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...But how long will it take for paternal leave to trickle down to the largest employers in America who pay near or at minimum wage? 1) Wal-Mart Stores 2,200,0

...But how long will it take for paternal leave to trickle down to the largest employers in America who pay near or at minimum wage? 1) Wal-Mart Stores 2,200,000 2) Yum! Brands 523,000 3) McDonald's 440,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_t... IMHO a billionaire taking a two-month leave will not inspire a majority of the top 50 employers to allow their male workforce to take 2-months off. YMMV

Turing_Machine 11y ago
This is probably going to get me voted down, but maybe...just maybe...you shouldn't be having kids if the only job you can get is McDonalds or Yum! Brands (i.e., Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.). If you choose to have a child when your resources are that limited, your non-paternity leave is going to be among the least of the child's problems.
- datashovel 11y ago
  Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but are you saying having children and a family is a privilege that should be exclusive to wealthy people? EDIT: I think I have a different opinion on this. I say if a human being in a wealthy nation like USA is only capable of a job that pays minimum wage, this is a problem with the system, and not with the individual. If we just discounted all people for where they have ended up, we will never be curious enough to explore how they got there and how to prevent it in the future.
- pyrophane 11y ago
  I think everyone who works the equivalent of full-time should be able to afford to have children. The fact is, not everyone is going to get out of these low wage jobs, and that doesn't mean they would be bad parents. Have we gone so far as a society towards judging the poor that we don't believe the are fit to reproduce?
- lenkite 11y ago
  Well.. such thinking can be generalized to simply saying: "You shouldn't be LIVING, if you are poor. Shoot yourself now because you cannot afford life and you are wasting resources of the rich on this planet with your sorry, poverty-stricken soul"
- click170 11y ago
  You've got a valid point that available resources should factor into the decision making process for having a child. That said, if that's the only measure then only the rich can afford to have children so clearly there has to be more to this. What if instead, a CEO is only allowed to take time off equal to or less than the average of every other employee.
  - aianus 11y ago
    > That said, if that's the only measure then only the rich can afford to have children You say this like it's a bad thing. If only rich people had children we could nearly eliminate human suffering within a generation.
    - datashovel 11y ago
      Sorry, but this is probably the most ignorant comment I've ever read on HN.
      - aianus 11y ago
        Why don't you enlighten us with a rebuttal, then?
        plonh 11y ago
        Rich people need pooor laborers to create the wealth they get 50% as capitalists and consumers.
        datashovel 11y ago
        If we're looking to figure out who should and should not be allowed to reproduce, I would start with the people who actually believe they're superior, and should be privileged by law in some way, just because they might have more money in their bank account. Those are the kinds of traits (whether genetic or not) that we should be trying to expunge from the population.
        11y ago
- dionidium 11y ago
  This and moralizing about the smoking and drinking of the lower classes sound reasonable, but they're basically non-starters. You don't stop having basic human desires when you're poor. And as long as people are having sex, some of them are going to have kids.
  - lgas 11y ago
    Not to mention that sex is free (well, generally) so it's an even easier and more available option than drugs or alcohol to distract yourself from crushing poverty.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    I'm not "moralizing" about anything. Effective birth control is readily available. I have no interest whatsoever in policing other people's sex lives. I'm just saying that if you work at McDonald's, you probably can't afford to have a child. Yes, there will be accidents, people who fall on hard times, etc., and I actually have no problem with social programs aimed at helping those people out. But that's not what the OP wants. He wants McDonald's to bear the burden of providing paternity leave for those people.
    - hardoncollider 11y ago
      "If a worker today is employed full time for a full 52-week year at a minimum wage job today, she or he is making $15,080. [...] The average age for these [76 million] workers is 36 years old and they have been in the labor force for an average of 17 years. Only 6 percent of the workers who would benefit from this minimum wage increase are teenagers; i.e., 94 percent are adults." 318M people in the US, 188M above the age of 30. Around 38% of adults (30+) are working for minimum wage and any prospect of having a family would put them below the federal poverty line. Do we really believe in an environment where 38% of adults shouldn't be afforded the ability to spend time with their child, something every other major-industrialized nation guarantees as a human right? McDonalds should bear the burden -- I think the $5B in profits last year should allow for a little human decency. http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/public/index.cfm/2015/7/top-economists-are-backing-sen-bernie-sanders-on-establishing-a-15-an-hour-minimum-wage http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/public/index.cfm/201...
