came here to say this, i remember seeing the graph of how much money is stolen(or something of the like) from different things in america and wage theft was #1. wonder if anyone has the source to this lol
I made $7.25 an hour 15 years ago at my first job. Minimum here is $15.00 now and it still isn't enough--$7.25 is unlivable. You can't live off of that. That was supposed to be the point of minimum wage and now the point is moot. The amount of hours you would have to work to ever have a nest egg doesn't even exist.
Yeah, I did the math and I need $18.50/hour to break even (no savings) on a W2 and $21/hour on a 1099. I don't exactly live a great lifestyle and I barely spend money on anything other than the things I need to live
I make $23/h and I’m back living with my parents because the rents in my area have more than doubled in the last two years. If my parents had not been able to help me I would be living out of my car.I work full time 40+ hours a week in a rural state that is starting to charge big city rents for no good reason.
I have more than one friend who has a job but no place to live because they're all priced out. I've embraced that I will likely never retire or own a house.
I make $17 an hour in a rural area (which is pretty good for where I live), my boyfriend and I recently decided to split ways, and I have realized that I am *fucked* when it comes to finding my own place. I was looking the other day and saw a bedroom for rent, with a shared bathroom, and it was $650/mo. If you can even find an open apartment around here, you're paying $800 *at minimum*. Most are $1000-1200. I have no idea what I'm gonna do.
I moved to Tampa since the last time I was there the CoL was comparable to my native Buffalo which was, at the time, extremely cheap. The cheapest apartment I could find was a 1 bedroom full of holes and pests at $1700/mo.
6 months prior it was $1200/mo. Apartments.com shows you pricing history. This happened to all the apartments down there. When I visited 5-10 years ago it was even less.
I'm in Vegas. In 2020 (extremely bad timing) we moved into a 1 bedroom with pools, fitness area, business center, for $875. Our rent is now $975. The people moving in are paying $1500+, depending on the day, for the same apt. That's another fun fact: the rent can change due to "market rates" daily. Our calendar for move in, literally, listed different rents based on your move in day. It's beyond out of hand here.
Edit:missing detail
I believe it. My friend bought a condo for 125K and it doubled in value in the 6 months before I moved there. Another one paid 250 and his was worth half a mile, same time frame.
Same. I am not at all surprised about the insurance. I have never seen so many bashed up cars in a parking lot before. I got rear-ended by a woman with no insurance whom I suspect was on drugs 2 weeks after I moved there. Then the week after I left they had Hurricane Ian. It's a wonder insurance companies even cover anything in Florida.
And I had to leave too. Ironically, I worked for an insurance company that relocated me down there, I signed a 12-month lease, and my boss fired me in 6 (no verbal or written warnings, nothing but praise from higher ups) because my boss was afraid I was gonna get promoted over him. Couldn't even give me a reason he was firing me. So if it weren't for a few awesome friends who tossed me side work, I would have been homeless down there. I consulted with HR specialists because I applied to jobs for *6 months* after that and they would all be ready to sign me up until they spoke with that employer. So I'm pretty sure my boss put some lies in my record as justification to fire me and the specialist thinks I've been blackballed.
I'm going off on a tangent but I found Tampa to be paradise. It did not treat me with the same love back.
Yeah it’s because this country is going down the shitter. Rome didn’t last forever, every empire falls. America’s only been around for 250 years. This isn’t sustainable and we’re a fairly new country. It’s not gonna last forever lol
I remember reading once that Christianity gained popularity during the fall of Rome because people were pissed and were rejecting Roman religion and so, people were in the market for new gods and new religions and a slew of " mystery cults" began cropping up everywhere during that time period, including Christianity. Christianity just happened to be the most popular. So, I am interested to see the return of the mystery cults here in the United States.
One of the original tenants of Christianity was refusal to pay taxes to the Roman Empire. That is one of the longest running themes most Christians I know to this day believe in. None of the other rules are really there anymore. My personal headcannon is Christianity's defining principle is Tax Evasion.
If that's what Christians were doing; then, they weren't obeying the instruction to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Jesus said pay the tax man, and be in debt to no one.
While Jesus prompted Peter to say that kings don't tax their own children (expressing His distaste for tithing obligations), Jesus paid it anyway to avoid offense. Money wasn't a hill worth dying on. Doing good works on Sabbath, the appointed day of rest from occupational labor, was a hill worth dying on.
You’re reading it too literally. Jesus was famous for making his points in clever and round about ways. Mostly because if he didn’t then he’d be in even bigger trouble.
What is due to God? Everything. He’s the creator. What belongs to God? Everything.
And if everything belongs to God then what can Caesar claim? Nothing.
That's why I live on starvation SS checks today. There was no way I could save while I was working full time. Now? Forget it! I'd be homeless, and actually, I'm close to it. $800+ for a 1-bedroom? Food costing at least a third over what it was at the start of the year? The sad fact is I can no longer afford to live in my country.
I'll never forget working for an hour to make 7.25 to be told i don't get a shift meal o get a 20 percent discount and the food was over 8 dollars. In 2016. At a McDonald's.
Minimum wage doesn't mean minimum livable wage (which was the original point of it), it means the lowest amount corporations are willing to pay their workers, nothing else. If it's not actually possible to live with that, they don't really care.
There's a call center here that's always hiring. Always. (shocked Pikachu at their turnover rate).
I notice their wage has been creeping down. It's gone from almost $18 that they ever-so-generously called the "panini rate" and is down like 25 to 50 cents per hour every time I see their listing ad.
I used to think that I was wrong. The term minimum wage came from the 30's around the time of the new deal and it was referencing the minimum wage to live comfortably.
Damn the minimum wage in Aus is about $14 US. Most people don't get paid minimum wage though, unless its Maccas or some other fast food giant. My grocery store pays $19 US as a minimum.
In Alberta Canada. Minimum is $15. (Minimum wage varies from province to province in Canada) I did a quick Google conversion of $7.25 USD to CAD. That is $9.90.
Any place caught underpaying would be so fucked by labour board
Hey, American living in Canada here. I feel I can help correct your thinking!
Cost of living is worse in the States. Like much much worse.
Food does cost more here, but most everything else is about the same. Plus the whole healthcare being taken care of is pretty nice to not stress about.
I'd rather be dead in Canada versus alive in America.
That really depends on where you live, and having guaranteed health insurance saves you thousands per year vs min wage in the USA with no benefits.
(But yes I agree, $15 is still too low)
Agreed.
And it also helps push along states that do set their own but are just as slow to raise theirs. Let's say hypothetically a state has a $15 minimum wage and it was last set at that rate, IDK 10 years ago. That would've been a decent wage then, but now it's mediocre at best.
So while that state was paying double federal minimum wage then (and still is in this hypothetical scenario), in 2022 and soon in 2023, it will need to be raised to account for cost of living increases if nothing else.
So let's stay the state doesn't want to raise theirs for whatever reason. If the federal were to go up to say $20/hour, then that state would have to raise theirs despite not wanting to do so.
IMO, federal needs an annual increase for cost of living/CPI/inflation and the states who want to pay more than federal need to do this too. We also need a federal UBI type program IMO.
I’m 38 and it was $5.15 when I was 15. 23 years later it’s $7.25. It’s a fucking crime.
In the 60s and 70s it was increasing every 1-2 years. In the 80s roughly every 3 years. We’ve now been 14 years since the last increase (given there’s only a few weeks left in 2022).
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
What they’ll eventually do is increase it to maybe $15 in a few years and say “we’re giving you what you asked for!” Yeah… 10 years ago. Nothing less than $20 is possible to live off of anymore.
At $20 you’d still be living at the poverty line and survive unless you’re in a car accident, get sick, or any other sudden expense occurs. It’s bullshit.
