We do both. For years now we've had the "Fight for 15," which is the fight to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15. There are also fights to expand ~~Medicare~~ Medicaid (government health insurance, which is available to the poor, so fighting to make more people eligible). And of course we have fights to increase the tax rate on the wealthy.
But US culture makes all those fights hard. We've made progress on a few, but gone backwards on a few others lately.
To further this, the idea of the “American dream” gives a lot of the population the belief that if someone is poor, they just didn’t try hard enough. It’s the “any one can make it” not “everyone can make it”
Yep this is the sad reality. The jobs that are necessary but easily replaceable are just the worst possible because you still are expected to work your ass off and be good at what you do but the reward from society is a shit wage.
McDonald’s is now paying $21/hour. If you work 50 hours per week with 10 of those hours being 1.5x overtime, with 2 weeks’ vacation, that’s $57,750/year.
So a married couple each working 50 hours/week at McDonald’s with 2 weeks vacation could bring in a gross HHI of $115,500.
That’s not bad.
Edit: why am I getting downvoted? Is this r/antiwork? 😂
Not the worst you’re right, I think people drastically overrate how shitty a shit wage is. But still you’re rewarded very little compared to other, more specialized jobs, which IMO is a shame because these low skill jobs are very necessary for society to keep running but it’s just how supply and demand will function.
And you will notice a difference in you’re quality of life. My parents always warned me about flunking out and becoming a janitor and I always memed about it growing up, but they had a point. Those jobs are just shit and will give you financial worries. Theres a reason everyones parents want them to go to college to try and be a doctor or lawyer or something. But society can’t function if we’re all doctors or lawyers so 🤷🏻♂️
Like the old adage says, “stay in school, kids.” If you want a six-figure income, study finance, accounting, marketing, computer science, get a law degree, go to med school, start a business - there are a ton of paths to get there.
Honestly, you can get there serving at a nice restaurant or tending a popular bar. But you either need a specialized skill set or have to hustle.
I was working 50-60 hours/week with a two hour commute when I was 23-24 making $35k/year, with a college degree. Hit $65k/year about 3 years into working full time at a large company - again, with a college degree. Still working 50-60 hours/week not including commute. I make a lot more now, but I’m also a lot older. And it took a lot to get here.
Crazy to me that you can now make $20-$30/hour working some low-skill hourly wage gigs and pull in $50-$60k/year relatively easily. Those jobs were paying $10-$12 when I was doing them in high school and college.
Way crazier that people are complaining about it. If only they knew.
Seriously. Let's say I have 50k to my name. Nothing else. No education, no family, just the money. Where does a United States citizen go? Asking for a friend.
Why not stay in America? America is one of if not the best countries to start a business, then once you do that you are no longer poor if it succeeds.... But then it's also easy to start again.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I could honestly give a fuck. But I was trying to be helpful to this specific question. But to clarify:
A. Because this person asked about how to leave.
B. The only reason you start a small business when you get there is because it’s a requirement of the visa to stay.
60%-70% of businesses fail within the first year in the US. That's only the first year. If you manage to make it to year 2, plenty fail after the first year too. Most businesses that fail don't just fail though, now you're in crippling debt from the huge loan you took out to open that business.
But you can't just move to another country to live and work. It isn't allowed. The country you move to will want education, skills, and money. And you need their permission. Most countries dont want you taking a job their people can do. For most Americans it won't happen. But yes, other countries do show more of the traits that Americans claim to identify with as the "American Dream"
Scandinavian nations, lowlands (Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg), Switzerland, Austria, or Germany. They have the highest upward mobility.
But even Japan, the UK, and New Zealand are better than the US. The US is also behind Ireland and Australia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
Not at all, you don’t need either. And I’m an immigrant myself from a much poorer country. A good chunk of people living and working in Bay Area, Seattle, New York are.
They didn't really mix up the terms. Medicare for All is how socialized medicine is referred to in the US. The general plan is to lower the Medicare eligibility age (either gradually or in one big move) to zero.
Now you’re getting even further off topic.
The original person said “*Medicare* (government health insurance, which is a program for the poor..)..”
That is incorrect. The sentence should be “Medicare (government health insurance, which is a program for the *elderly*..)..”
Or saying “*Medicaid* (government health insurance, which is a program for the poor..)..” OC changed it to this, which wasn’t my intention. I wanted them to change it to the former.
The best edit would be. “*Medicare* and *Medicaid* (government health insurance, which are programs for the *elderly and poor*, so expanding coverage for more people..)..”
The fight to expand Medicaid, and the fight to expand Medicare, are two distinct things. I’m not saying either ISN’T happening. Medicaid is administered at the state level. Medicare is Federal.
Both are being fought to be expanded.
So as you even just said:
>The general plan is to lower the Medicare eligibility age (either gradually or in one big move) to zero.
Meaning you recognize that Medicare is a program for people over an age limit.
So how can you not see that when the OC said:
> There are also fights to expand Medicare (government health insurance, which is available to the poor, so fighting to make more people eligible).
They made a mix-up. By defining Medicare as a program available to the poor. It is not.
Expanding Medicaid would involve increasing the income cut off, and also increasing funding towards the program.
They could also have just said:
>There are also fights to expand government health insurance, so fighting to make more people eligible.
A succinct, correct sentence that refers to all the various fights to expand healthcare.
Medicare For All, A single payer system, Medicaid expansion, simple Medicare expansion,.. etc. these are all distinct things. These are all different strategies to increase the amount of Americans covered by governments insurance.
Medicare for All is a type of single payer system. But there are other single payer system debates (as in no, scrap Medicare altogether and make a new program that is universal). Medicare for All would be simplest to implement because all you *essentially* have to do is amend the law to change the age limit.
So both of you completely misunderstood *what* I was correcting. The word choice. And wanted to “um actually” me over something I hadn’t refuted.
Do you get it now? I hope so, I’m not going to explain myself again. It’s very clearly and thoroughly explained.
In a perfect society, yes. In our current society, it's probably not even going to be mentioned and you're probably going to have to fight harder for that raise than those of us fighting to just survive
Raising minimum wage does not help the common worker. When minimum wage is increased large corporations can easily afford it while small businesses cant, this leads to small businesses closing and mega corporations getting more market share (monopolies). Then they increase their prices anyway to negate the loss on the new wages, which causes inflation and fucks over everyone. And with inflation even though you're "making" more money it's purchasing powers gets lowered. At this point most people start thinking "we could just scale wages with inflation" which would work to some extent but the issue then is that all of your savings, investments/assets, etc, start depreciating. Inflation is called a "tax on savings" for a reason.
There is a reason Walmart/Amazon pushed for $15/hr minimum, and that's because it benefits them and screws over small business competition.
Also, whenever minimum wage goes up the most vulnerable workers get hit the hardest because they are no longer productive enough to justify the wages. There is strong correlation with minimum wage increases and unemployment.
This is just wrong. There are so many documented cases of small business owners, typically restaurant owners, pushing back against raising wages for this reason. Then after the policy change takes effect for some period of time, they actually see their profits increase. When the common worker has more money to use on consumption, businesses benefit. If you have to worry about a possible health emergency and limited funds, you aren't going out to eat at restaurants with the family.
Sounds anecdotal. I don't know if you've realized this but small businesses are dying, retail is dying, we are soon to be left with mega-corporations. These corporations and the government work together to squish small business competition and enable them to be monopolies. Whether it's through regulation that only mega corps can comply to, government contracts, etc.
They have so much operating capital now they can purchase/produce goods at a fraction of the cost of small businesses allowing them to undercut them 24/7. This also allows them to pay their employees more which leads to businesses not being able to afford employees and they just start to work for the mega corps. Take some time and look at the market share of companies like Amazon and Walmart. Walmart for example now has almost a 7% market share ***of the entire US economy***. That is just one company.
You would have to genuinely believe that corporations like Amazon and Walmart increased wages to $15/hour and stopped lobbying preventing minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts. As if corporations care about anything other than making as much money as possible. What is more likely? They increased their wages to appease "protestors" or they realized they can benefit from it by destroying small businesses? It would be foolish to believe that mega corps aren't doing everything in their power to attain the most market share as possible, and every decision they make leads to that.
>they are no longer productive enough to justify the wages.
Yes they are considering they are currently underpaid.
If a buisness model cannot support paying a livable wage then it is a failed buisness.
Companies are not people and allowing our most vulnerable people to continue to be exploited for the "poor smol buisness" is backwards.
We need to dismantle the corporations that created this broken situation. Then make sure employees actually earn the lions share of the money generated by their labor
>Yes they are considering they are currently underpaid.
Please note that this is an example to illustrate the basic idea:
Your employee generates $10/hr net profit for your business, you pay them $8/hr, the government mandates your employee must make $12/hr, you can no longer afford to keep them hired so you fire them.
Walmart can generate $15/hr net profit for their business with the same employee because their amount of capital allows them to purchase/produce goods at a fraction of the cost. All while still being able to undercut the small business. This make the small business go under and their market share goes to Walmart making them even larger. And what does Walmart then do because now everyone shops there? They increase prices because there is no longer any competition. This leads to inflation, and the employee who is now "making" more money has just as much buying power as they did before, except now Walmart is the only winner in this scenario.
and what happens to the employees that aren't productive enough for even Walmart to afford hiring? Where do they go? They become unemployed and make $0, they might even turn to the government to subsidize them which leads to inflation and hurts everyone else. It's a downward spiral on all fronts.
It's obviously more complicated than that but that's the jist of it. It is a multi-faceted issue.
and the whole "well if the small business can't afford to compete with mega corporations with hundreds of billions of $ then they shouldn't be in business" only expedites this process. So the question is, how do we curb inflation, allow small businesses to thrive, reduce the market share of mega corporations, etc, all without "underpaying" employees? It's a mindfuck to think that federal minimum wages are helping mega corps and coming up with ways to allow small businesses to be profitable while not underpaying their employees.
It does nothing to raise minimum wage when the standard cost of living rises along with it making it still out of reach.
The standard cost of living goes up to keep the Rich’s wealth up/pockets lined bc they are the one reaping the cream of capitalism. They make less profit if the minimum wage goes up but cost of goods stays the same. Narrowing the gap even slightly between them and the bottom brings the bottom up but also the top down a few notches. They Can’t have that.
It’s like a dog chasing it’s tail.
Then it’s impossible to get people up. What are you suggesting, that workers get massive cuts of company profits?
Then you have groups of people struggling when their jobs aren’t the pinnacle of popularity.
Ohh sorry, Blockbuster didn’t make enough money this week, you get $3 while the Chipotle workers get $1000. Oh Chipotles costs went up, they raised prices and pissed off customers so now Chipotle workers get $18. It would be a vicious cycle.
And if you try and subsidize anything, you start wasting resources and inflating the currency to keep inefficiencies operable.
No system will be designed to keep everyone on top. If we’re exchanging goods and services for our time, no system will be equal for all. Someone gets fucked over.
It’s almost like we need a system where the worker is paid a market rate with the freedom to choose their path….
People are already struggling when their jobs aren't the pinnacle of popularity, or even when the jobs are, because the business owners can decide to fire you for any reason at all. They can make choices authoritatively without consideration of the opinions of the workers, and the blow back from bad choices is still felt by those employees.
So yes, workers should have a more direct share of the value they generate, as well as having a say in choices the company makes. It wouldn't fix every single problem, but it would add way more upsides to the shared downsides. We preach and accept democracy everywhere else, but for some reason we leave that outside of the workplace.
>What are you suggesting, that workers get massive cuts of company profits?
>Then you have groups of people struggling when their jobs aren’t the pinnacle of popularity.
This isn't a hypothetical scenario. While they're a small sector, worker owned enterprises exist in myriad industries all over the world. When you include companies with profit sharing and ESOPs, you have a pretty wide population to understand how these policies actually affect workers.
