change my mind: can't pay a living wage to all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people should be able to live in safe housing and eat without any job at all, so I guess I disagree with you.

Yeah, this. Not such a revolutionary idea. I think waaaaaay too much attention is paid to the perceived failures of people scraping by while nearly no focus is on structural inequities or, you know, wealth hoarding.

People are so brainwashed to believe that people with money somehow deserve it or are somehow better than those who don’t - it’s laughable and pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism sounds good, but the problem is that it doesn’t work. Do we really need another experimenting in it?

Yes. It sucks to be poor. There will be poor always.

You (DCUM in general) keep talking about the poor and people without any degrees or skills. But those are not the only people struggling. There is a whole class of invisible people to you guys. See the professor up thread. It's not just teen mom flipping burgers vs. UMC. Again--teachers, professors, scientists, healthcare workers, low-mid range IT workers. People **you** depend on to go about your life. Those people are struggling. And now with astronomical housing costs and inflation-having a house, sending your kids to a decent public school, health care, college-those things will be only affordable to the UMC. You might not care now-but as someone from a country with a huge wealth gap--it will impact you eventually. It already is in many places in the US (rising crime, etc).

I live in Loudoun. There are lots of these types, married to each other, living a nice life in a 3br townhouse or small SFH zoned to good schools. Its perfectly doable.

How much do those SFH and townhouses cost these days?

$550k
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/141-Hampshire-Sq-SW-Leesburg-VA-20175/12416313_zpid/

No clue how a family with HHI of $150K and kids affords this.

And the schools are not good.

So we are back to a "living wage" demanding a Great Schools 10?

NP. That's where I get hopelessly lost whenever anyone discusses living wage. When I see it discussed on social media, "living wage" seems to mean getting paid wages from day 1 at any job that enables you to buy an HGTV-level house or get an apartment by yourself (without roommates or a partner), raise kids if you have them, have a car, cell phone, sufficient food, streaming services, and other "necessities of life," regardless of the level of skill of the job, how long you have been there, your experience, or your education level.

$150K is not living wage, it's the middle class, a couple of a nurse and a teacher, both working. They have to pay 50% of their take home for this townhouse house with bad schools and have less than 4k a month to pay for everything else, from food, childcare, medical, retirement savings etc.

A couple making $15/hr can't even dream of this.

Stop saying the schools are bad. They just have a contingent of kids whose parents make $15/hr. Does that make the school bad in your eyes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people should be able to live in safe housing and eat without any job at all, so I guess I disagree with you.

you are nuts. Even communists require people to work for food and housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.brookings.edu/articles/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

3 rules to avoid poverty:

1. Finish High School
2. Have a full-time job
3. Don't marry or have kids before age 21.

Just doing these three things gives you a 98% change of not living in poverty. Come on people.

The finishing HS and not marrying/having kids early is something largely in your control. Businesses, however, are making it increasingly hard to have consistent full-time jobs without a college degree. Businesses don't want to provide benefits so they'll say they are only for FT employees but keep everyone at PT level even if they could use people to work more. And, they create massive instability in workers' lives with "just in time scheduling", expecting people in minimum wage jobs to essentially be on call at all times. It is exploitative and should be illegal (as it is in some cities). The biggest economic problem we have is that C-Suite salaries have been allowed to grow out of all proportion to worker salaries. Businesses whine that they can't raise pay or add staff while CEO compensation and profits soar. Yes, they can afford it, they just don't want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism sounds good, but the problem is that it doesn’t work. Do we really need another experimenting in it?

Yes. It sucks to be poor. There will be poor always.

You (DCUM in general) keep talking about the poor and people without any degrees or skills. But those are not the only people struggling. There is a whole class of invisible people to you guys. See the professor up thread. It's not just teen mom flipping burgers vs. UMC. Again--teachers, professors, scientists, healthcare workers, low-mid range IT workers. People **you** depend on to go about your life. Those people are struggling. And now with astronomical housing costs and inflation-having a house, sending your kids to a decent public school, health care, college-those things will be only affordable to the UMC. You might not care now-but as someone from a country with a huge wealth gap--it will impact you eventually. It already is in many places in the US (rising crime, etc).

