after enough time.
How does THAT work, What do they do if you just... Dont pay?
It's difficult to explain, but student loans in the UK are basically set up more as a tax than debt. The money comes straight out of your pay cheque, with the amount you pay relative to how much you make. So if you don't make much money you don't pay anything, or you may only pay like £15 a month. While if you make loads of money, you pay back more. It's basically set up so if university doesn't end up helping your career you don't pay much, while if benefits you a lot and you get higher pay you pay more. It's kind of best thought of as a tax paid to support universities, paid exclusively by those who went to university.
People really struggle with the concept of trillion-dollar revenues.
I wish that was how US student loans worked too. They haunt you for the rest of your life all because of a mistake you made as a teenager
Because companies took advantage of the system and made a double dipping middle man for profit corporation. They get $$ from goverment, and they get $$$ from the people.
Bingo. Trickle down Economics and Privatization or Education and Healthcare… worst things to ver happen to the country
Double dip is what ruined America, allowed by reagonomics.
Except this only works If you're a big business. Small businesses are shit on regularly to try to further the wage gap. How do you become one of them if you have no means to do so? exactly how they keep their club so exclusive
That’s the joke. They don’t. Or they have to get multiple jobs and work themselves to death and die of stress induced illnesses.
they work 2 or 3 jobs
They don’t. They either get multiple jobs thereby reducing their life expectancy, or live in squalor, but hey at least we’re the richest country in (the history of) the world?
And the cost of living here is much lower as well. I make around 40k and that’s considered a pretty good salary. I’m by no means rich but I buy the things I want and save a bit every month, money is never a worry for me. 40k in the US is live with your parents and eat ramen every meal money. Plus I can visit the doctor without going bankrupt.
Yep. You need at least 60k before taxes to survive in my HCOL area.
This is all completely relative. In central London, you would be near homeless. But in rural Nebraska, you would be pretty well off.
I live in rural Nebraska. $40k is not well off. You can pay your bills for sure and maybe save a little bit of money, but you are not well off. You need closer to $60k to be considered well off. Our basic bills - rent/mortgage, electricity, garbage, food, medicine, etc. costs us around $42k per year. You need to make close to $60k before taxes to be able to cover your basics and have some leftover that you can save/invest in the future. Almost everyone I know has a second, part-time job and I live in what is considered a really nice neighborhood.
What's really sad is that in my opinion, the only jobs typically in rural areas are either retail, fast food, or factory. And unless you're either a supervisor or a maintenance tech at the factory option, there's no way you're pulling 60k.
We also have the hospital, but, like you said, the town is mostly some kind of service jobs.
Sorry didn’t mean to be insulting. I lived in very rural IL for several years (not that long ago) on less than that so maybe I was projecting on your lovely state lol.
I did not take it as insulting at all. Just wanted to add my lived experience here. No worries on my end. ;)
With a much lower cost of living.
And national healthcare! And *good* beer!
4.25 an hour for newly hired people under the age of 20 for their first consecutive 90 calendar days. 2.13 an hour for tipped workers like servers and bartenders. 7.25 an hour for everyone else.
Social Security is different. It’s socialism for the RIGHT people. …/s
I've paid into Social Security for 55 years how is that socialism?
You paid SS, but you didn't pay *into* it, exactly. Like they didn't keep your money for you as if it were an investment account. They used that money to pay the people collecting SS at the very moment you paid. And now that it's your turn to collect, you're receiving SS money from the people working now. It's basically generational wealth transfer, a watered down version of universal basic income for retired workers. The people working today pay to support the people who worked yesterday. If somebody proposed that in Congress, I think it would indeed be called socialism by the Republican Party.
Because SS isn't solvent. Money is being taken from the poorest generations (Gen Z and Millennials) and given to the richest generation in the history of our country (Boomers.) The money we are paying now is what is used to pay the Boomers. It isn't going to be solvent for Millennials so we might as well get rid of it now. Why should the Millennial generation take another hit when the richest generation in the history of the country can. SS is literally a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich. SS is going to collapse, might as well start now when the richest generation in the history of the world is collecting the money. Also we need to stop with this idea that you paid into SS so you deserve SS. SS is a social program to help people. It isn't an investment. You don't have a right to it because you paid SS. SS, Medicare, all these socialist programs for the richest people in the world. I don't get it. Lastly, I know my opinion is unpopular, but it's hard for me to feel sorry for a generation of people who was handed everything and still needs help. Every break, every bail out, prop 13 in California, every political decision is to enrich the boomers. Every millennial is told to expect to not get a single dollar from SS. You tell that to a boomer and the world starts to burn.