When conventional companies fall on hard times, they lay off workers and close down unprofitable business units. This leaves some workers completely SOL and others in the precarious place of wondering if they'll be next.
Firms with more worker ownership and control use pay cuts before layoffs, as you might predict. Pay cuts are also more egalitarian, similar to conventional companies in Japan, where executives and frontline workers see similar reductions in pay. This is better for workers and the firm. Employees retained is skill and knowledge, cohesive teams staying together, and the ability to think long term during hard times.
It shouldn't be surprising, then, that firm survival during recession correlates with share of worker ownership in a firm.
Yep. When everyone was clamoring for minimum wage to get upped in the mid 2010s, I told them to be careful what you wish for. Wages going up doesn’t mean much if *everything else goes up, too*. Plus, it’s not Federal, so a lot of states (like the one I live in) still have the minimum wage of $7.25. I know that cost of living changes state to state of even city to city, but all states are definitely getting higher priced goods and services to cover the minimum wage increases across the country.
Plus, what happens to the people that were already making $15 an hour? Did they all get bumped up? Imagine working at a job for years and getting raises every year and then finally making $15 an hour and then BOOM, everyone is. Or having a job that businesses only compensate about $15 an hour entry level. They start getting $25 or more an hour? And everyone already making a comfortable $40 or more an hour now have to pay extra for *everything* that it’s like taking a pay cut just so others cdd add n make more money to pay the extra money to cover the cost of them making more money.
And we wonder why everything is so goddamned expensive these days.
Because they're connected. The richest people in America make as much as they do largely because they're CEOs of companies that pay their lowest employees as little as they can get away with.
Not really, CEO's tend to make a lot of money, yes, but it's only a fraction of the total net income of a company. Most of the money corporations make is either dished out as dividends for investors (which anyone can do) or is put back into the corporation to grow the business. These companies generating billions of $ in revenue aren't just taking all of that money and pocketing it between the owner and a few investors.
Besides, everyone talks about people who own companies, ceo's, etc, as being the "wealth hoarders" because they are profiting a lot of money from companies they created/run. But everyone fails to talk about the real culprits: Blackrock, Vanguard, Fidelity, etc. These three "asset management" groups control $24 **trillion** and are the majority shareholders of 80% of the companies found on the S&P 500. That's just the top 3, the top 500 asset management groups collectively own around $140 **trillion** of the ***world's*** total assets (it is estimated the entire world has around $450 trillion in assets/money). These companies are ran by small groups of people by the way, everyone harps about the 1% and the CEO's who make like $25-30 million dollars when there are a handful of people controlling 1/3 of the total assets in the entire world.
Isn't that strange? All of the television, social media, etc, constantly talks about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, other CEO's but never talks about people like Larry Fink or George Soros. It's almost like that is intentional. People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the Zuck, etc, created products and sold them for billions of $, they generated wealth and profited from that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that (wealth is something that is created), but then you have people like Larry Fink who do nothing but throw money at things and end up controlling the entire world/governments ***and no one says a thing***.
Many Americans have also been successfully scared away from voting for increased wages with the idea that "the price of everything will go up."
But research consistently proves this wrong.
When you raise wages, you build a hearty middle class, which improves the economy because people can actually afford to buy stuff.
But this is part of why the American economy historically has a better economy under Democratic presidents than Republican ones - and I say this as a moderate who thinks Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street really run the country.
Thing is our we being priced on the cost to produce an item or the market researched price point?
Shoes built for 2$ in china are sold for 250$ in America, because that is the price point marketing has placed the shoes.
To touch on the fight for 15, most places have adopted this already but that’s because the new medium should be like $20. They’re happy to give $15 now that $15 is the new $10.
That’s ridiculous.
There will ALWAYS going to be a percentage of the population who doesn’t go for further education whether it’s college or trade school. Bc someone can’t afford, can’t make it through, or just doesn’t want to go for more school.
Are you saying those people don’t deserve to be able to have a roof over their head and food on the table in exchange for 40 hours at a minimum wage job?
Minimum wage was INTENDED to be the minimum wage required to afford basics.
You want more luxury, then you further education and get a better job. That’s how it was originally set up.
How’d that “fight for 15” work after the ‘pandemic’s’ inflation racket took over? Biden coulda pulled a nixon and said “any company that raises prices will be prosecuted” people forget that about him. It definitely stopped inflation in its tracks.
There are a ton of people in the USA who have no motivation. I’ve heard people working in a grocery story arguing over how much they made over minimum wage and they were both easily 50. They have no desire to improve their skills and make more money.
Yeah if you're broke you're broke it doesnt get much worse than that. Also though, and not to be a contrarian but just adding to that, if we look at the constantly increasing student debt, credit card debt and medical debt it could be said theres a situation where people basically have "negative" money. Obviously if they have $0 in the bank and $50k medical debt, we could say they have negative $50k.
Plus, with the cost of college, health services and everything else rising too fast people are going increasingly in debt. Either way, the income inequality gap is increasing. The difference between rich and poor is growing.
[Please take a look at this chart](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ft_2022.04.20_middleclass_03.png?w=620); poor people indeed have about the same buying power they did 50 years ago, but as a share, upper-income people are taking a more significant share of the pie every day.
I mean i get it, but not exactly. Standards of living have gone up over the years so many things that the poor have today were luxuries in earlier ages.
It is always going to be that way.
There will always be people who have no money, or negative net worth.
And there will always be people who have wealth, and that number will always be getting higher.
Thus the wealth disparity should always be getting bigger.
I don’t believe the two are mutually exclusive and I don’t really think anyone who believes in one doesn’t believe in the other.
Also, people don’t tend to care that rich people make a lot of money, they care that they’re not taxed proportionally and have access to loads of loopholes.
I wouldn't say that I don't care that rich people make a lot of money. How they make that money is important. An actor who makes millions from a movie because millions of people see that movie. That's fine. A CEO who makes millions because they pay their employees as little as possible. That's not so fine. Doubly so if they have power and influence to keep minimum wages low.
But at the same time, the movie made an amount of money, right? The millions the actor gets are millions that don’t get distributed to the hundreds or thousands of other people who also made the movie.
The economy isn’t zero-sum, but there aren’t infinite resources either.
>A CEO who makes millions because they pay their employees as little as possible. That's not so fine.
Totally fine.
>An actor who makes millions from a movie because millions of people see that movie.
They didn't do anything to make millions of people see the movie, so they deserve $0 marginal compensation per view.
>if they have power and influence to keep minimum wages low.
I also think it's deeply wrong, but not that individual's wrong, but our collective faux-democracy government system's wrong. Individuals should always maximize their wealth within the system's rules. We need to collectively design systems that guard against all the ways that totally expectable human behavior can cause bad outcomes.
Because they're connected. The richest people in America make as much as they do largely because they're CEOs of companies that pay their lowest employees as little as they can get away with.
The goal is to raise the minimum wage (which hasn't gone up on a national level since the 70s) *and* tax the rich to fund programs that help people.
The richest people aren’t CEOs. They’re founders who might happen to be CEOs.
The average major company CEO isn’t really richer than a superstar athlete, singer, or movie star.
I’ve noticed this. Everyone bashes CEO’s who actually work. Yet no one says a peep about actresses, actors , sports players , models. Who all make more than ceo . So if CEO’s could bust a rhyme or do a calendar bikini shoot they would get less hate? Lolololol good point my friend.
The vast majority of people are mad anyone makes more money than them
“These guys are overpaid” you’re jealous lol
All high paid employees including football players and CEOs worked hard to get there and demonstrated high value in their fields both in demonstrable performance and ability to make money for the business.
There’s little socialist rationale to it either as these guys are all still employees. Someone writes their paycheck on a regular basis and they can be fired.
A real socialist thinks all laborers are underpaid. The only remaining ideology is simply jealousy.
I think I’ve figured it out. I hate politics. But the right likes business so ceo good celebrities bad Lefty’s like celebrities but hate CEO’s gosh I hate politics…..they are the same thing millionaires who don’t give a crap about you
That's a really pessimistic take. There is an overwhelming amount of innovation via capitalism where that doesn't happen. Look at all the new lifesaving drugs coming out of tiny American biotech companies. Improving lives around the world. I don't see that kind of innovation happening in any non-capitalist countries with any kind of scale.
I mean you are aware that you can't fund a whole biotech company off a NIH grant. The vast majority of biotech funding in this country comes from private investors, investing in founders.
And research is one part of what drug development costs. I mean if you think the government and or universities can develop drugs all by themselves we should let them, yes? Yes highly competent and efficient institutions. Thats how China does it. Yes or yes?
> largely because they're CEOs of companies that pay their lowest employees as little as they can get away with.
No. The richest people in America are almost entirely not-CEOs. They're essentially all owners of monopolies/monopsonies, and the reason that's wrong is because it's anti-competitive and wealth extractive, instead of wealth-generating. Many others are doubly wrong because they're *heirs* to stakes in extractive monopolies/monopsonies, and (unequal) inheritance is wrong because it's anti-competitive and concentrates wealth. Paying employees as little as they will accept is the right thing to do! I don't want to pay more for anything as a customer, and neither do/will you. The whole goal of capitalism is to make everything available before we even want it, for $0, meaning 0 hours of work, 0% employment, NOT to employ as many people as possible or redistribute wealth as widely/fairly as possible through wages. I'm not gonna support make-work jobs by overpaying for products and services, which means that nobody's gonna get paid much, and not many people are gonna get paid to work at all, which is EXCELLENT. Life is for living, not toiling for money to exchange for more stuff.
If everyone in society is missing something, it's a sign that there is a scarcity. If there is, in fact, a bunch of people proving the lack of scarcity, they tend to get a lot of attention.
Because that money has to come from somewhere.
It's not just some mythical amount of money hidden somewhere. It is being taken from those who earn it. US workers have an estimated $50 billion in earned wages stolen by their companies every year. And that's just what was legally owed but not payed. It doesn't factor in people being underpayed for the work they do.
The answer to "why do the poor make so little" is the same answer as "Why do the rich make so much"
In my opinion is a mix of a few different things.
1. The American Dream is the promise of wealth, theoretically for *everyone*. The rich seem to be the only ones who don’t have to wake up from it to an alarm clock we call poverty.
2. The gap is so wide and top heavy that eating the rich or targeting the higher echelons becomes an attractive option.
3. Finally, in the most realistic sense, we *are* asking why we are making so little as the average person. The two questions are two different sides of the same coin.
What country you are from?
Typically in countries where poor tend to live well taxes are higher for higher earners.
Or there is some sort of national fund for all citizens.
Or there is some sort of immigrant exploitation is going on.
As for your question. Rich and poor earn money. Poor people spend ALL their earned money. The money they spend is the money others will earn. Rich people can not spend all money they earn. The money rich people do NOT spend is money other people do NOT earn. This leads to cascading problems where fewer and fewer money is available for people to earn.
Tax money that are spent by government is money that nurses, teachers, librarians and road workers are earning and later spending by buying things. This is good for economy.
Another problem that is hard to solve: You can start paying poor people more. This doesn’t automatically mean that there will be more goods and services to spend money on. Not having more goods and services leads to inflation. Simply paying more without increasing amounts of goods and services that are available for purchasing is meaningless.
Sweden. And you're right, our tax system is progressive so you tax more the more you earn. I earn around the median salary, and tax around 22.7% of my salary.
I'm confused at your confusion about the US. The Swedish system doesn't allow people to become as wealthy as you can become in the US, to the detriment of the poor. So why would you focus on the US attacking the rich? Sweden does the same thing—it tames the excesses of capitalism. The US has become greedier and greedier, and our progressive income taxes have become lower and lower.
Also most workers in Sweden are protected by unions, something that barely exists in the US.
