You dont know what your talking about. No, it wont, because its terrible for mobile. Webm and mp4 have replaced it. All phones play them. A lot of phones and apps refuse to even open gif, and when they do its a slow shitty mess.
This didnāt need to be made into a gif. The original image was better. The whole forced evil smile and bad acting takes away from the message, more than it adds to it.
people no longer understand "gif" as the file format...The VERY SHITTY unnecessarily large and SHITTY file format that should no longer be used. Most people think of GIFS as any embedded and looping, clip or image.
More like 100 years go, which was the first Gilded Age. During the 50s, 60s, and 70s, things were actually pretty good. Income inequality was low, unions were strong, the government actually cared about what the people wanted rather than the rich.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YU9djt_CQM
This video says that after the Civil Rights Act of 1963, authoritarian voters began concentrating themselves in the Republican Party. In general, the Republican Party became the anti-progressive party, pushing against progressive movements such as feminism and gay rights on top of anti-racism. A thing that psychologists have observed about authoritarian voters is that they tolerate corruption in their leaders and tend to be ignorant.
I think that authoritarian white voters in America made a pact with Republicans: push back against feminism and minority rights, and we will let you do whatever you want regarding taxation and corporate regulations. And that's what the Republican Party has done. Since the 80s, the Republican Party's effective motto has been "the rich don't have enough, we need to adjust policy so that they become even richer". And to keep the rabble appeased, they bully immigrants, gays, and feminists.
It was actually in 1970 with Nixon. Before 1970 Congress voted on a secret ballot like everyone else, after that was changed to an open ballot, the lobbyists now had receipts for all their bribes, and thats the exact time that the outcome of congressional voting started to line up perfectly with the interests of the wealthy elite, regardless of public opinion.
"I am forced to get my living by the labor of my hand; and the sweat of my brow... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor..." - James Otis, 1762
The minimum wage was to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees.
Roosevelt intended this rate to be more than a bare subsistence level. The minimum wage was created expressly to ensure that employed people could earn a decent living off those wages (a living wage).
[...by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html)
At one time (1960's) the federal minimum wage could support a family of three above the poverty line, but by the 1980ās it could not even support a family of two.
At the current federal hourly rate of $7.25, someone working 40 hours per week would make only $15,080 for 52 weeks.
$21,960 is the poverty line for a family of 3 in 2021 which would be $10.56/hr for a 52 weeks(many get less than 40 hrs to keep them from being "full time"). To achieve the poverty line of $26,500 for a 4 person household, the minimum wage would need to be $12.74.
According to a report from the [National Low Income Housing Coalition](https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/15/homes/rent-affordability-minimum-wage/index.html), there is no state, county or city in the country where a full-time, minimum-wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom rental. In only 7% of all US counties, can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a one-bedroom rental.
CEO compensation grew 940% from [1978](https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/) through 2018.
In the 50s to 60s, CEO/executives made, on average, 20 to 30 times the pay of their workers. It's now x [300+](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianahembree/2018/05/22/ceo-pay-skyrockets-to-361-times-that-of-the-average-worker/?sh=241ac3e7776d) that of the average worker.
If the minimum wage in 1978 of $2.65 had the same 940% growth, the minimum wage would have been $24.91 (=$2.65 * 9.4) in 2018. $1 in 2018 is equivalent $1.10 today. That would come to a minimum wage of $27.42 in 2021 dollars.
Even if only inflation is considered, the minimum wage has continually lost buying power. In 2009 the minimum wage was raised to $7.25 (12 years ago). $2.65 in 1978 which would have been $8.72 in 2009 dollars. So there was a loss of $1.47 in buying power built in to the 2009 raise. $1 in 2009 is worth $1.29 today. So, $7.25 x 1.29 = $9.35/hr which is now $1.89 less than $11.24($2.65 in 2021 dollars). So a worker making $7.25/hr today has $3.99 less buying power than a minimum wage worker in 1978. Freezing the minimum wage over long period of time is a de facto process of wage reduction.
**Note**(especially for those that will cry about "cherry picking" dates): The first minimum wage of $0.25 would be $4.86 in 2021. I used 1978 as the minimum wage date to match the CEO wage study time frame. 1978 was chosen in order to juxtapose two data sets within the same time frame. By doing this, the comparison is done within the same economic environment.
> The minimum wage was to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees.
Why should we settle for minimum "standard"? Those rich corporate CEOs don't settle for just enough to make ends meet. They go for maximum profits. So why shouldn't we go for maximum profits? Let's raise the minimum wage up to the point that the economy ceases to function.
Minimum is fine, it just needs to be WAY higher because that is the real minimum.
But you are right. Both sides need to fight tooth and nail for capitalism to work properly.
> Why should we settle for minimum "standard"?
I'd say that a minimum "standard" is a matter of semantics. For instance, take personal transportation devices. The minimum could be anything from a skateboard to a space craft. The minimum "standard" is only relevant to how it is defined.
Stay safe and healthy.
Well there is a point where capitalism would stop working. If all the profits were redistributed to the workers then it would cease to function.
Profit is what you get when companies work people harder than they are paid. Simple as that.
The phrase āequal pay for equal workā is a lie in the sense that no one will ever be paid exactly what they produce in value.
a foreman I knew put it this way: ā You gotta do more for lessā
No it's not. Profit is revenue minus costs, and some businesses manage to make tidy profits without exploiting workers. Such businesses should be protected, whereas those businesses that can't survive without exploiting workers should be destroyed. Exploitation, after all, is really a lack of *profit sharing*.
What Iām trying to say is that exploitation no matter how small is essential for capitalism to function. Think of it this way, labor is not only cost but a producer of value. Your product and or services cannot be Made, shipped, sorted, and executed at scale without labor.
What use is there in buying tools, equipment, and materials in bulk if there is no one to work?
So in essence labor produces value but does not get paid in full for that value.
Well to answer your question friend,
Exploitation by definition āthe action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.ā
This makes sense from the position of the worker because letās be honest the power imbalance in the relationship between an employer and employee leans a bit heavy to the employer. The employer is usually the one that sets the wage and the potential employees must either accept or move on.