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  My short answer to that is: shit happens. The longer answer is that life doesn't always pan out the way you expect it to and, well, shit happens. Rather than worry about what you think someone should have done, let's focus on the fact that it already happened and how do we make the best of the situation.
- Crusoe123 11y ago
  Maybe, just maaaybe. We as a society should allow people to take some time off to take care of their infant.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
- pinkrooftop 11y ago
  are you really saying having a minimum wage job should mean you don't have kids? Lets fix that first with basic income. Not to mention that kids are a way to government benefits and tax benefits, financial concerns are not the real issue here anyway. It is time off to care for babies. Hell, time off to be sick for a day. These jobs have the least responsibility but have the most rigid level of service.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    are you really saying having a minimum wage job should mean you don't have kids? Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying (again, with the understanding that there are accidents, people who get laid off from better jobs, etc.)
    - lghh 11y ago
      So you're suggesting a sort of eradication of the poor over a generation due to the lack of ability to bear and support a child?
      - VanillaLime 11y ago
        So you're suggesting that being poor is a genetic condition (and one that apparently should be perpetuated)? Because that sounds even more dehumanizing than suggesting that the poor consider their resources before choosing to have children.
        lghh 11y ago
        No, I am suggesting that people born into poverty are much more likely to stay in poverty and people not born in poverty are much more likely to stay out of poverty. Poverty is generational, social conditions can be passed down from parent to child without being genetic.
        Turing_Machine 11y ago
- mikekchar 11y ago
  I suppose it depends on what kind of society you want to live in. Is a family something that should only be available to those who can afford it? Should we compare having children with buying a new pair of shoes or having a car? Or is it something that we want everyone in society to have available to them: for example like quality healthcare or legal assistance? I'm not trying to pose a rhetorical question. I think this is literally a choice that societies have to make. On one extreme, society does not have to cater to anyone. We could collect no taxes and have no shared services. We could have no rules about how companies should interact with their employees or society at large. At the other extreme we could make everything a shared service and have society dictate how people get access to things. Of course neither of these extremes is desirable for most people. We have to decide where to draw the line and what we think is good for our society. Your comment seems to imply that the choice in this case is obvious: if you can't afford children you shouldn't have them. However, I think you can imagine the suffering that could impose upon people who have little chance of being able to support a family by their own means. Is a child a luxury like new shoes? Or is something that we want everyone (regardless of class or wealth) to be able to have (understanding that society will have to foot the bill)? Even though I have couched the question in a slightly loaded way, you might be surprised that I am personally torn by this issue and can see huge drawbacks for both approaches.
  - hugh4 11y ago
    >I'm not trying to pose a rhetorical question. I think this is literally a choice that societies have to make. It would be nice if we could actually make that choice. Better still, it would be nice if we had a whole lot of societies which made different choices and people were free to move between them, so we could individually make a choice. Instead though we've got a lowest-common-denominator society.
    - rvikmanis 11y ago
      > whole lot of societies which made different choices and people were free to move between them The internet is a lot like that. Maybe someday this can be a model for the world at large.
  - 11y ago
- blazespin 11y ago
  Are your fucking kidding me. I think people who focus less on capitalism and consumerism and more on raising kids should be the ones allowed to have kids. Not the who want to work all the time. Maybe then the world will right itself in a generation.
- veidr 11y ago
  Ha ha! You probably should have been voted down, but OK, let's take a look at your idea. You are saying 1 out of 4 American workers shouldn't have kids[1]. If everybody followed your advice, a lot of pretty influential people wouldn't have been born: Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling, Larry Ellison (OK maybe that works in your argument's favor). Jay Z. Abraham Lincoln. Barack Obama. I wouldn't be here, either; my dad was a short-order fry cook when I was born. He worked a second job as a night janitor at PG&E when I was young. So yeah, you'd better think long and hard about the financial aspects of having kids, but that actually applies whether you flip burgers at Mickey D's for minimum wage or flip bits at Facebook for a $150k annual salary. Even if the financial aspects are hard, that actually isn't the hardest part of raising kids, even for poor people. And growing up poor isn't nearly as hard on kids as is growing up with bad parents. If you want kids, the only reason you shouldn't have them is if you aren't up to the task of raising them -- for whatever reason. That reason could certainly be financial; I'm not sure that I myself would have chosen to have kids if I was a short-order fry cook, instead of a highly-paid tech worker who is married to another one. But I know plenty of low-income people who are awesome parents and whose examples I strive to live up to with my own kids. [1]: http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/demographics http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/demographics
  - stickfigure 11y ago
    The logical extension of this argument is that everyone on earth should be forced to have as many children as possible all the time, because - gasp - think of all the wonderful human beings that we're missing out on. In fact, all those women of childbearing age you see walking around without a baby in their womb are guilty of a certain kind of murder. Strap them down and get to work!