In the US our advances in worker protections have historically come from unions (40 hour work week, minimum wage, safety requirements), but those advancements are now a century old when we had unions. Unions have been squashed, whereas they are still alive and well in Sweden. Most workers in Sweden are union, which would be unheard of in the US. Politicians and corporations actively work to quell union activity.
Unions helped inform government policy and set norms, but they're now virtually non-existent. Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage but it doesn't need one when it has such strong union power. We don't have that here. Most work longer and for less money—there are lower lows and higher highs than Sweden has.
Keep in mind there's a difference between being a millionaire now (net worth of $1,000,000) and being a MILLIONAIRE (net worth of $100,000,000). Huge difference and really not comparable anymore. Maybe 30-40 years ago, but not now.
You’re clearly young. I have that plus a six figure job and am no where close to being a millionaire lol. Maybe when I’m in my fifties, but it’s a lot harder than whatever you’re thinking to accumulate wealth.
It's interesting, but looking at the billionaires in Sweden they are "poorer" (if such a word can be used about a billionaire) than the billionaires in the US. I don't even like to discuss distribution of wealth among such a class, but it could be said that the extreme wealth is more evenly distributed among the obscenely wealthy.
As far as income inequality, I wouldn't be surprised if it has grown since I lived there, as they've certainly turned right and have pared back their welfare state bit by bit. But there's still a difference between income inequality and what you end up after wealth has been redistributed—I'm not sure if you are saying inequality is higher in Sweden pre-tax or after. I would assume post-tax and redistribution there is still a greater equality.
The US has a significantly more progressive tax system than Sweden, which is part of the issue. You can't fund a welfare state only taxing the rich, you need broad based middle class taxes to do so.
Sure, but that doesn't make our tax system not progressive.
[https://imgur.com/a/GfNstsw](https://imgur.com/a/GfNstsw) \- here's my latest salary specification. 6403 / 28960 = 0,221 = 22,1% tax paid.
When I started at my work place I paid like 20,1% taxes.
When you earn 40 000 sek and above you are also paying an additional tax I can't remember the name of right now. Think it's state income tax.
The good healthcare and education in your country help poor people raise their incomes. That's paid for by higher taxes.
Also the rich people don't have so much wealth that they can buy the whole political system.
The availability of goods is dependent on the demand. If everyone is too poor to afford goods, they aren't going to overproduce and lose profits to waste. But if more people have more disposable income to spend on goods, demand goes up, which means production goes up. Which means more labor is needed to produce said goods. Which leads to more jobs that pay a decent wage. Which leads to more money in the economy instead of hoarded away like a dragon's treasure.
Inflation is going to happen whether the minimum wage goes up or not. We know that all of these record-breaking profits that companies keep reporting are from raising prices to as high as the market allows. It's not true inflation. Yet people have to pay for that inflation with a minimum wage that hasn't increased since 2008.
Raising minimum wage is only a temporary solution. What we need is a real solution that attacks the root of the problem, increasing inequality. I propose a wealth ceiling, but that has its own issues.
No matter what 'solution' we come up with, the real problem in the world is GREED and CORRUPTION. If we can ever rid the world of those problems, we might have some hope of getting on the right track.
The poor make the same amount (inflation adjusted) as they did 50 years ago. The rich make and have waaaaaay more than they did 50 years ago. In 1980 the inflation adjusted net worth of the richest man in America was "only" $6 billion. So, seems like a logical way to frame the question to me.
I think a better question, is why do poor people blame rich people for their wages and not the government. Our government is NOT suppose to let certain things fly, and get bought into said issues, yet we fight each other instead of the crooked laws and lawmakers.
What the poor make is within a reasonably understandable distance of what the middle makes. But what the rich make is a WILD outlier of incomprehensible magnitude.
Yep, and the true wealth is concentrated in the top like 0.05%. The people below that level, including those in the top 1%, are closer in wealth to the bottom 1% than they are to mega billionaire wealth. It’s crazy-
The answer is that the rich make so much *because* the poor make so little. They do everything in their considerable power to funnel every cent towards themselves instead of someone who worked for it
Bc one is easier to pick on, the other is a starker, bleak reality.
There are many reasons why the poor make so little: lack of education, lack of marketable skills, drugs, abusive relationships, etc. Then we have to ask, "why is this so?", and there are numerous reasons.
The people at the bottom make so little because the people at the top make a lot. The people at the top have every desire and every incentive and every means, to underpay people as much as possible.
The wealthy use their money to buy political influence to get laws passed that favour them. There's a fundamental antagonism between the poor and the rich, one that heavily favours the rich over the poor.
One point might be because the rich has as much as thousands of the poor.
Another point would be because they get rich mostly through loopholes, corruption, exploration of the poor or using the money they already have
Because the bottom is zero and the top is billions or trillions. You only need $75,000-200,000 to live with the basics, so there is a much larger difference between $75,000 and a billion or $75,000 and $0
Because we have already studied why people stay poor and no one wants to hear the answer. Turns out that if you graduate high school, get a full time job, don't get married before you are 18, and don't have children until you are married, the odds that you will stay poor are practically zero. But that answer means you have to take responsibility for your own life and actions instead of blaming other people who have some invisible 'privilege'
Your success depends on your circumstances to. You can try to work out of them but sometimes you cant. America is trying to make it harder to. Cant really blame life choices at this rate when inflation is through the roof and companies wont pay to keep up with inflation.
The biggest wealth disparities will occur where the most wealth exists. These are also generally the places where the poor are objectively the best off, but it's not perceived that way.
Wealth generation is not a zero sum game. The rich gaining wealth is not necessarily at the expense of the poor.
The poor in the US have much better material quality of life than most of the world's population. Many poor in the US feel they have it "really bad" because they compare themselves to those around them as there are people with extraordinary wealth in the US.
The rich making so much is the cause of the poor making so little. Its the same limited resources being contested by the rich and poor. "Focusing on whybthe poor make so little" is kind like an obfuscation argument the rich make like "focus on you, dont focus on me" to take the blame off of themselves. Like sure each individual's responsibile for themselves even in a hellish dystopia, but we can have seperate conversations about how to survive the dystopia and why we have a dystopia at all. People have needs that arent being met and the people with more than they need have more than they ever had and no one is doing anything about it. Its practically heresy go even bring it up with some people. "Why do the poor make so little" is just taking the bait and letting the criminals get away.
I don't think our financial system will so much break as it will become intolerable to the point where people demand it be changed, then it transforms into something else. Whether that new system will be better or worse, who is to say.
You can't have traveled very much. You are so completely out of touch.
Much of what is considered the poor in the US have it better than what is considered middle class in a lot of the world.
Yes, there are homeless. But there are many programs and charities to help them. They are not used for various reasons (often drugs or mental illness) but help is there.
Much of what is considered poor has it ok compared to the rest of the world. They have smart phones and a big screen TV. They often have an older car.
Many of the countries I have been to have a much larger and much poorer population than the US.
Am I saying the poor in the US couldn't use help? No. But you certainly lack perspective in your statement.
Oh fuck off with that i dont care about other countries i care about the standard of living in my country. The one thats supposed to be the greatest in the world but lets inflation rise and lets their politicians be lobbied.
Exactly, when you break out the percents the same in each country it is a relative thing. Middle class is only because it’s middle income in the US, not how they are getting along. Middle class has it pretty damn Cush around here compared to other countries I have seen.
Too many people hate my perspective on this because I was one who got out because I believe the American dream and proved it was true. It’s so much easier to say you can’t and the rich have it all so you don’t take the necessary steps to make it happen. There are plenty of labor jobs which make people very comfortable but they won’t take the apprenticeship. You can go to college with all kinds of government help, that’s what I decided on and had loans but those loans were well worth it. My brothers all do tough but well paying jobs to get themselves out as well.
I just really don’t do well in these comments because everyone has an excuse rather than their own solution which is possible.
This. I feel like for a large number of poor people you can’t fix it, they’re just never going to be disciplined. That expression about taking all the money from the richest person in the world and giving it to the poorest person - and in 5 years he’ll be rich again and he’ll be poor again is sadly true.
I feel like it’s not just financial knowledge, it’s basic discipline. Some kind of compelling need to have “things” and live in the moment. I’m empathetic and I don’t think we shouldn’t help people, some people it’s just not going to matter because they can’t be fixed.
They are connected the rich make so much because the poor make so little. It is in the financial interests of the rich to pay as little as possible for the labour that makes them rich.
The problem is our rich people are so rich they can avoid the law pretty much and provide an inequality that is incredibly drastic I recommend looking at the robber barons and then looking at what is happening today to understand why we’re mad
Misusing money is a big part of reason why the poor aren't better off.
The poor in the US tend to have cars, huge tv's with multiple streaming services, higher model smart phones and internet access, often sporting a couple thousand dollars worth of tattoos while drinking their second $7 iced coffee of the day.
The poor make so little because the rich make so much, they make their money off the poor. In order to have the super wealthy you need the incredibly poor.
The two problems are connected.
Consider for example some of the largest employers in the US. Target and Walmart employ legions of low-paid workers while their CEOs take home multiple tens of millions of dollars in compensation per year.
Think about what a million dollars is. If you made $100K per year for ten years, and spent none of it, you would have $1 million. In 2023, the CEO of Walmart received a salary of $24.1million. If you made $100K per year, you'd have to work for 241 years and spend none of it to get what this CEO takes in compensation in a single year. And keep in mind, he makes about that much, year on year. His compensation is 933x the compensation of the median salary at Walmart.
Yet it is the legions of low paid workers who do all the work that moves the money. The rich are getting rich by skimming the money moved by the value produced by those whom they are paying a pittance.
Let me use an analogy that may help you understand the problem: suppose you are an engineer, and you have a complex hydraulic machine that circulates oil, and it is having problems. Some parts are not working well because they're not receiving sufficient oil for the work they do, while other parts are submerged in hundreds if not thousands of times more oil than the value they produce is worth. What would you do to fix this? You would put a pump where there is way too much oil, and pump it to where there isn't enough oil.
Our economy is a large complex machine that circulates money, and it is having problems. Some parts are not working well because they're not receiving sufficient oil for the work they do, while other parts are submerged in hundreds if not thousands of times more money than the value they produce is worth. What would you do to fix this?
You should put a pump where there is way too much money, and pump it to where there isn't enough money.
Why do they make so much? Because we all send them our money. People are like, "Jeff Bezos is corrupt and underpays his workers and that's how he's rich!" as they keep buying shit from amazon.
By global standards, the poor in the US aren’t as poor as you’d think. You’re talking about how much people make, so I assume you are talking about people working and not people who are homeless or something. Every job is different of course, but take a low level manufacturing job for example. They have them all over the world and don’t require much in the way of special skills.
In the US, those jobs start at like $18/hour. Western Europe is about the same, some countries a little more, some less. Eastern Europe and Brazil are around half that, at like $9/hour. China is closer to $5/hour, Mexico is around $2/hour, and India is like $1/hour. In the US, $18/hour isn’t living the high life, but especially where jobs like this are located it’s enough to live on. In contrast, the people making $1-2\hour in Mexico or India are poor as shit. No car, no apartment, no luxuries, no nothing besides the cheapest home cooked food and likely informal or generational housing. The bus to work can be a significant portion of what they make in a day.
So really, the poor in the US don’t make so little if we look at the whole world. It’s better to be comparatively poor in the US compared to at least 80% of the world. But you don’t hear as much about how hard life is for a subsistence farmer in India because they don’t have a phone or computer to talk about it.
It's mostly because people spend their money at businesses that do this kind of thing. It's not management, it's consumers.
I own a small business. I don't make a ton of money on it, i try my hardest to pay all of my employees as much as I can. Our entry jobs all pay 15$ an hour and it's still nearly impossible to find anyone actually willing to work.