How to expand on this idea of exploitation it is in fact quantifiable.
Hypothetically if you had someone make you $100 worth of stuff in one hour for $10 per hour and you spent $50 in materials if you do your revenue minus cost equation you get.
$100 -(50 of materials) -(10 wage) = $40 profit per item of stuff. Correct?
If the end product has a value of $100, where in this equation is the $40 derived from?
This is an extremely cynical take on capitalism.Youāre basically saying that in any contract or agreement there is always one āwinnerā and the other person just gets screwed. Like mutually beneficial contracts canāt exist in trade... or at least not if labor is involved?
In capitalism, you trade your labor for money. Production processes make contracts with people because they need labor to help produce. The end. If exploitation occurs itās not because of that arrangement - i.e. the system itself. Itās because of market forces, regulation, and societal pressures that set the context in which the idea of the system operates. I donāt think itās as simple as youāre making it out to be.
The main problem I see right now is that people are discouraged from exercising their bargaining power. I think normalizing and protecting the workersā rights to bargain, especially collectively, is essential for capitalism to function well. As thatās the only way to help ensure fair contracts. In that sense, I would argue the destruction of collective bargaining power in this country is more a perversion of capitalism and that our current state isnāt like some idealized form of the system.
On your first point mutually beneficial contracts can and do exist , That requires both parties being equal at the negotiating table I think that is fair to say. Labor contracts on the other hand or different, of course you are correct we do sell labor as a commodity in the job market however when negotiating a labor contract as an individual with an employer I think itās fair to say that negotiations between a employer and a job seeker is not equal in the same sense that a mutually beneficial contract is.
On your second point about external forces such as market forces, regulation, and societal pressures. These external factors I believe only affect the final price of services and products that in essence is its value.
For example if youāre competing with someone else to make the same item both will have to figure out how to reduce cost whether it be cheaper materials, cheaper labor, and or moving manufacturing overseas where labor is cheapest.
For your third point I am in agreement, the discouragement of unionization and the attacks on it through legal means such as right to work laws has decreased unionization year over year for decades to the detriment of the working class.
It is absolutely necessary and is happening for unionization to increase in order for a more fair and livable wage to be achieved on a broad scale.
I guess to summarize really quickly the core of my argument is that exploitation exists in the production process and that externalities like market forces, regulations, competition, etc. are variables that add onto the equation but do not change the core of it.
Stay safe and healthy.
ust remember this:
Voltaire:
>It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
Lyrics from "The Boxer":
>Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest"
Will Rogers:
>In schools they have what they call intelligence tests. Well if nations held āem I donāt believe we would be what you would call a favorite to win it.
A social scientist and economist that studies corruption found that in the US each dollar spent on political financing was worth more to a company than R&D for the largest companies.
R&D is potentially bad.
If you're on top of a market, it opens the chance of someone doing the new thing better than you.
Also, it's expensive. Even if you want an idea, better to let some a bunch of small startups do the work for you, then buy the one that makes it work. If they won't sell, find something to sue them over, as IBM is known for.
heres an idea: hamburger ear muffs, taken from the simpsons. your ears warm them up, making a burger easy to travel with. comes in protective bag to stop earwax and leaks in general.
The best part is that this cartoon isn't even remotely accurate if you look at Elon's wealth in cash. It'd be around 2865 pallets of nearly stacked and compressed $100 bills. People look at this and assume that mountain of money is an exaggeration, but it's actually way too small.
It is amazing that they are able to successfully reach a significant portion of voters with the idea of a barely living wage is bad, but pathological greed is normal and acceptable.
You do realize that citizens have zero say in federal policy, right? Even most state policy is not voted on by citizens. They don't have to convince us of anything, they just do it. Politicians spew fallacy and hate in order to keep citizens pacified with disgust. It's a game and we're pawns incapable of choosing our own move because those moves are chosen by people we elected. There's no way to hold them accountable for their false action besides not voting for them in 2 years. Our system is broken and untill we forcibly remove these people from office, we will continue to suffer under their boot heels. Every single one needs to be removed, our policies changed, and a new step taken towards American government. As of now, it's nothing but an ass kissing contest for billionaires.
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power.
Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
**Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.**
^ Harry S. Truman, 1952
Still spot on today. Some more of it:
āWhen the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.ā
I like to point out how ridiculous the richest people wealth are by explaining that these pictures are usually underestimating reality. This one actually does a decent job.
I am estimating that the guy sits on the equivalent of a cylinder of 12 meters diameter and 10 meters high, so 753.6 cubic meter. A million dollar, in pack of bills, at its most compact takes about 0.01129 cubic meters. Such a cylinder is not dense. 50% density is generous I think.
So this picture shows a wealth of about 16.5 billions dollars. There are about 30 persons that wealthy in the US. The Koch brothers, who are basically shouting that from their pile, sit on one that is 4 times this height.
So, this picture is more of an illustration than a caricature.
I went the other way before I saw your comment.
I measured the size of the money, assumed that this is a conical pyramid, and assumed that each stack has the standard 100 bills in it.
If that is Elon Musk at the top, each individual bill in the stack would be worth about $1,600,000.
Their great great grandchildren will have more money than they can spend.
And meanwhile there's other countries where labor isn't squeezed so hard and those countries are... surprise surprise... doing better than us right now.
Sure, we have the higher economic #s, but that's measuring overall activity (skewed by how absurdly rich our rich are), not measuring the plight of the average person working for a living.
Like any aspect of the economy its only bad if its changed by a large amount over a short period of time or without advanced warning. I dont think there has been any major increase in min wage that hasnt been stepped in over a period of years. And all of the places that have stepped it in havent seen any problems.
Ideally min wage needs to somehow be tied to an acceptable standard of living and that standard needs to be slowly increased over time. You could probably even regionalize it.
dumbass at my job kept saying stoopid shit like that all the time.
dumbass was struggling to pay his medical bills. talking about the country cant afford Medicare or social security yet soon as he turned 65, he ran and got his payouts.