    - zhte415 11y ago
      The parent's comment said something explicitly different. There's a very clear line: >>If you want kids, the only reason you shouldn't have them is if you aren't up to the task of raising them -- for whatever reason. As I read it, this submission is about paternity leave and associated Zuckerberg/Facebook, not whether people should have children.
- evanpw 11y ago
  This argument proves too much. A minimum-wage US worker in 2015 has a higher standard of living than the vast majority of all human parents who have ever lived, or even the majority of parents currently living on Earth. Are you saying that almost all human reproduction so far has been a mistake?
- asveikau 11y ago
  Summary: maybe they should try not being poor. If I am to take this to its logical conclusion, I guess there are entire nations, indeed probably most of the human population, who you think should just not reproduce.
  - TheBakaAniki 11y ago
    There will always be poor people unless you make the concept of property disappear completely. In this world someone else has to become poor in your place so you can be rich.
    - asveikau 11y ago
      This is not a reply to my comment. This is jibberish. I hope you turn out to be a more compassionate person than the tone of your statement suggests.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    If by "summary" you mean "lie about what I said", maybe. "If I am to take this to its logical conclusion, I guess there are entire nations, indeed probably most of the human population, who you think should just not reproduce." Yeah, pretty much. Why are you advocating that children be born into a life of misery?
    - asveikau 11y ago
      I think the more pressing question is why are you advocating that humanity destroy itself? ps: I don't believe that all lower income people and their children live in misery. Seems like you would rather they just not live?
- ta0o0o0 11y ago
  Do you plan on retiring? Who's going to produce the goods and services you intend to purchase in your retirement? First world birth rates are already low. Under your guidance we'd have a demographic crisis like you wouldn't believe. Sure, there's immigration, but I don't see why your rule doesn't apply to poor people in other countries.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Fuck up the planet in order to preserve the ecconomic system. Does anything strike you as wrong with that?
    - ta0o0o0 11y ago
      The comment I was replying to said nothing about the environment, only individual wealth. Also, it doesn't matter what economic system you're using, if your ratio of working people to non-working people decreases, your quality of life will also decrease. Lastly, what I said doesn't require the population to grow, only to stay constant. If you want to reduce the population because it's somehow bad for the planet, you can do it gradually.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I would argue the opposite: maybe...just maybe...fast food jobs should still pay a living wage.
- ddingus 11y ago
  Yes, maybe. That's a fair comment. However, it's countered by the fact that an awful lot of people are going to be doing basic labors. The basic labors need to get done, and someone is going to be doing them too. Given that, it's it realistic for very large fractions of us simply not having kids? Does not seem that way to me. Anecdotally, the janitor at my school as a kid was not a smart man. Not dumb, just not intellectual. But, he was a pretty great dad and his family did well. They didn't have much, but they turned out just fine. Some of his kids ended up moving up and out on to better things too. I've often thought about that dynamic. We never know how this stuff turns out. I, myself, grew up in relative poverty. Not just lacking luxuries, but sometimes basic needs. Honestly, didn't do me any real harm, and I'm sure glad I'm here as are my peers and family. To me, the problem is one of how we value people rather than their decision to start families. People always start families. This is primal. Inherent feature. We need families. Most of us do anyway. Some of us don't. But that doesn't align with the job / value problem. We need the janitor. Somebody is going to do that work, and what basis is that for denying them basic human dignity? Or, maybe we don't really need the janitor? Ok, that means we do a lot more ourselves. Wouldn't some people make the case they are wasting their time having to do that stuff? Of course! As they should, and that is precisely why we need to value the janitor. The labor isn't sexy, but it serves an important purpose, even if that purpose is to free some research scientists to cure cancer faster. If somebody is working full time, maybe that needs to somehow be enough to live a modest life, and to me, that life includes a family. Maybe both parents work. That's OK. Should we actually put weight behind that idea of waiting to have kids in a time of relative financial security, quite frankly, way too many of us won't be having kids! Worse, that means way too many of us are deemed unworthy somehow, and is that really the right thing to do? Given we need those basic labors done?