I live in Loudoun. There are lots of these types, married to each other, living a nice life in a 3br townhouse or small SFH zoned to good schools. Its perfectly doable.

How much do those SFH and townhouses cost these days?

$550k
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/141-Hampshire-Sq-SW-Leesburg-VA-20175/12416313_zpid/

No clue how a family with HHI of $150K and kids affords this.

And the schools are not good.

So we are back to a "living wage" demanding a Great Schools 10?

NP. That's where I get hopelessly lost whenever anyone discusses living wage. When I see it discussed on social media, "living wage" seems to mean getting paid wages from day 1 at any job that enables you to buy an HGTV-level house or get an apartment by yourself (without roommates or a partner), raise kids if you have them, have a car, cell phone, sufficient food, streaming services, and other "necessities of life," regardless of the level of skill of the job, how long you have been there, your experience, or your education level.

$150K is not living wage, it's the middle class, a couple of a nurse and a teacher, both working. They have to pay 50% of their take home for this townhouse house with bad schools and have less than 4k a month to pay for everything else, from food, childcare, medical, retirement savings etc.

A couple making $15/hr can't even dream of this.

Stop saying the schools are bad. They just have a contingent of kids whose parents make $15/hr. Does that make the school bad in your eyes?

The test scores are poor. That means that your kids are going to school with majority of peers who live in poverty and can’t meet academic state requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wages can increase without costs increasing if income inequality/price gouging is reduced.

Grocery prices went up 150% for some items.

2020 1lb turkey at walmart 3.14 to 6.72
11.98 to 16.48 3lb bacon
waffles 2.93 to 4.19

Except in a free market, the market determines the price of the goods, not some third party regulator. Grocers are able to charge these prices because people will pay them. If people didn't pay it, the prices would come down. Wages going up only exacerbates this. Same with stimulus and other "free" money.

IT IS NOT A FREE MARKET. See stimulus. See corporate sponsorship and loans.

People have to buy food. Formula. Etc. I am showing that one of the cheapest places to get groceries on staples, non-organics (so just basic food) increaed that much.

And yet people are still buying...

Ah yes let me starve myself and my family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.brookings.edu/articles/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

3 rules to avoid poverty:

1. Finish High School
2. Have a full-time job
3. Don't marry or have kids before age 21.

Just doing these three things gives you a 98% change of not living in poverty. Come on people.

The finishing HS and not marrying/having kids early is something largely in your control. Businesses, however, are making it increasingly hard to have consistent full-time jobs without a college degree. Businesses don't want to provide benefits so they'll say they are only for FT employees but keep everyone at PT level even if they could use people to work more. And, they create massive instability in workers' lives with "just in time scheduling", expecting people in minimum wage jobs to essentially be on call at all times. It is exploitative and should be illegal (as it is in some cities). The biggest economic problem we have is that C-Suite salaries have been allowed to grow out of all proportion to worker salaries. Businesses whine that they can't raise pay or add staff while CEO compensation and profits soar. Yes, they can afford it, they just don't want to.

+1 Excellent points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.brookings.edu/articles/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

3 rules to avoid poverty:

1. Finish High School
2. Have a full-time job
3. Don't marry or have kids before age 21.

Just doing these three things gives you a 98% change of not living in poverty. Come on people.

The finishing HS and not marrying/having kids early is something largely in your control. Businesses, however, are making it increasingly hard to have consistent full-time jobs without a college degree. Businesses don't want to provide benefits so they'll say they are only for FT employees but keep everyone at PT level even if they could use people to work more. And, they create massive instability in workers' lives with "just in time scheduling", expecting people in minimum wage jobs to essentially be on call at all times. It is exploitative and should be illegal (as it is in some cities). The biggest economic problem we have is that C-Suite salaries have been allowed to grow out of all proportion to worker salaries. Businesses whine that they can't raise pay or add staff while CEO compensation and profits soar. Yes, they can afford it, they just don't want to.

