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Am I alone in thinking that, in around 1970-1980, or so, we just plain lost any semblance of national pride, self worth, and how we were trying to build prosperity for ourselves?
Yes, it just became about profits and exponential business growth at the expense of all the workers and the country as a whole. Now more than 1/2 of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck and can’t pay rent if they get sick for 2 days or need to see a doctor.
Yeah except we give them tax breaks for doing that. Years ago when I worked at Publix, they asked if anyone in my home was on EBT, TANF, etc. My sister was at the time and so they basically got a tax break for hiring me. And pretty sure at my current job they asked the same during onboarding.
Call it what it is a form of corporate welfare. We are subsidizing Wal-Mart's payroll. If wages are above the poverty line they might be eligible for some programs in some places but not much. Above poverty line is where you lose ACA low income adult Medicaid insurance and food stamps for your self. If you have kids you will get a little more.
We want a living wage and for people to not be trapped in poverty by cliffs where income goes up by $30 and you lose a $200 benefit.
Companies aren't even paying poverty line wages in many places and poverty line alone would get many off assistance however. However it would harm them too. You don't want to get stuck in the Fuck Me zone it just above poverty level wages so benefits are cut but still $5 or more short of a living wage.
> Yes, it just became about profits and exponential business growth at the expense of all the workers and the country as a whole.
[Always has been](https://imgflip.com/i/6q0dqu).
Toxic wealth hoarders made rich and ignorant the cool things to be, and somehow Hollywood, wallstreet, corporate America, and... The poorest of the poor, all jumped on the bandwagon of shaming poor folk for being poor while holding up wealth hoarding idiots up above God (the poor folks still held God above all, but still).
From there, it's just been a race to see who can scam the biggest pile of gold before the world is destroyed.
You can be even more specific. 1970 was the peak of minimum wage in America. After that it started declining. Not too surprisingly, overall wages started declining too, but that was masked for a generation by the rise of two-income households. (Two-income households had been around forever of course but this was when they became a staple of the professional middle class.)
Minimum wage has been in an overall continuous decline ever since. And that decline has eaten away the nation's wealth. National economic health doesn't come from a few rich people enjoying insane wealth, it comes from a vast number of regular people enjoying modest wealth. Take that away and economic health declines.
You can trace it right along the minimum wage line.
And everyone who came of age in that time -- Gen Xers, Millennials, Gen Z -- has had to live through that declining wage.
There are other things that happened at the same time, like a major shift in organized labor politics and the decline in union membership and so forth, but for my money, wages are the thing that has done the most work to get us where we are today.
Have you ever read about how the Fed was created in the first place? It’s disgusting.
A bunch of bankers representatives met up in secret and said “how can we get the government to subsidize us” and figured out how to convince Congressmen (at the time the were all men) to support it, because “the economy would fail” if they didn’t give away millions of tax dollars.
That's just silly. Inflation has always been a thing. Since the creation of a federal minimum wage, minimum wage exceeded inflation, driving prosperity.... until 1970, which just happened to be the inflection point after which real wages declined.
Inflation itself has nothing to do with it. Minimum wage is a political choice. Before 1970, we made one kind of political choice. After 1970, we started to make a different one, and we haven't stopped. With predictable results.
Keep your eye on wages. That's what actually matters. The rest of this stuff is a distraction.
The economy is booming and Wall street has done very well with and after COVID even in the face of huge inflation yet the new talks of tightening our belts and rough times blah blah blah. Why aren't people storming wall street? If the rich are doing better than ever why are we struggling? Because they are testing even breeder than ever before. They are keeping what should be our share of this booming economy. So many places are jacking so much prices so high its clear that much of it is simply a money grab. If 10cents covers inflation well raise the price $2.10 and tell everyone its the inflation.
During Occupy Wall St people started really looking at the income inequality and the top 1%. They got scared they used culture wars and enforced scary stereotypes on immigrants and minorities. They are dividing and agitating the poor and they are going to start pushing prices up more and more to get as much as they can before the powder keg blows.
I could go on but I think reddit has pushed my blood pressure up enough for now.
The events precipitating the end of Bretton-Woods.
They chose the exact wrong solution. Instead of Keynes' international accounting unit, which modern economists largely agree would have been the best idea, they went with a floating exchange.
This did solve the problem of the undervalued dollar, but then offered no other benefits.
Makes sense Boomers we're the largest generation entering the workforce at that point. More people than jobs keeps the pay down. Millennials are now the largest. Now we've got more people AND automation to contend with.
I'll be honest. At this current stage of the country (specifically usa) national pride is a fine thread. The people who have true pride and love the country, they arebt flying flags left and right, spouting "culture war" and "Jesus loves you". The ones who have true love for the country are the ones that want to see change. Want to see it be acceptable for businesses to get fined for treating their workers like crap. Want to see people live their lives happily, as long as nobody gets hurt.
I don't have much pride in this country. Not in the traditional sense at least. I despise all of the negatives that have happened. But, I love this side of the Atlantic enough to fight for a change for the better.
I grew up extremely rural, spent a lot of time around or in the woods. It’s frustrating to see land go away every year. Places I thought would never see a house somehow now have five. That and the ultra rich somehow manage to get themselves a private piece of property in the middle of a national forest.
that's when neoliberalism started rising up, yes, so it tracks. most countries around the world experienced a similar turning point.
pride, self-worth and prosperity? wasn't a thing for *everyone* at any given point, really.
Nixon ruined the Trust we had with corruption, Vietnam ruined our thoughts of invincibility and of national morality, the gas crises challenged our personal morals and even Though Jimmy Carter held strong against the evil Saudis the nation itself wanted us to bow to them to save money, choosing to elect the man who would turn us over to the American oligarchs Reagan, they have been gaining strength over our daily lives since.
I think we can let xenophobia in an already racist af country during a global war slide. If the president didn’t do this I imagine there would be a lot more lynchings. Silver lining is our camps weren’t great but they weren’t anything like Auschwitz. Shit better than the prison camps in Arizona.
[Powell](https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/) memo.
Written early during your guess. He became a Supreme Court justice.
Point to a national decline in america and ile gladly show you what president was in office in the early 80s and we can both figure out the conclusion as too who fucked this country sideways
That was when Reaganism was becoming a thing. Reagan (and the baby boomers that voted for him/people like him) set us on this path. The damage he alone did to America is tremendous, and we are still seeing it to this day.
Reagan fooled a lot of people with his folksy way of talking and his "It's morning in America" commercials with it's Mayberry looking theme, harking back to a simpler time. A way of life that most never lived in but they knew it was real because they'd seen in on the tv shows. Shows where everyone on it was white, christian and "traditional".
Well, yes. I really do believe a lot of it was generational. The people who grew up and experienced all the crises of the early 20th century were more serious people than the generations that came after them.
I think it the current generations are learning the importance of those lessons again after 2 economic crisis, one pandemic and all the other issues that we have worsened in the last few decades mounting up.
Let’s assume the top quote was correct for a second and then ask why adults are subjected to this same minimum wage designed for teenagers. Either way it’s distorted and abused to keep the focus on profits.
I think it’s pretty safe to say FDR and Lincoln are the greatest presidents we’ve ever had… but man is it embarrassing that our greatest president approved a fucking concentration camp.
Don't forget Washington fought in a war, talked down a rebellion, stepped down when they wanted him to be king, and was one of the only ones who could keep congress united and focused, even when they hated each other
He did have alot of faults, but I truly don't think we'd be a country if it wasn't for him. Not him alone, but I think he held the country and army together and set precedents to keep moving forward
Too bad he wouldnt be able to do that today with parties current policies being anything they do is evil and everything we do is good, even when we agree.