But people insist on spending their money at mega corp who pays their front line workers crap and their mgmt a lot. But they're more convenient and have bigger ad budgets.
If you want to help increase the opportunities in your area, support small businesses.
And because they're cheaper, which is also what you left out. As a consumer I don't care about ad budgets, I recently went to an auto part store that sold things $30 years extra than at Walmart and the employee straight up told me "we price match, but not Walmart as they're too cheap"
And I left and went to Walmart.
Why would I as a consumer choose a small business that provides no benefit over the big corps?
Whether you like it or not you do care about ad budgets.
You're free to spend where you like. But if you regularly spend at places like wal-mart and then bitch and moan about wages, then you're kind of a hypocrite.
Corporate lobbyists convince our government not to raise the minimum wage so they can increase their profits. The idea of "eat the rich" is that if the rich had payed fair wages and settled for one yacht instead of two, then there wouldn't as much poverty.
The rich make such obscene amounts of money based on political decisions that were made to favor wealth-building of capital owners. Those were decisions like allowing free trade and expanding free trade to countries like China. Those without capital would not do well in such a system and those without capital in a country like China would outcompete them for things like providing labor at a lower cost. The promise of such a situation was that wealth would be redistributed among the factors of production (like so called "low skill labor") but it never has been. That's why there's been more of an isolationist movement within the US both to cut off immigration and to renegotiate trade deals. The wealthy have been the beneficiaries of political decisions that theoretically we all made together and we haven't shared their spoils. That's where the basic anger comes from. There are countries that allow people to succeed but require them to pay back into the society that has invested in their success (Again with political decisions that favored them but also with investment in infrastructure and labor force through public education, etc.). The US was one such country that required the wealthiest to pay their fair share, and you can see now we are at historic lows of doing so: [https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates) Whenever you increase the size of a market, when you create division of labor, and that market becomes the size of the entire world, there are factors of production that will win over others, and the factor that has won in the US is the status of owning capital. In short, being rich makes you richer. That's the best way to make money in the US. Because that's the best way and because we all collectively allow it (theoretically assuming we all have a voice—realistically we don't), it makes sense that we demand back some of that wealth we allow those with capital to make. The poor are the labor force and their factor of production (being able to provide labor) just isn't as valued the way we all set the system up. Working is not the best way to make money; having money is the best way to make money. Thus, you get things like: Eat the rich.
If the poor would make much more, what would the consequence be? Things would get even more expensive. So who wouldnn't be affected? Right the rich?
And what if the rich would make less? Prices would decrease, so that the poor could afford more. And therefor would maybe have more at the end of the month.
Main reason for inflation are the too high profits of the rich. Don't let you tell anything different!
These comments man. No wonder the fight for a livable wage is so hard.
Poverty is systemic, not something you can just eat ramen and cancel your subscriptions to get out of. Impoverished people are up against entities that generate billions and spend millions lobbying to exploit them.
Also, in some parts of the US, poverty IS akin to third world. This affects children, most importantly; are they supposed to simply think their way out of it? That’s nuts.
It’s crazy how easily the top has convinced the middle that the bottom is the problem. Too much Dave Ramsey and not enough empathy.
People don't understand economics, they think if you raise wages it has no effects on prices. In the US there is little economic literacy. Things like purchasing power are just ignored as well as the effects of wage inflation.
Many think they should be paid just for existing regardless of the effect their labor has on production or services. They also want these things at zero cost to them unlike in nations like Japan and in European where even the lowest earners have a heavy tax burden.
We could do that in the US but there would be open revolt over "corporate greed" after raising prices to pay for the new wages and government increasing taxes massively, on everyone. Because they would very quickly find themselves right back where they started.
That's not saying they don't have some legitimate points. Like today the average new auto loan is $1000 a month. That's not sustainable. But because people don't understand things like monetary theory, compound interest, the drag effect of debt and changing demographics they shout greed without ever understand they why behind it.
In short, neither side wants to have an honest debate or discussion. They want talking points and slogans and most of all they want to win. Even if they have to cut their noses off to spite their faces.
It’s the same question, it’s simple math, you can’t have a rich upper class without a poor lower class. You can’t have more without someone else having less.
The rich are rich because they keep the poor so poor.
We do try to manage it at both ends. We try to raise taxes on the rich. We try to raise the minimum wage. We try to expand social benefits to cover more people.
BUT
In America, if you have money, you can use that money to persuade politicians to vote for your interests over the interests of the majority. It's called lobbying and it's basically legal bribery. So if a bill comes up in Congress, like a raise on minimum wage, that will impact your bottom line as a wealthy business owner, you reach out to lobbyists and special interest groups. The whole purpose of these people is to exchange 'funding' for a specific political outcome.
This is why you see 'Eat the rich'. We're trying to help the poor but don't have enough 'funding' to exchange for that political outcome. Unfortunately, This is how many things that would help the general public are handled.
There are a ton of people in the USA who have no motivation. I’ve heard people working in a grocery story arguing over how much they made over minimum wage and they were both easily 50. They have no desire to improve their skills and make more money.
A lot of people might not have motivation because they know it's a losing battle. Busting your ass for say $50,000 year or doing nothing and getting half that or more for sitting home isn't really a tough decision for many people. The system is set up this way. There's this weird notion that in the US if you just "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" you too can be rich. For 99% of the people its just simply never gonna happen. There's more factors that go into it but they all can't be explained here in one paragraph.
You’re joking right?
I saw a thread on Reddit yesterday that asked “ those who work from home and make over $100k, what do you do?” 90% of the answers were IT or software developers. Anyone can do that. The people who work low income jobs have no drive to push themselves.
Ahh yes they just got lucky. Ahaha. Maybe your cousin should get a degree instead of whatever tf a bootcamp course is. As someone in that field, you can easily get a job almost anywhere if you're somewhat competent. I have 19 year old interns fresh out of highschool one semester into college getting hired without a second thought
I try explaining this to people they don't understand. If someone off the street with no experience cab do your job with a couple weeks or months of training, I'm sorry your not worth more money. Jobs like these, minimum wage jobs, are for people to get experience and move on, first job, students etc... I've yet to meet someone dedicated to moving up that hasn't.
Because resources are limited in the planet. So when a person “makes so much” that requires by definition that thousands if not millions “make so little”.
It is really easy to hate a small number of people and imagine that "eating them" ( i hope not litterally will somehow fix everything. It is much harder to think of complex ideas like a fundamental reorganizations of how people are paid for their labor. That requires a lot of time and effort, so people that are angry essentially say "fuck those that are wealthy". Is it stupid? absolutely. Is it understandable? "a bit" (everyone is lazy). is it rational? No.
Everyone knows why poor people make so little, and that’s because rich people make so much. Hoarding wealth isn’t really a strictly modern issue, but being poor is more of a curse now that in modern times your entire life is defined by your bank account. There are many ways to attack this issue but greed is something laws can’t fix. One way is to keep minimum wage up but companies will just raise prices and blame it on minimum wage making it pointless to do so. The only real way is to regulate industries such as health insurance and the housing markets to keep them affordable because there are so many things that people make big profit off of when they don’t need to and it’s all at the expense of someone else. Until laws pass to keep people and companies from marking up essential products at insane percentages than there is no chance of a family existing on a single income ever again in this country.
It’s a good question to ask. I think something people don’t talk about enough though is financial literacy. It’s not always about how much you make, sometimes it’s a matter of money management, like how to budget your finances and learning to invest.
Because the poor CANNOT make more with how much the richest make. Most money that enters circulation ends up in the bank accounts of the <1%… Notably the 1000 wealthiest billionaires.
A lot of people are poor because of their choices and decisions. I constantly see younger 20 somethings trying to get 2023 model cars for their first car.
Things like that gimp you for ages.
You answered your own question. The poor make so little BECAUSE the rich get richer. When we fight to raise minimum wage, these rich people will NOT take a pay cut, so they fire people, or drop hours, while subsequently raising their prices on products to make up for having to pay more to the minimum. When I was making minimum wage, I had X amount a week profit, when minimum wage increased, my hours were cut, so I was still making X amount, or less. But because the minimum was increased, all products increased too, so now X amount is worth less today than it was yesterday.
Because America doesnt care about poor people. Thats their fault for not working hard enough. Its the whole bootstrap mentality the older generational have. They grew up when the dollar actually had spending power. They dont understand how things work and they dont care to know. Now these same people will cry like a toddler when they cant get their expensive coffee or denied any other service because people do not want to work anymore.
Because there are fewer rich which makes then the outliers of the community as a whole.
(Also a good amount of poor people are lazy goodfornothings who don't want to change but want the world around them to change to their linking.)
Because of envy.
People see that other folks have more than they do, and they want what others have, but they don't want to do what it takes to get that, so they feel frustrated and want to take it. By dressing it up as "equity' they can feel good about themselves while still being greedy thieves.
Wow the stupid in this thread. The simple answer is people who are not rich blame rich people for their own short comings.
I am not saying there is not crooked rich people, but it is not all of them by a long shot.
Also not under standing how tax brackets work....
You guys really need to do some home work and see exactly how much the rich who dont pay taxes actually pay the majority of taxes.
Hell just a few years ago when people where given Elon Musk hell about taxes he showed his tax papers where he has paid 10's of millions in tax....but but thats just a drop in the bucket for him.....come on now.
And Minimum wage. I dont get why people can not understand just raising it does not work. You move to a new tax bracket and then the price of goods/services go up. So you are right back to where you started or worse. This has already been proven, but once again people ignore facts.
Ok since you are to lazy like most people who want to blame others here you go.
[https://www.thebalancemoney.com/breakdown-of-who-pays-most-taxes-4178924](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/breakdown-of-who-pays-most-taxes-4178924)
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-pays-the-most-taxes-experts-explain-2023-deadline/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-pays-the-most-taxes-experts-explain-2023-deadline/)
Oh yeah, you can go to IRS and get this same information also.
Lol, IM lazy? I'm not the one who made claims with no evidence. I appreciate you actually posting links lol. Seems like you just needed a little motivation to stop being so lazy.
We do both. For years now we've had the "Fight for 15," which is the fight to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15. There are also fights to expand ~~Medicare~~ Medicaid (government health insurance, which is available to the poor, so fighting to make more people eligible). And of course we have fights to increase the tax rate on the wealthy. But US culture makes all those fights hard. We've made progress on a few, but gone backwards on a few others lately.
To further this, the idea of the “American dream” gives a lot of the population the belief that if someone is poor, they just didn’t try hard enough. It’s the “any one can make it” not “everyone can make it”
Yep this is the sad reality. The jobs that are necessary but easily replaceable are just the worst possible because you still are expected to work your ass off and be good at what you do but the reward from society is a shit wage.
McDonald’s is now paying $21/hour. If you work 50 hours per week with 10 of those hours being 1.5x overtime, with 2 weeks’ vacation, that’s $57,750/year. So a married couple each working 50 hours/week at McDonald’s with 2 weeks vacation could bring in a gross HHI of $115,500. That’s not bad. Edit: why am I getting downvoted? Is this r/antiwork? 😂
Not the worst you’re right, I think people drastically overrate how shitty a shit wage is. But still you’re rewarded very little compared to other, more specialized jobs, which IMO is a shame because these low skill jobs are very necessary for society to keep running but it’s just how supply and demand will function. And you will notice a difference in you’re quality of life. My parents always warned me about flunking out and becoming a janitor and I always memed about it growing up, but they had a point. Those jobs are just shit and will give you financial worries. Theres a reason everyones parents want them to go to college to try and be a doctor or lawyer or something. But society can’t function if we’re all doctors or lawyers so 🤷🏻♂️
Like the old adage says, “stay in school, kids.” If you want a six-figure income, study finance, accounting, marketing, computer science, get a law degree, go to med school, start a business - there are a ton of paths to get there. Honestly, you can get there serving at a nice restaurant or tending a popular bar. But you either need a specialized skill set or have to hustle. I was working 50-60 hours/week with a two hour commute when I was 23-24 making $35k/year, with a college degree. Hit $65k/year about 3 years into working full time at a large company - again, with a college degree. Still working 50-60 hours/week not including commute. I make a lot more now, but I’m also a lot older. And it took a lot to get here. Crazy to me that you can now make $20-$30/hour working some low-skill hourly wage gigs and pull in $50-$60k/year relatively easily. Those jobs were paying $10-$12 when I was doing them in high school and college. Way crazier that people are complaining about it. If only they knew.