This. And anyone who disagrees just doesn’t want to see the truth.

I work for a large healthcare organization and there are gazillions of execs and middle management people making $300k + salaries. Meanwhile they nickel and dime the front line, low level workers so that these people - working full time - are eligible for public assistance. A la Walmart.

I work with these execs. They are not contributing THAT much value. We would not be able to operate for a day without the low-paid workers. One of these execs could go missing tomorrow and we’d carry on like nothing happened.

The arrogance of the rich is probably the worst thing about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism sounds good, but the problem is that it doesn’t work. Do we really need another experimenting in it?

Yes. It sucks to be poor. There will be poor always.

You (DCUM in general) keep talking about the poor and people without any degrees or skills. But those are not the only people struggling. There is a whole class of invisible people to you guys. See the professor up thread. It's not just teen mom flipping burgers vs. UMC. Again--teachers, professors, scientists, healthcare workers, low-mid range IT workers. People **you** depend on to go about your life. Those people are struggling. And now with astronomical housing costs and inflation-having a house, sending your kids to a decent public school, health care, college-those things will be only affordable to the UMC. You might not care now-but as someone from a country with a huge wealth gap--it will impact you eventually. It already is in many places in the US (rising crime, etc).

I live in Loudoun. There are lots of these types, married to each other, living a nice life in a 3br townhouse or small SFH zoned to good schools. Its perfectly doable.

How much do those SFH and townhouses cost these days?

$550k
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/141-Hampshire-Sq-SW-Leesburg-VA-20175/12416313_zpid/

No clue how a family with HHI of $150K and kids affords this.

And the schools are not good.

So we are back to a "living wage" demanding a Great Schools 10?

NP. That's where I get hopelessly lost whenever anyone discusses living wage. When I see it discussed on social media, "living wage" seems to mean getting paid wages from day 1 at any job that enables you to buy an HGTV-level house or get an apartment by yourself (without roommates or a partner), raise kids if you have them, have a car, cell phone, sufficient food, streaming services, and other "necessities of life," regardless of the level of skill of the job, how long you have been there, your experience, or your education level.

$150K is not living wage, it's the middle class, a couple of a nurse and a teacher, both working. They have to pay 50% of their take home for this townhouse house with bad schools and have less than 4k a month to pay for everything else, from food, childcare, medical, retirement savings etc.

A couple making $15/hr can't even dream of this.

Stop saying the schools are bad. They just have a contingent of kids whose parents make $15/hr. Does that make the school bad in your eyes?

The test scores are poor. That means that your kids are going to school with majority of peers who live in poverty and can’t meet academic state requirements.

So your solution is we should give free income to these families and then the kids will magically become worthy to attend school with your children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism sounds good, but the problem is that it doesn’t work. Do we really need another experimenting in it?

Yes. It sucks to be poor. There will be poor always.

You (DCUM in general) keep talking about the poor and people without any degrees or skills. But those are not the only people struggling. There is a whole class of invisible people to you guys. See the professor up thread. It's not just teen mom flipping burgers vs. UMC. Again--teachers, professors, scientists, healthcare workers, low-mid range IT workers. People **you** depend on to go about your life. Those people are struggling. And now with astronomical housing costs and inflation-having a house, sending your kids to a decent public school, health care, college-those things will be only affordable to the UMC. You might not care now-but as someone from a country with a huge wealth gap--it will impact you eventually. It already is in many places in the US (rising crime, etc).

I live in Loudoun. There are lots of these types, married to each other, living a nice life in a 3br townhouse or small SFH zoned to good schools. Its perfectly doable.

How much do those SFH and townhouses cost these days?

$550k
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/141-Hampshire-Sq-SW-Leesburg-VA-20175/12416313_zpid/

No clue how a family with HHI of $150K and kids affords this.