All of my friends want to leave the US, myself included. And happily would if I could afford to. The US is a third world country for 99% of the population.
In trying to win marginal votes, your Democrats have drifted to the centre right. Meanwhile, your Republicans have slid to far right. It's a fools errand for Democrats since the goal post is constantly moving. Therefore, Democrats should abandon the centre and lean hard left on the side of workers.
They’ve not only stolen from workers but also from tax payers — each and every time a company, like Walmart, grossly underpays its employees it forces them to get food stamps and other government benefits just to survive.
Walmart also apparently has (I heard this from someone who used to work there) a training program in the onboarding process that encourages and helps people to get on food stamps and other government programs rather than just paying their employees a living wage. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard in my entire life.
And it’s not just Walmart. It’s all the fast food restaurants, national retail chains, etc. They’re all stealing from workers and tax payers to sell us junk food, fast fashion, and garbage we definitely don’t need.
And yet you get idiots saying that we should not only eliminate food stamps and other welfare/assistance programs, but that those jobs don't need to pay more too.
So what's their solution to making things better for the people working these jobs? They just tell them to get a "better" job. Then when/if they do, they bitch that "no one wants to work anymore." Or they say those jobs are for high schoolers/college students. Funny I don't recall these companies being closed during school hours.
They have no solutions besides those and those aren't even real solutions because there's not infinite "better" jobs. And even if there were, someone still has to work these other jobs or they have to be fully automated because people want these goods and services.
>what's their solution to making things better for the people
That's quite an assumption you've made.
These people have been clear that inequality and poverty are core tenants of their dogma.
Essentially they support slavery and indentured servitude, as long as someone is beneath them in the social hierarchy.
Right, I'm not trying to suggest that they want to make things better for others. Most of them probably don't for the reasons you listed. But when pressed and asked for their answer on such matters, that is the type of bullshit they say because they're probably not going to readily admit in wanting to bring back slavery for example. They'll hint at it and use different words/phrases though probably.
>They'll hint at it and use different words/phrases though probably.
Dog whistles
It's difficult seeing centrist and liberals being willing to aknowledge politically that the other side genuinely want these things to happen.
People are in such deep denial that some of their friends, family, and colleagues are closet Kanyes. It takes a meltdown and irrefutable admittance of guilt to that extreme before the average person thinks "alright you crossed the line".
We have a political landscape of neo fascists sympathizers, opportunistic careerist/profiteers, and willfully ignorant enablers. I'm honestly amazed we've made it this far.
We just had a massive political scandal revealing a significant number of politicians and executives are directly or indirectly engaged in underground sex trafficking and child slavery. The average voter is talking about guns, drugs, and public bathrooms.
Amazon had fliers for information for "families in need" that gave the numbers for applying for SNAP and such. And Amazon is on the better end of the pay scale for an entry level worker.
You can't really prove these things or connect them to corporate, which is why they can do it without repercussions. They just tell some manager in some store to do it and if someone reports on it or something, they will fire the manager and say oops.
Walmart also refuses to hire security. Cities that have a walmart end up spending something like 1/4 of the police budget driving over to walmart constantly as they get called for a suspected shoplifter...
Walmart CEO just said local police forces need to make sure they're fully staffed to respond to shoplifting calls. Not that Walmart needs to staff appropriately to deter shoplifting, just local police forces.
That entire message is just PR horseshit. Walmart isn't hurting because of shoplifting, they are just realizing that brick and mortar can't out compete online shopping, but they need to create a suitable message to the public so that shareholders don't jump ship. In typical corporate asshole fashion they are going to blame the working class
I disagree w Brick & Mortar not "being able to compete w online shopping. Walmarts Not hurting in sales bc of that. Walmart been saying that since mid 00's. It's a tactic to reduce payroll. If they're hurting in sales it's bc majority of ppl are struggling financially & don't have "spending money". They, like so many corporations would rather steal the money from employees as this post references. 70% of Walmart employees are on Government assistance. Meaning Walmart (& numerous other companies) are subsidized by tax payers to pay their employees below Cost of Living wages.
Nothing will change until People Unite & we have a General Strike. Every industry has had employees striking recently, it needs to be done with all industries together. A couple of days with everyone making under $25/hr (which is about 60-70% of the workforce) of Striking would probably do it. Wall Street & execs would be shaking in their boots.
Who wants to strike?
Used to work for Marshalls as loss prevention and one of the stores I help out at in an urban epicenter had nearly full time police coverage. People would steal mere feet from them and sometimes the cops would be too busy looking at their phones to notice.
I don't, and our Walmarts have no security but there always seems to be 2-3 police cruisers parked out front. Sometimes they put up a sign saying the police are doing "heavy shoplifting surveillance." I have a pic I took awhile back I could try to find, if you're curious.
My god this isn't talked about enough. It's SO SO SO much worse than that. They get subsidies at so many levels I cannot speak on them all. One big one is they pay less per employee the more they have. A huge cut comes at 500 employees. These subsidies essentially make it so that they literally pay less to do business than small businesses by significant amounts. This makes it so you can't even start a business that competes with them.
The other thing you don't see people talk about enough is just how much help big corporations get compared to small family businesses. There's a good book called Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston more people need to read.
I have a interesting solution to this the US government should require businesses that pay sub standard wages that put people on government programs to cover the cost to provide these services to their employees. I don’t think it could be implemented overnight but tax the heck out of crappy companies! Welfare programs get a bad rap but nobody talks about corporate welfare.
Once gerrymandering ends it'll be a possibility. Gerrymandering ending, however will take decades. I'm sure we'll all be dead by then tho so that's cool.
Also I believe lower wages = lower payroll taxes and lower income taxes. The company takes the difference and either does stock buybacks, management bonuses, or stashes it offshore somewhere.
Does anyone not remember that Walmart also buys life insurance on it's employees and writes it off as a business expense. Then when the employee dies, they collect the policy too. It is true! Look into it.
Hell walmart workers can be working full time and still qualify for food stamps been that way for years the taxpayers have subsidized the Walton’s and they’ve made billions all while never paying a living wage and treating their employees like shit subsidized by the United States government/taxpayers!
Also a lot of companies just don't pay taxes while also underpaying their employees for their innovation. At least if all the profits went to the company, some good could come out of it at a high tax %
Not only that but does anyone remember supply chain issues before covid? I sure as hell don't but now it seems to be the thing all the time with so many products. Called about home ac the other day.... "Oh that ductwork is weeks out due to supply chain issues". Don't get me started on food items. I'm not saying it's not real but I'm also not saying it's all real. I think a lot of it is bullshit and you must be asleep if you don't think it is.
Shipping times just got back to pre-covid levels, and Chinese manufacturing is in absolute shambles due to their zero covid policy, so you're going to keep hearing about supply chain issues. Neither the parts manufacturer nor the AC repair company benefits from parts being delayed.
[“In its most recent public report, the SBA said it has approved nearly $753 billion in PPP loan forgiveness through Sept. 11. That’s 95% of all money borrowed. It has been criticized by government auditors for forgiving loans before they are reviewed for eligibility and fraud.” ](https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/i-team/their-ppp-loans-were-forgiven-but-they-were-under-investigation-by-the-fbi-how-did-that-happen)
more info:
hey you want to be mad? here's some [hard numbers about the Great PPP Loan Fraud:](https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/2022.06.20_Weekly%20Forgiveness%20Report_Public-508.pdf)
* 90% of all PPP loans have submitted forgiveness applications
* Forgiveness has been requested for 94% of the total loan value of all PPP loans
* 89% of all PPP loans have been fully or partially forgiven
* **94% of the total PPP loan value has been forgiven, in full or in part** (which amounts to $738,178,532,210)
still not mad? most of that money never even went to the employees. which, was the entire fucking point of the PPP loans.