- anjc 11y ago
  I can't believe people are actually taking this ridiculous wealth-centric comment seriously. You've spent too much time in tech/online man, spend some time in the real world.
- paulddraper 11y ago
  There are worse things than poverty. Like that comment.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

This is probably going to get me voted down, but maybe...just maybe...you shouldn't be having kids if the only job you can get is McDonalds or Yum! Brands (i.e., Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.). If you choose to have a child when your resources are that limited, your non-paternity leave is going to be among the least of the child's problems.

datashovel 11y ago
Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but are you saying having children and a family is a privilege that should be exclusive to wealthy people? EDIT: I think I have a different opinion on this. I say if a human being in a wealthy nation like USA is only capable of a job that pays minimum wage, this is a problem with the system, and not with the individual. If we just discounted all people for where they have ended up, we will never be curious enough to explore how they got there and how to prevent it in the future.
pyrophane 11y ago
I think everyone who works the equivalent of full-time should be able to afford to have children. The fact is, not everyone is going to get out of these low wage jobs, and that doesn't mean they would be bad parents. Have we gone so far as a society towards judging the poor that we don't believe the are fit to reproduce?
lenkite 11y ago
Well.. such thinking can be generalized to simply saying: "You shouldn't be LIVING, if you are poor. Shoot yourself now because you cannot afford life and you are wasting resources of the rich on this planet with your sorry, poverty-stricken soul"
click170 11y ago
You've got a valid point that available resources should factor into the decision making process for having a child. That said, if that's the only measure then only the rich can afford to have children so clearly there has to be more to this. What if instead, a CEO is only allowed to take time off equal to or less than the average of every other employee.
- aianus 11y ago
  > That said, if that's the only measure then only the rich can afford to have children You say this like it's a bad thing. If only rich people had children we could nearly eliminate human suffering within a generation.
  - datashovel 11y ago
    Sorry, but this is probably the most ignorant comment I've ever read on HN.
    - aianus 11y ago
      Why don't you enlighten us with a rebuttal, then?
      - plonh 11y ago
        Rich people need pooor laborers to create the wealth they get 50% as capitalists and consumers.
      - datashovel 11y ago
        If we're looking to figure out who should and should not be allowed to reproduce, I would start with the people who actually believe they're superior, and should be privileged by law in some way, just because they might have more money in their bank account. Those are the kinds of traits (whether genetic or not) that we should be trying to expunge from the population.
        11y ago
dionidium 11y ago
This and moralizing about the smoking and drinking of the lower classes sound reasonable, but they're basically non-starters. You don't stop having basic human desires when you're poor. And as long as people are having sex, some of them are going to have kids.
- lgas 11y ago
  Not to mention that sex is free (well, generally) so it's an even easier and more available option than drugs or alcohol to distract yourself from crushing poverty.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  I'm not "moralizing" about anything. Effective birth control is readily available. I have no interest whatsoever in policing other people's sex lives. I'm just saying that if you work at McDonald's, you probably can't afford to have a child. Yes, there will be accidents, people who fall on hard times, etc., and I actually have no problem with social programs aimed at helping those people out. But that's not what the OP wants. He wants McDonald's to bear the burden of providing paternity leave for those people.
  - hardoncollider 11y ago
    "If a worker today is employed full time for a full 52-week year at a minimum wage job today, she or he is making $15,080. [...] The average age for these [76 million] workers is 36 years old and they have been in the labor force for an average of 17 years. Only 6 percent of the workers who would benefit from this minimum wage increase are teenagers; i.e., 94 percent are adults." 318M people in the US, 188M above the age of 30. Around 38% of adults (30+) are working for minimum wage and any prospect of having a family would put them below the federal poverty line. Do we really believe in an environment where 38% of adults shouldn't be afforded the ability to spend time with their child, something every other major-industrialized nation guarantees as a human right? McDonalds should bear the burden -- I think the $5B in profits last year should allow for a little human decency. http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/public/index.cfm/2015/7/top-economists-are-backing-sen-bernie-sanders-on-establishing-a-15-an-hour-minimum-wage http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/public/index.cfm/201...
HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
My short answer to that is: shit happens. The longer answer is that life doesn't always pan out the way you expect it to and, well, shit happens. Rather than worry about what you think someone should have done, let's focus on the fact that it already happened and how do we make the best of the situation.