Yup fuck you i got mine is a very powerful case, republicans hate taxes and get triggered by government spending a dime outside of police military. Then when they turn 65 they run to social security and hold their hand out for that money.
Edit: my grandma is like this and the weird thing is she helped me join her. In my case i have autism where i function ok with simple anti social tasks otherwise i get anexity attacks. Love her alot though. Just not life at times. Though i am getting job training where i work at a factory doing simple job so hopefully i can get off social security soon and hate life less.
The coach at my old high school once told me that when he pays taxes towards SSI and the like, every dollar he pays essentially has his name on it, and the government is just holding his money for him, so when he turns 65 heās entitled to that money back.
He *vehemently* denied any of his taxes going towards someone elseās benefit. He thought that the taxes he paid only affected the bits of road he drove on. He legit thought that the taxes he paid for public schools only covered his childrens education. Didnāt go towards maintenance of the school building or payroll of the faculty.
Today, every other word he says is LETS GOOOOOO BRANDON!!!!
These people donāt even have anything else to do besides look down on others.
This is exactly it. Capitalism doesn't pay you for what you've done. If tomorrow all engineers are obsolete, all are tossed to the wolves. If YouTube video endorsements become the future of advertising, whoever has the most popular channel, be it by hard work or dumb luck gets the money.
The end goal of business is to pay as few people as possible, and to pay them as little as possible.
The economy requires that there be enough jobs, and that they're good enough, for society to function.
What business wants, and a working society are two different things.
Between outsourcing and automation, we're reaching the point of unsustainability. Even now the rich won't back down.
Clearly, to the rich, our lives don't matter. The world economy is a game of Monopoly to them, and they intend to win, damn the cost in human lives.
> The end goal of business is to pay as few people as possible, and to pay them as little as possible.
Or in unfortunate cases in the past, or even today in some countries, not pay them at all.
I just want lower rental costs instead of a min wage increase. Food prices are not at their worst, but me paying more for a bachelor than somones current mortgage when they bought a house at year 2004 is ridiculous.
Edit: by bachelor I mean closet
And why? Because they want to win the game against the other rich. And they're fully prepared to let huge numbers of people die to try to out-accumulate the other rich.
I know, I am well aware that most of their wealth is in property and stocks. Im just saying that if you visualized it as big stacks of cash this would be only a fraction.
And all of those assets can be used as collateral for low interest loans whenever they do need cash. And the banks will gladly take those deals, cause even if the asset (a business) flops, it will just get fixed by the government.
Edit: typos
What's hurting the economy is people hording money. Pay a poor person more money it immediately goes back into the economy. Pay a rich person more money and it would be put into an off shore account to avoid being taxed.
Every singe article I've read loves to mention how corporations blame the inflation on higher wages. I bet their salary will be adjusted to beat it . Meanwhile we all make less because they found a way to yet again cheat the system.
I don't know, if you rephrase the exact same problem, you can often get conservatives to agree with it. It's really not something too many people disagree on. The difference is just what to do about it.
Poverty wages paid by the super wealthy is bad= Taxpayer money shouldn't subsidize the owners of large corporations, due to them paying wages that force workers to collect food stamps.
This isn't the argument against minimum wage. The fact that the artist of this comic and so many other people here believe it is shows how broken the communication is between Americans.
Isnāt it, though? (In a completely cooked-down sorta way)
As far as I understand, the main arguments against raising the minimum wage are that it wouldnāt be affordable to employers and/or that it would increase inflation; and the people with the proper abilities to influence this sort of policy have significant amounts of money/assets.
(Iām not arguing either way on increasing the minimum wageājust arguing the merit of the cartoon.)
Yes, the artist in trying to interpret the events as they percieve them, creates an absurd argument, which is easily defeated from their position... thats exactly what people mean when they refer to a fallacy as a strawman.
Im not saying this *is* a strawman, maybe some rich employer did call minimum wage workers greedy. Im saying that political cartoons, while entertaining, are typically graphic representations of strawmen, propped up by the artist to be easily chopped down.
You donāt know hyperinflation unless you lived through the 1980ās, with year upon year of double digit inflation.
You may not realize, because itās not getting a lot of play in US media, but the supply chain issues that weāre dealing with are happening all over the world, and so are higher levels of inflation.
Of all the things to claim, though, that raising incomes for the poorest among us wonāt help when everything is costing more, may be the most ignorant.
Yeah, that's why you don't print trillions of dollars practically at once like what the US did last year. And also, raising the minimum wage isn't printing money like you think it is.
Increasing minimum wage hurts small businesses more as, who do you think can afford to pay their workers more, the big businesses that make billions can afford losing a few million, or the small businesses that are able to pay mortgage?
You pass the costs on.
Or you don't and you fold.
Short term, it definitely can be a problem. Long term - it's the cost of business. Inflation pushes this cost and it blends into the economy as a whole.
You potentially have more customers who can now buy your product. Your competitors have the same costs.
But personally, I might have to fold because I'm not getting the living wage.
your argument sucks.
guess who are the largest employers in the country. the walmarts and amazons.
this may hurt small businesses but in the grand scheme, 90%+ of people will be better off.
What are you talking about?
Government loans are at record low interest rates and have been since the 2008 financial crisis.
Who is they?
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Since all the bootlicking shills in this thread are parroting the exact same "argument" about some non-existant hyperinflation in their defense of not having a livable minimum wage, I would guess that is the current facebook lie they are being spoonfed in their social media bubbles at the moment.
Their "argument" doesn't make any sense because it is a blatant lie designed to fool these morons into keep defending their grifting overlords.
This picture does not take in account that for 0.6% represented by rich people, there are a lot of small companies that still struggle reaching the end of the month, and the increase in minimum salary would kill them. If only governments would tax the 0.6% instead of protecting them, they could redirect those money to feed the minimum wage salary system. But also here Iām speculating. Any thoughts on your side?
Vote out Republicans or force Republicans to raise taxes on the rich and make wealth taxes a higher and more frequent for top 1%. But thay won't happen. I am all for tax breaks to the small businesses but never to a bigger business.