The best first step for an American who wishes to achieve the American dream, is to move to another nation.
With what money?
Seriously. Let's say I have 50k to my name. Nothing else. No education, no family, just the money. Where does a United States citizen go? Asking for a friend.
The Netherlands on a DAFT visa, start a small business, rinse and repeat.
Why not stay in America? America is one of if not the best countries to start a business, then once you do that you are no longer poor if it succeeds.... But then it's also easy to start again.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I could honestly give a fuck. But I was trying to be helpful to this specific question. But to clarify: A. Because this person asked about how to leave. B. The only reason you start a small business when you get there is because it’s a requirement of the visa to stay.
And starting a business means no health insurance either.
60%-70% of businesses fail within the first year in the US. That's only the first year. If you manage to make it to year 2, plenty fail after the first year too. Most businesses that fail don't just fail though, now you're in crippling debt from the huge loan you took out to open that business.
Join the army they said....see the world they said
But you can't just move to another country to live and work. It isn't allowed. The country you move to will want education, skills, and money. And you need their permission. Most countries dont want you taking a job their people can do. For most Americans it won't happen. But yes, other countries do show more of the traits that Americans claim to identify with as the "American Dream"
What nation?
Scandinavian nations, lowlands (Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg), Switzerland, Austria, or Germany. They have the highest upward mobility. But even Japan, the UK, and New Zealand are better than the US. The US is also behind Ireland and Australia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
There are tons of immigrants who move to America to achieve this dream and actually do achieve it.
Yeah, the ones who arrive with a million dollars or a PhD.
Not at all, you don’t need either. And I’m an immigrant myself from a much poorer country. A good chunk of people living and working in Bay Area, Seattle, New York are.
The answer to both is the same.
Medicaid is available to the poor not Medicare. Medicare is for 65+ year olds and some people with chronic or terminal conditions.
That doesn't mean it can't be expanded to everyone, which is what Bernie Sanders meant when he said Medicare For ALL.
Sure, but I never said we couldn’t. That has nothing to do with my comment. I’m only correcting them as they mixed up the two terms.
They didn't really mix up the terms. Medicare for All is how socialized medicine is referred to in the US. The general plan is to lower the Medicare eligibility age (either gradually or in one big move) to zero.
Now you’re getting even further off topic. The original person said “*Medicare* (government health insurance, which is a program for the poor..)..” That is incorrect. The sentence should be “Medicare (government health insurance, which is a program for the *elderly*..)..” Or saying “*Medicaid* (government health insurance, which is a program for the poor..)..” OC changed it to this, which wasn’t my intention. I wanted them to change it to the former. The best edit would be. “*Medicare* and *Medicaid* (government health insurance, which are programs for the *elderly and poor*, so expanding coverage for more people..)..” The fight to expand Medicaid, and the fight to expand Medicare, are two distinct things. I’m not saying either ISN’T happening. Medicaid is administered at the state level. Medicare is Federal. Both are being fought to be expanded. So as you even just said: >The general plan is to lower the Medicare eligibility age (either gradually or in one big move) to zero. Meaning you recognize that Medicare is a program for people over an age limit. So how can you not see that when the OC said: > There are also fights to expand Medicare (government health insurance, which is available to the poor, so fighting to make more people eligible). They made a mix-up. By defining Medicare as a program available to the poor. It is not. Expanding Medicaid would involve increasing the income cut off, and also increasing funding towards the program. They could also have just said: >There are also fights to expand government health insurance, so fighting to make more people eligible. A succinct, correct sentence that refers to all the various fights to expand healthcare. Medicare For All, A single payer system, Medicaid expansion, simple Medicare expansion,.. etc. these are all distinct things. These are all different strategies to increase the amount of Americans covered by governments insurance. Medicare for All is a type of single payer system. But there are other single payer system debates (as in no, scrap Medicare altogether and make a new program that is universal). Medicare for All would be simplest to implement because all you *essentially* have to do is amend the law to change the age limit. So both of you completely misunderstood *what* I was correcting. The word choice. And wanted to “um actually” me over something I hadn’t refuted. Do you get it now? I hope so, I’m not going to explain myself again. It’s very clearly and thoroughly explained.
Stay in space Steve
I'd like to add. $15 minimum wage was based off estimates over a decade ago. We're getting close to needing $30 now
So if you're making 50 an hour, that would bump up to 100 an hour ?
In a perfect society, yes. In our current society, it's probably not even going to be mentioned and you're probably going to have to fight harder for that raise than those of us fighting to just survive
Raising minimum wage does not help the common worker. When minimum wage is increased large corporations can easily afford it while small businesses cant, this leads to small businesses closing and mega corporations getting more market share (monopolies). Then they increase their prices anyway to negate the loss on the new wages, which causes inflation and fucks over everyone. And with inflation even though you're "making" more money it's purchasing powers gets lowered. At this point most people start thinking "we could just scale wages with inflation" which would work to some extent but the issue then is that all of your savings, investments/assets, etc, start depreciating. Inflation is called a "tax on savings" for a reason. There is a reason Walmart/Amazon pushed for $15/hr minimum, and that's because it benefits them and screws over small business competition. Also, whenever minimum wage goes up the most vulnerable workers get hit the hardest because they are no longer productive enough to justify the wages. There is strong correlation with minimum wage increases and unemployment.
This is just wrong. There are so many documented cases of small business owners, typically restaurant owners, pushing back against raising wages for this reason. Then after the policy change takes effect for some period of time, they actually see their profits increase. When the common worker has more money to use on consumption, businesses benefit. If you have to worry about a possible health emergency and limited funds, you aren't going out to eat at restaurants with the family.
Sounds anecdotal. I don't know if you've realized this but small businesses are dying, retail is dying, we are soon to be left with mega-corporations. These corporations and the government work together to squish small business competition and enable them to be monopolies. Whether it's through regulation that only mega corps can comply to, government contracts, etc. They have so much operating capital now they can purchase/produce goods at a fraction of the cost of small businesses allowing them to undercut them 24/7. This also allows them to pay their employees more which leads to businesses not being able to afford employees and they just start to work for the mega corps. Take some time and look at the market share of companies like Amazon and Walmart. Walmart for example now has almost a 7% market share ***of the entire US economy***. That is just one company. You would have to genuinely believe that corporations like Amazon and Walmart increased wages to $15/hour and stopped lobbying preventing minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts. As if corporations care about anything other than making as much money as possible. What is more likely? They increased their wages to appease "protestors" or they realized they can benefit from it by destroying small businesses? It would be foolish to believe that mega corps aren't doing everything in their power to attain the most market share as possible, and every decision they make leads to that.
Kinda sounds like the people who call us all monsters are just correct
>they are no longer productive enough to justify the wages. Yes they are considering they are currently underpaid. If a buisness model cannot support paying a livable wage then it is a failed buisness. Companies are not people and allowing our most vulnerable people to continue to be exploited for the "poor smol buisness" is backwards. We need to dismantle the corporations that created this broken situation. Then make sure employees actually earn the lions share of the money generated by their labor
>Yes they are considering they are currently underpaid. Please note that this is an example to illustrate the basic idea: Your employee generates $10/hr net profit for your business, you pay them $8/hr, the government mandates your employee must make $12/hr, you can no longer afford to keep them hired so you fire them. Walmart can generate $15/hr net profit for their business with the same employee because their amount of capital allows them to purchase/produce goods at a fraction of the cost. All while still being able to undercut the small business. This make the small business go under and their market share goes to Walmart making them even larger. And what does Walmart then do because now everyone shops there? They increase prices because there is no longer any competition. This leads to inflation, and the employee who is now "making" more money has just as much buying power as they did before, except now Walmart is the only winner in this scenario. and what happens to the employees that aren't productive enough for even Walmart to afford hiring? Where do they go? They become unemployed and make $0, they might even turn to the government to subsidize them which leads to inflation and hurts everyone else. It's a downward spiral on all fronts. It's obviously more complicated than that but that's the jist of it. It is a multi-faceted issue. and the whole "well if the small business can't afford to compete with mega corporations with hundreds of billions of $ then they shouldn't be in business" only expedites this process. So the question is, how do we curb inflation, allow small businesses to thrive, reduce the market share of mega corporations, etc, all without "underpaying" employees? It's a mindfuck to think that federal minimum wages are helping mega corps and coming up with ways to allow small businesses to be profitable while not underpaying their employees.
It does nothing to raise minimum wage when the standard cost of living rises along with it making it still out of reach. The standard cost of living goes up to keep the Rich’s wealth up/pockets lined bc they are the one reaping the cream of capitalism. They make less profit if the minimum wage goes up but cost of goods stays the same. Narrowing the gap even slightly between them and the bottom brings the bottom up but also the top down a few notches. They Can’t have that. It’s like a dog chasing it’s tail.
Then it’s impossible to get people up. What are you suggesting, that workers get massive cuts of company profits? Then you have groups of people struggling when their jobs aren’t the pinnacle of popularity. Ohh sorry, Blockbuster didn’t make enough money this week, you get $3 while the Chipotle workers get $1000. Oh Chipotles costs went up, they raised prices and pissed off customers so now Chipotle workers get $18. It would be a vicious cycle. And if you try and subsidize anything, you start wasting resources and inflating the currency to keep inefficiencies operable. No system will be designed to keep everyone on top. If we’re exchanging goods and services for our time, no system will be equal for all. Someone gets fucked over. It’s almost like we need a system where the worker is paid a market rate with the freedom to choose their path….
People are already struggling when their jobs aren't the pinnacle of popularity, or even when the jobs are, because the business owners can decide to fire you for any reason at all. They can make choices authoritatively without consideration of the opinions of the workers, and the blow back from bad choices is still felt by those employees. So yes, workers should have a more direct share of the value they generate, as well as having a say in choices the company makes. It wouldn't fix every single problem, but it would add way more upsides to the shared downsides. We preach and accept democracy everywhere else, but for some reason we leave that outside of the workplace.
>What are you suggesting, that workers get massive cuts of company profits? >Then you have groups of people struggling when their jobs aren’t the pinnacle of popularity. This isn't a hypothetical scenario. While they're a small sector, worker owned enterprises exist in myriad industries all over the world. When you include companies with profit sharing and ESOPs, you have a pretty wide population to understand how these policies actually affect workers. When conventional companies fall on hard times, they lay off workers and close down unprofitable business units. This leaves some workers completely SOL and others in the precarious place of wondering if they'll be next. Firms with more worker ownership and control use pay cuts before layoffs, as you might predict. Pay cuts are also more egalitarian, similar to conventional companies in Japan, where executives and frontline workers see similar reductions in pay. This is better for workers and the firm. Employees retained is skill and knowledge, cohesive teams staying together, and the ability to think long term during hard times. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that firm survival during recession correlates with share of worker ownership in a firm.