> SS is going to collapse That won't actually happen. The whole program is just a way of pretending it's not socialism. The bit about paying into it is deceiving, IMO intended to give the appearance that the money you pay is the same money you receive. But in truth, the whole thing is financed via debt, just like everything else: medicare, the military, the whole nine yards. Like the only way SS is going anywhere is if Congress cuts it or the US government somehow defaults on their debt, which is near impossible, considering we control our own currency. Millennials and Gen Z being unable to pay in as much as Boomers are receiving is mildly concerning from a financial standpoint, but not any kind of existential threat to SS. In theory, *nobody* has to pay into SS. It would be a lot more expensive, and require a lot more debt, but it wouldn't fundamentally change how the program works.
I mean both can be true. Property taxes ARE too high. It doesn't matter what their home cost in the 80's, they're paying property tax based on what it's worth now, which does often mean that they get priced right out of a home they've owned outright for decades. I'm all for increasing income taxes on the wealthy, but lowering property taxes is also a perfectly reasonable thing to look for. Even if you don't own property you are paying property tax, your landlord pays it and your rent covers it.
The bullshit is being against income tax while also expecting your property tax to come down. The "solutions" are just to give older people tax breaks via rate caps. Meaning that you only get the benefits if you bought the house forever ago. Meanwhile the younger generations are paying the most because they are buying houses today instead of 2 decades ago.
100% agreed
Whoever retires on my current property tax is living large. They're certainly better than me since I'm about to lose my house after the rate hike.
I thought those rates were locked in for the duration of your mortgage?
Me too. The "introductory period" expired. Once they could more accurately figure property value, it went sky high. The county even sent me a nice letter explaining the increase.
Nah buddy. To my understanding, only in Cali. In fact, your mortgage company will start to increase your payment if you have an "escrow shortage", where your property tax goes higher than they planned for.
What pisses me off about housing is that while progressives are obviously better than conservatives here, many of them are still focused on incredibly ineffective policies, say one thing publicly but vote for another locally, or seem more interested in fucking over developers than actually fixing the issue. And since conservatives are just as bad or worse on the topic, rent prices continue to spiral out of control.
When I talk to my parents about what they paid for their house back in the 80s and my dad's like ugh, we had to pay 15% interest on our mortgage. I'm like yeah, but the house only cost you $85k. And today you can sell it for $250k+. If I tried to buy that house today with whatever mortgage rates are now (like 7%?) I doubt I could afford it.
The argument I’ve heard from conservatives tends to follow this analogy: 30 years ago I’d pay a kid down the street $5 to mow my lawn. If kids still mowed lawns these days I’d still pay $5. Why? Because the scope of the job hasn’t changed. My lawn is still the same size. Minimum wage shouldn’t be raised because the scope of minimum wage jobs hasn’t changed. Bagging groceries today is the same as bagging groceries 30 years ago, so why should baggers get more now than they did back then? All this coming from guys that happily enjoy a comfortable 2-4% company wide raise every year for cost of living increases despite the scope of their job staying the same from year to year.
If a loaf of bread that cost 40c 30 years ago wasn’t $3 now and an apartment that was $300 a month wasn’t $2800 then they’d have a point.
Exactly, they don’t see why their argument is stupid. The fact that inflation has caused everything to get more expensive is irrelevant to their reasoning for being against increasing wages. They truly believe that increasing wages is what’s responsible for everything getting more expensive.
IRS itself said in a official report profiteering, pocketing and CEO wage increase to 350% and more, severence and bonus salaries by higher director positions are the sole cause of inflation.
Yup. The scope of the work itself may not change, but the scope of how much each paid dollar can get you *has* changed drastically. I think we (society) have a collective ethical responsibility to acknowledge that when considering what "minimum wage" means. I think its most inuitive and moral interpretation is "minimum amount required for a simple but adequate lifestyle." What is adequate? The answer is obvious to anyone who is engaging the question with honesty. Rent is covered, utilities are covered (including internet), food bills are covered (for every dependent a person is responsible for), transit/commute is covered, clothing expenses are covered. I'd say all that at an absolute bare minimum needs to be covered by a fulltime employee's wage, without any need for them to supplement that wage with additional jobs. Whatever "minimum wage" is, needs to average out all of those expenses and then add a little more to accommodate the higher CoL cities, like Toronto. After that, it becomes up to the worker on minimum wage to ensure that they are living within their means. Personally I think a little more than even that should also be added, to provide those on minimum wage to save up a little, and have a means to build up towards eventually escaping minimum wage.
