11mo ago

How's that supposed to work?

200 comments

Legitimately curious what she is expecting. My kindest interpretation is she thinks students or teens should get work experience. Maybe she thinks people should have to work several jobs if it's too... Easy?
Not that students should have to work...
Customer service jobs are some of the worst outside of Malaysian ship breaker or Siberian lumberjack.
- In my experience dealing with these sorts of people trying to to justify this argument, it's a combination of:
  These are not supposed to be permanent jobs for anyone, i.e. only high school and college students should work them.
  These are jobs that should be worked by >!non-white!< people who are comfortable with lower standards of living.
  You should work a second job to supplement your income if you aren't earning enough.
  For #1, they believe that because they (or people they know) treated lower paying jobs as a foot in the door/stepping stone at a time in their lives where they had a social safety net looking out for them, then everyone else can do that, too.
  For #2, they believe that there are people who don't need to live well and are okay with that. Typically this comes down to racial distinctions and the idea that non-whites must love poverty because so many of them live in it.
  For #3, they'll dig up some anecdote about some random family member in the past who used to work two jobs where they had to walk uphill both ways there and back and that's what a real work ethic looks like, then go off on a tangent about how people today are just too damn lazy.
  
  For #1 I always ask them when McDonald's shuts down? When does Dairy Queen open? If these jobs are "teenager jobs" then why do they operate during school hours
  "Oh, well old people take those spots."
  Ok, wearhouse jobs are also seen as "teenager jobs." Is Grandpa lifting boxes while Timmy is at school?
- The idea that younger people just need "work experience" is a vestige of a bygone world, when just having that little bit of experience would make you qualified for the job -- THE job -- that you would continue to do forever, because companies paid for loyalty with loyalty. That isn't how the world works now and every job, entry level, dead end, or otherwise, is the job that you might need to do forever. That's why a living wage is more important now than perhaps it was in previous years.
  
  I've been in a psudo-managment position for over 5 years now in manufacturing and I still feel like I have 0 transferrable experience to bring to another job... How these people think making ice cream or serving burgers is supposed to give you valuable experience is beyond me... Unless they strictly mean "learn how to show up to work."
- If easy jobs become living wage then victims of abuse can better escape via building an escape and self sustainability purse.
  Being able to escape the household head's abuse is anathema to the "family values" system conservatives try to appeal to whenever gays are allowed more freedom than being sent to Jesus camp or force married by their parents.
  
  And I think you hinted at it, but also women in abusive relationships, even if they're too indoctrinated to realize it. Even without physical violence, being expected to be subservient to your spouse is very common abuse in conservative USA.
- She wants underpaid service jobs so the services they provide remain cheap for her personally. And the teens and work experience thing is just a lie they tell everyone, in reality what they see as worthless jobs don't deserve to live well. Finally they see others gaining position and wealth as a direct threat to their level of privilege.
- Yeah, I charitably hope she is interpreting "living wage" as living super comfortably in a mini McMansion in the suburbs with a pool in the back yard and a new car in the driveway every 5 years or so. I mean, that's how many of this generation experienced success, so it makes sense if that's her frame of reference. But a literal living wage is something you can...you know ..live off of. With super extraneous purchases like food and clothes and a roof over your head. They don't stop and think what they're expecting people to do - work all day or night long so she can have her ice cream and still not be able to afford rent. It's cruel and dehumanizing.
- I kinda agree in the aspect that a passing fries and a burger out a drive-thru window shouldn't be the standard of job people expect to live off forever, and that there should be room for starter-jobs.
  But, the costs of living have gone up while the number of viable of decent jobs has gone down. Maybe the issue isn't that a burger job isn't meeting the bare minimum but that people expect you to work an office job for barely more than the burger one, while often also asking for some pretty hefty credentials/experience to boot.
  Even in the McJobs, there should be some path for workers to have stepping stones to better positions. And yeah, there should also be no tolerance of assholes. Fuck "the customer is always right" and make it "we strive for customer satisfaction, but if you're an awesome we have the right to refuse service"
  