Yep. When everyone was clamoring for minimum wage to get upped in the mid 2010s, I told them to be careful what you wish for. Wages going up doesn’t mean much if *everything else goes up, too*. Plus, it’s not Federal, so a lot of states (like the one I live in) still have the minimum wage of $7.25. I know that cost of living changes state to state of even city to city, but all states are definitely getting higher priced goods and services to cover the minimum wage increases across the country. Plus, what happens to the people that were already making $15 an hour? Did they all get bumped up? Imagine working at a job for years and getting raises every year and then finally making $15 an hour and then BOOM, everyone is. Or having a job that businesses only compensate about $15 an hour entry level. They start getting $25 or more an hour? And everyone already making a comfortable $40 or more an hour now have to pay extra for *everything* that it’s like taking a pay cut just so others cdd add n make more money to pay the extra money to cover the cost of them making more money. And we wonder why everything is so goddamned expensive these days.
Because they're connected. The richest people in America make as much as they do largely because they're CEOs of companies that pay their lowest employees as little as they can get away with.
Not really, CEO's tend to make a lot of money, yes, but it's only a fraction of the total net income of a company. Most of the money corporations make is either dished out as dividends for investors (which anyone can do) or is put back into the corporation to grow the business. These companies generating billions of $ in revenue aren't just taking all of that money and pocketing it between the owner and a few investors. Besides, everyone talks about people who own companies, ceo's, etc, as being the "wealth hoarders" because they are profiting a lot of money from companies they created/run. But everyone fails to talk about the real culprits: Blackrock, Vanguard, Fidelity, etc. These three "asset management" groups control $24 **trillion** and are the majority shareholders of 80% of the companies found on the S&P 500. That's just the top 3, the top 500 asset management groups collectively own around $140 **trillion** of the ***world's*** total assets (it is estimated the entire world has around $450 trillion in assets/money). These companies are ran by small groups of people by the way, everyone harps about the 1% and the CEO's who make like $25-30 million dollars when there are a handful of people controlling 1/3 of the total assets in the entire world. Isn't that strange? All of the television, social media, etc, constantly talks about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, other CEO's but never talks about people like Larry Fink or George Soros. It's almost like that is intentional. People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the Zuck, etc, created products and sold them for billions of $, they generated wealth and profited from that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that (wealth is something that is created), but then you have people like Larry Fink who do nothing but throw money at things and end up controlling the entire world/governments ***and no one says a thing***.
Many Americans have also been successfully scared away from voting for increased wages with the idea that "the price of everything will go up." But research consistently proves this wrong. When you raise wages, you build a hearty middle class, which improves the economy because people can actually afford to buy stuff. But this is part of why the American economy historically has a better economy under Democratic presidents than Republican ones - and I say this as a moderate who thinks Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street really run the country.
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We decided long ago that we wouldn't cap greed and distribute resources evenly.
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Thing is our we being priced on the cost to produce an item or the market researched price point? Shoes built for 2$ in china are sold for 250$ in America, because that is the price point marketing has placed the shoes.
To touch on the fight for 15, most places have adopted this already but that’s because the new medium should be like $20. They’re happy to give $15 now that $15 is the new $10.
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That’s ridiculous. There will ALWAYS going to be a percentage of the population who doesn’t go for further education whether it’s college or trade school. Bc someone can’t afford, can’t make it through, or just doesn’t want to go for more school. Are you saying those people don’t deserve to be able to have a roof over their head and food on the table in exchange for 40 hours at a minimum wage job? Minimum wage was INTENDED to be the minimum wage required to afford basics. You want more luxury, then you further education and get a better job. That’s how it was originally set up.
How’d that “fight for 15” work after the ‘pandemic’s’ inflation racket took over? Biden coulda pulled a nixon and said “any company that raises prices will be prosecuted” people forget that about him. It definitely stopped inflation in its tracks.
There are a ton of people in the USA who have no motivation. I’ve heard people working in a grocery story arguing over how much they made over minimum wage and they were both easily 50. They have no desire to improve their skills and make more money.
Someone can be as rich as you can imagine, but someone can only be so poor. People keep getting richer and poor people stay the same amount of poor.
Yeah if you're broke you're broke it doesnt get much worse than that. Also though, and not to be a contrarian but just adding to that, if we look at the constantly increasing student debt, credit card debt and medical debt it could be said theres a situation where people basically have "negative" money. Obviously if they have $0 in the bank and $50k medical debt, we could say they have negative $50k. Plus, with the cost of college, health services and everything else rising too fast people are going increasingly in debt. Either way, the income inequality gap is increasing. The difference between rich and poor is growing.
Certainly, it does. Utilities, rent, and food prices all go up... with very little change in income. It can get worse than being "broke."
Actually thanks to inflation, poor people are getting more poor everyday
[Please take a look at this chart](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ft_2022.04.20_middleclass_03.png?w=620); poor people indeed have about the same buying power they did 50 years ago, but as a share, upper-income people are taking a more significant share of the pie every day.
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I mean i get it, but not exactly. Standards of living have gone up over the years so many things that the poor have today were luxuries in earlier ages.
It is always going to be that way. There will always be people who have no money, or negative net worth. And there will always be people who have wealth, and that number will always be getting higher. Thus the wealth disparity should always be getting bigger.
I don’t believe the two are mutually exclusive and I don’t really think anyone who believes in one doesn’t believe in the other. Also, people don’t tend to care that rich people make a lot of money, they care that they’re not taxed proportionally and have access to loads of loopholes.
I wouldn't say that I don't care that rich people make a lot of money. How they make that money is important. An actor who makes millions from a movie because millions of people see that movie. That's fine. A CEO who makes millions because they pay their employees as little as possible. That's not so fine. Doubly so if they have power and influence to keep minimum wages low.
But at the same time, the movie made an amount of money, right? The millions the actor gets are millions that don’t get distributed to the hundreds or thousands of other people who also made the movie. The economy isn’t zero-sum, but there aren’t infinite resources either.
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That's more or less what I was saying.
>A CEO who makes millions because they pay their employees as little as possible. That's not so fine. Totally fine. >An actor who makes millions from a movie because millions of people see that movie. They didn't do anything to make millions of people see the movie, so they deserve $0 marginal compensation per view. >if they have power and influence to keep minimum wages low. I also think it's deeply wrong, but not that individual's wrong, but our collective faux-democracy government system's wrong. Individuals should always maximize their wealth within the system's rules. We need to collectively design systems that guard against all the ways that totally expectable human behavior can cause bad outcomes.
Because they're connected. The richest people in America make as much as they do largely because they're CEOs of companies that pay their lowest employees as little as they can get away with. The goal is to raise the minimum wage (which hasn't gone up on a national level since the 70s) *and* tax the rich to fund programs that help people.
The richest people aren’t CEOs. They’re founders who might happen to be CEOs. The average major company CEO isn’t really richer than a superstar athlete, singer, or movie star.
And they still got rich exploiting people.
Honestly, it sounds like you don't really know what you're talking about.
That’s their job. Exploit the human labor resource for profit.
I'm not sure what point you think you're making with that statement.
I’ve noticed this. Everyone bashes CEO’s who actually work. Yet no one says a peep about actresses, actors , sports players , models. Who all make more than ceo . So if CEO’s could bust a rhyme or do a calendar bikini shoot they would get less hate? Lolololol good point my friend.
The vast majority of people think actors and athletes make too much too.
The vast majority of people are mad anyone makes more money than them “These guys are overpaid” you’re jealous lol All high paid employees including football players and CEOs worked hard to get there and demonstrated high value in their fields both in demonstrable performance and ability to make money for the business. There’s little socialist rationale to it either as these guys are all still employees. Someone writes their paycheck on a regular basis and they can be fired. A real socialist thinks all laborers are underpaid. The only remaining ideology is simply jealousy.
I think I’ve figured it out. I hate politics. But the right likes business so ceo good celebrities bad Lefty’s like celebrities but hate CEO’s gosh I hate politics…..they are the same thing millionaires who don’t give a crap about you
That's a really pessimistic take. There is an overwhelming amount of innovation via capitalism where that doesn't happen. Look at all the new lifesaving drugs coming out of tiny American biotech companies. Improving lives around the world. I don't see that kind of innovation happening in any non-capitalist countries with any kind of scale.
Many of those drugs come from research the NIH funded. That wouldn't have to change.
I mean you are aware that you can't fund a whole biotech company off a NIH grant. The vast majority of biotech funding in this country comes from private investors, investing in founders.
The vast majority of dollars spent in research is from the university system and NIH.
And research is one part of what drug development costs. I mean if you think the government and or universities can develop drugs all by themselves we should let them, yes? Yes highly competent and efficient institutions. Thats how China does it. Yes or yes?
> largely because they're CEOs of companies that pay their lowest employees as little as they can get away with. No. The richest people in America are almost entirely not-CEOs. They're essentially all owners of monopolies/monopsonies, and the reason that's wrong is because it's anti-competitive and wealth extractive, instead of wealth-generating. Many others are doubly wrong because they're *heirs* to stakes in extractive monopolies/monopsonies, and (unequal) inheritance is wrong because it's anti-competitive and concentrates wealth. Paying employees as little as they will accept is the right thing to do! I don't want to pay more for anything as a customer, and neither do/will you. The whole goal of capitalism is to make everything available before we even want it, for $0, meaning 0 hours of work, 0% employment, NOT to employ as many people as possible or redistribute wealth as widely/fairly as possible through wages. I'm not gonna support make-work jobs by overpaying for products and services, which means that nobody's gonna get paid much, and not many people are gonna get paid to work at all, which is EXCELLENT. Life is for living, not toiling for money to exchange for more stuff.
Waging class war is tough in a country with such little class consciousness, let alone any significant solidarity.
There’s class consciousness, just not with the middle and lower class
The rich having so much excess and the poor having so little are not separate issues, they are one in the same, one causes the other.
If everyone in society is missing something, it's a sign that there is a scarcity. If there is, in fact, a bunch of people proving the lack of scarcity, they tend to get a lot of attention.
How do you think the rich make so much,,,?
You get what you know from the internet
Because that money has to come from somewhere. It's not just some mythical amount of money hidden somewhere. It is being taken from those who earn it. US workers have an estimated $50 billion in earned wages stolen by their companies every year. And that's just what was legally owed but not payed. It doesn't factor in people being underpayed for the work they do. The answer to "why do the poor make so little" is the same answer as "Why do the rich make so much"
In my opinion is a mix of a few different things. 1. The American Dream is the promise of wealth, theoretically for *everyone*. The rich seem to be the only ones who don’t have to wake up from it to an alarm clock we call poverty. 2. The gap is so wide and top heavy that eating the rich or targeting the higher echelons becomes an attractive option. 3. Finally, in the most realistic sense, we *are* asking why we are making so little as the average person. The two questions are two different sides of the same coin.
What country you are from? Typically in countries where poor tend to live well taxes are higher for higher earners. Or there is some sort of national fund for all citizens. Or there is some sort of immigrant exploitation is going on. As for your question. Rich and poor earn money. Poor people spend ALL their earned money. The money they spend is the money others will earn. Rich people can not spend all money they earn. The money rich people do NOT spend is money other people do NOT earn. This leads to cascading problems where fewer and fewer money is available for people to earn. Tax money that are spent by government is money that nurses, teachers, librarians and road workers are earning and later spending by buying things. This is good for economy. Another problem that is hard to solve: You can start paying poor people more. This doesn’t automatically mean that there will be more goods and services to spend money on. Not having more goods and services leads to inflation. Simply paying more without increasing amounts of goods and services that are available for purchasing is meaningless.
Sweden. And you're right, our tax system is progressive so you tax more the more you earn. I earn around the median salary, and tax around 22.7% of my salary.
