4 ms·

So with all of this top x% talk that is going on I decided to see where I was on the scale. It was pretty pathetic. Not because I was low on the scale but rat

So with all of this top x% talk that is going on I decided to see where I was on the scale. It was pretty pathetic. Not because I was low on the scale but rather very high. I don't consider myself to be very wealthy at all. Don't get me wrong I am doing well for myself. I worked hard to get what I have and I am good at what I do, but I should not be in the top 3%. I am not trying to brag, I think it is stupid and wrong that I am that high up on the scale. I'm not saying I earn too much (I am actually underpaid according the the industry i am in.) It is just that I can't believe that others are being paid that much less.

geogra4 15y ago
The incredible wealth disparity in this country is quite disturbing. And one look at the data confirms that reality. Half of workers barely make enough to get by. And I assure you that a very large portion of those making under the median probably get poor benefits/heathcare (if they get them at all)
- rdtsc 15y ago
  A lot employees in retail for example had their hours cut just enough to they become legally 'part-time' employees. This lets business off the hook from providing benefits like health care and other things. So these people go and get a second or even third job, all part time. They might work 60 hours / week but they are all close to minimum wage and at the first visit to the hospital they basically end up in bankruptcy. Once you are in bankruptcy it can become more difficult to get jobs because shady employers often check credit history during the application process. Why? For the fuck of it, as part of the background check. So then there is this black mark on it. There is not even a single thing that is wrong and we just fix that and bam! we are back up. Minimum wage is low, no single payer health system, our graduates are not competitive enough, housing is still expensive in major cities, there is just a lot of people just barely keeping their heads above the water. Not sure what the fix is and not saying there is a direct casual relationship between any of the things above or others, but it is obvious that he situation quite bad.
- hugh3 15y ago
  The real problem is that there's a huge disparity in talent. The worst of us are worth a whole lot less than the best of us. The question is: what do we do about that?
  - williamcotton 15y ago
    None of my talents matter if the office building I work in wasn't maintained. None of my talents matter if the electricity that powers the servers I need wasn't generated and the systems of delivery weren't maintained. None of my talents matter if the roads and public transport I rely upon to get to work weren't maintained. None of my talents matter if the hardware I work with wasn't assembled and quality checked. Etc, etc.
    - hugh3 15y ago
      Sure. But if someone is earning $26K a year, then this means that their labour isn't worth any more than twenty-six thousand dollars to anyone else. Money is, after all, a medium of exchange, and if your labour is only worth $26K this means you're contributing very little of any value to society... barely enough value to account for the baseline amount of wealth (food etc) which every one of us destroys each year just in order to stay alive. People who only make $26K a year need to take a good hard look at themselves and say "How can I make the value of my labour higher, so that I'm contributing more than a minimal amount to society?" If they'd start thinking about the problem in the right way, they might be able to solve it.
      - hackinthebochs 15y ago
        > If someone is earning $26K a year, then this means that their labour isn't worth any more than twenty-six thousand dollars to anyone else. This is trivially true. >if your labour is only worth $26K this means you're contributing very little of any value to society This is way, way wrong. This is a very pervasive error in reasoning. Just because someone is only willing to pay X amount for your labor, doesn't mean that labor is worth X amount to society. When there are a lot of people willing to perform said labor, that pushes down the monetary value of that labor. This is completely independent of its value to society. If I knew some magic incantation that would cure cancer, this action would be invaluable to society. But if I taught 1 million people how to perform it, the cure for cancer's value to society does not decrease. The problem is that people conflate value in the moral sense with monetary worth. Thus when someone's labor can only bring in 26K a year in the marketplace, somehow its seen as a moral failing on their part. It serves to transfer the burden of finding a place in society completely on the individual, instead of where it belongs; on society as a whole.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  Luckily, the recession is causing the wealth disparity to decrease. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/the-1-aint-what-it-used-to-be/247011/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/the-1-ai...
  - MrWestley 15y ago
    Yes, but this isn't a good thing. The solution isn't to make the rich poor. It is to make sure everyone else can make more.
    - tomkarlo 15y ago
      Nobody's suggesting making the rich poor. Increasing taxes by 10 or 20% on someone making over 250K a year will cost them another $800 or so a month in taxes. To say that's making the rich "poor" is, frankly, offensive to people who actually are poor. It's great to say we should enact policy that makes everyone richer. But it's basically saying something everyone can be in favor of because it has no concrete meaning. Taxing the rich more so that everyone else can get better education and healthcare will make "everyone richer" in that it should raise per-capita GDP, but I don't think that's what you mean.
sciurus 15y ago
It's hard to understand how you could be surprised that 97% of Americans make less than $140,000.