  The thing that bothers me about comments like this is that it has the underlying attitude that everyone should eventually "be someone" and "do something with their life"
  There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to go to work, work your 8 hours a day, clock out, leave work at work and enjoy or do whatever you want for the rest of your hours that day.
  These McJobs seem to be jobs "people trying to succeed in life" don't want to do, but are services and products they expect to be able to purchase and enjoy.
  There is nothing wrong, lazy, or ignorant about people whose priorities are not about work and "getting ahead" - Maybe they want to do their hobbies, or hang out with people they like, or sit in their backyard and no nothing. Not everyone wants to, should, or is frankly qualified to meet some arbitrary measure of success
  People doing the McJobs should still be able to eat, live in a safe home, and raise a family and not have to work 2 or more jobs, or be treated like they are worthless. They are stepping up and doing the jobs we all want done in society.
  And yes, someone's McJob in middle of nowhere, flyover state might be liveable at minimum wage, and that exact same job be 3 or 4 times that in a big city. It doesn't change the fact that it should pay whatever it costs to be liveable in the place the job is located. If a company can't afford to pay it's employees a liveable wage, it can't afford to do business there. Same as if the business can't afford the electricity or clean water.
  Did anyone watch Office Space? Sometimes happiness is found leaving the rat race and TPS reports and doing a McJob that directly benefits others and doesn't follow you home or ask if you have a case of the Mondays.
  
  They factually aren't starter jobs because the people overwhelmingly doing them are people that need to live on those wages.
  Low end jobs cannot meaningfully structurally serve as stepping stones within an organization because such professions/companies need massive amounts of low wage labor, very few better paid workers, and most of the actually well paid positions are available via an expensive education not earned by hard work within the org. That is to say Burger Bob's thousands of franchises need tens of thousands of flunkies, hundred of slightly higher paid flunkies, and dozens of high paid people who are mostly recruited out of college or industry.
  This is to say statistically approaching zero of Bob's employees can escape poverty by working hard for Bob. The alternative is imagining that a peanut butter sandwich can feed a stadium full of people because in theory any one of them could eat it.
- The short answer is her idea of a "healthy society" is not an equitable one.

In case you're wondering how someone can have such an unhinged opinion about labor: Conservatism is the belief in natural hierarchies, that some people are just better than others. This lady makes a living wage, and she deems service staff to be beneath her, therefore they are not allowed to enjoy the same America as she does.
- They're not necessarily that unhinged from a moral perspective. They're just incredibly privileged and ignorant.
  They truly believe that because they didn't get stuck with a low-wage job that it must be an active choice that people make, and that people should strive to be better to improve society.
  And when you point out that they're privileged they see it as an insuly - like you're saying they didn't earn their way. And that's the real rub. Many wealthy people absolutely do work their asses off, and from their perspective all that work has paid off. What they don't understand is that their success is a mixture of their hard work AND luck.
  Saying they've been lucky shouldn't diminish their work. I think everyone who works hard to be a success should have that opportunity. We're not asking that their hard work be ignored. We're asking that everyone else's be recognized with a living wage.
  
  They actually are that unhinged, and have been for awhile...
  There was a time EVERYONE was like this, back in the 50's or so they did a bunch of experiments and found people who were poorer were dumber, more violent, prone to crime, and more likely to have mental issues...
  So they concluded that people fell into poverty because of personal failings.
  Funny thing about Science, you can have all the right data and still get the wrong answer. Most commonly you get cause and effect backwards.
  These people weren't poor because they were violent and stupid, they had merely been reduced to a state of being violent and stupid because of the horrible things their poverty exposed them to.
  Conservatives never got the memo, and those that did, ignored it.
  
