7 ms·

People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. Strangers raise our kids. Affordable small houses are no longer bui

People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. Strangers raise our kids. Affordable small houses are no longer built. There're few legal or free places to rest. The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. Poverty is the cause. The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates and reduce outsourcing.

account42 3y ago
> People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. It's really absurd how accepted/unnoticed this regression is. And of course it also makes the isolation problem worse as now single person households will be able to afford even less.
- Mezzie 3y ago
  And those of us who have to be breadwinners are not in a good spot. I'm responsible for an adult who's bipolar and can't hold down a job. Supporting multiple people on a single income is absurdly difficult right now. And many families with children are in a no win scenario where they either make due with a single income or one parents' income is completely eaten by child care.
m_fayer 3y ago
I support UBI but it’s not in the cards any time soon, fine. Then, we should aim for one overarching economic policy target: most people should be able to land a job that would enable them to generously house, feed and equip one adult and several children without working themselves to the bone. This should include a reasonable amount of leisure and luxuries, and a thorough safety net. How to achieve this? I’m not sure. I’m open to ideas from all sides of the political spectrum as long as the goal is achieved. This should really be our bare minimum, if we’re going to insist on thinking of ourselves as an advanced society. Short of that, I truly don’t know what all of this is really for.
- danaris 3y ago
  One absolute prerequisite for this would be making the minimum wage a thriving wage. Until and unless that happens, jobs traditionally seen as "bottom of the barrel"—things like fast food, grocery cashier, etc—will remain an important source of jobs for those in dire straits (very much including adults with families), while also still paying so little that even a teenager looking to make some money over the summer might think twice. And that's before seeing how the people working those jobs get treated. Any non-mandatory "incentives" or "initiatives" to get people jobs that can keep them and their families fed, clothed, and housed will invariably leave tens of thousands to millions of people behind as companies just shrug and say "don't wanna".
  - prottog 3y ago
    > making the minimum wage a thriving wage What makes you say that someone should be able to "thrive" on the least-paying job? That's like saying that the dumbest person should be able to do get into selective universities, or that the weakest and slowest person should be able to win medals at sporting competitions. Let me put it another way. Does $66k/year sound like a thriving wage to you? That's a little over $4k/mo after taxes. You won't be able to afford to pay rent, let alone buy a home, in any of the country's most popular cities, or take a family of four to vacation in Paris every year, or buy a nice new car. You could live in a smaller city in a less popular state, drive an older car, and maybe take your family to Disney World every now and then. Would you call that thriving? That number ($66k/year) is all personal income in this country combined divided by the population; so that's the standard of living you could expect if all income was evenly distributed and it magically had no detrimental effect on the supply of goods and services. It seems like an extraordinary claim that the lowest income should even be able to afford a median lifestyle, let alone a "thriving" one. Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by that word.
    - danaris 3y ago
      Let me turn this around on you. Why do you think any human being deserves not to thrive?
prottog 3y ago
> The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. > The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates When do you consider America at its prime? Because I guarantee both taxation and government expenditure as a fraction of GDP were less than what they are now. If you're talking about the Gilded Age in the late 1800s, there literally wasn't an income tax on either people or corporations, and federal spend was single-digit percent of GDP. Yet America accomplished many feats like the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and poverty rates fell greatly. If you're talking about the 80s when the tax rate in the highest income bracket was 70%, the top 1% of income earners actually paid a considerably smaller share of all income tax receipts than they do now. The poverty rate didn't change much between then and now. > Poverty is the cause. Sure. But there is no empirical evidence to suggest that more redistributive taxation and bigger government alleviates poverty. The War on Poverty has been about as effective as the War on Drugs or the War on Terror.
- deprecative 3y ago
  The war on drugs was never about drugs. The war on terror was never about terror. The war on poverty was also never about poverty. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent behind these programs. For example, the War on Drugs was to disrupt minority and leftist populations explicitly.
  - prottog 3y ago
    What was the explicit intent behind the War on Poverty?

account42 3y ago

> People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. It's really absurd how accepted/unnoticed this regression is. And of course it also makes the isolation problem worse as now single person households will be able to afford even less.

Mezzie 3y ago
And those of us who have to be breadwinners are not in a good spot. I'm responsible for an adult who's bipolar and can't hold down a job. Supporting multiple people on a single income is absurdly difficult right now. And many families with children are in a no win scenario where they either make due with a single income or one parents' income is completely eaten by child care.

m_fayer 3y ago

I support UBI but it’s not in the cards any time soon, fine. Then, we should aim for one overarching economic policy target: most people should be able to land a job that would enable them to generously house, feed and equip one adult and several children without working themselves to the bone. This should include a reasonable amount of leisure and luxuries, and a thorough safety net. How to achieve this? I’m not sure. I’m open to ideas from all sides of the political spectrum as long as the goal is achieved. This should really be our bare minimum, if we’re going to insist on thinking of ourselves as an advanced society. Short of that, I truly don’t know what all of this is really for.

danaris 3y ago
One absolute prerequisite for this would be making the minimum wage a thriving wage. Until and unless that happens, jobs traditionally seen as "bottom of the barrel"—things like fast food, grocery cashier, etc—will remain an important source of jobs for those in dire straits (very much including adults with families), while also still paying so little that even a teenager looking to make some money over the summer might think twice. And that's before seeing how the people working those jobs get treated. Any non-mandatory "incentives" or "initiatives" to get people jobs that can keep them and their families fed, clothed, and housed will invariably leave tens of thousands to millions of people behind as companies just shrug and say "don't wanna".
- prottog 3y ago
  > making the minimum wage a thriving wage What makes you say that someone should be able to "thrive" on the least-paying job? That's like saying that the dumbest person should be able to do get into selective universities, or that the weakest and slowest person should be able to win medals at sporting competitions. Let me put it another way. Does $66k/year sound like a thriving wage to you? That's a little over $4k/mo after taxes. You won't be able to afford to pay rent, let alone buy a home, in any of the country's most popular cities, or take a family of four to vacation in Paris every year, or buy a nice new car. You could live in a smaller city in a less popular state, drive an older car, and maybe take your family to Disney World every now and then. Would you call that thriving? That number ($66k/year) is all personal income in this country combined divided by the population; so that's the standard of living you could expect if all income was evenly distributed and it magically had no detrimental effect on the supply of goods and services. It seems like an extraordinary claim that the lowest income should even be able to afford a median lifestyle, let alone a "thriving" one. Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by that word.
  - danaris 3y ago
    Let me turn this around on you. Why do you think any human being deserves not to thrive?

prottog 3y ago

> The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. > The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates When do you consider America at its prime? Because I guarantee both taxation and government expenditure as a fraction of GDP were less than what they are now. If you're talking about the Gilded Age in the late 1800s, there literally wasn't an income tax on either people or corporations, and federal spend was single-digit percent of GDP. Yet America accomplished many feats like the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and poverty rates fell greatly. If you're talking about the 80s when the tax rate in the highest income bracket was 70%, the top 1% of income earners actually paid a considerably smaller share of all income tax receipts than they do now. The poverty rate didn't change much between then and now. > Poverty is the cause. Sure. But there is no empirical evidence to suggest that more redistributive taxation and bigger government alleviates poverty. The War on Poverty has been about as effective as the War on Drugs or the War on Terror.

deprecative 3y ago
The war on drugs was never about drugs. The war on terror was never about terror. The war on poverty was also never about poverty. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent behind these programs. For example, the War on Drugs was to disrupt minority and leftist populations explicitly.
- prottog 3y ago
  What was the explicit intent behind the War on Poverty?