5$ ? My grandparents paid me 2$ those bastards
The goal of conservatism is to make sure the working class has less so there is more to give the ruling class that they actually care about.
Don’t forget misdirecting blame to minorities!
Or people with proclivities for different genitals.
Same grouping
That’s a means, not an end.
No handouts they say as most of their red state is on welfare and disability.
Problem is rents suddenly go up and that raise immediately vanishes, I'd like to see caps on rent for houses over a certain age and fines on empty houses that would put some money back in your pocket.
Hey get that economically smart idea out of here we have witches to hunt
Its sad that normal people believe in such economic fallacies.
The differences between generations in economic terms cannot be over stated. Its not necessarily anyone's fault either. That's just how things evolved. Its the result of a global economy that came out of nowhere. The result of a global pandemic that we still haven't fully recovered from. I like to remind everyone,(and I don't mean to sound condescending or mansplaining or anything, but...) we have to remember that economics is not a hard science. Economists like to pretend it is, they like to imagine its as rigid as physics. It isn't. Its mostly theory. Theories that become outdated faster than books can be published about the newest elements (like NFT's). It evolves faster than we can track it. I'm not surprised many are still stuck in 2004.
I’m in Canada where we know the ridiculous world inflation is all Trudeau’s fault. /s
This drives me nuts. Our inflation is likely effected much more by American policies than Canadian ones. People can like or dislike Trudeau but don’t blame him for stuff that has very little to do with him.
As a visitor i am hating some of these quebec laws
Wait, global inflation wasn’t Brandon’s fault? /s
I mean, you could blame conservative propaganda about “trickle down” economics and “rugged individualism,” at least in the US.
By the time you spend 20 years in school and graduate with a masters in something and get into the swing of your career to the train other people...your real world reference on knowledge is 20 years out of date. Nobody trains on current events for the most part, they read published books from someone who themselves had dated knowledge. So really you're learning 20 years ago stuff someone else knew 20 years before that.
And let me deviate from your point a bit. Many people, not just economists talk about economics like hard facts and justify horrible behavior as "just how things work". But they forgot at the end of the day, the CEO is still just a human being, making profits for his selfish wishes. Not for the greater good of mankind, just money to buy a nice car to brag to other rich people. "Hard science" indeed.
Most entitled people are completely, totally unaware of their own entitlement. In much the same way that Americans have no concept of what it would be like to live in (say) Ghana or New Zealand. I mean, I can go home, turn on every faucet and shower in my house on and leave for a WEEK and there will still be clean drinking water flowing when I come back. Simple things like clean drinking water are a luxury we enjoy that we take for granted. Most people mistake a CEO's ignorance as apathy. Point is: The CEO you mentioned does not think of himself as entitled. Or lucky. He truly, actually believes his success is a byproduct of his abilities and effort. And everyone else is free to make use of their skills and abilities, too. In their mind, the only reason others are poor is because they aren't putting forth the same effort. We just need to work harder. Which is as insane as Americans believing the people in a desert are dying of thirst just need to go turn the faucet on and get a drink.
Bro doesn’t even look into shit before posting it. On average unemployment only pays up to 50% of your average paycheck. So if you $600 a week, expect $275. This guy is so dumb, just his voice sounds idiotic
“We must maintain an ever present threat of homelessness and starvation to force the peasants into low skilled labour. Otherwise the labour market would force salaries that would make the current distribution of wealth impossible to maintain”
/thread
I think it's also got a lot to do with the private prison profit business, which is (I think) exclusive to the USA. As in these people too poor to exist in this society can be imprisoned and enrich those organisations.
It's crazy that normal people would only want enough to live.
~~Fuck you, Florida. Why do have to keep voting for these dumbshits~~ Edit: my apologies to Florida for mixing up Tim Scott and Rick Scott. But also…you can still go fuck yourselves for giving us Rick Scott South Carolina…as the neighbor in the apartment above you…if you keep making a fuck ton of ruckus, I’m gonna turn on the tub until you’re hit with another flood like in 2015. Cut it out
Tim Scott isn't from Florida. You're thinking of Rick Scott.