  My current total comp puts me in the top 1--2% for my country (based on reported incomes). The difference between the billionaire class and me is massive; I still have to budget for my bills, expenses etc.
  That said, I am fully aware that I'm in a privileged position.
  I grew up in government housing and suffered malnutrition as a child because my single working mother couldn't afford enough food. I worked my arse off in school and was lucky enough to be eligible and accepted into a scholarship programme for University; I would not have been able to attend otherwise.
  Since then I've had relatively good career opportunities and have taken advantage of them. I tried hard and continue to do so because I know what it's like to not have enough.
  I think that I worked hard to get where I am. I do not consider myself rich (where some people might understandably do so), but I know what it is like to be wanting.
  Despite my hard work, I do not in the slightest think that I got to where I am based purely on bullshit like grit and determination. I have absolutely taken advantage of opportunities in front of me, but I was lucky to have those in the first place. I think I deserve to be where I am, but I also think plenty of others also deserve it and are deprived of the chances that I got by pure happenstance.
  Yes, you have to work hard to change your lot in life, but to say that hard work will solve everything is ludicrous.
  I'm entirely on board with a living wage, UBI, and anything else to make things more equitable. No one should have to worry about feeding their family. And I'm happy to pay more tax to make that a reality.
  
  What they don't understand is that their success is a mixture of their hard work AND luck.
  How does having certain morals/principles fit in? I know plenty of health care workers and educators who do so because it's how they want to contribute to society. Not only that, but rejecting offers with 2-300% increase pay from the private sector, only because it goes against their principles? They'd work less as a result too!
  It takes some effort to imagine the level of human shitstain to suggest the low pay is "deserved" or due to a lack of not being lazy.
- To be a conservative you need to enlarge the fear center of your brain, believe strongly in hierarchy, and want at least one level of the hierarchy to be miserable and suffering.
  
  And if you can't move up in the hierarchy it's because the lower castes are dragging you down.
- I bet she goes to Dairy Queen though
  
  And demands to see the manager.
- Look, I'm reasonably left wing, but it is fallacious and unhelpful to do this American thing of trying to lump everything into "us" and "them". Polarisation and oversimplifiying is how this mess happened in the first place.
  Conservativism is principally concerned with the preservation of the good. The failings of Conservativism are simple: it's also quite good at preserving the bad. Why? Because there isn't a robust enough system to determine one from the other. One person's moral outrage is another person's right to exist, and the other way around.
  What low-IQ, highly manipulated and brainwashed people do is they call something a name, but it actually has nothing to do with the name. Christianity is the perfect example, historically speaking, whatever is observed by the American Right has almost nothing in common with the core principles of Christianity. It's the fucking opposite.
  Hierarchies obey the same logic. Human beings are different to each other. Sometimes these differences are the same in various demographics. This is not a contraversial statement.
  Does this stop the right to opportunity and life? Of course not. Choosing to celebrate it, along with all the nuances makes it a wonderful quirk of the world we live in. Human beings are hierarchical creatures, because some of us are fundamentally more competitive than others, some more cooperative. This isn't news to anyone, and no amount of political posturing is going to change this. This isn't anything to do with Conservativism, because it's just an observation of reality. Politics that does not observe reality is doomed to fail from the outset.
  It is not "conservative" nor is it honest to say that everyone is as good at a specific job as anyone else. Some people are just well arranged to do some things well.
  
  Conservatives conserve capitalism, which needs social hierarchies to function. Conservatives conserve the class war. Oppressors / Oppressed. If you’re not an oppressor, you’re being oppressed. Historical Materialism:
  
  This is a really good explanation. I really hate this kid of mentality online where people lump things they don't like, like conservatism, with completely unrelated things like this comment and say that this is what conservatism is. Through this us vs them mentality people seem to forget to at things critically and immediately take the us vs them approach to everything they see

Lack of empathy caused by lead poisoning
- And childhood abuse and neglect, probably.
  
  Or just a shitty person
- Lead poisoning caused by lack of regulation, failure to maintain and update safe infrastructure, and by outsourcing all manufacturing to China.
  So, basically greed and fiscal conservatism.
- more like generations of entitlement.

Unintentionally stumbled on the truth of capitalism; you need an underclass to run the whole engine
- It's not needed.
  It's just needed to provide fantastic profits to the owners.
  You can definitely have capitalism that pays a living wage, it just cuts into billionaires' profits.
  
  Agreed, but keep in mind that within a capitalist system, the owners will always be fighting to take the working classes money with their profits.
  The working class must always be vigilant and read to fight for their wages. There is no rest in a capitalist system.
  