>[What Is the CARES Act?](https://www.investopedia.com/coronavirus-aid-relief-and-economic-security-cares-act-4800707)
>
>Paycheck Protection Program (**PPP**)
>
>The law appropriated $349 billion to support small businesses' efforts **to maintain their payrolls** and some overhead expenses through the emergency. **The stated goal was to keep workers paid and employed.**
and
>[Where the PPP Money Went](https://www.investopedia.com/where-ppp-money-went-5216725#:~:text=Roughly%2025%25%20of%20PPP%20loan,suppliers%20of%20companies%20receiving%20loans)
>
>Almost all PPP loans are expected to be forgiven with 94% of eligible small businesses in the U.S. receiving one or more loans under the program. Roughly 25% of PPP loan funds went directly to workers who would have lost their jobs. **The rest (75%) went to business owners, shareholders, creditors, and suppliers of companies receiving loans.**
more articles:
* [Feds: 75% of $800 billion didn’t reach employees](https://www.gmtoday.com/the_freeman/business/feds-75-of-800-billion-didn-t-reach-employees/article_3ad9d8c6-feb9-11ec-80d1-e35adb4ef939.html)
* [Less than 35% of the $800 billion in PPP loans actually went to workers, say economists](https://www.fastcompany.com/90713747/workers-800-billion-ppp-loans-economists)
[This is the Rand report on income inequality](https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html) from 2018. I came here to share the same thing. The highlight of the report is that there was a transfer of **$50** **trillion** **dollars** from the bottom 90% to the top 10%. If the pre-1975 economic breakdown continued through today, the bottom 90% would be $50 trillion dollars richer. That's enough to pay every single working person an extra $1,144 every single month, every single year. These rich bastards stole over $1,100 from every working person every month and they continue to want an even bigger cut. That report was mind-blowing to me when I read it and it got near zero fanfare or reporting. Disgusting stuff.
edit: This report should be required reading for any anti-work/pro union/leftist. It's a clear cut example of how drastically our economy has changed over the last 45 years. When your grandparents ask why you're struggling drop this thing on their head.
Can you elaborate? Ultimately this is about the discrepancy between the dollars held by the wealthy vs the dollars held by everyone else. Why is gold relevant?
They removed the link between money and gold, which functions as a boon to the banks and the mega wealthy and hurts those of us who have to work everyday.
This allows them to print as much money as they want because it isn’t tied to any tangible value. If you were to calculate the value of minimum wage in the 60’s and convert it to gold coins for example, those gold coins would equate to about $27/hr I’m todays dollars.
Our lowest paid workers should be making about FOUR TIMES what they get today.
Yeah. And it's also wrong on how productivity should be **the** factor to base this on. Hand weaving a rug is waaaay harder than using a rug-making machine (rug loom?), and probably takes takes skill too. But that machine is going to pump out rugs. Productivity went up, but the required time and effort to learn and do the thing went down. Even if the rug maker earned 100% of the profits from selling it, it shouldn't sell for the same price as the hand-woven one that took more labor, time, and skill.
There are really good arguments out there to use, and it hurts workers to dilute that pool of arguments with bad ones.
At one place, they had me go through a floor of empty cubicles in order to toss any random stuff for some reason and set the cubicles up with workstations. Found a filing cabinet full of unused hanging folders in a rainbow of colors as well as tab folders, tabs, labels, clear sleeves, etc. Think I took 2 or 3 grocery bags worth of filing supplies home and was finally able to get my important paperwork in order.
I know the best stories are of monitors and office furniture, but a filing cabinet’s worth of organizing supplies are definitely *not* cheap.
I recently started a new work from home job. I quickly clicked through all the training material then turned down the volume down really low in the training class. We’re required to be on camera to make sure we are paying attention. I set up my phone where it looks like I’m looking at the camera and caught up on some of my Netflix shows today. Lol
Yeah this is some really bad napkin math. I'm sure the result is still in the trillions, but it's not like minimum wage should have been $24 the entire time if we are just saying it should have gone up with productivity levels.
What you mean productivity didn't increase over 3x overnight and stay that way for 60 years?
Whenever I see this guy's face I sigh, his heart's in the right place at least I guess
I’m all in favor of this argument but the math is sus. You can’t take the current dollar delta to min wage and use that linearly throughout the past. You’d have to calculate the same at each relevant interval based on the historic min wage at that point.
Nothing in his argument makes sense because people working at the federal minimum wage are a tiny minority, and the rise in productivity is due to technology, not people working more.
Using just the info he's using, yeah, should have said at most instead of at least, and it still would be misleading.
In reality including other factors, he's probably right.
The US could easily end poverty within it's borders, it's politicians refuse to do so and instead allow the wealthy to rob it's citizens for the sake of pure greed.
The rich people are the ones writing all the laws and controlling literally everything. This is all intentional and they don't intend on helping people survive. It was built this way.
It's both. They're living extravagantly (gluttony), which is especially easy because they're hoarding wealth and resources (greed).
We can probably work some other deadly sins into it pretty easily. Those are the glaringly obvious ones that Christian conservatives seem to be unable to see though.
Creation of jealousy leading to extreme versions of envy is another one.... "The Almighty They" that have happily been unnamed really outdid themselves tipping the scales into unforgivable territory
It means I'd be making over $60/hr, which means roughly $120k/yr or around $10k/month.
I could support a family with a mortgage and have 2 cars and my wife wouldn't have to work. All for a job that didn't require college.
Huh, sounds like...the 1960s........hmmmmmmm
Yeah, the shift coincides with the weakening labor movement. You want your fair share? They ain’t gonna give it to you with a demand. Organize your work. Join the DSA. Join a trade union. Join the IWW. Form workers committees in your workplace. Institute democracy at work.
Go to PSL rallies and apply for membership, they're the only leftist party I see that has the ideological foundation needed to see through any sort of paradigm shift.
The DSA is far too forgiving of the current system, they believe electoralism and non-impactful protesting are the only solutions to a bought and paid for state. It's a good jumping off point if you haven't read political theory yet, but it is not a sustainable leftist movement as it is co-opted by Social Democrats who have sold themselves and the party out numerous times already. They are not to be trusted.
IWW, while more put together ideologically than the DSA, will fall short if any such general strike they advocate were to come about. Without trade unions being largely composed of and run by members of the IWW, they're little more than another group of people waving banners.
This is consistent with the cracking down of unions in early 80’s (Reagan smashed it I believe) Since that time research show the transfer of wealth from ‘bottom’ 90% to the top 10% is estimated around 50 trillion.
The thing that I don't understand, it just boggles my fucking brain... at the end of the day, shit has to get sold, right? Be it goods or services. Customers with more $$$ can buy more.
Build up the working class makes your customers able to spend more back with you.
How is that not the freaking mantra?
Just think for a second how much more efficient things are now with computers and internet. All the paperwork and administration that can be 10000 times faster because of it.
Yet we're working the same hours and get the same pay. Where did all that extra productivity go? It became a yacht for your boss.
Trust me… I know. 40 years old, worked for peanuts my entire life. Have 2 jobs now and my wife works full time also, just to stay afloat. We can’t vacation, we don’t have toys. I don’t know how I’ll ever retire. I live this scenario every day. I know that it is true.
I understand the point but that is not how math works. The difference now is 17. 60 years ago it would have been 0 ie the starting point. At best you could argue the average of 8.50, but I doubt the difference grew in a straight line manner.
It would be in productivity adjusted dollars. I had the same reaction.