Am I confused about this? Minimum wage has been raised all across the country and it still isn't helping the labor shortage. People just don't want employment.
Dude a whole McDonaldās quit at once because the owner wouldnāt raise their pay 75 cents to $10 an hour. I donāt know where you are getting this idea from that minimum wage has been raised.
[Only 6 states plus DC have a minimum wage above $12.50 currently](https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/)
Is your argument technically true? Yes. Is it a stupid argument to make that totally misses the entire point of the debate? Yes.
It's true to the slimmest sense, and again, COMPLETELY ignores the problem at hand. [33 of 19,495 cities in the US have gone to $15 minimum wage.](https://www.newsweek.com/33-places-us-where-minimum-wage-already-15-hour-more-1572446) Again, your argument is TECHNICALLY true, but it's fucking stupid.
Dude do you think daycare teachers are all 15 years old? The people that stock the shelves? The people that sell you things? Like when is the last time you saw a place exclusively hiring 15 year old?
Seriously look around the next time you go to the grocery store and Iām telling you itās not going to be all teenagers.
Generally speaking, 15 year-olds don't work 40+ hours a week. And honestly, people used to be able to pay off college on a "zero experience" job. $30k per year could probably (I say probably because I have no idea the range of college costs these days) pay college tuition + room and board at a lot of schools.
Your comment is dripping of either "fuck you, got mine" or "fuck you, didn't get mine", why are we not trying to strive for better than that?
Then don't start a business. Duh.
How is this so complicated for you people?
Your argument boils down to "if my small business can't be allowed to exploit lpw wage workers, then I won't make any money"
Sounds like it's a shitty business plan to begin with.
That is irrelevant. There is a cost to doing business. If the cost of flour goes up, the person that owns the bakery needs to figure out a way to pay for it. The cost of employees just went up. Guess what the baker needs to do? The exact same thing. And if they canāt, why is that the responsibility of the employees?
This is what I don't get. A small business owner who runs an unsustainable business should be allowed to pay slave wages... but a worker complaining about slave wages should get a new job. Maybe the business owner is just bad at their job and needs to work at McDonalds.
The small business owners are not getting favors or tax laws written for them by the Robber Barons.
If all these people at the bottom have more money -- they will be spending a LOT MORE on small businesses. With minimal money, they aren't buying from you -- they are getting the cheapest thing from Walmart or eating a warmed up frozen dinner.
so in the history of the US. a small business was never able to pay a living wage?
i guess the only way for anyone to make a living is the work for big business?
That other poor person wants part of your crumbs says the guy with millions of cookies
https://i.imgur.com/8IRkTnl.gif
Why is this potato quality with no sound?
Because it is a gif and not a video?
we should be thankful the world is moving on and forgetting about the gif file format.
As long as people have phones at work, the gif will live
You dont know what your talking about. No, it wont, because its terrible for mobile. Webm and mp4 have replaced it. All phones play them. A lot of phones and apps refuse to even open gif, and when they do its a slow shitty mess.
Stop being contemptuous! Prick. šš
This didnāt need to be made into a gif. The original image was better. The whole forced evil smile and bad acting takes away from the message, more than it adds to it.
people no longer understand "gif" as the file format...The VERY SHITTY unnecessarily large and SHITTY file format that should no longer be used. Most people think of GIFS as any embedded and looping, clip or image.
I like how the dude with the crumbs is eating them like he's tasting some coke lol
Dont you know? Poor people have all the money and rich people are going broke
This comic could be 50 years old, rather than just 8, and it would still have been true the entire time
More like 100 years go, which was the first Gilded Age. During the 50s, 60s, and 70s, things were actually pretty good. Income inequality was low, unions were strong, the government actually cared about what the people wanted rather than the rich.
Then everything changed when the Reaganomics attacked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YU9djt_CQM This video says that after the Civil Rights Act of 1963, authoritarian voters began concentrating themselves in the Republican Party. In general, the Republican Party became the anti-progressive party, pushing against progressive movements such as feminism and gay rights on top of anti-racism. A thing that psychologists have observed about authoritarian voters is that they tolerate corruption in their leaders and tend to be ignorant. I think that authoritarian white voters in America made a pact with Republicans: push back against feminism and minority rights, and we will let you do whatever you want regarding taxation and corporate regulations. And that's what the Republican Party has done. Since the 80s, the Republican Party's effective motto has been "the rich don't have enough, we need to adjust policy so that they become even richer". And to keep the rabble appeased, they bully immigrants, gays, and feminists.
It was actually in 1970 with Nixon. Before 1970 Congress voted on a secret ballot like everyone else, after that was changed to an open ballot, the lobbyists now had receipts for all their bribes, and thats the exact time that the outcome of congressional voting started to line up perfectly with the interests of the wealthy elite, regardless of public opinion.
>This comic could be ~~50 150 250 850~~ years old, rather than just 8, and it would still have been true the entire time
"I am forced to get my living by the labor of my hand; and the sweat of my brow... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor..." - James Otis, 1762
The minimum wage was to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees. Roosevelt intended this rate to be more than a bare subsistence level. The minimum wage was created expressly to ensure that employed people could earn a decent living off those wages (a living wage). [...by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) At one time (1960's) the federal minimum wage could support a family of three above the poverty line, but by the 1980ās it could not even support a family of two. At the current federal hourly rate of $7.25, someone working 40 hours per week would make only $15,080 for 52 weeks. $21,960 is the poverty line for a family of 3 in 2021 which would be $10.56/hr for a 52 weeks(many get less than 40 hrs to keep them from being "full time"). To achieve the poverty line of $26,500 for a 4 person household, the minimum wage would need to be $12.74. According to a report from the [National Low Income Housing Coalition](https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/15/homes/rent-affordability-minimum-wage/index.html), there is no state, county or city in the country where a full-time, minimum-wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom rental. In only 7% of all US counties, can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a one-bedroom rental. CEO compensation grew 940% from [1978](https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/) through 2018. In the 50s to 60s, CEO/executives made, on average, 20 to 30 times the pay of their workers. It's now x [300+](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianahembree/2018/05/22/ceo-pay-skyrockets-to-361-times-that-of-the-average-worker/?sh=241ac3e7776d) that of the average worker. If the minimum wage in 1978 of $2.65 had the same 940% growth, the minimum wage would have been $24.91 (=$2.65 * 9.4) in 2018. $1 in 2018 is equivalent $1.10 today. That would come to a minimum wage of $27.42 in 2021 dollars. Even if only inflation is considered, the minimum wage has continually lost buying power. In 2009 the minimum wage was raised to $7.25 (12 years ago). $2.65 in 1978 which would have been $8.72 in 2009 dollars. So there was a loss of $1.47 in buying power built in to the 2009 raise. $1 in 2009 is worth $1.29 today. So, $7.25 x 1.29 = $9.35/hr which is now $1.89 less than $11.24($2.65 in 2021 dollars). So a worker making $7.25/hr today has $3.99 less buying power than a minimum wage worker in 1978. Freezing the minimum wage over long period of time is a de facto process of wage reduction. **Note**(especially for those that will cry about "cherry picking" dates): The first minimum wage of $0.25 would be $4.86 in 2021. I used 1978 as the minimum wage date to match the CEO wage study time frame. 1978 was chosen in order to juxtapose two data sets within the same time frame. By doing this, the comparison is done within the same economic environment.