And the schools are not good.

So we are back to a "living wage" demanding a Great Schools 10?

NP. That's where I get hopelessly lost whenever anyone discusses living wage. When I see it discussed on social media, "living wage" seems to mean getting paid wages from day 1 at any job that enables you to buy an HGTV-level house or get an apartment by yourself (without roommates or a partner), raise kids if you have them, have a car, cell phone, sufficient food, streaming services, and other "necessities of life," regardless of the level of skill of the job, how long you have been there, your experience, or your education level.

$150K is not living wage, it's the middle class, a couple of a nurse and a teacher, both working. They have to pay 50% of their take home for this townhouse house with bad schools and have less than 4k a month to pay for everything else, from food, childcare, medical, retirement savings etc.

A couple making $15/hr can't even dream of this.

Stop saying the schools are bad. They just have a contingent of kids whose parents make $15/hr. Does that make the school bad in your eyes?

The test scores are poor. That means that your kids are going to school with majority of peers who live in poverty and can’t meet academic state requirements.

So your solution is we should give free income to these families and then the kids will magically become worthy to attend school with your children?

I think we should pay their *working* parents a decent wage so they can afford to parent and be involved in their children’s lives. So these kids and their parents don’t have to worry about food or seeing the doctor and feel secure enough to focus on academics and meet academic standards. I think we should not base school assignment on property taxes and segregate the poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.brookings.edu/articles/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

3 rules to avoid poverty:

1. Finish High School
2. Have a full-time job
3. Don't marry or have kids before age 21.

Just doing these three things gives you a 98% change of not living in poverty. Come on people.

I have a beach to sell you in Arizona.

I married in my late twenties, then had my kids. I had a college degree. I left my financially abusive husband and ended up on welfare. So…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.brookings.edu/articles/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

3 rules to avoid poverty:

1. Finish High School
2. Have a full-time job
3. Don't marry or have kids before age 21.

Just doing these three things gives you a 98% change of not living in poverty. Come on people.

The finishing HS and not marrying/having kids early is something largely in your control. Businesses, however, are making it increasingly hard to have consistent full-time jobs without a college degree. Businesses don't want to provide benefits so they'll say they are only for FT employees but keep everyone at PT level even if they could use people to work more. And, they create massive instability in workers' lives with "just in time scheduling", expecting people in minimum wage jobs to essentially be on call at all times. It is exploitative and should be illegal (as it is in some cities). The biggest economic problem we have is that C-Suite salaries have been allowed to grow out of all proportion to worker salaries. Businesses whine that they can't raise pay or add staff while CEO compensation and profits soar. Yes, they can afford it, they just don't want to.

This. And anyone who disagrees just doesn’t want to see the truth.

I work for a large healthcare organization and there are gazillions of execs and middle management people making $300k + salaries. Meanwhile they nickel and dime the front line, low level workers so that these people - working full time - are eligible for public assistance. A la Walmart.

I work with these execs. They are not contributing THAT much value. We would not be able to operate for a day without the low-paid workers. One of these execs could go missing tomorrow and we’d carry on like nothing happened.

The arrogance of the rich is probably the worst thing about them.

Walmart has 2 to 3 times the number of employees they need because they want to keep them part-time and not pay benefits. If you live in a town where Walmart is the biggest employer, you are screwed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.brookings.edu/articles/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

3 rules to avoid poverty:

1. Finish High School
2. Have a full-time job
3. Don't marry or have kids before age 21.

Just doing these three things gives you a 98% change of not living in poverty. Come on people.

I have a beach to sell you in Arizona.

I married in my late twenties, then had my kids. I had a college degree. I left my financially abusive husband and ended up on welfare. So…

Highly educated SAHM can’t reenter the workforce. I laugh at those who think you just get a college degree and you are golden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism sounds good, but the problem is that it doesn’t work. Do we really need another experimenting in it?

Yes. It sucks to be poor. There will be poor always.

