1055
mic drop
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
1055 points (95.4% liked)
Work Reform
9856 readers
244 users here now
A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Genuine question:
Is minimum wage being rent for a 2br/1ba actually the goal? Why?
I assume the idea is to be able to support a family and the sad logic that it often comes out "cheaper" to have one parent work and one stay at home rather than try to afford daycare.
But rent is just a drop in the bucket when you are raising a kid. Which gets back into the mess of how you can afford to have a family on minimum wage.
If the idea is just cost of living then the answer is actually a one bedroom (which would also, theoretically, help with housing shortages). If the idea is to be able to have a family then it needs to be a whole lot higher than a two bedroom (unless you work in NY and commute from one of the last remaining cheap parts of Jersey, I guess?).
This is saying that minimum wage should be enough to afford a 2br apartment. If all your money goes to rent, you can't afford it.
Yeah, ideally rent should be around 1/3rd of your income. In my town, a conservative 2br 1ba apt is gonna cost you about $2000. That means minimum wage would have to be around $34.
Alternatively, with our minimum wage currently at $15.45, that means a two bedroom apartment would have to be priced below $900.
Ideally rent shouldn't exist because everyone needs housing.
Sure, but then you gotta build your own, and provide protection for yourself, and maintain your own power grid, water supply, garbage, and sewage. I get what the libertarians dream of with their limited government and no taxation, but we can't do it all ourselves, at least not anymore. If someone wants to live in western Wyoming and work the land, then good for them, but I like my internet and my frozen pizza.
I'd like to expand (ramble) on this a little more and say that "necessities" aren't free and never have been (Disclaimer: I'm America, and this written from an American's perspective, ymmv). You could find a cave near a river and try to make due with what nature gave you, but you're gonna fight a bear for the cave eventually. Can you kill a bear? Or would you rather pay someone who knows how to kill bears to kill the bear for you. Suddenly your free housing isn't free any more. Humanity is based on the exchange of goods for services. Money facilitates that trade because it allows the buyer and the seller to determine what they need and be agnostic to where the money comes from or goes to. A lot of people (not you, I don't know you), think that we should return to a bartering system, but the current economy is still just that, but instead of trading a three loaves of bread for a pound of chuck we give the equivalent of three loaves of bread as slips of paper that can be exchanged for things other than bread because not everyone needs three loaves of bread.
Now, back to "free" housing, I agree. In a modern society like the one we have supposedly built, housing (and healthcare, basic food needs, education, protection, etc.) should be provided by the government as an assurance for a better civilization. However, that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is taxes. So, in order for those free things to be "free" we need an overhaul of the tax system and the welfare system, but neither of those will come because we have many different groups of people in power that have done an exceedingly good job of dividing us while consolidating their empires. So, we're fucked.
However, there is a solution, and often you can see it tagged on the concrete monoliths erected to the power-hungry overloads. We have to eat the rich, and I mean that literally. We have to eat a few of them. Make an example of them. Let the other rich know that we mean business. If they start to get out of line, eat a few more. But we have to be united across borders. If I'm eating an oligarch in New York, I need to be sure that another is being eaten in Seoul, Paris, and Tokyo. We can't give them a safe haven. They have to believe that no matter where there go, there is some dude with a bucket of bourbon maple glaze and stronger will than them. If Musk is going to Mars, we need to get there first. We must establish a base of operations throughout the solar system to ensure that no planet is a safe space for the masters. We need to be able to dip them in the atmosphere of Venus like a sulfur fondue. We split their yolk on Mercury's sunny-side. We scrape off layers like Italian ice on Neptune. The universe holds a diverse and wonderful menu for us, we need but provide the ingredients.
Ok this took a turn. I was fearing you would go another direction. I mean, I don't think we need to turn to literal cannibalism or start spending money on sending people to be dipped in Venus's atmosphere, but I strongly believe that there needs to be a very low cap on how much money an individual can legally hold. And disowning is a necessary step.
I honestly would have no problem with my paycheck going to taxes like 90%. As long as this means I am provided with groceries, housing, necessities, transportation, healthcare and retirement. And as long as everyone else is provided the same. Imagine being like a child again, having pocket money that you can spend on whatever gadgets serve your interest, instead of having to save it for worse times or spend it on necessities.
I also believe that people would still pursue higher education and leading positions even if they would be paid more or less the same as a fast food job. It is just a much more comfortable life, I've been there and I've been there. Working as a cashier for 8 hours is exhausting. Waiting is exhausting. Sitting at your desk doing excel stuff for a meaningless project, talking to colleagues and taking endless coffee breaks is not exhausting. The strive would still exist, simply because no one wants to have a broken back by 35. And people like the sense of responsibility, of meaning and power and leadership, they like to learn and develop. At least most do.
Ouch, imagine believing this. No wonder you can't help but gag on the capitalist cock that's been shoved down your throat, you're so downtrodden that you need it as a feeding tube.