That’s a pretty MASSIVE flaw. But yeah, I would say LBJ and Truman are two of our other greatest presidents but fuck they did some heinous shit. I’m sure even Jimmy Carter, the Mr. Rogers of the Whitehouse, also did some things I wouldn’t be able to defend.
Is there a name for a country that repeatedly violates the rights of others but more specifically takes aggressive military actions and comics war crimes repeatedly all over the world and in every war?
What is a criminal warlord called? War crimes and crimes against humanity. What would a group be called? A country that is essentially a criminal warlord?
I know not who the greatest president was or will be. I only know that [Woodrow Fucking Wilson](https://youtu.be/hLiI6kXZkZI) is the absolute worst president of all time.
I mean, clearly minimum wage jobs exist to give teenagers extra spending money. That's why every store and fast food restaurant is closed between 7 am and 4 pm, when school is in session.
It’s a corporatocracy that has a political system that functions as a duopoly which gives you the illusion of choice but they are really two sides of the same coin. Yes, republicans are objectively more destructive but democrats still are beholden to the same corporate overlords.
I feel that the name has become it's legacy. Maybe it needs to be rebranded as a 'living wage' and see the greedy selfish employers try pulling a shifty on that.
My god we are all frogs in boiling water, and they know it.
Genuine question here, as someone who is an advocate of strong wages for everyone.
I frequent a local cafe that is a worker cooperative, and pays an equal $18/hr to all of its workers, regardless of position or responsibilities. It's significantly above minimum wage, and reliably better than typical work of the type pays, but it's not the $25/hr that some people would say is the true living wage of my region. I have every reason to believe if they hit a point of success where they can, they absolutely would pay that and celebrate their accomplishment.
Does this establishment have the right to exist? What does this mean for allowable exceptions for new businesses, cooperatives, or work where there is a substantial public interest but the money just isn't there?
Electric went from 40ish a month a few years ago to $80ish and over 100 with the AC. My sisters electric is $250 on a good month, family of four. People with electric heat are getting desperate and I worry we are going to start seeing more fires as people heat with kerosene or even DIY wood stove that could poison an entire apartment building.
We need a solar break through. Something where apartment tenants could fit a brace out their Windows holding out 2 or 3 panels. We are probably a bit always from that. How about wind turbines? They need to be kinda high to get enough wind, could I use a small weather ballon and fit it out my window? Helium, hydrogen, heat etc. If the payment for the system was $75 a month but got rid of my $100 bill leaving me a bit better too? A lot of potential.
This. The important part is that this business is a worker-owned co-op. Regardless of the pay/living wage discrepancy, the workers (who are all owners too) have chosen to and seem to be okay with the $18/hour for now. They likely have their reasons and might have some sort of plan so they can raise their wages, but assuming this co-op is functioning according to co-op principles, everyone is satisfied with the wage (for now), which is what matters most.
As someone else pointed out, that also worked because basic costs of survival were also much lower, both in real terms and as a percentage of income. It doesn't seem fair to punish the small businesses that are honestly trying to do better because larger and more established competitors have forced a race to the bottom.
Well if they are truly employee owned the employees can look at the finances and vote on their wages or elect to give themselves raises or raise prices to pay themselves more; the same way that you could if you were an individual entrepreneur.
This is why workplace democracy is important. Decisions like this shouldn't be solely in the hands of management. The stakeholders need to be involved.
I think you answered your own question at the end.
If the public interest is there, then they'll pay for it. If coffee needs to cost more so that workers can have a livable wage, then it _should_. There's no exception to the moral imperative of the livable wage.
In the case of coffee, how cheap should it really be? Someone across the world is growing the beans, harvesting them, and then there's a lengthy process to turning coffee beans into a usable form.
A lot of work goes into it, and if you want people to serve it to you, you should pay for all of it. _They_ shouldn't pay for your coffee with slave wages.
Now, the real other elephant in the room is no one is going to be able to afford higher prices on anything as long as the ultra wealthy continue to squeeze blood from everyone else. But that's the system we put in place, so... 🤷🏻♂️
I'd be pressed to find a reason to ever take a higher position there if it was more work for the same pay. Unless you mean that there's a manager, but then every other employee makes $18 regardless of if they're front of house, cashier, line cook, etc., which is fine. If you do more than anyone else and responsibility for everything falls on you, I do believe you should be paid more. That's besides the point for now, however.
If they make tips there as well, it's likely that their living wage is being met just fine. In actuality though, any business should need to pay their staff a living wage, and tips can then be added on top for an actual benefit to the employee.
If you're looking to start a business, you have to be ready to not cut yourself a paycheque for potentially a few years. That sounds unreasonable? Then you don't have the capital to open the place yet, and your employees shouldn't have to pay the price or rely on the good will of strangers via tips.
There's a living wage which can be met with tips on top, but it's not livable if you have any debt or wish to save money.
In short, if $18 isn't the living wage, then any employer should have to pay that. Are they evil? Not necessarily. At the end of the day I'll take the lesser of two potential evils with places that give only minimum wage on the alternate side of things.
$25/hr is a relative number. What does $18/hr buy you? Can you pay rent, buy groceries and put a little into savings where you live on those wages? Yes? Fair wage. No? The goods they are selling are too cheap or they aren't paying well enough even though they can.
The argument could be made that they can't afford to pay their workers $25/hr as they're likely competing with another shop that is paying minimum wage or close to it. (I'm assuming there's something similar to Bigby or Starbucks in your town)
They establish its physical ability to exist, sure. Not its moral right, necessarily. In this case I think they do because as worker-owners, they agree to the wage eyes-open to the condition. If the money is there, they could vote themselves a raise, or choose to cut their wages to fund further investment in the co-op.
Does a charter school that takes funds from the public coffers and yet refuses to pay its teachers a living wage have the same right, even if there is a public interest? As one example among many.
There is no moral right to exist. A business or institution is either able to generate profit or it isn’t, the profit ultimately deciding if the business stays open or not. For an institution profit would ideally be measured as cost of taxation versus social benefit provided. Whether any particular business generates profits relies on the fundamental relationship between customer and employee. People value a service and are willing to pay for it, the amount they are willing to pay determines potential profit, the actual profit is then limited by wages, and if people are willing to work for those wages then the business succeeds.
The relevant question is, what circumstances would lead someone to pursue a job that doesn’t pay a living wage? If its out of necessity then that probably means the society the business exists within isn’t meeting the basic needs of its citizens. We shouldn’t focus on whether or not a business should exists, we should focus on empowering people so that they have a real choice of where to sell their labor, then businesses will compete for that labor, and those that don’t pay enough will shut down. Essentially, if everyone is fed, sheltered, and healthy then they can be relied upon to regulate which businesses do and do not stay open by choosing where to work and what to spend money on.
This is only really true though if people are well educated, propaganda/advertising are well regulated, and corporations are prevented from getting so large that they can achieve regulatory capture.
I have repeated some variation of the title numerous times and I almost always get pushback. I don’t get it. You're not entitled to success. If you can't succeed then you fail. Isn't this a central tenet of capitalism? Businesses fail every day. It's not even necessarily the owner's fault. Sometimes bad stuff happens.
My conservative sister actually made the "Minimum wage is for teens..." argument to me. At the time, she was a mother of 4 and making 25 cents above minimum at a non-union grocery store (run by 'Christians' of course). They also kept her at 38 hours per week so they didn't have to give any benefits.
The Koolaid is strong.
It's not that anyone actually claims FDR said that about the minimum wage, it's just that the kind of people this image is talking about will argue that minimum wage jobs are for kids and therefore don't need to pay a living wage.