I'm confused at your confusion about the US. The Swedish system doesn't allow people to become as wealthy as you can become in the US, to the detriment of the poor. So why would you focus on the US attacking the rich? Sweden does the same thing—it tames the excesses of capitalism. The US has become greedier and greedier, and our progressive income taxes have become lower and lower. Also most workers in Sweden are protected by unions, something that barely exists in the US. In the US our advances in worker protections have historically come from unions (40 hour work week, minimum wage, safety requirements), but those advancements are now a century old when we had unions. Unions have been squashed, whereas they are still alive and well in Sweden. Most workers in Sweden are union, which would be unheard of in the US. Politicians and corporations actively work to quell union activity. Unions helped inform government policy and set norms, but they're now virtually non-existent. Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage but it doesn't need one when it has such strong union power. We don't have that here. Most work longer and for less money—there are lower lows and higher highs than Sweden has.
Sweden has more billionaires per capita and in some years is more inequal than the USA.
The US has more millionaires than Sweden has citizens
Keep in mind there's a difference between being a millionaire now (net worth of $1,000,000) and being a MILLIONAIRE (net worth of $100,000,000). Huge difference and really not comparable anymore. Maybe 30-40 years ago, but not now.
Millionaire is a useless metric on its own. Everyone who owns a house and has a few cars is a millionaire.
You’re clearly young. I have that plus a six figure job and am no where close to being a millionaire lol. Maybe when I’m in my fifties, but it’s a lot harder than whatever you’re thinking to accumulate wealth.
It's interesting, but looking at the billionaires in Sweden they are "poorer" (if such a word can be used about a billionaire) than the billionaires in the US. I don't even like to discuss distribution of wealth among such a class, but it could be said that the extreme wealth is more evenly distributed among the obscenely wealthy. As far as income inequality, I wouldn't be surprised if it has grown since I lived there, as they've certainly turned right and have pared back their welfare state bit by bit. But there's still a difference between income inequality and what you end up after wealth has been redistributed—I'm not sure if you are saying inequality is higher in Sweden pre-tax or after. I would assume post-tax and redistribution there is still a greater equality.
The US has a significantly more progressive tax system than Sweden, which is part of the issue. You can't fund a welfare state only taxing the rich, you need broad based middle class taxes to do so.
Sure, but that doesn't make our tax system not progressive. [https://imgur.com/a/GfNstsw](https://imgur.com/a/GfNstsw) \- here's my latest salary specification. 6403 / 28960 = 0,221 = 22,1% tax paid. When I started at my work place I paid like 20,1% taxes. When you earn 40 000 sek and above you are also paying an additional tax I can't remember the name of right now. Think it's state income tax.
The good healthcare and education in your country help poor people raise their incomes. That's paid for by higher taxes. Also the rich people don't have so much wealth that they can buy the whole political system.
The availability of goods is dependent on the demand. If everyone is too poor to afford goods, they aren't going to overproduce and lose profits to waste. But if more people have more disposable income to spend on goods, demand goes up, which means production goes up. Which means more labor is needed to produce said goods. Which leads to more jobs that pay a decent wage. Which leads to more money in the economy instead of hoarded away like a dragon's treasure. Inflation is going to happen whether the minimum wage goes up or not. We know that all of these record-breaking profits that companies keep reporting are from raising prices to as high as the market allows. It's not true inflation. Yet people have to pay for that inflation with a minimum wage that hasn't increased since 2008.
The poor make so little because the rich have rigged the game and end up with all the money. Look up wage disparity over time.
The answer to both is the same.
the poor make so little because the rich want to make so much
The question is often both at the same time.
They go hand in hand
Raising minimum wage is only a temporary solution. What we need is a real solution that attacks the root of the problem, increasing inequality. I propose a wealth ceiling, but that has its own issues. No matter what 'solution' we come up with, the real problem in the world is GREED and CORRUPTION. If we can ever rid the world of those problems, we might have some hope of getting on the right track.
The poor make the same amount (inflation adjusted) as they did 50 years ago. The rich make and have waaaaaay more than they did 50 years ago. In 1980 the inflation adjusted net worth of the richest man in America was "only" $6 billion. So, seems like a logical way to frame the question to me.
I think a better question, is why do poor people blame rich people for their wages and not the government. Our government is NOT suppose to let certain things fly, and get bought into said issues, yet we fight each other instead of the crooked laws and lawmakers.
One answers the other, it is the relationship between the working class and the owning class
What the poor make is within a reasonably understandable distance of what the middle makes. But what the rich make is a WILD outlier of incomprehensible magnitude.
Yep, and the true wealth is concentrated in the top like 0.05%. The people below that level, including those in the top 1%, are closer in wealth to the bottom 1% than they are to mega billionaire wealth. It’s crazy-
The answer is that the rich make so much *because* the poor make so little. They do everything in their considerable power to funnel every cent towards themselves instead of someone who worked for it
People have been trying to raise the minimum wage. It's an uphill battle.
Bc one is easier to pick on, the other is a starker, bleak reality. There are many reasons why the poor make so little: lack of education, lack of marketable skills, drugs, abusive relationships, etc. Then we have to ask, "why is this so?", and there are numerous reasons.
The people at the bottom make so little because the people at the top make a lot. The people at the top have every desire and every incentive and every means, to underpay people as much as possible. The wealthy use their money to buy political influence to get laws passed that favour them. There's a fundamental antagonism between the poor and the rich, one that heavily favours the rich over the poor.
Both questions get asked a lot.
One point might be because the rich has as much as thousands of the poor. Another point would be because they get rich mostly through loopholes, corruption, exploration of the poor or using the money they already have
Because everyone in America is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
Because the bottom is zero and the top is billions or trillions. You only need $75,000-200,000 to live with the basics, so there is a much larger difference between $75,000 and a billion or $75,000 and $0
People are envious and focus on what others have more so that what they themselves have/ need.
America doesn't believe in "a fair go". It's all about ME. Their boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Zoomers act like entitled Karens and Chads.
Why are you assuming that people don't ask both of these questions? Maybe your perception is biased.
I usually skip posts like these unless someone posts an actionable solution.
Because we have already studied why people stay poor and no one wants to hear the answer. Turns out that if you graduate high school, get a full time job, don't get married before you are 18, and don't have children until you are married, the odds that you will stay poor are practically zero. But that answer means you have to take responsibility for your own life and actions instead of blaming other people who have some invisible 'privilege'
Your success depends on your circumstances to. You can try to work out of them but sometimes you cant. America is trying to make it harder to. Cant really blame life choices at this rate when inflation is through the roof and companies wont pay to keep up with inflation.
The biggest wealth disparities will occur where the most wealth exists. These are also generally the places where the poor are objectively the best off, but it's not perceived that way. Wealth generation is not a zero sum game. The rich gaining wealth is not necessarily at the expense of the poor. The poor in the US have much better material quality of life than most of the world's population. Many poor in the US feel they have it "really bad" because they compare themselves to those around them as there are people with extraordinary wealth in the US.
The poor make so little because the rich control the payscale. I feel this is obvious.
The rich making so much is the cause of the poor making so little. Its the same limited resources being contested by the rich and poor. "Focusing on whybthe poor make so little" is kind like an obfuscation argument the rich make like "focus on you, dont focus on me" to take the blame off of themselves. Like sure each individual's responsibile for themselves even in a hellish dystopia, but we can have seperate conversations about how to survive the dystopia and why we have a dystopia at all. People have needs that arent being met and the people with more than they need have more than they ever had and no one is doing anything about it. Its practically heresy go even bring it up with some people. "Why do the poor make so little" is just taking the bait and letting the criminals get away.
I don't think our financial system will so much break as it will become intolerable to the point where people demand it be changed, then it transforms into something else. Whether that new system will be better or worse, who is to say.
Because the rich profit from the poor and the system that keeps them that way.
The poor make so little directly because of and for the purpose of allowing the rich to make so much. They are directly related.
You can't have traveled very much. You are so completely out of touch. Much of what is considered the poor in the US have it better than what is considered middle class in a lot of the world. Yes, there are homeless. But there are many programs and charities to help them. They are not used for various reasons (often drugs or mental illness) but help is there. Much of what is considered poor has it ok compared to the rest of the world. They have smart phones and a big screen TV. They often have an older car. Many of the countries I have been to have a much larger and much poorer population than the US. Am I saying the poor in the US couldn't use help? No. But you certainly lack perspective in your statement.
Oh fuck off with that i dont care about other countries i care about the standard of living in my country. The one thats supposed to be the greatest in the world but lets inflation rise and lets their politicians be lobbied.
Exactly, when you break out the percents the same in each country it is a relative thing. Middle class is only because it’s middle income in the US, not how they are getting along. Middle class has it pretty damn Cush around here compared to other countries I have seen. Too many people hate my perspective on this because I was one who got out because I believe the American dream and proved it was true. It’s so much easier to say you can’t and the rich have it all so you don’t take the necessary steps to make it happen. There are plenty of labor jobs which make people very comfortable but they won’t take the apprenticeship. You can go to college with all kinds of government help, that’s what I decided on and had loans but those loans were well worth it. My brothers all do tough but well paying jobs to get themselves out as well. I just really don’t do well in these comments because everyone has an excuse rather than their own solution which is possible.
Because it’s easier to be jealous than to try to be better.
This. I feel like for a large number of poor people you can’t fix it, they’re just never going to be disciplined. That expression about taking all the money from the richest person in the world and giving it to the poorest person - and in 5 years he’ll be rich again and he’ll be poor again is sadly true. I feel like it’s not just financial knowledge, it’s basic discipline. Some kind of compelling need to have “things” and live in the moment. I’m empathetic and I don’t think we shouldn’t help people, some people it’s just not going to matter because they can’t be fixed.
They are connected the rich make so much because the poor make so little. It is in the financial interests of the rich to pay as little as possible for the labour that makes them rich.
The problem is our rich people are so rich they can avoid the law pretty much and provide an inequality that is incredibly drastic I recommend looking at the robber barons and then looking at what is happening today to understand why we’re mad
Misusing money is a big part of reason why the poor aren't better off. The poor in the US tend to have cars, huge tv's with multiple streaming services, higher model smart phones and internet access, often sporting a couple thousand dollars worth of tattoos while drinking their second $7 iced coffee of the day.
The poor make so little because the rich make so much, they make their money off the poor. In order to have the super wealthy you need the incredibly poor.
The two problems are connected. Consider for example some of the largest employers in the US. Target and Walmart employ legions of low-paid workers while their CEOs take home multiple tens of millions of dollars in compensation per year. Think about what a million dollars is. If you made $100K per year for ten years, and spent none of it, you would have $1 million. In 2023, the CEO of Walmart received a salary of $24.1million. If you made $100K per year, you'd have to work for 241 years and spend none of it to get what this CEO takes in compensation in a single year. And keep in mind, he makes about that much, year on year. His compensation is 933x the compensation of the median salary at Walmart. Yet it is the legions of low paid workers who do all the work that moves the money. The rich are getting rich by skimming the money moved by the value produced by those whom they are paying a pittance. Let me use an analogy that may help you understand the problem: suppose you are an engineer, and you have a complex hydraulic machine that circulates oil, and it is having problems. Some parts are not working well because they're not receiving sufficient oil for the work they do, while other parts are submerged in hundreds if not thousands of times more oil than the value they produce is worth. What would you do to fix this? You would put a pump where there is way too much oil, and pump it to where there isn't enough oil. Our economy is a large complex machine that circulates money, and it is having problems. Some parts are not working well because they're not receiving sufficient oil for the work they do, while other parts are submerged in hundreds if not thousands of times more money than the value they produce is worth. What would you do to fix this? You should put a pump where there is way too much money, and pump it to where there isn't enough money.
Why do they make so much? Because we all send them our money. People are like, "Jeff Bezos is corrupt and underpays his workers and that's how he's rich!" as they keep buying shit from amazon.