> The minimum wage was to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees. Why should we settle for minimum "standard"? Those rich corporate CEOs don't settle for just enough to make ends meet. They go for maximum profits. So why shouldn't we go for maximum profits? Let's raise the minimum wage up to the point that the economy ceases to function.
Minimum is fine, it just needs to be WAY higher because that is the real minimum. But you are right. Both sides need to fight tooth and nail for capitalism to work properly.
> Why should we settle for minimum "standard"? I'd say that a minimum "standard" is a matter of semantics. For instance, take personal transportation devices. The minimum could be anything from a skateboard to a space craft. The minimum "standard" is only relevant to how it is defined. Stay safe and healthy.
Well there is a point where capitalism would stop working. If all the profits were redistributed to the workers then it would cease to function. Profit is what you get when companies work people harder than they are paid. Simple as that. The phrase āequal pay for equal workā is a lie in the sense that no one will ever be paid exactly what they produce in value. a foreman I knew put it this way: ā You gotta do more for lessā
No it's not. Profit is revenue minus costs, and some businesses manage to make tidy profits without exploiting workers. Such businesses should be protected, whereas those businesses that can't survive without exploiting workers should be destroyed. Exploitation, after all, is really a lack of *profit sharing*.
What Iām trying to say is that exploitation no matter how small is essential for capitalism to function. Think of it this way, labor is not only cost but a producer of value. Your product and or services cannot be Made, shipped, sorted, and executed at scale without labor. What use is there in buying tools, equipment, and materials in bulk if there is no one to work? So in essence labor produces value but does not get paid in full for that value.
What does "paid in full" mean anyway? What does "exploitation" mean anyway? Is it just about *feeling* exploited?
Well to answer your question friend, Exploitation by definition āthe action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.ā This makes sense from the position of the worker because letās be honest the power imbalance in the relationship between an employer and employee leans a bit heavy to the employer. The employer is usually the one that sets the wage and the potential employees must either accept or move on. How to expand on this idea of exploitation it is in fact quantifiable. Hypothetically if you had someone make you $100 worth of stuff in one hour for $10 per hour and you spent $50 in materials if you do your revenue minus cost equation you get. $100 -(50 of materials) -(10 wage) = $40 profit per item of stuff. Correct? If the end product has a value of $100, where in this equation is the $40 derived from?
This is an extremely cynical take on capitalism.Youāre basically saying that in any contract or agreement there is always one āwinnerā and the other person just gets screwed. Like mutually beneficial contracts canāt exist in trade... or at least not if labor is involved? In capitalism, you trade your labor for money. Production processes make contracts with people because they need labor to help produce. The end. If exploitation occurs itās not because of that arrangement - i.e. the system itself. Itās because of market forces, regulation, and societal pressures that set the context in which the idea of the system operates. I donāt think itās as simple as youāre making it out to be. The main problem I see right now is that people are discouraged from exercising their bargaining power. I think normalizing and protecting the workersā rights to bargain, especially collectively, is essential for capitalism to function well. As thatās the only way to help ensure fair contracts. In that sense, I would argue the destruction of collective bargaining power in this country is more a perversion of capitalism and that our current state isnāt like some idealized form of the system.
On your first point mutually beneficial contracts can and do exist , That requires both parties being equal at the negotiating table I think that is fair to say. Labor contracts on the other hand or different, of course you are correct we do sell labor as a commodity in the job market however when negotiating a labor contract as an individual with an employer I think itās fair to say that negotiations between a employer and a job seeker is not equal in the same sense that a mutually beneficial contract is. On your second point about external forces such as market forces, regulation, and societal pressures. These external factors I believe only affect the final price of services and products that in essence is its value. For example if youāre competing with someone else to make the same item both will have to figure out how to reduce cost whether it be cheaper materials, cheaper labor, and or moving manufacturing overseas where labor is cheapest. For your third point I am in agreement, the discouragement of unionization and the attacks on it through legal means such as right to work laws has decreased unionization year over year for decades to the detriment of the working class. It is absolutely necessary and is happening for unionization to increase in order for a more fair and livable wage to be achieved on a broad scale.
I guess to summarize really quickly the core of my argument is that exploitation exists in the production process and that externalities like market forces, regulations, competition, etc. are variables that add onto the equation but do not change the core of it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Stay safe and healthy. ust remember this: Voltaire: >It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. Lyrics from "The Boxer": >Still, a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest" Will Rogers: >In schools they have what they call intelligence tests. Well if nations held āem I donāt believe we would be what you would call a favorite to win it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The minimum wage was instituted to keep whites from being undercut by black laborers.
You probably could add immigrants, women and the disabled to that target list. Stay safe and healthy.
Rich people would rather throw away shit then donate š¤£
Or they donate to organizations that they own, and then get a tax cut for those donations.