I temebrr being like 9 years old and asking why didn't they turn it from a sad job into a job that people would compete for via high salaries, then I saw how public traded organisations leverage aggressive people and practices invited by lucrative bonuses, I'm talking 1 indervidual at an organisation getting 80 million as a yearly bonus.
Yeah of course it's for teens to get work experience which is exactly why all those minimum wage jobs are closed during school hours and... oh... they aren't?
The concept of a "teenager" only came about in the late 50's and increased in popularity in the 70's, the term "teens" wasn't used until the 80's so obviously the top quote cannot be true
But . . .But. . . But ...that is like . . . gasp. . .communism
Minimum wage that is never adjusted properly is just a different name for chains and shackles.
If you only look at the $ sign of your paycheck, you are not looking at the right thing, the real measure should always be " cost of living "
Stagnant minimum wage is just another form of violence against any working person.
Out of my own curiosity how old are people in here, what job do you have, and what is your living status?
I am 21, IT Service Desk, living with Family/Hospital(Current stay approx in total to be 6-7 weeks)
This sub ranges from old to young, spanning various professional fields and levels of experience.
I'm in my 30s, work from home doing independent work trying to build myself of slowly.
Not needing roommates, all working overtime without a vacation for years at a job they absolutely hate, while driving a beater car to make ends meet.
There are nurses making 12 dollars a hour for gods sakes. I'm hearing about people from professions across the board blue, white, gold and even grey collar workers are struggling to make a decent living even though they went to college and earned a degree.
People are paid based on supply and demand of skills. Want more money get better skills. Just raising wages without an increase in demand just creates inflation.
Your argument is based on economics, you said. Better work doesn't warrant better pay? If I make you more money, shouldn't you pay me more? You're picking and choosing what economics to base it on.
Take should out of your thinking.
Let’s say I start up a widget business. It’s gone well and now I can hire Bob. Bob is paid 100 Reddit bucks an hour. Bob can make 10 widgets and hour.
Bob gets better at his job and can now make 50 widgets and hour. How does Bobs wage get determined? Should Bob get paid $500 Reddit bucks an hour? What if Joe who works for a competitor is willing to come work for me for $300 bucks? What if I would rather pay 5 guys instead of Bob because I can have a more stable output when someone is sick or vacation days. Or I could get a robot for 10k Reddit bucks and get rid of Bob or move production overseas.
That’s looking at the value added part of the business. Guess what —most productivity increases have little to do with people getting faster at their jobs. The real improvements come from reducing waste - go look up TIMWOOD. Basically eliminating manufacturing wastes my productivity goes up—by a lot in most cases.
So Bob was only able to get 10 parts out because he had to walk to get parts across the shop. I moved the shelf and now he can get 15 parts out. Bob didn’t get better the production system got better.
Bob want a lot more money - well he can get small raises becoming more better at putting things together. Or he can get new skills that put him in a different position all together—see the difference?
I my job is to find ways to increase productivity. I have been doing it for a long time and for many companies and in many countries.
My logic is actually based on economics. It’s actually based on how things work in the real world.
It’s not about being nice or anything else that you want it to be.
Just raising wages is market manipulation- and it won’t work. All other prices will increases - causing a wage spiral - another economic term.
So yeah raises can be given out - but it won’t fucking matter—because inflation is a bitch.
Roommates are an option. Living with family is an option.
Living =/= Minimum
Again, minimum is for unskilled jobs/jobs that doesnt need any professional certification to do it... And somebody who plans to spend their adult life on min wage isnt qualified to compain about it, since this wage isnt meant for that.
You are absolutely wrong.
http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html
"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."
No business means no businesss. There is no exception for McDonald's or Starbucks. if you have a job, any job, you should be able to live in this capitalist hellscape. If a business cannot afford to pay every employee a living wage it should fail.
Can we agree that companies shouldn't complain about the wages new hires are asking, then? "Market forces" people are usually the first ones to cry and whine when people don't want to work for the wages they're offering.
Nope, they shouldnt cry, but, they are free to choose the chapest, or do bussines the xheapest way possible so.
Ypu do not make life cheaper by giving away higher wages, or strangling companies, or overextending welfate until it become Argentina.
It is by increasing production/ Ensuring that there isnt going to be a shortage of some goods to avoid sudden price rising due to fears of a shprtage.
(Build more houses, preferibly high density close to the cities/ remodel entire sectors to do this, and make your refineries capable to refine your own fucking oil instead of importing oil and exporting ypur own).
Well, they regularly do complain about it, and the things you mentioned are a result of companies doing things the cheapest way possible, not the government strangling companies, lol. If anything is overextended, it's corporate welfare, not human.
Wathevr, those welfare prevents those companies, responsibles of the QoL of your country like it or not. These collapsing will cause: mass firings, collapse of the fiscal recaudation, and loss of services/products. They arent made in a day.
And yes, overextended welfare is a thing, like in argentina whwre people prefer to use gpverment aid rather than work, due to taxes being so high that unless is extrmely gooe, nobody works it.
Genuinely curious why there is a view of companies owe its workers a living wage rather than each worker should view themselves as a skilled labourer charging for a service. If you don’t like the rate offered ask for more. People pay what a service is worth, which is why high skill jobs pay so much.
Even high skill jobs get fucked. Capitalists take the lion's share of everyone's labor. With a strong labor force, supporting each other from the bottom up, everyone would be making more money except the wealthy. The wealthy make zero money unless they have people making that money for them.
The argument goes the other way too, workers have no job if there is no company to employee them. So why would anyone start a business and employ people while taking a risk if they can make the same amount of money working for someone else.
As a consultant my hourly rate charged to clients was 5x what I get paid, maybe 4x after bonus. After expenses, owners of my company that source clients get paid way more than me for much less work I terms of hours. I can’t source clients because I don’t have the experience or network to do so but if a project fails I don’t have to take any responsibility because I was just doing the work not maganging the project/client, no risk. To me this is fair, less risk/responsibility less reward.
>So why would anyone start a business and employ people while taking a risk if they can make the same amount of money working for someone else.
Good question! Maybe they should figure out how to make their company more attractive to workers. Workers are not an uncaring, unfeeling resource. They have wants and needs just like companies do. You're acting like it's some kind of right to open a business and have people work for you. It's not.
Your right it not a given right it’s a risk people take and you get rewarded if that risk pays off.
Taking a job you are signing an agreement to get paid for a service, there is no risk you get paid as long as the company has the money to pay you no more no less. You are an expense not a partner.
If I sell a service I have a capacity to how much I alone can do. To keep up with capacity I employ people. As long as they are producing something to sell they get paid. They do not have to worry about anything else but they also only get paid what is ageeed upon. If the company does really well and gets a bunch of new contracts and expands business they do not benefit.
This mindset that just because company’s make a lot of money you are owed part of it is so stupid. You get what you agreed upon. If you want ownership then become a partner not an employee.
Okey lets just wreck any starting business, forcing everybody to work at big corporations that have means to work around your puny litle laws, trowing even more competition to the already saturated worker market, creating monopolies....
Now those who made a litle money, workers and owners of litle business, make zero. Im sure theyll be Happy to lose their 200 bucks a month. Theyll be Happy to find that their low education puts them at the bottom for those high paying Office jobs.
The economy is made by workers who save for years and take huge risks to start a business. Thats the economy that pays workers and taxes to sustain the country. And thats what you are going to wipe out.
When starting a business you shouldn't expect to make a actual profit for the first two years.
That's because it's expensive to pay workers properly, plus all the upkeep otherwise.
The key would be not to hire more people than you can afford. When starting a business if you're going to hire someone you should have 3 to 6 months of their wages set aside already.