Example, lets say over 2 years minimum wage would have adjusted up by 1 dollar each year. In raw dollars, it would work out to a missing ~$6k total ($2k the first year, $4k the second).
But if you productivity adjust along the way, you also adjust each prior year's dollar for the new productivity rate. You could, correctly, say they're missing $8k in productivity adjusted dollars for a simplifying figure.
Tl;dr: In terms of buying power and year over year compensation, it's simpler to just say it's $50T in *productivity adjusted* dollars.
We would do the same with inflation.
Edit: you do it this way because year over year productivity or inflation rates vary, so you always use the overall rate for a time period rather than adjust in individual chunks. Of course if you wanted to you could calculate the more precise figure in *non-adjusted* dollars by going year to year and accumulating the deltas.
The correct dollar figure to compare this against would be, likewise, *productivity adjusted* profits to determine how much was siphoned from workers.
What you're not understanding is that OP is assuming that workers were being paid perfectly fairly in 1958, 1959, and 1960, but that they were suddenly having over 70% of their wages proportional to their productivity stolen from them starting immediately in 1961 onwards. In reality, the disconnect between the growth in wages and the growth in productivity was fairly small in 1961, and gradually grew over time. Just because workers today are having $17/hr stolen from them in wages does not mean that workers in, say, 1975, were having $17/hr (adjusted for inflation) stolen from them back then. Yet, the math assumes that they were.
Yeah, best we can do without knowing exactly how productivity grew and how many employees there were at any time is use… idk… maybe the Cauchy mean value theorem to conclude there is some dollar amount in (0, 17) which is the average dollar amount stolen over the 60 year period
The point is taken, but I think the "math" is wrong.
It's not $17/hr difference for each year. The difference wold have to be calculated for each year. It would be maybe $1/hr difference in 1963, a $2 difference in 1970, $5 in 1980 to the $17 difference of today.
While I agree, fuck corporations, that math isn't right. I mention it because if we want our message to be strong it has to be as factual as possible.
It says that minimum wage should be $24 now, after having slowly increased over many years. The minimum wage wasn't (and shouldn't have been, from an economic standpoint) $24 back in the 1960s, so they haven't been stealing $17/hr for 60 years. That's just how much they're stealing now.
Again, though, for emphasis: fuck 'em anyway.
Wages should rise with productivity.
And the minimum wage should rise to cover the costs of living (and then some, so people can *live*).
But adjusting minimum wage based on overall productivity seems a bit odd without additional stats.
Don’t even get me started on the corrupt stock market that then steals more from Americans that are just trying to break even on their money from what they should be getting
More food for thought is that the greed is so out of control that $24/hr isn't even reasonably close to being anything more than a subsistence wage at best in the US.
Another easy way to calculate what is being stolen from the average worker is to simply look up the minimum wage from that time, and just adjust that number for inflation.
It's mind boggling how much we've let the rich take from us all.
It's time to take it ALL from them. Everything.
I’m confused by this being from an anarchy sub… the greedy owners are paying the least they can, but somehow taking away that government enforced minimum is going to help?
In fact, any surplus value that workers produce and isn't going to them is theft. The entire economy is, and always has been, created by the workers and should belong to us.
In 2006, Documentary film maker Morgan Spurlock and his girlfriend attempted to live on minimum wage in Episode 1 of "30 Days," which was, of course $7.25/hr. They barely survived, and that was, what, seventeen years ago? Plus they were both working and only did it for a month. Imagine having to work YEARS in that kind of excessively stressful situation. While many companies currently aren't screwing their workers that badly, $10/hr (common in fast food) isn't enough either, nor is $15/hr. Our government is controlled by the rich, and most laws passed are weighted in their favor. The "common working man" has gotten royally fucked over for a long time. Can this even be fixed, or are we destined for a major social collapse?
I’ve had to subsidize every day job I’ve held the past decade through content creation and online fundraising. So what was the point of these day jobs, other than wearing myself out?
Whether it’s through state welfare or crowdfunding, society is subsidizing the payroll of billion dollar corporations. This needs to stop now.
Right on the dot! Excess of greed. The more money they get - the more greedy they become. Oh I made 5 mil this year off the backs of others? Why not push for 10 next month? 25 the very next and beyond that.
That isn't even counting the sum of stolen wages via actual theft
came here to say this, i remember seeing the graph of how much money is stolen(or something of the like) from different things in america and wage theft was #1. wonder if anyone has the source to this lol
Yeah but it's awful math so if you're going to count that you ought to redo the math
Fun fact when I was in highschool 13 years ago the federal minimum wage was raised from $6.55.. to $7.25. It is still $7.25 to this day.
I made $7.25 an hour 15 years ago at my first job. Minimum here is $15.00 now and it still isn't enough--$7.25 is unlivable. You can't live off of that. That was supposed to be the point of minimum wage and now the point is moot. The amount of hours you would have to work to ever have a nest egg doesn't even exist.
Yeah, I did the math and I need $18.50/hour to break even (no savings) on a W2 and $21/hour on a 1099. I don't exactly live a great lifestyle and I barely spend money on anything other than the things I need to live
I make $23/h and I’m back living with my parents because the rents in my area have more than doubled in the last two years. If my parents had not been able to help me I would be living out of my car.I work full time 40+ hours a week in a rural state that is starting to charge big city rents for no good reason.
Its collusion, the rents are being inflated by a 3rd party AI that took the free market out back and shot it.
I have more than one friend who has a job but no place to live because they're all priced out. I've embraced that I will likely never retire or own a house.
I make $17 an hour in a rural area (which is pretty good for where I live), my boyfriend and I recently decided to split ways, and I have realized that I am *fucked* when it comes to finding my own place. I was looking the other day and saw a bedroom for rent, with a shared bathroom, and it was $650/mo. If you can even find an open apartment around here, you're paying $800 *at minimum*. Most are $1000-1200. I have no idea what I'm gonna do.
I moved to Tampa since the last time I was there the CoL was comparable to my native Buffalo which was, at the time, extremely cheap. The cheapest apartment I could find was a 1 bedroom full of holes and pests at $1700/mo. 6 months prior it was $1200/mo. Apartments.com shows you pricing history. This happened to all the apartments down there. When I visited 5-10 years ago it was even less.
I'm in Vegas. In 2020 (extremely bad timing) we moved into a 1 bedroom with pools, fitness area, business center, for $875. Our rent is now $975. The people moving in are paying $1500+, depending on the day, for the same apt. That's another fun fact: the rent can change due to "market rates" daily. Our calendar for move in, literally, listed different rents based on your move in day. It's beyond out of hand here. Edit:missing detail
It was 20 years ago but my first house was $650 a month. It's renting now at $2300 a month in Tampa.
I believe it. My friend bought a condo for 125K and it doubled in value in the 6 months before I moved there. Another one paid 250 and his was worth half a mile, same time frame.
In the last 15 years rents in my area went up from 900 for 2 bed 1.5 bath to over 1300. Getting worse not better
Literally just left Tampa, it's gotten insane there between cost of living, how crowded it's gotten, insurance. It was all too crazy for me
Same. I am not at all surprised about the insurance. I have never seen so many bashed up cars in a parking lot before. I got rear-ended by a woman with no insurance whom I suspect was on drugs 2 weeks after I moved there. Then the week after I left they had Hurricane Ian. It's a wonder insurance companies even cover anything in Florida. And I had to leave too. Ironically, I worked for an insurance company that relocated me down there, I signed a 12-month lease, and my boss fired me in 6 (no verbal or written warnings, nothing but praise from higher ups) because my boss was afraid I was gonna get promoted over him. Couldn't even give me a reason he was firing me. So if it weren't for a few awesome friends who tossed me side work, I would have been homeless down there. I consulted with HR specialists because I applied to jobs for *6 months* after that and they would all be ready to sign me up until they spoke with that employer. So I'm pretty sure my boss put some lies in my record as justification to fire me and the specialist thinks I've been blackballed. I'm going off on a tangent but I found Tampa to be paradise. It did not treat me with the same love back.