geogra4 15y ago

The incredible wealth disparity in this country is quite disturbing. And one look at the data confirms that reality. Half of workers barely make enough to get by. And I assure you that a very large portion of those making under the median probably get poor benefits/heathcare (if they get them at all)

rdtsc 15y ago
A lot employees in retail for example had their hours cut just enough to they become legally 'part-time' employees. This lets business off the hook from providing benefits like health care and other things. So these people go and get a second or even third job, all part time. They might work 60 hours / week but they are all close to minimum wage and at the first visit to the hospital they basically end up in bankruptcy. Once you are in bankruptcy it can become more difficult to get jobs because shady employers often check credit history during the application process. Why? For the fuck of it, as part of the background check. So then there is this black mark on it. There is not even a single thing that is wrong and we just fix that and bam! we are back up. Minimum wage is low, no single payer health system, our graduates are not competitive enough, housing is still expensive in major cities, there is just a lot of people just barely keeping their heads above the water. Not sure what the fix is and not saying there is a direct casual relationship between any of the things above or others, but it is obvious that he situation quite bad.
hugh3 15y ago
The real problem is that there's a huge disparity in talent. The worst of us are worth a whole lot less than the best of us. The question is: what do we do about that?
- williamcotton 15y ago
  None of my talents matter if the office building I work in wasn't maintained. None of my talents matter if the electricity that powers the servers I need wasn't generated and the systems of delivery weren't maintained. None of my talents matter if the roads and public transport I rely upon to get to work weren't maintained. None of my talents matter if the hardware I work with wasn't assembled and quality checked. Etc, etc.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Sure. But if someone is earning $26K a year, then this means that their labour isn't worth any more than twenty-six thousand dollars to anyone else. Money is, after all, a medium of exchange, and if your labour is only worth $26K this means you're contributing very little of any value to society... barely enough value to account for the baseline amount of wealth (food etc) which every one of us destroys each year just in order to stay alive. People who only make $26K a year need to take a good hard look at themselves and say "How can I make the value of my labour higher, so that I'm contributing more than a minimal amount to society?" If they'd start thinking about the problem in the right way, they might be able to solve it.
    - hackinthebochs 15y ago
      > If someone is earning $26K a year, then this means that their labour isn't worth any more than twenty-six thousand dollars to anyone else. This is trivially true. >if your labour is only worth $26K this means you're contributing very little of any value to society This is way, way wrong. This is a very pervasive error in reasoning. Just because someone is only willing to pay X amount for your labor, doesn't mean that labor is worth X amount to society. When there are a lot of people willing to perform said labor, that pushes down the monetary value of that labor. This is completely independent of its value to society. If I knew some magic incantation that would cure cancer, this action would be invaluable to society. But if I taught 1 million people how to perform it, the cure for cancer's value to society does not decrease. The problem is that people conflate value in the moral sense with monetary worth. Thus when someone's labor can only bring in 26K a year in the marketplace, somehow its seen as a moral failing on their part. It serves to transfer the burden of finding a place in society completely on the individual, instead of where it belongs; on society as a whole.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
Luckily, the recession is causing the wealth disparity to decrease. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/the-1-aint-what-it-used-to-be/247011/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/the-1-ai...
- MrWestley 15y ago
  Yes, but this isn't a good thing. The solution isn't to make the rich poor. It is to make sure everyone else can make more.
  - tomkarlo 15y ago
    Nobody's suggesting making the rich poor. Increasing taxes by 10 or 20% on someone making over 250K a year will cost them another $800 or so a month in taxes. To say that's making the rich "poor" is, frankly, offensive to people who actually are poor. It's great to say we should enact policy that makes everyone richer. But it's basically saying something everyone can be in favor of because it has no concrete meaning. Taxing the rich more so that everyone else can get better education and healthcare will make "everyone richer" in that it should raise per-capita GDP, but I don't think that's what you mean.

sciurus 15y ago

It's hard to understand how you could be surprised that 97% of Americans make less than $140,000.