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We need less income inequality, that's why I support movements like the fight for $15.
I agree to a point. I used to say minimum wage shpuld always be raised, but ive changed my opinion.
As the minimum wage increases so do costs associated with getting the goods and services out to the public. That drives up costs FOR the minimum wage earners, and those who make, say $20 vs a $10 minimum will squawk and want $25 to keep what they garner over minimum. Soon as $15 minimum gets here, a happy meal at McD's will also cost $15.
If minimum. Had been left at say 1985s level( I think it was $3.35 in my state then), people would N0T WORK for that anymore, and employers would HAVE to pay a more livable wish to get any employees. Now that livable wage may only be $10, but would be better than minimum.
It would also mean the livable wage in Podunct Missouri might be $5, while in NYC it may be $15. But both cases the wages would be more livable than that $3.35 Had they left it alone.
As far as reducing income inequality, there needs to be more living wages paid by employees who only see that they only "have to pay minimum", so why not just pay only minimum?
A living wage would be one to cover the average costs to live in a specified area, as well as an amount high enough to save for retirement as well.
But it will never happen, until all the wealth has been absorbed by the wealthy, and the poor are left destitute. Then the currency may have to be devalued, leaving the rich NOT as rich as they were, but I'm not sure even that will happen.
The poor populace e will revolt like the poor did longtime ago, striping the wealthy. Like the lords of long ago, the wealthy will lise,their grip as the poor demand more.
Imagine if all minimum wage workers and those just above went on strike??? What would the wealthy do then?
We need less income inequality, that's why I support movements like the fight for $15.
Even where the person or position does not produce $15 per hour (or $20 or $50 or whatever the next demand will be) in value to the business? How would that work?
People in office need to stop favoring big businesses and the rich over everyone else. Instead of blaming greedy CEOs, they keep spewing out the same baloney about how we need to get more training or experience, yada, yada...
Until the Great Depression, there was no real political voice for the poor. But when Franklin Roosevelt was swept into office, a political line between Democrats and Republicans came into being. ...
So, the element of class disappeared from American Politics between the two parties and the debates between them focused more on social than on class-related economic issues, as they never had before.
Today, the US has a service economy, largely un-unionized. But silently, a new class distinction has arisen that nobody pays much attention to, the division between large oligopolies and monopoly capitalists, on the one hand, and consumers, on the other. ...
I would aver, that the new (or perhaps eternal?) class distinction is less one of pecuniary ranking, than of taste and background. People who have extensive formal education, who are widely-read, fluent in multiple languages, etc., are in one class; while those who consume an unvariegated diet of pop-culture, are in the other. The owner of a landscaping-company, who doesn’t know the difference between a gerund and an infinitive, but who clears $500K/year, is in the latter class. The philosophy major working as adjunct lecturer at the local community college, is in the former class. For lack of a better term, we’ll call these the “heartland” and “coastal” classes.
In most societies, there is a cohort that’s recently been called “the clerisy”. This is people who aren’t necessarily themselves wealthy, but who serve the wealthy in a professional capacity… architects, lawyers, administrators of various kind. These servants tend to be better educated than their masters. By cultural affinity they’re in the coastal class, even if quite often their masters are in the heartland class.
The coastal class is always a small minority, but in the more successful nations, it enjoys outsized influence. The disturbing trend in modern America is the waning of this class, the reduction of its formal and informal influence, the marginalization of its role in pacing the culture. And this is deeply unfortunate.
People in office need to stop favoring big businesses and the rich over everyone else. Instead of blaming greedy CEOs, they keep spewing out the same baloney about how we need to get more training or experience, yada, yada...
More training and experience is available but employers should provide it like they did 50-60 years ago.
With economic income inequality negatively affecting a sizable portion of people in the United States what can be done to reasonably decrease this inequality?
I get it that a lot of people are up in arms about this topic.
How is it "negatively affecting" you?
I have friends who have been protesting this new tax bill. I have looked at two different online tax calculators, and both of them say that my tax obligations will go down. So I have asked some of my protesting friends, if this new bill will hurt them in some manner. So far I have not isolated anyone of them, who will actually be 'hurt' in any context.
Yes, there are rich people. And there are poor people. I am a retiree, my pension is roughly equal to [the old] Minimum-Wage. I make more than enough to support my family. But by all indexes I am 'poor'.
I am not saying this to 'defend' any rich people. But I must ask
how does this "negatively affect" you?
If everyone started from the same place in life, ie, rich parents were not allowed to pass everything to the kids, but rather had to surrender their estates to the government, we’d go a long way towards fixing this problem.
As wealth gets more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, I think some form of this will be inevitable.
If everyone started from the same place in life, ie, rich parents were not allowed to pass everything to the kids, but rather had to surrender their estates to the government, we’d go a long way towards fixing this problem.
As wealth gets more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, I think some form of this will be inevitable.
I have read a few studies on 'trust fund kids'. Very few of them ever manage to build any further wealth. The wealth usually dissipates with each generation.
There are a few empire builders that show up every generation. The majority of 'Millionaires' in America are people who gained that wealth on their own, within their generation. They did not inherit it, I think the statistics show that on average they inherited less than $10,000.
Large estates are taxed, and when an estate is divided out among heirs, most of those heirs will spend it, just as lottery winners spend their winnings.
If everyone started from the same place in life, ie, rich parents were not allowed to pass everything to the kids, but rather had to surrender their estates to the government, we’d go a long way towards fixing this problem.
As wealth gets more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, I think some form of this will be inevitable.
This will never happen, but I can assure you if it did NO ONE with a lick of sense would have a dime to their names when they died. I'd give everything away or throw my money in a fire rather than give any more to the government to waste.
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