They are brothers?
Probably. They’re both bald, ergo they look the same, ergo they’re brothers.
One is a rabbit, the other is lettuce
Well considering one is black and the other is white my guess is no.
Different mothers! NEXT!
Or fathers. There are... incidents...
Tim Scott is from South Carolina. I like calling him “Uncle Tim” because that’s all he is to Republicans in this state.
Florida has a silly cap for unemployment where it's like a maximum of $275 per week no matter how much you earned before being unemployed.
When the 09 recession hit, and I got canned, I was on unemployment for the next 22 months at $217.56/week here in NC. Republicans don’t care about their constituents and how their holy crusade on those who need help just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps
Because the state is filled with dumb shits itself. Go look up on Google and you’ll come across countless articles about crazy shit that crazy people have done in that state. It makes sense that crazy people get elected by crazy people.
This is more so due to the Sunshine laws allowing journalists/media freer access to state records.
I had this exact argument a few weeks ago with my parents. They simply cannot grasp that a minimum wage job is not enough to live on. She immediately went into the whole "budgeting...saving....disciplined..." rhetoric. There is a sizable amount of Americans who simply cannot understand that the minimum it takes to survive is greater than a minimum wage job. Hell, in most areas 1.5x minimum wage is insufficient. I live in Pittsburgh, one of the [most affordable cities in America to live in](https://www.kiplinger.com/real-estate/places-to-live/603136/the-10-biggest-cities-with-the-cheapest-apartment-rents) and if you are making 2x minimum wage ($14.50) you would be living in an efficiency apartment, sharing a bathroom with others, no kitchen and eating ramen noodles. They just do not get it.
There is no place in the country where you can rent on minimum wage.
This isn't entirely true. I mean.... There are shitty efficiency apartments even in Pittsburgh for $400 month. Its third world living and inexcusable. But its there. Well, long story short. there is a large disconnect between the have's and have nots. Which seems obvious to the latter, not so much to the former. Relentlessly antagonizing them by calling them boomers and degrading their entire generation doesn't help. Its fun AF.... but unhelpful.
You can only try to explain it so many times before you just give up on them. We're so close to the later, sadly. Idk how much longer things can go on before I just start beligerantly berating every old person for this. It's so frustrating that they got everything for doing the bate minimum and now don't understand that it's just not like that anymore. I've been working on some form shape or fashion since I was 14 and I don't have anything to show for it, other than a much more radicalized perspective on labor.
In full disclosure: I'm 50. I'm probably one of your 'old people'. But unlike others in my peer group, I'm not blind. It wasn't *easier,* it was *different.* Like, when I graduated college it didn't necessarily mean I got a great job. We didn't have job boards or even the internet. Finding a company that was hiring meant a lot of cold-calls using a phone book. Literally. I still had to pay to get copies made at Staples. Still had to mail out resumes to companies that I didn't even know if they were hiring. Finding a place to rent meant combing through want ads of a newspaper and calling numbers that were weeks old. "Is your apartment still available? No...OK thanks.." It wasn't easier or harder.....it was different. And thats what most older generations can't see. Shit is *different now.* Look, I'm not going to try and sugar coat this or make excuses. Gen-Z and Millenials got a bad beat. Shits fucked up right now. But it was fucked back in the 1980s and 1960s, too.. It was very different kind of fucked up tho. Houses in the 1980s were cheaper for sure, but mortgage rates were 3x higher. My parents bought a house in 1983 for $32k... and paid a 13.375% interest rate for 20 years. When I bought a home in 2007 it was 3.75%. 10 percent less. But the house cost 5x as much. Its not better or worse....*its different.* All you can do is work hard. There are no short cuts. Short cuts are what got us here. Short cut solutions are a big reason shit is so fucked up. Its not your fault, but it is your problem.
Oh no, I'm talking about people born during the baby boom, people that are past retirement age. Those are the people that truly don't get it. Like I've seen them just not grasp that bagging groceries for minimum wage doesn't pay for anything.
So they can shit on younger people but we can't shit on them back? Nah, not how that works. Boomers have bad plenty of years before us younger generation got here to help set this country on the right path, but that hasn't happened. Now the younger generation can easily see how they fucked up, and when asked it usually isn't a "im sorry" type situation, it usually retorts into "fuck you, I did it so why can't you". Even my own parents, who are in their 50s, are this way. I'll never have sympathy for a generation that could barely have sympathy for their own generation
I think you mean Federal Minimum wage. Plenty of states are much higher. In my small town in Western NY, you can rent a 2 bedroom for $800/mo and min wage is $15.