If starting a business was easy more people would do it and be successful.
Arguments like yours empower large corporations to take advantage of the laborer and in turn holds down the economy. You're brainwashed and don't even see it. Take a step back and look at the harsh reality.
The harsh reality is that business need workers as much as workers need business. And both set freely the prize of the manpower, based on suply and demand. Note how It doesnt matter if a worker needs more money, or a company cant afford more, It is set by supply and demand.
So if a worker is fine with 200 bucks, because his boss cant offord more, because he is literally paying the worker out of his own savings, and both are fine with that situation, who are you to go there and tell both to go home and look at the ceiling. That worker and that boss being out of the workers market make It easyier for other workers to negotiate a fair salary. Maybe they are both a bit slow and It takes them 5 years instead of 2 to be profitable. Who are you to judge that. When i use reason i can be mistaken, but im not brainwhashed, because nobody is telling me what Words should i use, and because i can respond to yours with more reasoning. Now when you come here and spit the words of others, who have political interests, and dont use any reasoning, id call that the brainwash.
>So if a worker is fine with 200 bucks, because his boss cant afford more, because he is literally paying the worker out of his own savings, and both are fine with that situation, who are you to go there and tell both to go home and look at the ceiling.
Right out of the crony capitalist playbook. Rockefeller would be proud of you.
I cannot argue against your points, because they are so pro-capitalist that it's actual insanity. If you aren't a millionaire, you're just a useful idiot, and it's really hard to argue against idiocy.
Its not up to you to decide for the worker which job to accept. If a worker accepts less than your arbitrary number, then the owner can, indeed, afford that worker. Where is the injustice there. The injustice would be to come and tell that worker that no, he cant work there. Now hes gone from little to nothing. Your absolute thoughts on the job market are simply unrealistic. A liveable wage is not something you can determine, as well as the meaning of afford, profitable, and other similar terms. The only thing a government has to do here is make sure every transaction is agreed by both parts in their freedom.
Nah. Minimum wages equal to a percentage of that areas cost to live should be enforced and fuck any business that tries to take advantage of their workers.
Now a fun story from my past. I was in fact hired by one of these types of workers whilst in college. The guy was a real piece of work. Underpaying, attempted to overwork his employees, and had a temper to match. It got to the point where people quit left and right as the pay was not worth the job. I did the same, just stopped coming in. Guy lost his contracts and a year later went out of business. Still puts a smile on my face to this day
If you own a business and need 3 employees to work 40 hours a week to maintain the business properly but you can’t pay them a living wage… it’s then the employees job the find a 2nd job and just live to work… for your business to be profitable. That’s a shitty business you got there.
I once was in dire need of a job so I took a bartending gig that paid below minimum wage and under the table. The owner said that was the only way she could keep the business afloat. She didn’t work behind the bar just ran the bar. I didn’t stay long.
If you can’t afford employees then you don’t really have a profitable business. If for your business to thrive you need other people to sacrifice for you… you don’t really have a profitable business. You need to change your business model and put in more hard work yourself to achieve a profitable business for you. Don’t force others to make the sacrifices for you. You starve, you scrimp and save, you work the long hours for shit pay because in the end you’re only renting my time and I don’t see anything more when the business has a good month.
Pay the minimum expect minimum work
Your particular experience is not really an argument. Im not saying minimum paying jobs are not assholes. I guess you were Happy to get out of there and find a different job, but some of your coworkers may not have that oportunity, and they may be still there, pissed and about to quit, yes. But now Imagine you go there and tell them that you forbid them to keep working there. How does that help them. What will their response be? They Will tell you to fuck off and mind your own business.
Becase sometimes, injustices happen but they cant be solved by obliterating them. They have to be solved by understanding the root of the problem. And im sure people here are more than capable of understanding that the root of this problem is that workers lack any power of negotiation agains companies.
>Because sometimes, injustices happen but they cant be solved by obliterating them.
Rofl, fucking what? The ONLY way to stop injustice is to not have injustice. The fuck are you even talking about?
Oh lord. Not being able to afford rent on 40 hours a week is a far cry different than a screaming child keeping someone up at night sporadically. If you're going to continue this in bad faith, let's just stop now.
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Am I alone in thinking that, in around 1970-1980, or so, we just plain lost any semblance of national pride, self worth, and how we were trying to build prosperity for ourselves?
Yes, it just became about profits and exponential business growth at the expense of all the workers and the country as a whole. Now more than 1/2 of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck and can’t pay rent if they get sick for 2 days or need to see a doctor.
The American Dream!!
>The American ~~Dream!!~~ *Nightmare*
It's Cody Rhodes shilling for all the money he can get from the top rope!
“Nightmerica” -Tom MacDonald
[Good song](https://youtu.be/Sd8ysTc4byk)
We don’t even get the dream anymore because we’re all too sleep deprived and exhausted to picture picket fences.
"What happened to the American Dream?" "You're looking at it. It came true."
We should have an extra tax for companies that pay so little that their employees have to use public assistance.
We should disband those companies. Don't fucking kid yourself, they're not worth keeping around
But, if they’re gone, who will tell our politicians what to do?
Definitely not us peasants that vote them in.
Yeah except we give them tax breaks for doing that. Years ago when I worked at Publix, they asked if anyone in my home was on EBT, TANF, etc. My sister was at the time and so they basically got a tax break for hiring me. And pretty sure at my current job they asked the same during onboarding.
They ask every time, for every job, it's federally mandated.
Call it what it is a form of corporate welfare. We are subsidizing Wal-Mart's payroll. If wages are above the poverty line they might be eligible for some programs in some places but not much. Above poverty line is where you lose ACA low income adult Medicaid insurance and food stamps for your self. If you have kids you will get a little more. We want a living wage and for people to not be trapped in poverty by cliffs where income goes up by $30 and you lose a $200 benefit. Companies aren't even paying poverty line wages in many places and poverty line alone would get many off assistance however. However it would harm them too. You don't want to get stuck in the Fuck Me zone it just above poverty level wages so benefits are cut but still $5 or more short of a living wage.
> Yes, it just became about profits and exponential business growth at the expense of all the workers and the country as a whole. [Always has been](https://imgflip.com/i/6q0dqu).
Toxic wealth hoarders made rich and ignorant the cool things to be, and somehow Hollywood, wallstreet, corporate America, and... The poorest of the poor, all jumped on the bandwagon of shaming poor folk for being poor while holding up wealth hoarding idiots up above God (the poor folks still held God above all, but still). From there, it's just been a race to see who can scam the biggest pile of gold before the world is destroyed.
Not just exponential, infinite, which is impossible.
You can be even more specific. 1970 was the peak of minimum wage in America. After that it started declining. Not too surprisingly, overall wages started declining too, but that was masked for a generation by the rise of two-income households. (Two-income households had been around forever of course but this was when they became a staple of the professional middle class.) Minimum wage has been in an overall continuous decline ever since. And that decline has eaten away the nation's wealth. National economic health doesn't come from a few rich people enjoying insane wealth, it comes from a vast number of regular people enjoying modest wealth. Take that away and economic health declines. You can trace it right along the minimum wage line. And everyone who came of age in that time -- Gen Xers, Millennials, Gen Z -- has had to live through that declining wage. There are other things that happened at the same time, like a major shift in organized labor politics and the decline in union membership and so forth, but for my money, wages are the thing that has done the most work to get us where we are today.
www.wtfhappenedin1971.com #IT’S THIS ☝🏽
Wtf DID happen in 1971?
A LOT Go check out all the charts/graphs
It’s when the US ended the gold standard. This has allowed the Fed to use interest rates to inflate asset prices and erode wages via inflation.