  Hierarchies are a necessary component to keep the Capitalist murder-cult running. You cannot maintain global domination without class-based social hierarchies.
  
  Even with a living wage, workers are still the underclass, and owners the overclass. As long as class dynamics exist, and class interests conflict, the class with more power will dominate the system overall in their favor.
- Feels like skooby-do pulling back the mask of capitalism to reveal that it’s all just medieval peasants and serfs lol
  
  The medieval peasants and serfs got more days off.
- Yes, capitalists certainly think so. Of course it's not true.
- I wonder if the capitalist perspective isn’t driven by the perception of ready supply/demand of people that will, at least initially, apply to take shit jobs/compensation.

Why don't people just use twitter instead of looking at twitter screenshots on every other site on the internet? The names are blanked so we don't even know who these people are supposed to be. There's no reason at all to darken our day with her obscure ramblings. It only had 2 retweets and 17 likes when somebody seeked this out to put in other people's faces. There's no point to this at all.
- See, the beauty of a screenshot like this is - it captures a great moment in time. It's the moment someone should realize they are wrong. And that's a perfect moment. It's evocative. We've all been wrong before, we know what it's like. We can feel their reaction by how we ourselves reacted in the past. Or how we wished we had.
  Now, this moment could have several different outcomes: that person could admit they're wrong and learn from it, they could panic and backtrack, they could delete their tweet or account out of shame, they could double down and be even more wrong and increase the lulz, they could come back with valid arguments and change your opinion etc. But. Depending on what your position is to the initial argument, you may not be satisfied with the outcome. You may find it annoying or roll your eyes. Of course it's possible that you find it even better than the initial moment, but that's not a guarantee.
  So this screenshot is a tease in a way, but in other ways it's also a complete package. It won't have a disappointing ending. It won't promise more of itself and then fail to deliver. You can see the screenshot, imagine the outcome you want, and scroll to the next one.
  This screenshot is... enough.
  Also, I'll be fucked before I use anything musk has been associated with, I don't wanna support that asshole.
  
  I was going to say. Twitter five years ago was annoying enough, with its mandatory sign-ons and obnoxious tagging and tracking of accounts. Now the site is functionally unusable. If we're not getting a screenshot, I don't know how else we view the post.
- Simple: ex-Twitter has an abominable app full of ads and tracking, that isn’t useable without account. And if you actually log in, it’s full of right wing shit and musk (which one could argue, is also right wing shit).
  I have no intention wasting my time by searching for the gold nuggets in that giant pile of shit. I was on Twitter when it still was Twitter (until they killed third party apps) and even then, you saw the best tweets as screenshots on reddit.
- Because like this, I don't have to use xitter.
- Strange take.
  
  Not really

What an absolute shithead opinion. Fuck you, lady. Let me get you a spoon so you can eat my ass.
- I think I have been doing it wrong. I never tried eating it with a spoon.

So… slaves? What fucking solution do they expect here?
- Christ, barely even slaves. Just purely disposable temporary humans. Locked into a Dairy Queen to work until you die, then flushed out and replaced with someone new.
  At least now we know why these people want to outlaw abortion. Gotta do something about all that human turnover.
- I read it as Dairy Queen shouldn't exist because it depends on unhealthy labor. You could interpret the whole thing as anti work.
  Many comments here seem to assume the opposite though. I don't know who that person is.

Same brand of passing the buck as
"Sell the homes to who, Ben? FUCKING AQUAMAN!?"
- First time I’m reading about this, looked it up and had a good laugh, thanks.
  For other uninitiated
  
  Well, and for the really uninitiated, this is youtuber H. Bomberguy. He's known for making extremely long and high quality video essays, mostly about video games, shows, and politics. And when I say politics, I mean he generally tackles right-wing hot button issues like vaccines and climate change.
  This clip is from his climate change video.

How does that quote go? Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and be confirmed one. Something like that. Anyway, it applies here.
- "...than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"
  
  That's it! Do you remember who said it?