I feel you. Sorry you’re having to experience this. It kinda leaves you feeling like “what the fuck did I do? Why am I getting fucked?”
Same here. There are currently NO options available to so many people right now. When you have no options, you have no hope. The next step is obvious.
Start smashing windows and setting fires? You betcha.
Same here. Small one bedrooms in crappy parts of town are a grand at least. No one pays enough to live. Fk this dystopia.
Fuck this dystopia in particular.
Your only real option amid a cheap apartment and a roommate or 2. Sucks, but I don’t see another good alternative
Cost of just being alive is damn too expensive. Assuming you are healthy and in no need of medial attention.
Yeah it’s because this country is going down the shitter. Rome didn’t last forever, every empire falls. America’s only been around for 250 years. This isn’t sustainable and we’re a fairly new country. It’s not gonna last forever lol
I remember reading once that Christianity gained popularity during the fall of Rome because people were pissed and were rejecting Roman religion and so, people were in the market for new gods and new religions and a slew of " mystery cults" began cropping up everywhere during that time period, including Christianity. Christianity just happened to be the most popular. So, I am interested to see the return of the mystery cults here in the United States.
One of the original tenants of Christianity was refusal to pay taxes to the Roman Empire. That is one of the longest running themes most Christians I know to this day believe in. None of the other rules are really there anymore. My personal headcannon is Christianity's defining principle is Tax Evasion.
Supply Side Jesus
If that's what Christians were doing; then, they weren't obeying the instruction to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Jesus said pay the tax man, and be in debt to no one. While Jesus prompted Peter to say that kings don't tax their own children (expressing His distaste for tithing obligations), Jesus paid it anyway to avoid offense. Money wasn't a hill worth dying on. Doing good works on Sabbath, the appointed day of rest from occupational labor, was a hill worth dying on.
You’re reading it too literally. Jesus was famous for making his points in clever and round about ways. Mostly because if he didn’t then he’d be in even bigger trouble. What is due to God? Everything. He’s the creator. What belongs to God? Everything. And if everything belongs to God then what can Caesar claim? Nothing.
Did someone say mystery cults??! Sign me tf up!
Yeah, I'm really hoping we get a multi theistic animalistic one this time. I want my grandchildren worshipping a wrathful pigeon
We have a mystery cult, here in the U.S. It's the Cult Of Trump.
Hard truth. Unless something big changes.
What ever happened to that Nero guy. Did he just play the fiddle and then was fine? Do we need on buy fiddles?
That's why I live on starvation SS checks today. There was no way I could save while I was working full time. Now? Forget it! I'd be homeless, and actually, I'm close to it. $800+ for a 1-bedroom? Food costing at least a third over what it was at the start of the year? The sad fact is I can no longer afford to live in my country.
Nest egg? What’s that?
I'll never forget working for an hour to make 7.25 to be told i don't get a shift meal o get a 20 percent discount and the food was over 8 dollars. In 2016. At a McDonald's.
Minimum wage doesn't mean minimum livable wage (which was the original point of it), it means the lowest amount corporations are willing to pay their workers, nothing else. If it's not actually possible to live with that, they don't really care.
I like to refer to minimum wage as "they would pay me less but it's illegal"
The Chris Rock principle
> it means the lowest amount corporations are willing to pay their workers oh im sure they are willing to pay less
Not the minimum employers are willing to pay, the minimum they are forced to pay
There's a call center here that's always hiring. Always. (shocked Pikachu at their turnover rate). I notice their wage has been creeping down. It's gone from almost $18 that they ever-so-generously called the "panini rate" and is down like 25 to 50 cents per hour every time I see their listing ad.
Not “willing”, “Able too” pay the workers. They would pay you in scrip if workers before us didn’t fight and die for it
I used to think that I was wrong. The term minimum wage came from the 30's around the time of the new deal and it was referencing the minimum wage to live comfortably.
Damn the minimum wage in Aus is about $14 US. Most people don't get paid minimum wage though, unless its Maccas or some other fast food giant. My grocery store pays $19 US as a minimum.
In Alberta Canada. Minimum is $15. (Minimum wage varies from province to province in Canada) I did a quick Google conversion of $7.25 USD to CAD. That is $9.90. Any place caught underpaying would be so fucked by labour board
$15 is still bad. Cost of living is way higher in Canada.
Hey, American living in Canada here. I feel I can help correct your thinking! Cost of living is worse in the States. Like much much worse. Food does cost more here, but most everything else is about the same. Plus the whole healthcare being taken care of is pretty nice to not stress about. I'd rather be dead in Canada versus alive in America.
That really depends on where you live, and having guaranteed health insurance saves you thousands per year vs min wage in the USA with no benefits. (But yes I agree, $15 is still too low)
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That's why federal is important. Setting a standard across states keep all accountable.
Cries in Texas 🥲
Agreed. And it also helps push along states that do set their own but are just as slow to raise theirs. Let's say hypothetically a state has a $15 minimum wage and it was last set at that rate, IDK 10 years ago. That would've been a decent wage then, but now it's mediocre at best. So while that state was paying double federal minimum wage then (and still is in this hypothetical scenario), in 2022 and soon in 2023, it will need to be raised to account for cost of living increases if nothing else. So let's stay the state doesn't want to raise theirs for whatever reason. If the federal were to go up to say $20/hour, then that state would have to raise theirs despite not wanting to do so. IMO, federal needs an annual increase for cost of living/CPI/inflation and the states who want to pay more than federal need to do this too. We also need a federal UBI type program IMO.
Yes, it's a"democracy" so a long as half of us get wet day is right to then it's okay /s
I’m 38 and it was $5.15 when I was 15. 23 years later it’s $7.25. It’s a fucking crime. In the 60s and 70s it was increasing every 1-2 years. In the 80s roughly every 3 years. We’ve now been 14 years since the last increase (given there’s only a few weeks left in 2022). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart What they’ll eventually do is increase it to maybe $15 in a few years and say “we’re giving you what you asked for!” Yeah… 10 years ago. Nothing less than $20 is possible to live off of anymore. At $20 you’d still be living at the poverty line and survive unless you’re in a car accident, get sick, or any other sudden expense occurs. It’s bullshit. All of my friends want to leave the US, myself included. And happily would if I could afford to. The US is a third world country for 99% of the population.
In trying to win marginal votes, your Democrats have drifted to the centre right. Meanwhile, your Republicans have slid to far right. It's a fools errand for Democrats since the goal post is constantly moving. Therefore, Democrats should abandon the centre and lean hard left on the side of workers.
They’ve not only stolen from workers but also from tax payers — each and every time a company, like Walmart, grossly underpays its employees it forces them to get food stamps and other government benefits just to survive.
Walmart also apparently has (I heard this from someone who used to work there) a training program in the onboarding process that encourages and helps people to get on food stamps and other government programs rather than just paying their employees a living wage. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard in my entire life.
And it’s not just Walmart. It’s all the fast food restaurants, national retail chains, etc. They’re all stealing from workers and tax payers to sell us junk food, fast fashion, and garbage we definitely don’t need.
And yet you get idiots saying that we should not only eliminate food stamps and other welfare/assistance programs, but that those jobs don't need to pay more too. So what's their solution to making things better for the people working these jobs? They just tell them to get a "better" job. Then when/if they do, they bitch that "no one wants to work anymore." Or they say those jobs are for high schoolers/college students. Funny I don't recall these companies being closed during school hours. They have no solutions besides those and those aren't even real solutions because there's not infinite "better" jobs. And even if there were, someone still has to work these other jobs or they have to be fully automated because people want these goods and services.