Crusoe123 11y ago
Maybe, just maaaybe. We as a society should allow people to take some time off to take care of their infant.
engi_nerd 11y ago
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
pinkrooftop 11y ago
are you really saying having a minimum wage job should mean you don't have kids? Lets fix that first with basic income. Not to mention that kids are a way to government benefits and tax benefits, financial concerns are not the real issue here anyway. It is time off to care for babies. Hell, time off to be sick for a day. These jobs have the least responsibility but have the most rigid level of service.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  are you really saying having a minimum wage job should mean you don't have kids? Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying (again, with the understanding that there are accidents, people who get laid off from better jobs, etc.)
  - lghh 11y ago
    So you're suggesting a sort of eradication of the poor over a generation due to the lack of ability to bear and support a child?
    - VanillaLime 11y ago
      So you're suggesting that being poor is a genetic condition (and one that apparently should be perpetuated)? Because that sounds even more dehumanizing than suggesting that the poor consider their resources before choosing to have children.
      - lghh 11y ago
        No, I am suggesting that people born into poverty are much more likely to stay in poverty and people not born in poverty are much more likely to stay out of poverty. Poverty is generational, social conditions can be passed down from parent to child without being genetic.
        Turing_Machine 11y ago
mikekchar 11y ago
I suppose it depends on what kind of society you want to live in. Is a family something that should only be available to those who can afford it? Should we compare having children with buying a new pair of shoes or having a car? Or is it something that we want everyone in society to have available to them: for example like quality healthcare or legal assistance? I'm not trying to pose a rhetorical question. I think this is literally a choice that societies have to make. On one extreme, society does not have to cater to anyone. We could collect no taxes and have no shared services. We could have no rules about how companies should interact with their employees or society at large. At the other extreme we could make everything a shared service and have society dictate how people get access to things. Of course neither of these extremes is desirable for most people. We have to decide where to draw the line and what we think is good for our society. Your comment seems to imply that the choice in this case is obvious: if you can't afford children you shouldn't have them. However, I think you can imagine the suffering that could impose upon people who have little chance of being able to support a family by their own means. Is a child a luxury like new shoes? Or is something that we want everyone (regardless of class or wealth) to be able to have (understanding that society will have to foot the bill)? Even though I have couched the question in a slightly loaded way, you might be surprised that I am personally torn by this issue and can see huge drawbacks for both approaches.
- hugh4 11y ago
  >I'm not trying to pose a rhetorical question. I think this is literally a choice that societies have to make. It would be nice if we could actually make that choice. Better still, it would be nice if we had a whole lot of societies which made different choices and people were free to move between them, so we could individually make a choice. Instead though we've got a lowest-common-denominator society.
  - rvikmanis 11y ago
    > whole lot of societies which made different choices and people were free to move between them The internet is a lot like that. Maybe someday this can be a model for the world at large.
- 11y ago
blazespin 11y ago
Are your fucking kidding me. I think people who focus less on capitalism and consumerism and more on raising kids should be the ones allowed to have kids. Not the who want to work all the time. Maybe then the world will right itself in a generation.
veidr 11y ago
Ha ha! You probably should have been voted down, but OK, let's take a look at your idea. You are saying 1 out of 4 American workers shouldn't have kids[1]. If everybody followed your advice, a lot of pretty influential people wouldn't have been born: Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling, Larry Ellison (OK maybe that works in your argument's favor). Jay Z. Abraham Lincoln. Barack Obama. I wouldn't be here, either; my dad was a short-order fry cook when I was born. He worked a second job as a night janitor at PG&E when I was young. So yeah, you'd better think long and hard about the financial aspects of having kids, but that actually applies whether you flip burgers at Mickey D's for minimum wage or flip bits at Facebook for a $150k annual salary. Even if the financial aspects are hard, that actually isn't the hardest part of raising kids, even for poor people. And growing up poor isn't nearly as hard on kids as is growing up with bad parents. If you want kids, the only reason you shouldn't have them is if you aren't up to the task of raising them -- for whatever reason. That reason could certainly be financial; I'm not sure that I myself would have chosen to have kids if I was a short-order fry cook, instead of a highly-paid tech worker who is married to another one. But I know plenty of low-income people who are awesome parents and whose examples I strive to live up to with my own kids. [1]: http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/demographics http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/demographics
- stickfigure 11y ago
  The logical extension of this argument is that everyone on earth should be forced to have as many children as possible all the time, because - gasp - think of all the wonderful human beings that we're missing out on. In fact, all those women of childbearing age you see walking around without a baby in their womb are guilty of a certain kind of murder. Strap them down and get to work!