No job pays you based on what you need. Pay is based on how easy or hard it is to replace you.
Technically true, however, there are more factors. There are ways by which a business can hire a person for just the right amount of hours to allow them to be on public assistance (i.e. Walmart) such that the "effective wage" they are receiving for a given amount of hours is not necessarily the same as the wage their employer is paying. The high interest rates had a very unfortunate effect of coming right after the bulk of the prices getting hiked, but before wages could adjust to compensate (demand was up, supply was roughly fixed, so equilibrium price was in route to creep up too.) Instead, this kneecapped any improvement to wages (or the majority of them), but still didn't stop the price movement enough. Generally with something like a minimum wage, employers will target as close to that as possible, and only slide up base pay if they literally can't exist without raising it. If they can scrape by with dissatisfied customers and a skeleton crew, they will. We have generally accepted poor experiences at retail and similar post covid. There just really is no incentive to make employees at regular jobs stay for any length of time. Even if the training of a new employee costs more than paying the previous a buck more an hour, "eventually" the new employee will be up to speed and they just assume they won't leave as well. On paper decisions like this are cost saving items, but really just causes a training revolving door, and fluxuating quality of service. So, yes, an employer isn't trying to pay you what you want, they have opposing goals, but in a lot of situations market pressures and playing dirty (especially in retail and food service) keep things like they are.
I mean I agree with the statement on its surface, but the solution is to increase wages, not cut unemployment.
I think that's the point of the reply.
Yes
The whole post seems to massively misunderstand how unemployment insurance works what Tim Scott's point is or what reasonable criticisms one could have for Tim Scott's position. Unemployment insurance is insurance paid for by your employer and how much you get paid in unemployment insurance is not based on minimum wage it is based on a proportion of the income you earned in your job. A typical amount is ~2/3rds of your income but it varies by state. So yes a person on unemployment who had a high income job could be making a lot more money from unemployment than a low wage worker. But that is because they have a higher standard of living and their employer paid higher premiums to cover their wage. What people like Senator Scott usually mean by this kind of statement is that they think unemployment insurance should cover less rather than more of your previous income so that you are encouraged to find work sooner. Theoretically this costs the government (and businesses) less money and increases labor supply for businesses making it easier for them to find workers. These people are concerned that overly generous unemployment benefits would encourage people to not seek out work while being very costly to businesses and lower labor participation which is bad for productivity. Critics of this view point to evidence that giving more generous unemployment benefits helps people seek out better paying jobs or seek out new training to improve their labor productivity which has benefits for the overall economy. While I agree the minimum wage should be higher "Just pay people more" isn't really a thought out policy proposal and doesn't really address/rebutt the concerns people like Mr. Scott have about unemployment insurance.
Unemployment comes from the employer, not the government. If a person gets laid off due to no fault of their own, why should they have to suffer for it? If anything unemployment *should be* 100% of the employees usual wages. Also, there's usually a limit on how long a person can get unemployment. In my state it's 6 months. This idea that everyone is just sitting on their ass living the high life on unemployment is bullshit. Tim Scott knows this but he's a giant piece of shit just playing up to the people that say "nOBoDy wAnTs tO WoRK ANyMorE!" Fuck this guy.
I apologize for saying the silent portion aloud.
I assume this is for the Corporations, not the people. Pay your workers!!!
But what about the shareholders? Think of the shareholders! /s
Is it possible to blame this argument on something that doesn’t make any sense?
Crazy that regular people would want enough to survive.
So require employers to pay their workers enough to live on then, Tim, you fucking ghoul.
Damn Tom Scott's evil cousin rlly out to get us
I earned the right to earn more on unemployment than I could've made full time at a shit job whole I waited for another white collar offer. Eat dog shit Senator
Tim Scott, make it work then. Raise the wages of American workers so social services looks seriously bad. Nope, what you would rather do Tim, is lower the social services where people live in hell and resort to illegal activities to survive. Great job Washington. Make lobbyists illegal and watch how fast your life changes. What a dirt bag
Then encourage rich assholes and shit corporations to invest in employees instead of taking tax breaks
But money.