>what's their solution to making things better for the people That's quite an assumption you've made. These people have been clear that inequality and poverty are core tenants of their dogma. Essentially they support slavery and indentured servitude, as long as someone is beneath them in the social hierarchy.
Right, I'm not trying to suggest that they want to make things better for others. Most of them probably don't for the reasons you listed. But when pressed and asked for their answer on such matters, that is the type of bullshit they say because they're probably not going to readily admit in wanting to bring back slavery for example. They'll hint at it and use different words/phrases though probably.
>They'll hint at it and use different words/phrases though probably. Dog whistles It's difficult seeing centrist and liberals being willing to aknowledge politically that the other side genuinely want these things to happen. People are in such deep denial that some of their friends, family, and colleagues are closet Kanyes. It takes a meltdown and irrefutable admittance of guilt to that extreme before the average person thinks "alright you crossed the line". We have a political landscape of neo fascists sympathizers, opportunistic careerist/profiteers, and willfully ignorant enablers. I'm honestly amazed we've made it this far. We just had a massive political scandal revealing a significant number of politicians and executives are directly or indirectly engaged in underground sex trafficking and child slavery. The average voter is talking about guns, drugs, and public bathrooms.
They'll just victim blame those people for being inadequately paid by their employers
And they never ever stop to think, huh, maybe my employer should pay me more.
Every day this world inches closer towards idiocracy.
That's a weird way to spell demise.
Yeah, we're past that.
Shut up! Baitin!!!
Amazon had fliers for information for "families in need" that gave the numbers for applying for SNAP and such. And Amazon is on the better end of the pay scale for an entry level worker.
Is this true or just hearsay? Can anyone confirm?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html
You can't really prove these things or connect them to corporate, which is why they can do it without repercussions. They just tell some manager in some store to do it and if someone reports on it or something, they will fire the manager and say oops.
Walmart literally has a medicaid booth at the front of the store to help people get on government insurance, and encourages its workers to use it.
Walmart also refuses to hire security. Cities that have a walmart end up spending something like 1/4 of the police budget driving over to walmart constantly as they get called for a suspected shoplifter...
Walmart CEO just said local police forces need to make sure they're fully staffed to respond to shoplifting calls. Not that Walmart needs to staff appropriately to deter shoplifting, just local police forces.
That entire message is just PR horseshit. Walmart isn't hurting because of shoplifting, they are just realizing that brick and mortar can't out compete online shopping, but they need to create a suitable message to the public so that shareholders don't jump ship. In typical corporate asshole fashion they are going to blame the working class
I disagree w Brick & Mortar not "being able to compete w online shopping. Walmarts Not hurting in sales bc of that. Walmart been saying that since mid 00's. It's a tactic to reduce payroll. If they're hurting in sales it's bc majority of ppl are struggling financially & don't have "spending money". They, like so many corporations would rather steal the money from employees as this post references. 70% of Walmart employees are on Government assistance. Meaning Walmart (& numerous other companies) are subsidized by tax payers to pay their employees below Cost of Living wages. Nothing will change until People Unite & we have a General Strike. Every industry has had employees striking recently, it needs to be done with all industries together. A couple of days with everyone making under $25/hr (which is about 60-70% of the workforce) of Striking would probably do it. Wall Street & execs would be shaking in their boots. Who wants to strike?
Used to work for Marshalls as loss prevention and one of the stores I help out at in an urban epicenter had nearly full time police coverage. People would steal mere feet from them and sometimes the cops would be too busy looking at their phones to notice.
Wow police playing with their phones instead of doing their jobs? Was this store in Uvalde or something?
Exactly. Sometimes we’d have to walk by as a “shopper” and quickly tip them off.
>just local police forces. If we're being honest, it's not like most local police forces do much good usually, anyway.
Well what else is he supposed to do as the CEO? Act in the best interest of the people and stores he’s in charge of???
Police exist to protect property not people sadly.
I live on one of the highest gun death cities in America... And all our Walmarts have security guards.
I don't, and our Walmarts have no security but there always seems to be 2-3 police cruisers parked out front. Sometimes they put up a sign saying the police are doing "heavy shoplifting surveillance." I have a pic I took awhile back I could try to find, if you're curious.
I believe you. Walmart is a complete shit show.
Why don’t cop simply refuse the calls? They charge businesses for excessive alarm calls.
Don't forget subsidies.
My god this isn't talked about enough. It's SO SO SO much worse than that. They get subsidies at so many levels I cannot speak on them all. One big one is they pay less per employee the more they have. A huge cut comes at 500 employees. These subsidies essentially make it so that they literally pay less to do business than small businesses by significant amounts. This makes it so you can't even start a business that competes with them.
The other thing you don't see people talk about enough is just how much help big corporations get compared to small family businesses. There's a good book called Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston more people need to read.
Some of which are called "tax incentives", where the company collects the sales tax, and keeps it.
Cities and counties shell out for infrastructure as well.
I have a interesting solution to this the US government should require businesses that pay sub standard wages that put people on government programs to cover the cost to provide these services to their employees. I don’t think it could be implemented overnight but tax the heck out of crappy companies! Welfare programs get a bad rap but nobody talks about corporate welfare.
> Welfare programs get a bad rap but nobody talks about corporate welfare. Because corporations own the media, and therefore control the narrative.
Fire politicians who are against unions. Vote for politicians who support unions.
Once gerrymandering ends it'll be a possibility. Gerrymandering ending, however will take decades. I'm sure we'll all be dead by then tho so that's cool.
Also I believe lower wages = lower payroll taxes and lower income taxes. The company takes the difference and either does stock buybacks, management bonuses, or stashes it offshore somewhere.
Does anyone not remember that Walmart also buys life insurance on it's employees and writes it off as a business expense. Then when the employee dies, they collect the policy too. It is true! Look into it.
Funny how Walmart accepts food stamps
Hell walmart workers can be working full time and still qualify for food stamps been that way for years the taxpayers have subsidized the Walton’s and they’ve made billions all while never paying a living wage and treating their employees like shit subsidized by the United States government/taxpayers!
70% or more of Walmart employees are on Government assistance
Also a lot of companies just don't pay taxes while also underpaying their employees for their innovation. At least if all the profits went to the company, some good could come out of it at a high tax %
Not only that but does anyone remember supply chain issues before covid? I sure as hell don't but now it seems to be the thing all the time with so many products. Called about home ac the other day.... "Oh that ductwork is weeks out due to supply chain issues". Don't get me started on food items. I'm not saying it's not real but I'm also not saying it's all real. I think a lot of it is bullshit and you must be asleep if you don't think it is.
Shipping times just got back to pre-covid levels, and Chinese manufacturing is in absolute shambles due to their zero covid policy, so you're going to keep hearing about supply chain issues. Neither the parts manufacturer nor the AC repair company benefits from parts being delayed.
We reached the low trillions with PPP loans alone.
Insane to think about. Recently I've been feeling stupid af realizing ive been actually paying taxes while mfs are just siphoning shit the whole time.