I absolutely do not agree with her. Their view point is that Dairy Queen is a "starter job" for someone who lives with their guardian(s). Then the Dairy Queen worker takes their experiences and "upgrades" to a better job. Thus, leaving the position open to someone who doesn't need to afford to live or whatever...
People like this woman completely ignore the fact that professionals are also struggling right now; and people are also sick of being paid unreasonable wages due to a lack of experience. She also ignores that not all young people have safety nets as well.
- I know I'm not disagreeing with you but man its laughable because anyone who looked around would notice that most of these jobs are actually done by adults. There aren't enough teens who actually want to work to fill 5% of them, they can't work the specific hours you need them, or enough hours period and they aren't very motivated or very trainable because they have no reason to care.
  
  Regardless of how much any teen cares about their after school job, it's just that: an after school job.
  This opinion of service work expressed in the OP doesn't seem to realize that if we restricted these jobs to only the people who don't "need" a living wage, then there would be no fast food for lunch, no quick trips to the store during school hours, and no starbucks in the morning on the way to work during the school year. If you want the convenience of near instant food and services at any time of the day, then you need to pay the price of giving the workers a living wage (or we end up where we are today)
- Should all minimum wage jobs be closed between the hours of 9pm and 4pm? No, in fact a decent amount (if not all) need done in some capacity throughout the day.
  Or another one that those kinds of people don't like to be asked: So if the minimum wage is for children (high school students getting their first jobs), what should be the minimum wage for adults?
  She (and the people like her) fail to grasp so much about their arguments it's infuriating. They feel that those who work minimum wageshould suffer. Usually they'll talk around saying it, but that's the just of what they say.
  
  I know these kind of people.
  No not kid, kids. I meant kids as eighteen year olds.
  Which is an odd point because either these kids need to afford college which isn't cheap or they are already on their own or saving money to be on their own.

Ugh, why do we need a bottom half of the ladder when I'm already halfway up it?

Making ice cream cones at Dairy Queen should be enough to live on. It shouldn't be able to buy you a super yacht. Then again, I don't believe anything should be able to get you a super yacht. Just get a regular yacht and be happy.
- This is the fundamental messsage I think. She thinks that she is inherently better than "those who have to work at dairy queen", and is making up her view of what a functioning society is without thinking any further or actually having to design a society.
- But I need a yacht larger than the one I bought 2 years ago or I'll never be happy!

Hmm, I wonder how many people that believe this would also happen to be the people who raise hell when nobody gives enough of a shit to make their burger right..
- Or get bent out of shape about how everything is being automated...

Every mom in my family is about this stupid, let me be honest, even dumber than this lady and that’s about 20 people. They are conservatives. And they vote!
These people don’t deserve to have their voices reinforced by idiot representatives.
So don’t you skip that vote this year okay?
And please vote more often because there is actually a lot of voting to be done.
- Moms don't want the loneliness that comes when their kids move out, I guess
  
  The conservative philosophy right now can be well summed as "Make the kids come back for thanksgiving again!"

I think what she's trying to say is that we need a UBI that covers living expenses, and providing the essential service of making Oreo blizzards is on top of that.
- I'd honestly be okay with that.
  If every person over about 16 was guaranteed the option of a bare minimum personal living space, a usable Internet connection, plumbing, clean water, and basic nutrition; then I don't care if there are jobs that pay $3 and hour.
  If we eliminate forced homelessness, give victims of abuse a safe escape, allow people with both recognized and unrecognized disabilities a guaranteed foundation to live on, and generally just take care of the people we extract taxes from to fund our society; then a lot of my concerns about labor and wages evaporate.
  Of course, what we don't want to to "accidentally" create a de-facto neo-slavery caste who are stuck with the bare minimum and unable to get better work.
  Hell, if someone wants to lay around all day and do nothing but watch TV, I'm okay with that.
  If they want to spend that free time pursuing education for a better life, that's great too!
  I don't care, as long as we can get rid of the shitty system we have now in the US. Too many people fall through the cracks and never make it back.

Must own a franchise to have a shit opinion like that.