  - zhte415 11y ago
    The parent's comment said something explicitly different. There's a very clear line: >>If you want kids, the only reason you shouldn't have them is if you aren't up to the task of raising them -- for whatever reason. As I read it, this submission is about paternity leave and associated Zuckerberg/Facebook, not whether people should have children.
evanpw 11y ago
This argument proves too much. A minimum-wage US worker in 2015 has a higher standard of living than the vast majority of all human parents who have ever lived, or even the majority of parents currently living on Earth. Are you saying that almost all human reproduction so far has been a mistake?
asveikau 11y ago
Summary: maybe they should try not being poor. If I am to take this to its logical conclusion, I guess there are entire nations, indeed probably most of the human population, who you think should just not reproduce.
- TheBakaAniki 11y ago
  There will always be poor people unless you make the concept of property disappear completely. In this world someone else has to become poor in your place so you can be rich.
  - asveikau 11y ago
    This is not a reply to my comment. This is jibberish. I hope you turn out to be a more compassionate person than the tone of your statement suggests.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  If by "summary" you mean "lie about what I said", maybe. "If I am to take this to its logical conclusion, I guess there are entire nations, indeed probably most of the human population, who you think should just not reproduce." Yeah, pretty much. Why are you advocating that children be born into a life of misery?
  - asveikau 11y ago
    I think the more pressing question is why are you advocating that humanity destroy itself? ps: I don't believe that all lower income people and their children live in misery. Seems like you would rather they just not live?
ta0o0o0 11y ago
Do you plan on retiring? Who's going to produce the goods and services you intend to purchase in your retirement? First world birth rates are already low. Under your guidance we'd have a demographic crisis like you wouldn't believe. Sure, there's immigration, but I don't see why your rule doesn't apply to poor people in other countries.
- collyw 11y ago
  Fuck up the planet in order to preserve the ecconomic system. Does anything strike you as wrong with that?
  - ta0o0o0 11y ago
    The comment I was replying to said nothing about the environment, only individual wealth. Also, it doesn't matter what economic system you're using, if your ratio of working people to non-working people decreases, your quality of life will also decrease. Lastly, what I said doesn't require the population to grow, only to stay constant. If you want to reduce the population because it's somehow bad for the planet, you can do it gradually.
mikeash 11y ago
I would argue the opposite: maybe...just maybe...fast food jobs should still pay a living wage.
ddingus 11y ago
Yes, maybe. That's a fair comment. However, it's countered by the fact that an awful lot of people are going to be doing basic labors. The basic labors need to get done, and someone is going to be doing them too. Given that, it's it realistic for very large fractions of us simply not having kids? Does not seem that way to me. Anecdotally, the janitor at my school as a kid was not a smart man. Not dumb, just not intellectual. But, he was a pretty great dad and his family did well. They didn't have much, but they turned out just fine. Some of his kids ended up moving up and out on to better things too. I've often thought about that dynamic. We never know how this stuff turns out. I, myself, grew up in relative poverty. Not just lacking luxuries, but sometimes basic needs. Honestly, didn't do me any real harm, and I'm sure glad I'm here as are my peers and family. To me, the problem is one of how we value people rather than their decision to start families. People always start families. This is primal. Inherent feature. We need families. Most of us do anyway. Some of us don't. But that doesn't align with the job / value problem. We need the janitor. Somebody is going to do that work, and what basis is that for denying them basic human dignity? Or, maybe we don't really need the janitor? Ok, that means we do a lot more ourselves. Wouldn't some people make the case they are wasting their time having to do that stuff? Of course! As they should, and that is precisely why we need to value the janitor. The labor isn't sexy, but it serves an important purpose, even if that purpose is to free some research scientists to cure cancer faster. If somebody is working full time, maybe that needs to somehow be enough to live a modest life, and to me, that life includes a family. Maybe both parents work. That's OK. Should we actually put weight behind that idea of waiting to have kids in a time of relative financial security, quite frankly, way too many of us won't be having kids! Worse, that means way too many of us are deemed unworthy somehow, and is that really the right thing to do? Given we need those basic labors done?
anjc 11y ago
I can't believe people are actually taking this ridiculous wealth-centric comment seriously. You've spent too much time in tech/online man, spend some time in the real world.
paulddraper 11y ago
There are worse things than poverty. Like that comment.