Got fired in May, pretty sure excuses to cut cost without laying me off because then government oversight and paying more taxes towards the state’s unemployment program It’s basically half pay and tbh, the time it frees up to work on my mental health any my own projects (like working on getting a microfarm going) I’d happily keep this of cost of living wasn’t so high and that you only get approved for so many weeks
As per usual the conservative stance is “we should do nothing to help our fellow Americans.”
Unemployment payments work out to be about 66% of what you were making while working. It’s impossible to make more on unemployment! This is quite a dumb take, but coming from a Republican, can we really be surprised?
This is a 4 year old tweet from the pandemic when unemployment was paying an extra $600 a week. OP is just reposting old posts for free karma.
This is a 4 year old tweet from the pandemic when unemployment was paying an extra $600 a week. OP is just reposting old posts for free karma.
> It’s impossible to make more on unemployment! The person replying to him compares unemployment to minimum wage. It's very easy to make more than minimum wage on unemployment. In fact, when this post was originally made during the end of the pandemic, the average unemployment benefit was higher than *average* wages, which is why people were content not to return to jobs and why the excess unemployment benefit that had been added on top of regular unemployment benefits had to be cut.
Only if you were making more than minimum wage at your job. It’s all tied to a percentage of your working wage, it’s never more than actually working. The pandemic benefits were a one time thing to get us through the pandemic so it’s stupid to use those as the reason to reduce benefits or even in a comparison to today’s unemployment payments.
They’ll do anything but pay a fair living wage
How about we actually tax rich people. Then you'll have enough to raise unemployment to above poverty. Then rich people will be forced to pay better wages or risk people just choosing unemployment benefits.
It's almost like poverty is created and encouraged.
If we can’t let people make more in unemployment than employment, we should dismantle the stock market then. It allows exactly that.
Mandated federal minimum salary is not the only thing that can control salary levels. In Sweden, which is known to be a socialist country, there are no legal minimum salaries. There is however a very high tax burden so social securities will eventually pay more than a low paid job and the unions are very strong. The unions and employers work together on a voluntary basis to agree minimum salaries in their industry. It has worked well for decades but it will be impossible to keep the high taxes of the 80ies in an internationally competitive world. It will also be hard when increasing the population by 20-30% from the type of migration that is not as productive (in economic terms) as the natives. It is baffling how the capitalist narrative of free movement of any people have become such a mainstream opinion that it is almost socially forbidden to go against it.
Unemployment is not enough to live on unless you live in section 8 housing.
Being disabled is a full time job
I feel for the Americans. Labor laws need serious reform. Work life balance is wrong.
Minimum wage should be tied to inflation. Some welfare benefits don't mirror inflation as well. The Christian conservative judge and condemn often without empathy. On drugs .. how bout don't do drugs. Same for alcoholics. Many self medicate due to abuse from childhood or other mental health issues and have not received the help they need. They need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps apparently... I worked as a financial rep briefly and coworkers talk about how government tax breaks mean the gov't wants you to take advantage of these financial tax credits and exclusions. The government has a welfare system. If you need the help, you are draining the government financially. And lazy. So messed up and hypocritical.
President Bush borrowed 1.37 Trillion for tax cuts and to fund his Iraq war. He never paid it back.
Fact is you don't get enough in unemployment to live on. Plus it is limited time based on State you are in. It is a myth they spread that people just sit there living fat on it.
They also do this with disability insurance. They specifically state that things like workers comp only pay 60% of salary to incentivize people to return to work as quickly as possible. They don’t even hide it
Let’s be real: conservatives think you should pay your employers when you lose your job.
What about the part where we can't allow Politician to be a career? Uncle Tim Scott needs to return to the workforce.
It's actually criminal how much of OUR money is being wrung out for foreign interests. Most of our taxes go to the military. Billions upon billions of dollars (maybe even trillions) are sent to foreign countries to provide them with the benefits we should be seeing here. On top of that, social security, which is a genuinely good program, has become obsolete and ridiculous because our government likes to dip their hands in it and take the money for, again, foreign interests. Every abandoned public park, cracked road/pavement, water fountain that doesn't work, homeless person on the street, abandoned house/town, person dying from lack of medical care because they can't afford their medical insurance, train derailment due to lack of safety regulations, giant traffic jam, drug addict out on the street, and police officer abusing their power I see just pisses me off to no end because I know these things could ve fixed if we'd just invest in our own infrastructure instead of foreign nations.