So what she’s saying is that taxpayers should subsidize dairy queen, fast food, Walmart, etc?
Now what are the chances that this lovely lady supports a robust social safety net so that people can be paid too little to live?
It seems like a typical conservative viewpoint - complain and deny every possible solution. In fact, deny the problem exists. Why care about the suffering of unknown unseen people if ignoring it makes your taxes 3% lower?
And I think that is being generous, assuming that the cruelty isn’t the point. That’s not a given.
- Then she complains that her medicare never covers anything.

I agree, corporate executives SHOULD be on food stamps. They should earn well below minimum wage.
If you're not passionate about upper level management get the fuck out.
- Absolutely. Those are the jobs that don't deserve a living wage.
  If you can't use your position in upper management to make money on the side, you don't deserve the job.
  
  No, that's called embezzlement.
  The CEO should sleep under the desk in their office, because they don't earn enough to afford housing.
  Anything less shows a lack of dedication to the company.

Robots. That's how.

So I am sure she is willing to be the one to take the unlivable wage then?
- We all know that she is so much better than everyone else.

Nice now do landlords

America is just a big giant corporation, and a lot of citizens are those useless and heartless fucking bosses who would let you go no matter what happens to you after, just go die on the streets. They don't care, you're gone. I hate this shit
- My job was basically deleted because I missed an email. That kinda crap shouldn't be legal.
  
  That's funny... I was once not fired because I missed an email. The email was to meet with my boss, and as I later found out, his plan was to fire me. By missing the email, that bought some time, and brought it to the attention of my boss's boss, who pointed out that I was highly valued, hadn't done anything to warrant being fired, and that my boss was just being a dick, though of course not in those words.. Also HR chimed in basically saying he'd have to do more to prove his case. I ended up quitting not long after, but it seemed a small win.

Oh hey princess privilege has an opinion on the poors.

Didn't even explain. Keep them struggling just because.

Someone play Devil's Advocate and give us a workable argument for a society where people can't live off any single job. I'm not one to shy away from arguments and perspectives I don't agree with. It's important to understand both sides.
- it's really not. the most charitable thing you could ascribe to this lady is she's assumed the wrong priors.
  perhaps in her head DQ and similar jobs should be staffed only by teenagers making spending money in a world where adults are so gainfully employed that they have no need to work here.
  that is not the world we live in today. it may or may not have existed in the past. it certainly doesn't under our corporate overlords today. advocating for low wages for these jobs today is advocating for people to struggle, to overcrowd their apartments, and to resort to desperate means to survive.
  
  It's also a world in which DQ would have no employees to serve you during school hours.
- The usual argument is that those jobs are for teenagers or some shit. Nevermind the fact that teenagers have very limited working hours (can't exactly get that chicken strip basket at lunch on a workday if only teens are working there). The other part of the reasoning is something along the lines of wanting to "motivate" people to move into other fields/jobs. But quite frankly, that's a stupid argument. I wouldn't want to work fast food again even if they were paying me the same money I make now. I would much rather work from home at a computer than deal with shitty people all day in a hot greasy environment.
  
  as a dude who works from home from a computer but used to work in a kitchen, sometimes I miss it. It can be stressful, sometimes more stressful than a deskjob, but it's also contained. It's nice to clock out and not have to think about my progress on some work item or how I need to study up on some new tech.
- A "functional" society is not the same thing as a society worth living in or supporting.
  Corporatism with wage slaves working 80 hours a week in the most productive period of human history ever is functional, in that people are deliberately kept alive and productive as long as they don't get too uppity.
  Sure, this makes the upper class obscenely wealthy at the cost of everyone else, but it does technically work. Lines do go up.
  Just not the lines that should go up.
- It's ok if certain jobs can only exist to provide income for young people so that they can learn to budget, save, buy things to pursue their interests, and so on. I had a job at DQ making minimum when I was 14, left when I turned 15 to make 1.50/hr more, and found yet another job when I turned 16 making another couple Dollars per hour. If you didn't have minimum wage or very low wage workers willing to do these jobs, then they probably would cease to exist. That means no more ice cream. When I was 14 I appreciated being able to earn extra money even though I didn't need it, and now I appreciate buying ice cream every once in a while at a reasonable price.
- If Dairy Queen paid a living wage, there would be no motive for people to move to higher level jobs. People would just stay in these starter jobs forever and we would have nobody in offices, power plants, or construction fields.
  This is not my actual opinion. I think all jobs should pay a living wage.