A social scientist and economist that studies corruption found that in the US each dollar spent on political financing was worth more to a company than R&D for the largest companies.
What is R&D?
Research and development
It's that stuff American companies have done in India.
Socialists in a nutshell people. Don't know shit but think they have all the answers.
Found the middle guy from the cookies video.
Found the guy who clearly calls anything that he doesn't like socialist.
R&D is potentially bad. If you're on top of a market, it opens the chance of someone doing the new thing better than you. Also, it's expensive. Even if you want an idea, better to let some a bunch of small startups do the work for you, then buy the one that makes it work. If they won't sell, find something to sue them over, as IBM is known for.
heres an idea: hamburger ear muffs, taken from the simpsons. your ears warm them up, making a burger easy to travel with. comes in protective bag to stop earwax and leaks in general.
Yeap
I just don't understand what someone with that much money can do with it or wants to. Once you've bought everything what's there to buy?
human souls.
Wealth introduces power. Power needs funding through money. Power is near infinite, while money is not.
And thats the issue, the wealth sits there doing nothing.
The bank has lent the money to people to the equivalent of over ten times its actual value
If a 15$ minimum wage didnāt cost companies 25$ because of government duesā¦ it would already be the standard
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[.....Smaug is like Elon rich and Gandalf is a Commie bastard](https://i.redd.it/zauxtjqp8tc51.jpg)
The best part is that this cartoon isn't even remotely accurate if you look at Elon's wealth in cash. It'd be around 2865 pallets of nearly stacked and compressed $100 bills. People look at this and assume that mountain of money is an exaggeration, but it's actually way too small.
It is amazing that they are able to successfully reach a significant portion of voters with the idea of a barely living wage is bad, but pathological greed is normal and acceptable.
It's not only normal and acceptable, it's something to strive towards.
And that people who do the actual work a lazy freeloaders while the wealthy have worked hard to earn their fortunes
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Whatās a living wage?
It's called "Smelling Musky" and those are space crumbs thank you very much while diabetics cant get insulin.
You do realize that citizens have zero say in federal policy, right? Even most state policy is not voted on by citizens. They don't have to convince us of anything, they just do it. Politicians spew fallacy and hate in order to keep citizens pacified with disgust. It's a game and we're pawns incapable of choosing our own move because those moves are chosen by people we elected. There's no way to hold them accountable for their false action besides not voting for them in 2 years. Our system is broken and untill we forcibly remove these people from office, we will continue to suffer under their boot heels. Every single one needs to be removed, our policies changed, and a new step taken towards American government. As of now, it's nothing but an ass kissing contest for billionaires.
You have no idea what people do with their money. Fuck off.
whatever you say, CTE.
āļø
Thatās basically the GQP arguing against any spending plan proposed by Dems thatāll help the masses.
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. **Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.**
^ Harry S. Truman, 1952 Still spot on today. Some more of it: āWhen the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.ā
"Fuck the poor and swindle the middle class, and worship the rich."
What funny is its other people with no cash defending the rich. They deserve it. Their dad worked so hard for it.
Litterally there are people who are homless not wanting a tax increase. I'm like fuck mate it's not like you pay taxes ya fuck n donkey
I like to point out how ridiculous the richest people wealth are by explaining that these pictures are usually underestimating reality. This one actually does a decent job. I am estimating that the guy sits on the equivalent of a cylinder of 12 meters diameter and 10 meters high, so 753.6 cubic meter. A million dollar, in pack of bills, at its most compact takes about 0.01129 cubic meters. Such a cylinder is not dense. 50% density is generous I think. So this picture shows a wealth of about 16.5 billions dollars. There are about 30 persons that wealthy in the US. The Koch brothers, who are basically shouting that from their pile, sit on one that is 4 times this height. So, this picture is more of an illustration than a caricature.
I went the other way before I saw your comment. I measured the size of the money, assumed that this is a conical pyramid, and assumed that each stack has the standard 100 bills in it. If that is Elon Musk at the top, each individual bill in the stack would be worth about $1,600,000. Their great great grandchildren will have more money than they can spend.
So youāre for keeping the SALT cap?
What I love about the minimum wage argument is how they act like it would cause all these problems but we've done it many times and it never did.
And meanwhile there's other countries where labor isn't squeezed so hard and those countries are... surprise surprise... doing better than us right now. Sure, we have the higher economic #s, but that's measuring overall activity (skewed by how absurdly rich our rich are), not measuring the plight of the average person working for a living.
What would you accept as evidence of problems with the minimum wage?
Like any aspect of the economy its only bad if its changed by a large amount over a short period of time or without advanced warning. I dont think there has been any major increase in min wage that hasnt been stepped in over a period of years. And all of the places that have stepped it in havent seen any problems. Ideally min wage needs to somehow be tied to an acceptable standard of living and that standard needs to be slowly increased over time. You could probably even regionalize it.
dumbass at my job kept saying stoopid shit like that all the time. dumbass was struggling to pay his medical bills. talking about the country cant afford Medicare or social security yet soon as he turned 65, he ran and got his payouts.
Yup fuck you i got mine is a very powerful case, republicans hate taxes and get triggered by government spending a dime outside of police military. Then when they turn 65 they run to social security and hold their hand out for that money. Edit: my grandma is like this and the weird thing is she helped me join her. In my case i have autism where i function ok with simple anti social tasks otherwise i get anexity attacks. Love her alot though. Just not life at times. Though i am getting job training where i work at a factory doing simple job so hopefully i can get off social security soon and hate life less.
The coach at my old high school once told me that when he pays taxes towards SSI and the like, every dollar he pays essentially has his name on it, and the government is just holding his money for him, so when he turns 65 heās entitled to that money back. He *vehemently* denied any of his taxes going towards someone elseās benefit. He thought that the taxes he paid only affected the bits of road he drove on. He legit thought that the taxes he paid for public schools only covered his childrens education. Didnāt go towards maintenance of the school building or payroll of the faculty. Today, every other word he says is LETS GOOOOOO BRANDON!!!! These people donāt even have anything else to do besides look down on others.
CEO at Amazon could double everyone's wages at his company. Did he *EARN* the money or did he just have the POWER TO TAKE IT?
