4 ms·

Sorry if you feel like myself and others are invalidating you’re experience. My sole intent is this: you claim that such a wage is livable on its own today. Yo

Sorry if you feel like myself and others are invalidating you’re experience. My sole intent is this: you claim that such a wage is livable on its own today. Your evidence for that claim is that you yourself had a similar wage, over a decade ago, with additional family support, and other benefits (eg no healthcare costs). The two are not the same. Not even close. By by claiming they are, you invalidate the experience of everyone else who actually had to face the struggle of living on a low-wage without any of the benefits you did. I myself ate from a homeless shelter a handful of times in college just because I couldn’t afford food at that moment in time. That is not an exaggeration. So forgive me if it feels like I’m invalidating your experience - I’m sure you struggled as well, but that doesn’t give you the right to speak for the experience of something you’ve clearly never experienced for yourself. A $10 wage is not a livable wage in the vast majority of the country today. It’s a survivable wage at best, but not in every city.

yellowapple 6y ago
> Your evidence for that claim is that you yourself had a similar wage, over a decade ago, with additional family support, and other benefits (eg no healthcare costs). And more than double the rent. That's the part y'all seem to be ignoring, and is the exact part that makes my situation comparable and - IMO - worth presenting. If you disagree, can you at least articulate why paying that much more in rent somehow doesn't matter? That doubling in rent is greater in dollar value than the slightly-higher wages + the occasional Costco run from family. If anything, my income minus rent was lower than the $10/hr minus $500/month situation originally presented and to which I responded ($970 v. $1100, respectively, when factoring in that support from family; this assumes 40 hours per week and a 4-week month). And that's assuming zero taxes (which wasn't the case, especially since this was in California). > I’m sure you struggled as well, but that doesn’t give you the right to speak for the experience of something you’ve clearly never experienced for yourself. To be clear here, I don't mean to invalidate your experience, either. My only intent is to describe a situation that IMO is comparable to the one originally presented. If it's not comparable, then fine, but I remain unconvinced when the best that people can do is entirely neglect to read what I wrote and then assume that I was totally paid for and expense-free. It does sound like your situation was worse than mine and the originally-presented one > It’s a survivable wage at best Which is really the only point I was trying to make. Living on that sort of a wage sucks, but it is possible, and it's better than nothing. I strongly believe that human labor is worth more than some measly $10 or $12 per hour, and should be paid accordingly, regardless of whether or not it's technically possible to survive on such a low wage. That said, "survivable" does definitionally mean "livable". The trouble is that "livable" ain't really enough for class mobility.

yellowapple 6y ago

> Your evidence for that claim is that you yourself had a similar wage, over a decade ago, with additional family support, and other benefits (eg no healthcare costs). And more than double the rent. That's the part y'all seem to be ignoring, and is the exact part that makes my situation comparable and - IMO - worth presenting. If you disagree, can you at least articulate why paying that much more in rent somehow doesn't matter? That doubling in rent is greater in dollar value than the slightly-higher wages + the occasional Costco run from family. If anything, my income minus rent was lower than the $10/hr minus $500/month situation originally presented and to which I responded ($970 v. $1100, respectively, when factoring in that support from family; this assumes 40 hours per week and a 4-week month). And that's assuming zero taxes (which wasn't the case, especially since this was in California). > I’m sure you struggled as well, but that doesn’t give you the right to speak for the experience of something you’ve clearly never experienced for yourself. To be clear here, I don't mean to invalidate your experience, either. My only intent is to describe a situation that IMO is comparable to the one originally presented. If it's not comparable, then fine, but I remain unconvinced when the best that people can do is entirely neglect to read what I wrote and then assume that I was totally paid for and expense-free. It does sound like your situation was worse than mine and the originally-presented one > It’s a survivable wage at best Which is really the only point I was trying to make. Living on that sort of a wage sucks, but it is possible, and it's better than nothing. I strongly believe that human labor is worth more than some measly $10 or $12 per hour, and should be paid accordingly, regardless of whether or not it's technically possible to survive on such a low wage. That said, "survivable" does definitionally mean "livable". The trouble is that "livable" ain't really enough for class mobility.