Nobody I know bothered to look into it or hold their elected officials accountable
[“In its most recent public report, the SBA said it has approved nearly $753 billion in PPP loan forgiveness through Sept. 11. That’s 95% of all money borrowed. It has been criticized by government auditors for forgiving loans before they are reviewed for eligibility and fraud.” ](https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/i-team/their-ppp-loans-were-forgiven-but-they-were-under-investigation-by-the-fbi-how-did-that-happen)
more info: hey you want to be mad? here's some [hard numbers about the Great PPP Loan Fraud:](https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/2022.06.20_Weekly%20Forgiveness%20Report_Public-508.pdf) * 90% of all PPP loans have submitted forgiveness applications * Forgiveness has been requested for 94% of the total loan value of all PPP loans * 89% of all PPP loans have been fully or partially forgiven * **94% of the total PPP loan value has been forgiven, in full or in part** (which amounts to $738,178,532,210) still not mad? most of that money never even went to the employees. which, was the entire fucking point of the PPP loans. >[What Is the CARES Act?](https://www.investopedia.com/coronavirus-aid-relief-and-economic-security-cares-act-4800707) > >Paycheck Protection Program (**PPP**) > >The law appropriated $349 billion to support small businesses' efforts **to maintain their payrolls** and some overhead expenses through the emergency. **The stated goal was to keep workers paid and employed.** and >[Where the PPP Money Went](https://www.investopedia.com/where-ppp-money-went-5216725#:~:text=Roughly%2025%25%20of%20PPP%20loan,suppliers%20of%20companies%20receiving%20loans) > >Almost all PPP loans are expected to be forgiven with 94% of eligible small businesses in the U.S. receiving one or more loans under the program. Roughly 25% of PPP loan funds went directly to workers who would have lost their jobs. **The rest (75%) went to business owners, shareholders, creditors, and suppliers of companies receiving loans.** more articles: * [Feds: 75% of $800 billion didn’t reach employees](https://www.gmtoday.com/the_freeman/business/feds-75-of-800-billion-didn-t-reach-employees/article_3ad9d8c6-feb9-11ec-80d1-e35adb4ef939.html) * [Less than 35% of the $800 billion in PPP loans actually went to workers, say economists](https://www.fastcompany.com/90713747/workers-800-billion-ppp-loans-economists)
And the "stimulus" checks, intended to give people spending money to stimulate the economy, largely went straight to landlords and banks.
Rand corporation came out with a big study showing since 1975 so even less time. Average salary in the USA for a full time job could be around $100k
[This is the Rand report on income inequality](https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html) from 2018. I came here to share the same thing. The highlight of the report is that there was a transfer of **$50** **trillion** **dollars** from the bottom 90% to the top 10%. If the pre-1975 economic breakdown continued through today, the bottom 90% would be $50 trillion dollars richer. That's enough to pay every single working person an extra $1,144 every single month, every single year. These rich bastards stole over $1,100 from every working person every month and they continue to want an even bigger cut. That report was mind-blowing to me when I read it and it got near zero fanfare or reporting. Disgusting stuff. edit: This report should be required reading for any anti-work/pro union/leftist. It's a clear cut example of how drastically our economy has changed over the last 45 years. When your grandparents ask why you're struggling drop this thing on their head.
It’s shocking how much productivity has increased yet how little goes to workers.
Coincidentally coincides with a change that happened to the currency in 1971. Do you know what that is?
Can you elaborate? Ultimately this is about the discrepancy between the dollars held by the wealthy vs the dollars held by everyone else. Why is gold relevant?
They removed the link between money and gold, which functions as a boon to the banks and the mega wealthy and hurts those of us who have to work everyday. This allows them to print as much money as they want because it isn’t tied to any tangible value. If you were to calculate the value of minimum wage in the 60’s and convert it to gold coins for example, those gold coins would equate to about $27/hr I’m todays dollars. Our lowest paid workers should be making about FOUR TIMES what they get today.
Um - that math is wrong. It wasn't a $17/hr discrepancy 60 years ago, thats what it is today. It grew from 0 to 17 over that time period.
This is what kills me so often. Like, I agree with the overall point, but the way it's being made is terrible and wrong.
It harms credibility. They can dismiss any arguments on technicalities. We have to be better.
Also it's assuming everyone worked for minimum wage the entire time.
Thank you for pointing this out. Stuff like this bothers me.
Yeah. And it's also wrong on how productivity should be **the** factor to base this on. Hand weaving a rug is waaaay harder than using a rug-making machine (rug loom?), and probably takes takes skill too. But that machine is going to pump out rugs. Productivity went up, but the required time and effort to learn and do the thing went down. Even if the rug maker earned 100% of the profits from selling it, it shouldn't sell for the same price as the hand-woven one that took more labor, time, and skill. There are really good arguments out there to use, and it hurts workers to dilute that pool of arguments with bad ones.
That's why you should make up for it from the supply closet.
supply closet shopping is the best.
At one place, they had me go through a floor of empty cubicles in order to toss any random stuff for some reason and set the cubicles up with workstations. Found a filing cabinet full of unused hanging folders in a rainbow of colors as well as tab folders, tabs, labels, clear sleeves, etc. Think I took 2 or 3 grocery bags worth of filing supplies home and was finally able to get my important paperwork in order. I know the best stories are of monitors and office furniture, but a filing cabinet’s worth of organizing supplies are definitely *not* cheap.
Lol I’d take a box of random organizing stuff/pens etc rather than some old furniture that everyone and their mother has sat upon or touched.
I recently started a new work from home job. I quickly clicked through all the training material then turned down the volume down really low in the training class. We’re required to be on camera to make sure we are paying attention. I set up my phone where it looks like I’m looking at the camera and caught up on some of my Netflix shows today. Lol
I'm not entirely sure how not paying attention to training is sticking it to the man, but I'm here for it.
What a dumb and shitty way to calculate though
Yeah this is some really bad napkin math. I'm sure the result is still in the trillions, but it's not like minimum wage should have been $24 the entire time if we are just saying it should have gone up with productivity levels.
Exactly, the argument is already extremely strong! Calculating this badly only opens the door for right wingers to “ackshually”
What you mean productivity didn't increase over 3x overnight and stay that way for 60 years? Whenever I see this guy's face I sigh, his heart's in the right place at least I guess
I’m all in favor of this argument but the math is sus. You can’t take the current dollar delta to min wage and use that linearly throughout the past. You’d have to calculate the same at each relevant interval based on the historic min wage at that point.
Just assuming a steady increase the total amount stolen would be halved.
Thank you, I was searching for this comment.
I would hazard a guess this statement is based on CPI
Sure, but the difference didn't jump from zero to $17 one day in 1960.
Nothing in his argument makes sense because people working at the federal minimum wage are a tiny minority, and the rise in productivity is due to technology, not people working more.
Using just the info he's using, yeah, should have said at most instead of at least, and it still would be misleading. In reality including other factors, he's probably right.
Couple that with the trillions that went missing from the military budget. It's staggering..
The US could easily end poverty within it's borders, it's politicians refuse to do so and instead allow the wealthy to rob it's citizens for the sake of pure greed.
The rich people are the ones writing all the laws and controlling literally everything. This is all intentional and they don't intend on helping people survive. It was built this way.
And it will continue this way unless the workers unite and overthrow them.
EAT THE RICH
Gluttony is more fitting a term than Greed
Which comes from greed.... Greed is the core of it. Gluttony is a subcategory of greed.
Gluttony is the exaggerated form of greed and makes people rabid
It's both. They're living extravagantly (gluttony), which is especially easy because they're hoarding wealth and resources (greed). We can probably work some other deadly sins into it pretty easily. Those are the glaringly obvious ones that Christian conservatives seem to be unable to see though.
Creation of jealousy leading to extreme versions of envy is another one.... "The Almighty They" that have happily been unnamed really outdid themselves tipping the scales into unforgivable territory
Worshipping False Idols.
It's probably even more if you factored for the median wage decline.
Yeah, we know. Help.