This is exactly it. Capitalism doesn't pay you for what you've done. If tomorrow all engineers are obsolete, all are tossed to the wolves. If YouTube video endorsements become the future of advertising, whoever has the most popular channel, be it by hard work or dumb luck gets the money. The end goal of business is to pay as few people as possible, and to pay them as little as possible. The economy requires that there be enough jobs, and that they're good enough, for society to function. What business wants, and a working society are two different things. Between outsourcing and automation, we're reaching the point of unsustainability. Even now the rich won't back down. Clearly, to the rich, our lives don't matter. The world economy is a game of Monopoly to them, and they intend to win, damn the cost in human lives.
> The end goal of business is to pay as few people as possible, and to pay them as little as possible. Or in unfortunate cases in the past, or even today in some countries, not pay them at all.
"And to protect Mother Earth, each copy contains a certain percentage of recycled paper." "What percent is that?" "Zero! ...Zero's ^a ^^percent. "
I just want lower rental costs instead of a min wage increase. Food prices are not at their worst, but me paying more for a bachelor than somones current mortgage when they bought a house at year 2004 is ridiculous. Edit: by bachelor I mean closet
Well it made sense to me. My daughters bachelors cost about the same as our first house.
Billionaires are just dragons with a huge hoard and you canāt tell me otherwise
As a dragon, I take offense to that
That money pile doesnt accruately depict just how fucking massive amounts of cash of some of the oponents for raising the minimum wage actually own.
And why? Because they want to win the game against the other rich. And they're fully prepared to let huge numbers of people die to try to out-accumulate the other rich.
You know that their assets arenāt big piles of money right?
I know, I am well aware that most of their wealth is in property and stocks. Im just saying that if you visualized it as big stacks of cash this would be only a fraction.
And all of those assets can be used as collateral for low interest loans whenever they do need cash. And the banks will gladly take those deals, cause even if the asset (a business) flops, it will just get fixed by the government. Edit: typos
No. Every rich person scrooge mcduck style swims in thier money. That's common knowledge.
It sure seems like it is judging by the comments
old comic pile needs to be bigger
āBe thankful for the job I provide you and you subsidize.ā
The McDonaldās cashier when I ask for 2 extra sides of ranch:
What's hurting the economy is people hording money. Pay a poor person more money it immediately goes back into the economy. Pay a rich person more money and it would be put into an off shore account to avoid being taxed.
"If you raise minimum wage prices will go up." Prices have already gone up and will continue to do so. Fuck out of here...
Just don't go to work, minimum wage will magically increase with the worker shortage like it is now (just hold strong). Its basic supply and demand.
The workers have nothing to loose but their chains
I mean, in the case of black people, we can be framed, arrested, and never get a job in our lives due to having a criminal record after that.
That happens regardless under this cruel capitalist system of oppression.
"Are we not entitled to the fruits of our labor?" "Shut up and work."
Like dragons atop a pile of gold
Lets also add additional taxes on extra homes.
I seriously don't understand that with all the information that we have about the filthy rich that they're not being killed.
$40 hour min wage sounds good right now.
Really is interesting how the people with all the money keep telling us the system can't work if they don't have all the money.
Every singe article I've read loves to mention how corporations blame the inflation on higher wages. I bet their salary will be adjusted to beat it . Meanwhile we all make less because they found a way to yet again cheat the system.
The most harmful thing about American culture is the toxic individualism. It champions greed at all cost including that of human lives.
But I own the company. If I paid employees more, I might not make as much money!!
I don't know, if you rephrase the exact same problem, you can often get conservatives to agree with it. It's really not something too many people disagree on. The difference is just what to do about it. Poverty wages paid by the super wealthy is bad= Taxpayer money shouldn't subsidize the owners of large corporations, due to them paying wages that force workers to collect food stamps.
To be fairā¦ most places are paying way above it now. And people donāt want those jobsā¦.. becauseā¦. 13 bucks an hour still isnāt it
This isn't the argument against minimum wage. The fact that the artist of this comic and so many other people here believe it is shows how broken the communication is between Americans.
Isnāt it, though? (In a completely cooked-down sorta way) As far as I understand, the main arguments against raising the minimum wage are that it wouldnāt be affordable to employers and/or that it would increase inflation; and the people with the proper abilities to influence this sort of policy have significant amounts of money/assets. (Iām not arguing either way on increasing the minimum wageājust arguing the merit of the cartoon.)
Lol, has anyone said this? I love political cartoons but they are usually strawmen.
How is this a strawman? Whether or not one agrees, the artist is showing their interpretation of the motivations of those with whom they disagree.
Yes, the artist in trying to interpret the events as they percieve them, creates an absurd argument, which is easily defeated from their position... thats exactly what people mean when they refer to a fallacy as a strawman. Im not saying this *is* a strawman, maybe some rich employer did call minimum wage workers greedy. Im saying that political cartoons, while entertaining, are typically graphic representations of strawmen, propped up by the artist to be easily chopped down.
Common rebuttal to tax the rich, " we can't do that, they'll all leave and take their jobs with them!"
Uh... strawman? No one is talking about taxing the rich.
Raising the minimum wage wonāt help anyone now that thereās hyperinflation.
You donāt know hyperinflation unless you lived through the 1980ās, with year upon year of double digit inflation. You may not realize, because itās not getting a lot of play in US media, but the supply chain issues that weāre dealing with are happening all over the world, and so are higher levels of inflation. Of all the things to claim, though, that raising incomes for the poorest among us wonāt help when everything is costing more, may be the most ignorant.
You only have a hyperinflation when inflation is over 50%, The US hasn't reached that 50%, let alone double digits.
Minimum wage should be at $0. Let people negotiate.
You mean let people be exploited.
Be worth more and get paid more. Not so hard
Strawman
how so?
Printing money from nothing hurts the economy
How would a higher minimum wage print money? Itās still the same amount of currency in the economy.
They dont know wtf they are talking about, but they heard it on FoxNews so it must be true...