You (DCUM in general) keep talking about the poor and people without any degrees or skills. But those are not the only people struggling. There is a whole class of invisible people to you guys. See the professor up thread. It's not just teen mom flipping burgers vs. UMC. Again--teachers, professors, scientists, healthcare workers, low-mid range IT workers. People **you** depend on to go about your life. Those people are struggling. And now with astronomical housing costs and inflation-having a house, sending your kids to a decent public school, health care, college-those things will be only affordable to the UMC. You might not care now-but as someone from a country with a huge wealth gap--it will impact you eventually. It already is in many places in the US (rising crime, etc).

I live in Loudoun. There are lots of these types, married to each other, living a nice life in a 3br townhouse or small SFH zoned to good schools. Its perfectly doable.

How much do those SFH and townhouses cost these days?

$550k
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/141-Hampshire-Sq-SW-Leesburg-VA-20175/12416313_zpid/

No clue how a family with HHI of $150K and kids affords this.

And the schools are not good.

So we are back to a "living wage" demanding a Great Schools 10?

NP. That's where I get hopelessly lost whenever anyone discusses living wage. When I see it discussed on social media, "living wage" seems to mean getting paid wages from day 1 at any job that enables you to buy an HGTV-level house or get an apartment by yourself (without roommates or a partner), raise kids if you have them, have a car, cell phone, sufficient food, streaming services, and other "necessities of life," regardless of the level of skill of the job, how long you have been there, your experience, or your education level.

$150K is not living wage, it's the middle class, a couple of a nurse and a teacher, both working. They have to pay 50% of their take home for this townhouse house with bad schools and have less than 4k a month to pay for everything else, from food, childcare, medical, retirement savings etc.

A couple making $15/hr can't even dream of this.

Stop saying the schools are bad. They just have a contingent of kids whose parents make $15/hr. Does that make the school bad in your eyes?

The test scores are poor. That means that your kids are going to school with majority of peers who live in poverty and can’t meet academic state requirements.

NP. My kids go to a title 1 school in Loudoun County. 1/4 of their classmates are brand new immigrants. They crossed the border a few years ago at most. Mostly Hispanic, but there are Afghanistan refugees. Another 1/4 are still recent immigrants but a lot of them were born here (so their parents have been here <10 years ago). Yes they live in poverty, but it's "American poverty", which means a clean apartment, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, there's public transport nearby, they get food to take home from school on the weekends, free schooling.

"Can't meet academic state requirements"- I would ask WHY we're having kids who can't speak English and/or aren't on grade level take these tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism sounds good, but the problem is that it doesn’t work. Do we really need another experimenting in it?

Yes. It sucks to be poor. There will be poor always.

You (DCUM in general) keep talking about the poor and people without any degrees or skills. But those are not the only people struggling. There is a whole class of invisible people to you guys. See the professor up thread. It's not just teen mom flipping burgers vs. UMC. Again--teachers, professors, scientists, healthcare workers, low-mid range IT workers. People **you** depend on to go about your life. Those people are struggling. And now with astronomical housing costs and inflation-having a house, sending your kids to a decent public school, health care, college-those things will be only affordable to the UMC. You might not care now-but as someone from a country with a huge wealth gap--it will impact you eventually. It already is in many places in the US (rising crime, etc).

I live in Loudoun. There are lots of these types, married to each other, living a nice life in a 3br townhouse or small SFH zoned to good schools. Its perfectly doable.

How much do those SFH and townhouses cost these days?

$550k
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/141-Hampshire-Sq-SW-Leesburg-VA-20175/12416313_zpid/

No clue how a family with HHI of $150K and kids affords this.

They don't, but they also don't live in a nice townhome in Leesburg, they live in something like this

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3816-Port-Hope-Point-Triangle-VA-22172/12470573_zpid/

Yup, this. Or they eventually move out of the area altogether if they can (e.g., my hairdresser who is a single mom just moved to a lower COL metro area because at 40 she had given up on the possibility home ownership here).