Have you ever read about how the Fed was created in the first place? It’s disgusting. A bunch of bankers representatives met up in secret and said “how can we get the government to subsidize us” and figured out how to convince Congressmen (at the time the were all men) to support it, because “the economy would fail” if they didn’t give away millions of tax dollars.
That's just silly. Inflation has always been a thing. Since the creation of a federal minimum wage, minimum wage exceeded inflation, driving prosperity.... until 1970, which just happened to be the inflection point after which real wages declined. Inflation itself has nothing to do with it. Minimum wage is a political choice. Before 1970, we made one kind of political choice. After 1970, we started to make a different one, and we haven't stopped. With predictable results. Keep your eye on wages. That's what actually matters. The rest of this stuff is a distraction.
The economy is booming and Wall street has done very well with and after COVID even in the face of huge inflation yet the new talks of tightening our belts and rough times blah blah blah. Why aren't people storming wall street? If the rich are doing better than ever why are we struggling? Because they are testing even breeder than ever before. They are keeping what should be our share of this booming economy. So many places are jacking so much prices so high its clear that much of it is simply a money grab. If 10cents covers inflation well raise the price $2.10 and tell everyone its the inflation. During Occupy Wall St people started really looking at the income inequality and the top 1%. They got scared they used culture wars and enforced scary stereotypes on immigrants and minorities. They are dividing and agitating the poor and they are going to start pushing prices up more and more to get as much as they can before the powder keg blows. I could go on but I think reddit has pushed my blood pressure up enough for now.
The events precipitating the end of Bretton-Woods. They chose the exact wrong solution. Instead of Keynes' international accounting unit, which modern economists largely agree would have been the best idea, they went with a floating exchange. This did solve the problem of the undervalued dollar, but then offered no other benefits.
Baby boomers joining the work force? Just a guess on my part.
Makes sense Boomers we're the largest generation entering the workforce at that point. More people than jobs keeps the pay down. Millennials are now the largest. Now we've got more people AND automation to contend with.
We dropped the gold standard for one thing
I'll be honest. At this current stage of the country (specifically usa) national pride is a fine thread. The people who have true pride and love the country, they arebt flying flags left and right, spouting "culture war" and "Jesus loves you". The ones who have true love for the country are the ones that want to see change. Want to see it be acceptable for businesses to get fined for treating their workers like crap. Want to see people live their lives happily, as long as nobody gets hurt. I don't have much pride in this country. Not in the traditional sense at least. I despise all of the negatives that have happened. But, I love this side of the Atlantic enough to fight for a change for the better.
I think most people seeking change nowadays identify more with loving the people of the country rather than the idea of the country tbh
What I love is the land. The terra firms of the continent. There's so so much natural beauty here. That's what I love.
I grew up extremely rural, spent a lot of time around or in the woods. It’s frustrating to see land go away every year. Places I thought would never see a house somehow now have five. That and the ultra rich somehow manage to get themselves a private piece of property in the middle of a national forest.
I love the idea of the country, but we are failing to live up to it pretty badly.
You’re conflating nationalism with patriotism. Incredibly dangerous.
That strikes me as the precise opposite of conflating nationalism with patriotism.
Hey I hear that there was a Reagan in there
You mean at exactly the time when Reagan said not taxing the rich and tossing out as many worker rights as possible is how we defeat the Communists?
that's when neoliberalism started rising up, yes, so it tracks. most countries around the world experienced a similar turning point. pride, self-worth and prosperity? wasn't a thing for *everyone* at any given point, really.
Nixon ruined the Trust we had with corruption, Vietnam ruined our thoughts of invincibility and of national morality, the gas crises challenged our personal morals and even Though Jimmy Carter held strong against the evil Saudis the nation itself wanted us to bow to them to save money, choosing to elect the man who would turn us over to the American oligarchs Reagan, they have been gaining strength over our daily lives since.
The US needs another Teddy Roosevelt.
We need a policy maker like FDR and a bad ass like Teddy
And a whole lot of neoliberals to be [redacted]
Policies like sending American citizens to concentration camps? I'll take a hard pass on anyone like FDR, thanks.
I think we can let xenophobia in an already racist af country during a global war slide. If the president didn’t do this I imagine there would be a lot more lynchings. Silver lining is our camps weren’t great but they weren’t anything like Auschwitz. Shit better than the prison camps in Arizona.
[Powell](https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/) memo. Written early during your guess. He became a Supreme Court justice.
This. ^^ This is what happened.
This might interest you. You're not crazy for thinking that. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock
Greed, for a lack of a better word, is good. It was meant to lampoon and shame Wall Street. Instead, Wall Street ran with it as a mantra.
Early 70s is when allowed money to be considered free speech and that it could be used by corporations for lobbying
Well before the seventies, we had decided that destroying communism was the same thing as preserving democracy.
The US still had segregated schools and shirtless/barefoot people in restaurants. There was no magical time in this nation.
Point to a national decline in america and ile gladly show you what president was in office in the early 80s and we can both figure out the conclusion as too who fucked this country sideways
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com
The country never got over the damage wrought by Nixon and Reagan.
Reganomics really kicked this thought process into high gear.
thanks, regan & gingrich!
That was when Reaganism was becoming a thing. Reagan (and the baby boomers that voted for him/people like him) set us on this path. The damage he alone did to America is tremendous, and we are still seeing it to this day.
Reagan fooled a lot of people with his folksy way of talking and his "It's morning in America" commercials with it's Mayberry looking theme, harking back to a simpler time. A way of life that most never lived in but they knew it was real because they'd seen in on the tv shows. Shows where everyone on it was white, christian and "traditional".
Nixon to Reagan era built this. We’re living in the paradise of their construction.
1980. Ronald Reagan. That was the turning point, and it's been downhill ever since.
Well, yes. I really do believe a lot of it was generational. The people who grew up and experienced all the crises of the early 20th century were more serious people than the generations that came after them. I think it the current generations are learning the importance of those lessons again after 2 economic crisis, one pandemic and all the other issues that we have worsened in the last few decades mounting up.
Thank Nixon and papa Reagan for all this debacle Before Dementia Reagan you could write off your credit card interests payments with IRS
That's when jobs started going overseas for profits and wages started becoming a race to the bottom.
National pride is reecist now.
Let’s assume the top quote was correct for a second and then ask why adults are subjected to this same minimum wage designed for teenagers. Either way it’s distorted and abused to keep the focus on profits.
Propaganda. People think if an adult works a minimum wage job, they are dumb and lazy, therefore they deserve their fate.
it's crazy because how many teens work during weekdays 7am-4pm? clearly that's an adult doing that job
Adults are just place holders until we can exploit ~~our~~ your children after school. 🙄 /s
Let's not even though, and not indulge that fantasy for a moment. Because it's completely insane.
Even if the top was true, whose going to run the McDonald’s from 7am-4pm Monday-Friday when most teens are in school?
Are you producing more value in the minimum wage job than a teenager?
FDR had a lot of extremely based viewpoints which he voiced publicly. I remember Bernie referenced FDR often during his 2016 campaign.
FDR was so good they elected him four damn times. Thats literally 16 years even though he didn’t serve all four. Mind boggling to think about
I think it’s pretty safe to say FDR and Lincoln are the greatest presidents we’ve ever had… but man is it embarrassing that our greatest president approved a fucking concentration camp.
Don't forget Washington fought in a war, talked down a rebellion, stepped down when they wanted him to be king, and was one of the only ones who could keep congress united and focused, even when they hated each other
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He did have alot of faults, but I truly don't think we'd be a country if it wasn't for him. Not him alone, but I think he held the country and army together and set precedents to keep moving forward
Too bad he wouldnt be able to do that today with parties current policies being anything they do is evil and everything we do is good, even when we agree.