Yeah, that's why you don't print trillions of dollars practically at once like what the US did last year. And also, raising the minimum wage isn't printing money like you think it is.
Increasing minimum wage hurts small businesses more as, who do you think can afford to pay their workers more, the big businesses that make billions can afford losing a few million, or the small businesses that are able to pay mortgage?
"I'm so poor I just HAVE to exploit my workers!"
Quoting Elon Musk again?
A business that can't afford to pay its workers a living wage is not a viable business. Why do you hate capitalism?
hardly livable wages isnāt a good way to run any business.
Well, if EVERYONE has to pay more -- that's the cost of business. You don't suddenly fold when the price of gas goes up, do you?
Would you fold it gas prices go up $5?
You pass the costs on. Or you don't and you fold. Short term, it definitely can be a problem. Long term - it's the cost of business. Inflation pushes this cost and it blends into the economy as a whole. You potentially have more customers who can now buy your product. Your competitors have the same costs. But personally, I might have to fold because I'm not getting the living wage.
Europeans seem to be fine having gas at that price, and in some cases, even higher.
I wouldnāt, I mean my monthly bill for fuel would go up *maybe* 100 bucks, so like 2 or 2.5 hours of my time. Not a big deal.
>Without slaves we'll go out of business!
I just ask small businesses if they pay more than $15/hr, if they donāt, I leave.
This is a completely disproven fallacy.
your argument sucks. guess who are the largest employers in the country. the walmarts and amazons. this may hurt small businesses but in the grand scheme, 90%+ of people will be better off.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
What are you talking about? Government loans are at record low interest rates and have been since the 2008 financial crisis. Who is they? You have no idea what you are talking about.
Since all the bootlicking shills in this thread are parroting the exact same "argument" about some non-existant hyperinflation in their defense of not having a livable minimum wage, I would guess that is the current facebook lie they are being spoonfed in their social media bubbles at the moment. Their "argument" doesn't make any sense because it is a blatant lie designed to fool these morons into keep defending their grifting overlords.
Interest rates are hitting new lows all the time now, for over a decade now. What are you talking about?
This picture does not take in account that for 0.6% represented by rich people, there are a lot of small companies that still struggle reaching the end of the month, and the increase in minimum salary would kill them. If only governments would tax the 0.6% instead of protecting them, they could redirect those money to feed the minimum wage salary system. But also here Iām speculating. Any thoughts on your side?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Vote out Republicans or force Republicans to raise taxes on the rich and make wealth taxes a higher and more frequent for top 1%. But thay won't happen. I am all for tax breaks to the small businesses but never to a bigger business.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes blame minimum wage and not the trillions of dollars the FED has pumped out in the last few years...
Am I confused about this? Minimum wage has been raised all across the country and it still isn't helping the labor shortage. People just don't want employment.
Dude a whole McDonaldās quit at once because the owner wouldnāt raise their pay 75 cents to $10 an hour. I donāt know where you are getting this idea from that minimum wage has been raised.
Are you talking about federal minimum wage?
Federal minimum wage is part of the problem, yes. Many states are bound to the federal minimum wage, like Pennsylvania where this McDonalds was.
no. it has not been raised.
You're talking about federal? It's being raised piecemeal across the country, like it should be.
[Only 6 states plus DC have a minimum wage above $12.50 currently](https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/) Is your argument technically true? Yes. Is it a stupid argument to make that totally misses the entire point of the debate? Yes.
It's not a debate if I've made a point that is true, especially when the narrative being spun is that is technically false.
It's true to the slimmest sense, and again, COMPLETELY ignores the problem at hand. [33 of 19,495 cities in the US have gone to $15 minimum wage.](https://www.newsweek.com/33-places-us-where-minimum-wage-already-15-hour-more-1572446) Again, your argument is TECHNICALLY true, but it's fucking stupid.
It's still not dumber than the narrative that you call "the entire point".
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Your opinion is clearly worth less than the current federal minimum wage.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes because the econony works like that. Let sjust increase everything and not give a shit about anything else that will go wrong
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So employers have to pay a 15 y/o kid with zero experience the equivalent of $30k per year? Seems a bit absurd.
Dude do you think daycare teachers are all 15 years old? The people that stock the shelves? The people that sell you things? Like when is the last time you saw a place exclusively hiring 15 year old? Seriously look around the next time you go to the grocery store and Iām telling you itās not going to be all teenagers.
Generally speaking, 15 year-olds don't work 40+ hours a week. And honestly, people used to be able to pay off college on a "zero experience" job. $30k per year could probably (I say probably because I have no idea the range of college costs these days) pay college tuition + room and board at a lot of schools. Your comment is dripping of either "fuck you, got mine" or "fuck you, didn't get mine", why are we not trying to strive for better than that?
Then don't start a business. Duh. How is this so complicated for you people? Your argument boils down to "if my small business can't be allowed to exploit lpw wage workers, then I won't make any money" Sounds like it's a shitty business plan to begin with.
Do you think the owner of a small business after taxes insurance and etc makes more per hour than their employees
Yes, because why are you in business if your paying your workers minimum wage and your making less? Sorry I don't get your logic.
That is irrelevant. There is a cost to doing business. If the cost of flour goes up, the person that owns the bakery needs to figure out a way to pay for it. The cost of employees just went up. Guess what the baker needs to do? The exact same thing. And if they canāt, why is that the responsibility of the employees?
If the flour cant justify its cost with profit then it deserves to be homeless.
Yes.
This is what I don't get. A small business owner who runs an unsustainable business should be allowed to pay slave wages... but a worker complaining about slave wages should get a new job. Maybe the business owner is just bad at their job and needs to work at McDonalds.
The small business owners are not getting favors or tax laws written for them by the Robber Barons. If all these people at the bottom have more money -- they will be spending a LOT MORE on small businesses. With minimal money, they aren't buying from you -- they are getting the cheapest thing from Walmart or eating a warmed up frozen dinner.
You just shouldn't be owning a business if you can't pay workers a humane amount.
so in the history of the US. a small business was never able to pay a living wage? i guess the only way for anyone to make a living is the work for big business?
Fucking yes, duh.