It means I'd be making over $60/hr, which means roughly $120k/yr or around $10k/month. I could support a family with a mortgage and have 2 cars and my wife wouldn't have to work. All for a job that didn't require college. Huh, sounds like...the 1960s........hmmmmmmm
Not raising minimum wage is criminal
Yeah, the shift coincides with the weakening labor movement. You want your fair share? They ain’t gonna give it to you with a demand. Organize your work. Join the DSA. Join a trade union. Join the IWW. Form workers committees in your workplace. Institute democracy at work.
Go to PSL rallies and apply for membership, they're the only leftist party I see that has the ideological foundation needed to see through any sort of paradigm shift. The DSA is far too forgiving of the current system, they believe electoralism and non-impactful protesting are the only solutions to a bought and paid for state. It's a good jumping off point if you haven't read political theory yet, but it is not a sustainable leftist movement as it is co-opted by Social Democrats who have sold themselves and the party out numerous times already. They are not to be trusted. IWW, while more put together ideologically than the DSA, will fall short if any such general strike they advocate were to come about. Without trade unions being largely composed of and run by members of the IWW, they're little more than another group of people waving banners.
Capitalism is a scam, but not obvious unfortunatly
This is consistent with the cracking down of unions in early 80’s (Reagan smashed it I believe) Since that time research show the transfer of wealth from ‘bottom’ 90% to the top 10% is estimated around 50 trillion.
And if you add the increase to production, the minimum wage would be $27ph.
I work for a popular brown delivery company. Largest union in the country. It has kept inflation raises since 1908. We make over 42 an hour....
28 paid days off when? Every industrialized nation except the USA guarantees that for their workforce.
The thing that I don't understand, it just boggles my fucking brain... at the end of the day, shit has to get sold, right? Be it goods or services. Customers with more $$$ can buy more. Build up the working class makes your customers able to spend more back with you. How is that not the freaking mantra?
Sounds like bipartisan support for Slave wages!
Just think for a second how much more efficient things are now with computers and internet. All the paperwork and administration that can be 10000 times faster because of it. Yet we're working the same hours and get the same pay. Where did all that extra productivity go? It became a yacht for your boss.
Trust me… I know. 40 years old, worked for peanuts my entire life. Have 2 jobs now and my wife works full time also, just to stay afloat. We can’t vacation, we don’t have toys. I don’t know how I’ll ever retire. I live this scenario every day. I know that it is true.
It's not surprising that our elected leaders are for sale. What is surprising is how incredibly cheap they are.
I've been saying it for years. The American Dream has become literally that for most... a dream. It's so sad...
I understand the point but that is not how math works. The difference now is 17. 60 years ago it would have been 0 ie the starting point. At best you could argue the average of 8.50, but I doubt the difference grew in a straight line manner.
It would be in productivity adjusted dollars. I had the same reaction. Example, lets say over 2 years minimum wage would have adjusted up by 1 dollar each year. In raw dollars, it would work out to a missing ~$6k total ($2k the first year, $4k the second). But if you productivity adjust along the way, you also adjust each prior year's dollar for the new productivity rate. You could, correctly, say they're missing $8k in productivity adjusted dollars for a simplifying figure. Tl;dr: In terms of buying power and year over year compensation, it's simpler to just say it's $50T in *productivity adjusted* dollars. We would do the same with inflation. Edit: you do it this way because year over year productivity or inflation rates vary, so you always use the overall rate for a time period rather than adjust in individual chunks. Of course if you wanted to you could calculate the more precise figure in *non-adjusted* dollars by going year to year and accumulating the deltas. The correct dollar figure to compare this against would be, likewise, *productivity adjusted* profits to determine how much was siphoned from workers.
What you're not understanding is that OP is assuming that workers were being paid perfectly fairly in 1958, 1959, and 1960, but that they were suddenly having over 70% of their wages proportional to their productivity stolen from them starting immediately in 1961 onwards. In reality, the disconnect between the growth in wages and the growth in productivity was fairly small in 1961, and gradually grew over time. Just because workers today are having $17/hr stolen from them in wages does not mean that workers in, say, 1975, were having $17/hr (adjusted for inflation) stolen from them back then. Yet, the math assumes that they were.
Yeah, best we can do without knowing exactly how productivity grew and how many employees there were at any time is use… idk… maybe the Cauchy mean value theorem to conclude there is some dollar amount in (0, 17) which is the average dollar amount stolen over the 60 year period
The point is taken, but I think the "math" is wrong. It's not $17/hr difference for each year. The difference wold have to be calculated for each year. It would be maybe $1/hr difference in 1963, a $2 difference in 1970, $5 in 1980 to the $17 difference of today.
While I agree, fuck corporations, that math isn't right. I mention it because if we want our message to be strong it has to be as factual as possible. It says that minimum wage should be $24 now, after having slowly increased over many years. The minimum wage wasn't (and shouldn't have been, from an economic standpoint) $24 back in the 1960s, so they haven't been stealing $17/hr for 60 years. That's just how much they're stealing now. Again, though, for emphasis: fuck 'em anyway.
Wages should rise with productivity. And the minimum wage should rise to cover the costs of living (and then some, so people can *live*). But adjusting minimum wage based on overall productivity seems a bit odd without additional stats.
Don’t even get me started on the corrupt stock market that then steals more from Americans that are just trying to break even on their money from what they should be getting
More food for thought is that the greed is so out of control that $24/hr isn't even reasonably close to being anything more than a subsistence wage at best in the US.
bad math but the sentiment is correct
The value in gold is same as well. Convert the minimum wage in 1960 to gold’s value at that time vs today’s and you get around $26/hour.
Another easy way to calculate what is being stolen from the average worker is to simply look up the minimum wage from that time, and just adjust that number for inflation. It's mind boggling how much we've let the rich take from us all. It's time to take it ALL from them. Everything.
if minwage was $24 today then I'd be making $75/hr and all businesses would adjust their pricing accordingly
I’m confused by this being from an anarchy sub… the greedy owners are paying the least they can, but somehow taking away that government enforced minimum is going to help?
What is the current minimum wage in 1960 dollars? I bet that would be an interesting comparison for some people.
Although his calculations on a napkin don't add up, most of what he says is true.
In fact, any surplus value that workers produce and isn't going to them is theft. The entire economy is, and always has been, created by the workers and should belong to us.
https://rationist.org/the-labor-share/ yup
Republican rule since the 70’s
In 2006, Documentary film maker Morgan Spurlock and his girlfriend attempted to live on minimum wage in Episode 1 of "30 Days," which was, of course $7.25/hr. They barely survived, and that was, what, seventeen years ago? Plus they were both working and only did it for a month. Imagine having to work YEARS in that kind of excessively stressful situation. While many companies currently aren't screwing their workers that badly, $10/hr (common in fast food) isn't enough either, nor is $15/hr. Our government is controlled by the rich, and most laws passed are weighted in their favor. The "common working man" has gotten royally fucked over for a long time. Can this even be fixed, or are we destined for a major social collapse?
Ok well the math there doesn't work because the $17 didn't start in 1961, but the point still stands
Fuck the economy fuck the chains support local business
I say we start up a class action lawsuit!
I’ve had to subsidize every day job I’ve held the past decade through content creation and online fundraising. So what was the point of these day jobs, other than wearing myself out? Whether it’s through state welfare or crowdfunding, society is subsidizing the payroll of billion dollar corporations. This needs to stop now.
If the math here is busted, what should the number actually be?
Right on the dot! Excess of greed. The more money they get - the more greedy they become. Oh I made 5 mil this year off the backs of others? Why not push for 10 next month? 25 the very next and beyond that.
It's not a lack of resources, it is a lack of empathy these corporations have for the people who made their business successful.
And as income is taxed higher than corporate earnings we would have zero problem funding our necessary programs.