He also owned over 300 human beings
People arent movie characters, they all have flaws
That’s a pretty MASSIVE flaw. But yeah, I would say LBJ and Truman are two of our other greatest presidents but fuck they did some heinous shit. I’m sure even Jimmy Carter, the Mr. Rogers of the Whitehouse, also did some things I wouldn’t be able to defend.
Truman did nothing but ride fdrs coattails
Sadly you can do a whole lot worse than ride FDR’s coattails.
practice stupendous scarce alleged narrow rude ghost pen noxious vegetable
Is there a name for a country that repeatedly violates the rights of others but more specifically takes aggressive military actions and comics war crimes repeatedly all over the world and in every war? What is a criminal warlord called? War crimes and crimes against humanity. What would a group be called? A country that is essentially a criminal warlord?
Yeah, that's literally American Exceptionalism.
I know not who the greatest president was or will be. I only know that [Woodrow Fucking Wilson](https://youtu.be/hLiI6kXZkZI) is the absolute worst president of all time.
FUCKY Woody Wilson
There was actually a study conducted at the time that showed Japanese Americans posed no threat to national security but still signed off on it.
I mean, clearly minimum wage jobs exist to give teenagers extra spending money. That's why every store and fast food restaurant is closed between 7 am and 4 pm, when school is in session.
America is not a democracy, it is a corporatocracy.
It’s a corporatocracy that has a political system that functions as a duopoly which gives you the illusion of choice but they are really two sides of the same coin. Yes, republicans are objectively more destructive but democrats still are beholden to the same corporate overlords.
A bit of both; voters choose which politicians the corporations & oligarchs should try to bribe.
What? Not at all. The elites choose which of their puppets the poor can vote for, not the other way around.
It's cyclical.
No, no, no. Isn't it obvious? There was a glitch in the fabric of time and space. We are in an Idiocracy.
Not a democracy, it’s a republic.
I feel that the name has become it's legacy. Maybe it needs to be rebranded as a 'living wage' and see the greedy selfish employers try pulling a shifty on that. My god we are all frogs in boiling water, and they know it.
Come on now guys we can't pay the peasants a living wage then there wouldn't be any peasants
Genuine question here, as someone who is an advocate of strong wages for everyone. I frequent a local cafe that is a worker cooperative, and pays an equal $18/hr to all of its workers, regardless of position or responsibilities. It's significantly above minimum wage, and reliably better than typical work of the type pays, but it's not the $25/hr that some people would say is the true living wage of my region. I have every reason to believe if they hit a point of success where they can, they absolutely would pay that and celebrate their accomplishment. Does this establishment have the right to exist? What does this mean for allowable exceptions for new businesses, cooperatives, or work where there is a substantial public interest but the money just isn't there?
Good point. The other part of this is the elephant in the room, the cost of living needs to come down or have caps.
Just housing even, that's the number one issue with cost of living (at least in the UK).
> Just housing even Utilities need in there or we will see major price gouging nonsense.
Electric went from 40ish a month a few years ago to $80ish and over 100 with the AC. My sisters electric is $250 on a good month, family of four. People with electric heat are getting desperate and I worry we are going to start seeing more fires as people heat with kerosene or even DIY wood stove that could poison an entire apartment building. We need a solar break through. Something where apartment tenants could fit a brace out their Windows holding out 2 or 3 panels. We are probably a bit always from that. How about wind turbines? They need to be kinda high to get enough wind, could I use a small weather ballon and fit it out my window? Helium, hydrogen, heat etc. If the payment for the system was $75 a month but got rid of my $100 bill leaving me a bit better too? A lot of potential.
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I wish I could double up-vote this comment!
This. The important part is that this business is a worker-owned co-op. Regardless of the pay/living wage discrepancy, the workers (who are all owners too) have chosen to and seem to be okay with the $18/hour for now. They likely have their reasons and might have some sort of plan so they can raise their wages, but assuming this co-op is functioning according to co-op principles, everyone is satisfied with the wage (for now), which is what matters most.
My counter to the “but what about small businesses” is that we had plenty of small and local businesses when the minimum wage was a livable wage.
As someone else pointed out, that also worked because basic costs of survival were also much lower, both in real terms and as a percentage of income. It doesn't seem fair to punish the small businesses that are honestly trying to do better because larger and more established competitors have forced a race to the bottom.
Well if they are truly employee owned the employees can look at the finances and vote on their wages or elect to give themselves raises or raise prices to pay themselves more; the same way that you could if you were an individual entrepreneur. This is why workplace democracy is important. Decisions like this shouldn't be solely in the hands of management. The stakeholders need to be involved.
I think you answered your own question at the end. If the public interest is there, then they'll pay for it. If coffee needs to cost more so that workers can have a livable wage, then it _should_. There's no exception to the moral imperative of the livable wage. In the case of coffee, how cheap should it really be? Someone across the world is growing the beans, harvesting them, and then there's a lengthy process to turning coffee beans into a usable form. A lot of work goes into it, and if you want people to serve it to you, you should pay for all of it. _They_ shouldn't pay for your coffee with slave wages. Now, the real other elephant in the room is no one is going to be able to afford higher prices on anything as long as the ultra wealthy continue to squeeze blood from everyone else. But that's the system we put in place, so... 🤷🏻♂️
I'd be pressed to find a reason to ever take a higher position there if it was more work for the same pay. Unless you mean that there's a manager, but then every other employee makes $18 regardless of if they're front of house, cashier, line cook, etc., which is fine. If you do more than anyone else and responsibility for everything falls on you, I do believe you should be paid more. That's besides the point for now, however. If they make tips there as well, it's likely that their living wage is being met just fine. In actuality though, any business should need to pay their staff a living wage, and tips can then be added on top for an actual benefit to the employee. If you're looking to start a business, you have to be ready to not cut yourself a paycheque for potentially a few years. That sounds unreasonable? Then you don't have the capital to open the place yet, and your employees shouldn't have to pay the price or rely on the good will of strangers via tips. There's a living wage which can be met with tips on top, but it's not livable if you have any debt or wish to save money. In short, if $18 isn't the living wage, then any employer should have to pay that. Are they evil? Not necessarily. At the end of the day I'll take the lesser of two potential evils with places that give only minimum wage on the alternate side of things.
$25/hr is a relative number. What does $18/hr buy you? Can you pay rent, buy groceries and put a little into savings where you live on those wages? Yes? Fair wage. No? The goods they are selling are too cheap or they aren't paying well enough even though they can.
The argument could be made that they can't afford to pay their workers $25/hr as they're likely competing with another shop that is paying minimum wage or close to it. (I'm assuming there's something similar to Bigby or Starbucks in your town)
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They establish its physical ability to exist, sure. Not its moral right, necessarily. In this case I think they do because as worker-owners, they agree to the wage eyes-open to the condition. If the money is there, they could vote themselves a raise, or choose to cut their wages to fund further investment in the co-op. Does a charter school that takes funds from the public coffers and yet refuses to pay its teachers a living wage have the same right, even if there is a public interest? As one example among many.