Maybe these terms mean something different to y'all but in NZ Living Wage is considerably higher than the minimum wage. And you definitely can live on minimum wage, but not well. I'd definitely expect making icecreams to be a minimum wage job. For reference NZ minimum wage is $23.15 ($14.25 US) Living wage is $26 ($16.01 US) . What's a US living wage?
- It varies drastically. Where I live, in a moderately-sized city, the hourly living wage—according to MIT—is listed as $21.13 ($34.25 in NZ). Quite frankly, I think that's much too low, considering price gouging and the astronomical health care costs in the US. I've made that much, but it wasn't even enough to add to my savings, and I certainly would've been fucked if I got seriously sick... even with insurance.
  The minimum wage here (and federally, though many states have increased their own minimum wages) has been $7.25 ($11.75 NZ) for 15 years... and it was too low back then.
  No one can survive on that wage anywhere, at least unless you're not paying for housing (and even then, I have serious doubts). Conveniently, the amount listed as a "poverty wage" is $7.24.
  
  I just looked up the two cities I referenced in my other comment on the website you mentioned. For one adult with no children, working 40 hours a week, the more expensive one is listed as $36.64 and the less expensive one is listed as $21.29.
  
  Yeah that minimum is awful. I guess one of the problems with comparisons is that cost of living varies between countries. Probably need a % of average wage to get something more comparable
- Depends where you live. Some places I've lived, people would struggle to live off of $20 an hour. Other places, you'd be one of the wealthiest people in the city if you made $30 an hour.

I mean the answer is in the pudding, it’s just the quiet part
slaves

I don’t think anyone says that the DQ person needs to be able to afford a standard of living that’s luxurious, but what they’re saying is that everyone needs to be able to afford basic necessities (shelter, food, healthcare, education etc.).
- I absolutely want the DQ person to have a luxurious standard of living. I want them to be flashing Rolex when I walk in. Otherwise what's the fucking point of all this modern society shit we've built?
  
  The point is to create power imbalances in the favour of a certain group.
  
  I always liked this song for that reason
  Nobody living savage errbody got change, even the paper boy deliver out the back of a Range
  Some people have 5 homes and some have none, that’s decidedly not Nellyville

Bring back public beatings

She’s on a diet

best take found on twitter:

the avg DQ worker is like 30 years old right? how long should people be living with their parents?
- For as long as they continue to believe that working only at DQ will pay rent in a place they'd want to live?

I would be strongly in favour of abolishing the minimum wage IF AND ONLY IF there is also a guaranteed UBI.
I would happily serve icecream for free if I got a UBI.
Janitors would need higher pay than many other jobs.

Good points, although I think the concern about the difficulty of avoiding a neo slavery caste is larger. That said, one of the arguments for UBI is that it would give the freedom to walk away from shitty employers, so the pressure would be in the opposite direction. I don't think it's necessarily that simple, since the creativity geared towards exploitation seems to be boundless.

The point is that our economy should be built upon jobs that actually provide a meaningful purpose along with a living wage, like trades, crafts or other skilled work, instead of expecting people who are trying to build a life for themselves to be subjected to soul crushing busy work to line the pockets of corporate stooges.
- People still want to eat ice cream cones tho
  
  I was unaware that Dairy Queen invented ice cream.
  Hell, we could have even better ice cream if those people were making their own ice cream to sell for themselves.
- To be frank, until we reach a point of complete automation (which is a whole other can of worms), jobs like that are explicitly necessary in the world everyone wants to live in, with convenient access to pretty much anything they could want (though obviously at a reasonable wage). Whether that world is worth those jobs isn't a question I think I could do justice addressing, but it's certainly one society needs to determine an answer for.
  
  So basically Star Trek.
  Technology is so advanced that all basic needs are met with ease, and money no longer matters. Then jobs change from something you do to not die, to something you do because you want to.

Stupid people don't know there are stupid people and they are them.
- Ignorance is bliss.
  