Go look at more competent socialist democracies before you say something can't be done when it already is.
I'll even give you a clue where it starts, with limiting the amount of personal value an individual can extract from the sum total of society.
I think you need to finish reading the comment you're quoting because I think you two might actually get along
God you people are fuckin insufferable.
The bitter taste in your mouth is boot. Probably Hugo Boss or Versace.
We're insufferable because you lack vision beyond the capitalistic hellscape you already inhabit?
Spoilers: I live in Germany, not the US.
I would argue, if you are single, then minimum wage should be enough so that you could afford to live close to where you work in a 1 bedroom apartment. And live comfortably - so that by the end of the month, you don't have to count the change in your pocket. So that you can afford a healthy diet. Some socialising activities. Putting back something for the future.
If you have a kid, it should be enough to afford a two bedroom apartment, whilst you and your kid live comfortably. If you are a couple, one income should still be enough to afford that. If you have x kids, it should be enough to afford an x+1 bedroom apartment.
Why? Because no matter what you work, whether you are in service or fast food or in finance, you still put a significant amount of your daily time doing something you would not do for the sake of it. If you work full time (however this might be defined), no matter what you do, you contribute these hours to society, and this makes you deserving of a life worth living. And especially your kids. Your kids are kids and they have no control in what you work and what family they are born into. But they absolutely deserve to live a livable life. We all do. No matter what we do.
And we cannot all be finance attorneys. I'm not even going to start with the obvious aspects like necessary service work, nurses and other essential workers being underpaid, inequality and inequity, chances etc. I'll just ask this - if a person is really simply not smart enough, if they don't have what it takes to be successful, be it low IQ or mental problems or lack of qualities or whatever - are they not deserving of a life worth living? Why are we even debating this? Should you not be paid proportionally to the time you put in rather than to how much luck you had in Life Lottery?
I mean, I'm not necessarily an advocate of big apartments, let alone houses. I don't really get the idea of every kid needing a room of their own. But as for now, this seems what society deems appropriate (here, you get problems with CPS if brother and sister of a certain age share a bedroom). Therefore, this should be made available - for everyone to the degree that is necessary and appropriate. (I also think sharing an apartment when you are single is a great thing actually, ecologically and socially - but that's not the majority's opinion so nevermind.) This seems to only work if we decouple the idea of income from daily necessities and expenses such as housing and food, but maybe others have better ideas.
It seems grotesque and absurd that a society would allow the question of whether or not to have kids - or how many kids to have - to become an economic one. Like, even for the most greedy capitalist assholes, what exactly is the plan when cheap labor cannot afford to have kids that will then provide cheap labor?
More of a sidenote:
It is a sad logic only in the fact that you cannot choose. Where I live it is definitely not cheaper to stay at home. Being able to truly choose whether you want to work or raise your kid yourself (up to a certain age) or a combination of whatever percentage would be freedom. Being financially obliged to do either is shit.
If you stay at home with a baby or a toddler, you are putting less burden on an overloaded childcare system, and you are raising future adults to be healthy, happy, and, from an economic perspective, functioning. You are not exactly having a lot of free time. It is enjoyable and fullfilling but not for everyone (which is why outsourcing a part of it if you don't want to do it 100% is great). You got to be able to handle tantrums and lose your autonomy and perform understimulating activities a lot. Being a stay at home parent, at least for little kids, is not easy. Hell you can't even take a pee break unless they allow it (and when they allow it). You don't have holidays or weekends or nights off. I can't believe this kind of care work is still not financially compensated. And I can't believe that people who want to do that, who want to have kids and stay at home with them and raise them for their first years, just have to pass on all of this because of money.
I get where you're getting at since it's a minimum standard of living. Two bedrooms basically means parents in one room, 1-2 kids in another. With two children being the default. Once you get to three or more, or for people who don't want mixed gender siblings in the same room/heavy age differences, then the two bedroom becomes the three bedroom.
I definitely err on your side of the logic though. That is technically minimum. In reality, there's enough money for that three bedroom, the rich just hoarde it all. Most landlords got nothing to do with that lol.
I am a lot more skeptical of how high a "minimum wage" could even be considering the further automation of even "skilled" fields at this point. Which is why I am a strong advocate for Universal Basic Income to decouple survival from labor.
But if you are fighting the minimum wage fight: At least fight for something that would actually cover cost of living.
I think the idea of the meme is that this should be the bare minimum starting point from which we begin to negotiate higher, via our elected representatives who should be fighting for meaningful improvements to our lives as opposed to increased shareholder value for their donors.
Does min wage even support a studio apartment and like other basic needs?
This was more than a decade ago for me. But I worked 2 jobs doing fast food, lived with four roommates, and wasn't able to contribute to my IRA, go on vacation or have much in savings. And where I could have gotten a studio apartment, then I'd downgrade to eating ramen.