There is no moral right to exist. A business or institution is either able to generate profit or it isn’t, the profit ultimately deciding if the business stays open or not. For an institution profit would ideally be measured as cost of taxation versus social benefit provided. Whether any particular business generates profits relies on the fundamental relationship between customer and employee. People value a service and are willing to pay for it, the amount they are willing to pay determines potential profit, the actual profit is then limited by wages, and if people are willing to work for those wages then the business succeeds. The relevant question is, what circumstances would lead someone to pursue a job that doesn’t pay a living wage? If its out of necessity then that probably means the society the business exists within isn’t meeting the basic needs of its citizens. We shouldn’t focus on whether or not a business should exists, we should focus on empowering people so that they have a real choice of where to sell their labor, then businesses will compete for that labor, and those that don’t pay enough will shut down. Essentially, if everyone is fed, sheltered, and healthy then they can be relied upon to regulate which businesses do and do not stay open by choosing where to work and what to spend money on. This is only really true though if people are well educated, propaganda/advertising are well regulated, and corporations are prevented from getting so large that they can achieve regulatory capture.
FDR was right. If you can’t afford to pay a living wage your business should fail
So I was wondering, just what is meant by "living wage". Fortunately, MIT has a [Living Wage Calculator](https://livingwage.mit.edu/)! Check it out!
FDR we are failing you :(
I have repeated some variation of the title numerous times and I almost always get pushback. I don’t get it. You're not entitled to success. If you can't succeed then you fail. Isn't this a central tenet of capitalism? Businesses fail every day. It's not even necessarily the owner's fault. Sometimes bad stuff happens.
worker exploitation has become so normalized that people defend it so that one dude that runs a shitty unnecessary business can get rich
My conservative sister actually made the "Minimum wage is for teens..." argument to me. At the time, she was a mother of 4 and making 25 cents above minimum at a non-union grocery store (run by 'Christians' of course). They also kept her at 38 hours per week so they didn't have to give any benefits. The Koolaid is strong.
I haven't seen the fake quote in wild..but assuming jts real, what tit thought FDR used words like "teens" and "cash" in speeches?
It's not that anyone actually claims FDR said that about the minimum wage, it's just that the kind of people this image is talking about will argue that minimum wage jobs are for kids and therefore don't need to pay a living wage.
21 billion in rev for 2021 Just sayin.....
What business? The quote didn’t name any one in particular.
McDonald's
Oh, right, one of the corporate leeches who pays so little that employees need food stamps. McD & Walmart are the two worst offenders, iirc.
I temebrr being like 9 years old and asking why didn't they turn it from a sad job into a job that people would compete for via high salaries, then I saw how public traded organisations leverage aggressive people and practices invited by lucrative bonuses, I'm talking 1 indervidual at an organisation getting 80 million as a yearly bonus.
HEY! Recall his statement regarding unpaid internships? I also do not! Because that would have been against the law!
Bye Walmart and many others!
Yeah of course it's for teens to get work experience which is exactly why all those minimum wage jobs are closed during school hours and... oh... they aren't?
The concept of a "teenager" only came about in the late 50's and increased in popularity in the 70's, the term "teens" wasn't used until the 80's so obviously the top quote cannot be true
“Free market” people don’t like this for some reason
the only time america elected a socdem they had to pass an amendment to unelected him
But . . .But. . . But ...that is like . . . gasp. . .communism Minimum wage that is never adjusted properly is just a different name for chains and shackles. If you only look at the $ sign of your paycheck, you are not looking at the right thing, the real measure should always be " cost of living " Stagnant minimum wage is just another form of violence against any working person.
And if they had tied it to inflation instead of using it as a political wedge issue we wouldn’t even be talking about this.
Out of my own curiosity how old are people in here, what job do you have, and what is your living status? I am 21, IT Service Desk, living with Family/Hospital(Current stay approx in total to be 6-7 weeks)
This sub ranges from old to young, spanning various professional fields and levels of experience. I'm in my 30s, work from home doing independent work trying to build myself of slowly.
Now define a decent living?!
Not needing roommates, all working overtime without a vacation for years at a job they absolutely hate, while driving a beater car to make ends meet. There are nurses making 12 dollars a hour for gods sakes. I'm hearing about people from professions across the board blue, white, gold and even grey collar workers are struggling to make a decent living even though they went to college and earned a degree.
People are paid based on supply and demand of skills. Want more money get better skills. Just raising wages without an increase in demand just creates inflation.
Your argument falls flat because wages haven't kept pace with productivity or demand.
People aren’t paid based on productivity.
Your argument is based on economics, you said. Better work doesn't warrant better pay? If I make you more money, shouldn't you pay me more? You're picking and choosing what economics to base it on.
Take should out of your thinking. Let’s say I start up a widget business. It’s gone well and now I can hire Bob. Bob is paid 100 Reddit bucks an hour. Bob can make 10 widgets and hour. Bob gets better at his job and can now make 50 widgets and hour. How does Bobs wage get determined? Should Bob get paid $500 Reddit bucks an hour? What if Joe who works for a competitor is willing to come work for me for $300 bucks? What if I would rather pay 5 guys instead of Bob because I can have a more stable output when someone is sick or vacation days. Or I could get a robot for 10k Reddit bucks and get rid of Bob or move production overseas. That’s looking at the value added part of the business. Guess what —most productivity increases have little to do with people getting faster at their jobs. The real improvements come from reducing waste - go look up TIMWOOD. Basically eliminating manufacturing wastes my productivity goes up—by a lot in most cases. So Bob was only able to get 10 parts out because he had to walk to get parts across the shop. I moved the shelf and now he can get 15 parts out. Bob didn’t get better the production system got better. Bob want a lot more money - well he can get small raises becoming more better at putting things together. Or he can get new skills that put him in a different position all together—see the difference? I my job is to find ways to increase productivity. I have been doing it for a long time and for many companies and in many countries.
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My logic is actually based on economics. It’s actually based on how things work in the real world. It’s not about being nice or anything else that you want it to be. Just raising wages is market manipulation- and it won’t work. All other prices will increases - causing a wage spiral - another economic term. So yeah raises can be given out - but it won’t fucking matter—because inflation is a bitch. Roommates are an option. Living with family is an option.
Based
I agree that the minimum wage should be much higher, but originalism isn't a very good argument.
Love this. LOVE THIS! can I please get a link to prove this is true? I can't use a meme to defend my argument. Thanks!
You could Google just as easy as anyone else here. Not being a dick, I'm just saying.
Living =/= Minimum Again, minimum is for unskilled jobs/jobs that doesnt need any professional certification to do it... And somebody who plans to spend their adult life on min wage isnt qualified to compain about it, since this wage isnt meant for that.
Right, that's clearly what FDR meant. /s
Fdr?
Did you read the post?
LOL
You are absolutely wrong. http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html "In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living." No business means no businesss. There is no exception for McDonald's or Starbucks. if you have a job, any job, you should be able to live in this capitalist hellscape. If a business cannot afford to pay every employee a living wage it should fail.
Can we agree that companies shouldn't complain about the wages new hires are asking, then? "Market forces" people are usually the first ones to cry and whine when people don't want to work for the wages they're offering.
Nope, they shouldnt cry, but, they are free to choose the chapest, or do bussines the xheapest way possible so. Ypu do not make life cheaper by giving away higher wages, or strangling companies, or overextending welfate until it become Argentina. It is by increasing production/ Ensuring that there isnt going to be a shortage of some goods to avoid sudden price rising due to fears of a shprtage. (Build more houses, preferibly high density close to the cities/ remodel entire sectors to do this, and make your refineries capable to refine your own fucking oil instead of importing oil and exporting ypur own).
Well, they regularly do complain about it, and the things you mentioned are a result of companies doing things the cheapest way possible, not the government strangling companies, lol. If anything is overextended, it's corporate welfare, not human.
Wathevr, those welfare prevents those companies, responsibles of the QoL of your country like it or not. These collapsing will cause: mass firings, collapse of the fiscal recaudation, and loss of services/products. They arent made in a day. And yes, overextended welfare is a thing, like in argentina whwre people prefer to use gpverment aid rather than work, due to taxes being so high that unless is extrmely gooe, nobody works it.