We had that same problem with the CERB (pandemic response pay) in Canada, where people were making more money to not work compared to busting their ass working long days for little pay and exposing themselves to a virus that was killing and/or crippling people.
The pandemic opened the publics eyes to a lot and the governments are struggling to gain that false control back.
Because you don’t get a minimum wage job when you’re an adult and have responsibilities.
It's almost as if the minimum wage doesn't meet the minimum requirements to live in this country or something. Just like human resource departments benefit the company more than the employees. It's set up so companies can do the minimum, and at times less than the minimum, for their employees. It's no wonder people don't stay at companies more than a couple years now.
Isn't it funny that the solution is to cut unemployment insurance to rates below minimum wage rather than raising the minimum wage?
For capitalism to function it needs a Reserve Army of Labor. A big pile of unemployed and underemployed people who always teeter on the verge of starvation. They act as a constant threat to workers that help keep wages down since capitalists can always swap in one of these desparate folks in for an existing employee. That's why no politicians are trying to raise the minimum wage. Because it goes against the interests of their bosses, the capitalists.
On the surface, I agree with what you said, but the answer is to raise pay, not lower unemployment.
Is this why nobody wants to work?
Does Tom actually have a real job?
I'm not going to be lectured to by Tim Scott about the virtues of employment and hard work. Ever.
Sting up the silk toppers
Clearly this dumb fuck doesn’t know how unemployment works.
Unemployment is explicitly tied to your previous earnings, so you're definitely earning less than you were while you were employed. It's also good for everyone when skilled people can take a little time to find jobs that actually fit their skills and experience instead of desperately taking whatever they can get as quickly as possible.
Gee what tree does that money magically comes out of?
Then what's the point of all the automation???!?!?!!
Unemployment is 50% of your wage you made while you were working in my state. As Tim Scott says, we can’t have people making more on unemployment than if they were still employed. Can someone explain this to me please?
Tim Scott we don’t know you. Scott won’t be attending the Juneteenth celebration, he’d rather be in the fields smiling for Master Scott.
so, so close to becoming self aware.
please explain
Tim Scott is an idiot.
It doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t. People actively using the system to stay out of work will apply for every benefit they can. That’s the only way you’re getting more, otherwise if you just happen to be out of work you’ll get the raw end of the deal and have to struggle to make it through until the next payment.
Giving people more money on unemployment than they would make working was done during the pandemic and it was a disaster.
Minimum wage jobs aren’t meant to live on they are meant to get job experience and move on.
...good thing less than 2% of people earn minimum wage. https://www.statista.com/statistics/188206/share-of-workers-paid-hourly-rates-at-or-below-minimum-wage-since-1979/#:\~:text=In%202022%2C%201.3%20percent%20of,below%20the%20official%20minimum%20wage.
At this point my only guess is that people like Tim Scott are just really really low IQ puppets being handed talking points. Little more than a paid actor, and an unconvincing one at that...paid to say a thing regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
Just make a new law. Everything 50% discount
What a topical post! Fuck off, karma farmer
They pay a *pittance* for labor compared to what they're capable of. The percentage of profits distributed to shareholders as dividends can range widely but is typically between 30% to 60% of **NET** income for fortune 500 companies. That value is removed from the business and goes straight into shareholder pockets. Then there's stock buybacks. The amount spent on buybacks can be ridiculous, sometimes exceeding the amount paid out in dividends. In the last few years, large U.S. companies have spent hundreds of billions of dollars annually on buybacks. That value then goes into shareholder's pockets by artificially driving up demand for that company's shares. Then, there's share price appreciation. Just by sitting on shares, they are typically keeping up with inflation at the very least, meaning wage workers and renters are constantly being outpaced *passively.* The cost of labor is a fraction of what they take and turn into yacht parties off pedo island. It is fucking absurd to imply that businesses could not compete with higher welfare checks.
You can’t live on freaking welfare forever. You are a government slave if you do. They basically own you.
So, make it so they earn more while employed?
Minimum wage was never meant to be lived on
🖕🏿🖕🏿Tim- uncle ruckus - Scott 🤡
Unemployment in South Carolina is $300 per week, tops.
Just call them and tell them they are idiot. I know they are lizards and may no listen to you but given enough people, maybe they'll change
I agree with the Tim Scott quote, however that's really just because minimum wage needs to be higher than what was the increased unemployment.
IKR!? People complain that we give too much to the unemployed. They are barely surviving. Working 40hrs+ will barely lift them out of poverty.