  That's what I'm told but a lot of them seem really angry so I have my doubts.

i have the same opinion!!
let me explain: no one should have to get the living by actual work. All should get their living from those who have enough of it. And then only when someone wants to, he/she/whatever should do some work but not for a living, only for fun. Those who "have" should be those who give. So "that" is the society that person really wants as she told us very clear (or not???) and i do share this opinion ;-) lets help her together achieving her dreamsociety by diverting her "haves" for free to those who don't "have" but need. This of course is a service for her on her request, to achieve what she stated to want and that service is for free of course, she does not have to pay for it, as we do not have to live of this service, that would be unhealthy!! everyone should only do the work he/she/whatever wants to do for free after receiving the living for free from those who have ;-)
ff(..ollow me for more)*lol

"What we want is a society where everybody is above average"
- Tell me more about how "below average" people shouldn't afford to live
  
  Youll have to ask the person i was satirizing.
  or are yall just to something to notice...

Is this only about full-time jobs? How about location? General living wages were a terrible idea. Not everybody needs one. Some just want an easy gig to finance unimportant stuff.
Back when I was a stoner, I loved sorting bottles in the grocery store. Three days a week, two hours per day, I could show up high. Then minimum wage raised the wage from 7.50 to 13 euros. The job got cancelled, and the cashiers have to take turns doing it. Which they hate.
Those cashiers have to do it, because they need the job. They do need a living wage. I just had too much time. There are many menial jobs like that. Or were. They are now done by people who already had other jobs. Making them work more for the same money, having fewer people with a job.
The dude making a round taking out trash? Yeah, that's also the cashiers now. Making the job a true shitshow.
Living wage for full-time jobs, that I can understand, kinda. But there are tons of menial jobs. I worked a lot of them, until they disappeared. None of them are worth that much money. Many are just a service the company provided. They don't anymore. And everybody is hating it.
One can't make a living selling ice cream cones. But one can save up for some holiday or a car doing that. Well, can't, anymore. There simply are no ice cream stands anymore. Just bullshit prepackaged ice cream.
- @Hurts I have no idea where to go with this statement...
- 2022 fast food cooks occupation is median $13.29x40x4=$2126 a month Waiters/waitresses $14 x40x4=$2,240 https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#35-0000 1959 a cook on the low end made $50-100 a week assume salary of $50x5x4=$1000 month A waiter/waitress $6-10 a day we will assume salary of $6x5 x4=120 a month Page 690-695 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435051428043&seq=718
  Median Rent was $71 in 1960 Median Rent 2020 1br $1621 https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/average-rent-by-year https://www.rent.com/research/national-apartment-rent-price-analysis/
  Fast food cooks 2022 Rent would be 76% monthly pay Cooks 1959 Rent would be 7.1% of pay Waiter/waitress 2022 Rent would be 72% of pay Waiter 1959 Rent would be 59% of pay
  Maybe there is something to the point that in America that every sector of stuff needs someone making over a million dollars somewhere in the c-suite in an office in every major city and there is so little people making things locally in small batches just barely making a living.
- Then minimum wage raised the wage from 7.50 to 13 euros. The job got cancelled, and the cashiers have to take turns doing it. Which they hate.
  Not our fault employers are stingy and don’t want to actually pay enough people for the job.
  Life is short. I don’t care how hard a job is, if it takes hours away from your life you need to be properly compensated for each of them.
  
  If that story is true (which I have my doubts) the fact that the employer didn't think that job was worth another thirty-three euros a week is hilarious.

I mean otherwise everyone be making the same and that doesn't work.
- I don't understand what you mean. You can make more than the living wage, but people should be paid at least enough to live off of. (Rent, food, etc.)
  
  For sure but there's also time to try to share rent or rent a room. No uber eats but getting real food and cooking yourself. A lot of money can be saved but Americans and the Government have a spending problem.
- That is not how a living wage works. The upper 1 percent could easily give enough to their employees and still make profits and the money would circulate through the nation.
- That's not the other option, the other option is raising the floor by drastically lowering the ceiling. That doesn't mean everyone makes the same.
- Why not?

200 comments