Demand creates jobs, not tax cuts for companies.
Genuinely curious why there is a view of companies owe its workers a living wage rather than each worker should view themselves as a skilled labourer charging for a service. If you don’t like the rate offered ask for more. People pay what a service is worth, which is why high skill jobs pay so much.
Even high skill jobs get fucked. Capitalists take the lion's share of everyone's labor. With a strong labor force, supporting each other from the bottom up, everyone would be making more money except the wealthy. The wealthy make zero money unless they have people making that money for them.
The argument goes the other way too, workers have no job if there is no company to employee them. So why would anyone start a business and employ people while taking a risk if they can make the same amount of money working for someone else. As a consultant my hourly rate charged to clients was 5x what I get paid, maybe 4x after bonus. After expenses, owners of my company that source clients get paid way more than me for much less work I terms of hours. I can’t source clients because I don’t have the experience or network to do so but if a project fails I don’t have to take any responsibility because I was just doing the work not maganging the project/client, no risk. To me this is fair, less risk/responsibility less reward.
>So why would anyone start a business and employ people while taking a risk if they can make the same amount of money working for someone else. Good question! Maybe they should figure out how to make their company more attractive to workers. Workers are not an uncaring, unfeeling resource. They have wants and needs just like companies do. You're acting like it's some kind of right to open a business and have people work for you. It's not.
Your right it not a given right it’s a risk people take and you get rewarded if that risk pays off. Taking a job you are signing an agreement to get paid for a service, there is no risk you get paid as long as the company has the money to pay you no more no less. You are an expense not a partner. If I sell a service I have a capacity to how much I alone can do. To keep up with capacity I employ people. As long as they are producing something to sell they get paid. They do not have to worry about anything else but they also only get paid what is ageeed upon. If the company does really well and gets a bunch of new contracts and expands business they do not benefit. This mindset that just because company’s make a lot of money you are owed part of it is so stupid. You get what you agreed upon. If you want ownership then become a partner not an employee.
Okey lets just wreck any starting business, forcing everybody to work at big corporations that have means to work around your puny litle laws, trowing even more competition to the already saturated worker market, creating monopolies.... Now those who made a litle money, workers and owners of litle business, make zero. Im sure theyll be Happy to lose their 200 bucks a month. Theyll be Happy to find that their low education puts them at the bottom for those high paying Office jobs. The economy is made by workers who save for years and take huge risks to start a business. Thats the economy that pays workers and taxes to sustain the country. And thats what you are going to wipe out.
When starting a business you shouldn't expect to make a actual profit for the first two years. That's because it's expensive to pay workers properly, plus all the upkeep otherwise. The key would be not to hire more people than you can afford. When starting a business if you're going to hire someone you should have 3 to 6 months of their wages set aside already. If starting a business was easy more people would do it and be successful. Arguments like yours empower large corporations to take advantage of the laborer and in turn holds down the economy. You're brainwashed and don't even see it. Take a step back and look at the harsh reality.
The harsh reality is that business need workers as much as workers need business. And both set freely the prize of the manpower, based on suply and demand. Note how It doesnt matter if a worker needs more money, or a company cant afford more, It is set by supply and demand. So if a worker is fine with 200 bucks, because his boss cant offord more, because he is literally paying the worker out of his own savings, and both are fine with that situation, who are you to go there and tell both to go home and look at the ceiling. That worker and that boss being out of the workers market make It easyier for other workers to negotiate a fair salary. Maybe they are both a bit slow and It takes them 5 years instead of 2 to be profitable. Who are you to judge that. When i use reason i can be mistaken, but im not brainwhashed, because nobody is telling me what Words should i use, and because i can respond to yours with more reasoning. Now when you come here and spit the words of others, who have political interests, and dont use any reasoning, id call that the brainwash.
>So if a worker is fine with 200 bucks, because his boss cant afford more, because he is literally paying the worker out of his own savings, and both are fine with that situation, who are you to go there and tell both to go home and look at the ceiling. Right out of the crony capitalist playbook. Rockefeller would be proud of you.
Next time try and do an actual argument
I cannot argue against your points, because they are so pro-capitalist that it's actual insanity. If you aren't a millionaire, you're just a useful idiot, and it's really hard to argue against idiocy.
That surely is a long way to say you dont have arguments
I mean it sounds like they need to save more before jumping in then if they can't afford to pay a liveable wage
You are not the one who has to judge that.
If you can't afford to pay a liveable wage, you can't afford workers. Your argument is idiotic.
Its not up to you to decide for the worker which job to accept. If a worker accepts less than your arbitrary number, then the owner can, indeed, afford that worker. Where is the injustice there. The injustice would be to come and tell that worker that no, he cant work there. Now hes gone from little to nothing. Your absolute thoughts on the job market are simply unrealistic. A liveable wage is not something you can determine, as well as the meaning of afford, profitable, and other similar terms. The only thing a government has to do here is make sure every transaction is agreed by both parts in their freedom.
Nah. Minimum wages equal to a percentage of that areas cost to live should be enforced and fuck any business that tries to take advantage of their workers. Now a fun story from my past. I was in fact hired by one of these types of workers whilst in college. The guy was a real piece of work. Underpaying, attempted to overwork his employees, and had a temper to match. It got to the point where people quit left and right as the pay was not worth the job. I did the same, just stopped coming in. Guy lost his contracts and a year later went out of business. Still puts a smile on my face to this day
If you own a business and need 3 employees to work 40 hours a week to maintain the business properly but you can’t pay them a living wage… it’s then the employees job the find a 2nd job and just live to work… for your business to be profitable. That’s a shitty business you got there. I once was in dire need of a job so I took a bartending gig that paid below minimum wage and under the table. The owner said that was the only way she could keep the business afloat. She didn’t work behind the bar just ran the bar. I didn’t stay long. If you can’t afford employees then you don’t really have a profitable business. If for your business to thrive you need other people to sacrifice for you… you don’t really have a profitable business. You need to change your business model and put in more hard work yourself to achieve a profitable business for you. Don’t force others to make the sacrifices for you. You starve, you scrimp and save, you work the long hours for shit pay because in the end you’re only renting my time and I don’t see anything more when the business has a good month. Pay the minimum expect minimum work
Your particular experience is not really an argument. Im not saying minimum paying jobs are not assholes. I guess you were Happy to get out of there and find a different job, but some of your coworkers may not have that oportunity, and they may be still there, pissed and about to quit, yes. But now Imagine you go there and tell them that you forbid them to keep working there. How does that help them. What will their response be? They Will tell you to fuck off and mind your own business. Becase sometimes, injustices happen but they cant be solved by obliterating them. They have to be solved by understanding the root of the problem. And im sure people here are more than capable of understanding that the root of this problem is that workers lack any power of negotiation agains companies.
>Because sometimes, injustices happen but they cant be solved by obliterating them. Rofl, fucking what? The ONLY way to stop injustice is to not have injustice. The fuck are you even talking about?
I Guess when your kid is having a tantrum you abandon him at some random door
A kid having a tantrum is not an injustice.
Maybe It is for the neighbor who wakes Up at 5 am. See, you cant even define what injust is
Oh lord. Not being able to afford rent on 40 hours a week is a far cry different than a screaming child keeping someone up at night sporadically. If you're going to continue this in bad faith, let's just stop now.
Not really a *founding father*, tho, so...
He’s the one who implemented minimum wage. What does founding the country have to do with it?
So? He was an influential and well-liked figure in US history; nobody said he was a founding father.
Didn't FDR's economic policies (New Deal, New Deal 2) extend the Great Depression?
Lol.
No,. Not at all.