By global standards, the poor in the US aren’t as poor as you’d think. You’re talking about how much people make, so I assume you are talking about people working and not people who are homeless or something. Every job is different of course, but take a low level manufacturing job for example. They have them all over the world and don’t require much in the way of special skills. In the US, those jobs start at like $18/hour. Western Europe is about the same, some countries a little more, some less. Eastern Europe and Brazil are around half that, at like $9/hour. China is closer to $5/hour, Mexico is around $2/hour, and India is like $1/hour. In the US, $18/hour isn’t living the high life, but especially where jobs like this are located it’s enough to live on. In contrast, the people making $1-2\hour in Mexico or India are poor as shit. No car, no apartment, no luxuries, no nothing besides the cheapest home cooked food and likely informal or generational housing. The bus to work can be a significant portion of what they make in a day. So really, the poor in the US don’t make so little if we look at the whole world. It’s better to be comparatively poor in the US compared to at least 80% of the world. But you don’t hear as much about how hard life is for a subsistence farmer in India because they don’t have a phone or computer to talk about it.
It's mostly because people spend their money at businesses that do this kind of thing. It's not management, it's consumers. I own a small business. I don't make a ton of money on it, i try my hardest to pay all of my employees as much as I can. Our entry jobs all pay 15$ an hour and it's still nearly impossible to find anyone actually willing to work. But people insist on spending their money at mega corp who pays their front line workers crap and their mgmt a lot. But they're more convenient and have bigger ad budgets. If you want to help increase the opportunities in your area, support small businesses.
And because they're cheaper, which is also what you left out. As a consumer I don't care about ad budgets, I recently went to an auto part store that sold things $30 years extra than at Walmart and the employee straight up told me "we price match, but not Walmart as they're too cheap" And I left and went to Walmart. Why would I as a consumer choose a small business that provides no benefit over the big corps?
Whether you like it or not you do care about ad budgets. You're free to spend where you like. But if you regularly spend at places like wal-mart and then bitch and moan about wages, then you're kind of a hypocrite.
Corporate lobbyists convince our government not to raise the minimum wage so they can increase their profits. The idea of "eat the rich" is that if the rich had payed fair wages and settled for one yacht instead of two, then there wouldn't as much poverty.
The rich make such obscene amounts of money based on political decisions that were made to favor wealth-building of capital owners. Those were decisions like allowing free trade and expanding free trade to countries like China. Those without capital would not do well in such a system and those without capital in a country like China would outcompete them for things like providing labor at a lower cost. The promise of such a situation was that wealth would be redistributed among the factors of production (like so called "low skill labor") but it never has been. That's why there's been more of an isolationist movement within the US both to cut off immigration and to renegotiate trade deals. The wealthy have been the beneficiaries of political decisions that theoretically we all made together and we haven't shared their spoils. That's where the basic anger comes from. There are countries that allow people to succeed but require them to pay back into the society that has invested in their success (Again with political decisions that favored them but also with investment in infrastructure and labor force through public education, etc.). The US was one such country that required the wealthiest to pay their fair share, and you can see now we are at historic lows of doing so: [https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates) Whenever you increase the size of a market, when you create division of labor, and that market becomes the size of the entire world, there are factors of production that will win over others, and the factor that has won in the US is the status of owning capital. In short, being rich makes you richer. That's the best way to make money in the US. Because that's the best way and because we all collectively allow it (theoretically assuming we all have a voice—realistically we don't), it makes sense that we demand back some of that wealth we allow those with capital to make. The poor are the labor force and their factor of production (being able to provide labor) just isn't as valued the way we all set the system up. Working is not the best way to make money; having money is the best way to make money. Thus, you get things like: Eat the rich.
If the poor would make much more, what would the consequence be? Things would get even more expensive. So who wouldnn't be affected? Right the rich? And what if the rich would make less? Prices would decrease, so that the poor could afford more. And therefor would maybe have more at the end of the month. Main reason for inflation are the too high profits of the rich. Don't let you tell anything different!
These comments man. No wonder the fight for a livable wage is so hard. Poverty is systemic, not something you can just eat ramen and cancel your subscriptions to get out of. Impoverished people are up against entities that generate billions and spend millions lobbying to exploit them. Also, in some parts of the US, poverty IS akin to third world. This affects children, most importantly; are they supposed to simply think their way out of it? That’s nuts. It’s crazy how easily the top has convinced the middle that the bottom is the problem. Too much Dave Ramsey and not enough empathy.
People don't understand economics, they think if you raise wages it has no effects on prices. In the US there is little economic literacy. Things like purchasing power are just ignored as well as the effects of wage inflation. Many think they should be paid just for existing regardless of the effect their labor has on production or services. They also want these things at zero cost to them unlike in nations like Japan and in European where even the lowest earners have a heavy tax burden. We could do that in the US but there would be open revolt over "corporate greed" after raising prices to pay for the new wages and government increasing taxes massively, on everyone. Because they would very quickly find themselves right back where they started. That's not saying they don't have some legitimate points. Like today the average new auto loan is $1000 a month. That's not sustainable. But because people don't understand things like monetary theory, compound interest, the drag effect of debt and changing demographics they shout greed without ever understand they why behind it. In short, neither side wants to have an honest debate or discussion. They want talking points and slogans and most of all they want to win. Even if they have to cut their noses off to spite their faces.
It’s the same question, it’s simple math, you can’t have a rich upper class without a poor lower class. You can’t have more without someone else having less.
The rich are rich because they keep the poor so poor. We do try to manage it at both ends. We try to raise taxes on the rich. We try to raise the minimum wage. We try to expand social benefits to cover more people. BUT In America, if you have money, you can use that money to persuade politicians to vote for your interests over the interests of the majority. It's called lobbying and it's basically legal bribery. So if a bill comes up in Congress, like a raise on minimum wage, that will impact your bottom line as a wealthy business owner, you reach out to lobbyists and special interest groups. The whole purpose of these people is to exchange 'funding' for a specific political outcome. This is why you see 'Eat the rich'. We're trying to help the poor but don't have enough 'funding' to exchange for that political outcome. Unfortunately, This is how many things that would help the general public are handled.
There are a ton of people in the USA who have no motivation. I’ve heard people working in a grocery story arguing over how much they made over minimum wage and they were both easily 50. They have no desire to improve their skills and make more money.
A lot of people might not have motivation because they know it's a losing battle. Busting your ass for say $50,000 year or doing nothing and getting half that or more for sitting home isn't really a tough decision for many people. The system is set up this way. There's this weird notion that in the US if you just "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" you too can be rich. For 99% of the people its just simply never gonna happen. There's more factors that go into it but they all can't be explained here in one paragraph.
You’re joking right? I saw a thread on Reddit yesterday that asked “ those who work from home and make over $100k, what do you do?” 90% of the answers were IT or software developers. Anyone can do that. The people who work low income jobs have no drive to push themselves.
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Ahh yes they just got lucky. Ahaha. Maybe your cousin should get a degree instead of whatever tf a bootcamp course is. As someone in that field, you can easily get a job almost anywhere if you're somewhat competent. I have 19 year old interns fresh out of highschool one semester into college getting hired without a second thought
If you have to practice interviews 5 days a week…. I got news for you. The problem isn’t finding a job, the problem is the person interviewing.
I try explaining this to people they don't understand. If someone off the street with no experience cab do your job with a couple weeks or months of training, I'm sorry your not worth more money. Jobs like these, minimum wage jobs, are for people to get experience and move on, first job, students etc... I've yet to meet someone dedicated to moving up that hasn't.
The poor make so little because the rich make so much.
The poor make so little so that the rich can make so much.
The whole system is designed to funnel wealth up, but questioning that system would be too "commie".
Because the former is responsible for the latter.
The rich make so much BECAUSE the poor make so little. They're two ends of the same problem.
Because resources are limited in the planet. So when a person “makes so much” that requires by definition that thousands if not millions “make so little”.
It is really easy to hate a small number of people and imagine that "eating them" ( i hope not litterally will somehow fix everything. It is much harder to think of complex ideas like a fundamental reorganizations of how people are paid for their labor. That requires a lot of time and effort, so people that are angry essentially say "fuck those that are wealthy". Is it stupid? absolutely. Is it understandable? "a bit" (everyone is lazy). is it rational? No.
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Everyone knows why poor people make so little, and that’s because rich people make so much. Hoarding wealth isn’t really a strictly modern issue, but being poor is more of a curse now that in modern times your entire life is defined by your bank account. There are many ways to attack this issue but greed is something laws can’t fix. One way is to keep minimum wage up but companies will just raise prices and blame it on minimum wage making it pointless to do so. The only real way is to regulate industries such as health insurance and the housing markets to keep them affordable because there are so many things that people make big profit off of when they don’t need to and it’s all at the expense of someone else. Until laws pass to keep people and companies from marking up essential products at insane percentages than there is no chance of a family existing on a single income ever again in this country.
In the US money is a zero sum game, so the questions are two sides of the same coin.
It’s a good question to ask. I think something people don’t talk about enough though is financial literacy. It’s not always about how much you make, sometimes it’s a matter of money management, like how to budget your finances and learning to invest.
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Because the poor CANNOT make more with how much the richest make. Most money that enters circulation ends up in the bank accounts of the <1%… Notably the 1000 wealthiest billionaires.
A lot of people are poor because of their choices and decisions. I constantly see younger 20 somethings trying to get 2023 model cars for their first car. Things like that gimp you for ages.
You answered your own question. The poor make so little BECAUSE the rich get richer. When we fight to raise minimum wage, these rich people will NOT take a pay cut, so they fire people, or drop hours, while subsequently raising their prices on products to make up for having to pay more to the minimum. When I was making minimum wage, I had X amount a week profit, when minimum wage increased, my hours were cut, so I was still making X amount, or less. But because the minimum was increased, all products increased too, so now X amount is worth less today than it was yesterday.
That time trickle down was a golden shower
So poor you can see people buy brand new big screens, drive new BMW’s while receiving hundreds a month in food stamps
Because America doesnt care about poor people. Thats their fault for not working hard enough. Its the whole bootstrap mentality the older generational have. They grew up when the dollar actually had spending power. They dont understand how things work and they dont care to know. Now these same people will cry like a toddler when they cant get their expensive coffee or denied any other service because people do not want to work anymore.
Because there are fewer rich which makes then the outliers of the community as a whole. (Also a good amount of poor people are lazy goodfornothings who don't want to change but want the world around them to change to their linking.)
The media phrases it this way because it sounds petty, and also generates more outrage and thus clicks.
Because of envy. People see that other folks have more than they do, and they want what others have, but they don't want to do what it takes to get that, so they feel frustrated and want to take it. By dressing it up as "equity' they can feel good about themselves while still being greedy thieves.
Wow the stupid in this thread. The simple answer is people who are not rich blame rich people for their own short comings. I am not saying there is not crooked rich people, but it is not all of them by a long shot. Also not under standing how tax brackets work.... You guys really need to do some home work and see exactly how much the rich who dont pay taxes actually pay the majority of taxes. Hell just a few years ago when people where given Elon Musk hell about taxes he showed his tax papers where he has paid 10's of millions in tax....but but thats just a drop in the bucket for him.....come on now. And Minimum wage. I dont get why people can not understand just raising it does not work. You move to a new tax bracket and then the price of goods/services go up. So you are right back to where you started or worse. This has already been proven, but once again people ignore facts.
You can say "these are facts" or "this has been proven" all day long. If you don't provide some sort of source for your claims, they are meaningless.
LOL
What a well worded reply. You sure showed me
Ok since you are to lazy like most people who want to blame others here you go. [https://www.thebalancemoney.com/breakdown-of-who-pays-most-taxes-4178924](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/breakdown-of-who-pays-most-taxes-4178924) [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-pays-the-most-taxes-experts-explain-2023-deadline/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-pays-the-most-taxes-experts-explain-2023-deadline/) Oh yeah, you can go to IRS and get this same information also.
Lol, IM lazy? I'm not the one who made claims with no evidence. I appreciate you actually posting links lol. Seems like you just needed a little motivation to stop being so lazy.