Tax welfare

[LWC55]

This assumes that people are not out there actively working against workers.

Who is this? All those businesses that give workers jobs and harder workers higher pay?

 

[rwc101]

With my amazing degree in history, I ended up working in a retailer's warehouse for a while after college. Minimum wage with hours that varied from 29 to 5 per week. When they wanted to cut costs after the holidays they would cut hours until people couldn't afford to work there forcing them to quit. I met a lot of guys there that probably couldn't afford to fill up the tank of a car provided they actually had one. I imagine mobility was not an option for most of them.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Who is this? All those businesses that give workers jobs and harder workers higher pay?

Yeah, the benevolent masters who pay us just enough to keep the lights on, but not enough to live freely.

Walmart is a good example. They get massive tax breaks, pay their employees starvation wages, no benefits & they let them qualify for food stamps, section 8 housing, etc. Amazon isn't much better. Tyson, Carrier, etc even find ways to screw labor who have unionized. Tech is no different - google, tesla, etc are ant-labor.

The middle class of this country came about because labor stood up to fight back against management. Between the labor massacres, child labor, etc we tend to forget that the 40 hour work week, weekends, etc, are only inventions of the 20th century. We're regressing from where we were in the 1950's - 1980's due to a short-sighted love of money over all else.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We currently have a welfare system that is designed to help those who have suffered. I have no problem supporting a system that helps those who have suffered. Whether that suffrage comes from controllable or uncontrollable circumstances. What I have a problem with is those that want a system that continues to allow people to make a series of crappy life choices all the while knowing responsible people will be there to bail them out. Working minimum wage for any extended period of time is more likely due to you being a poor performer than a system designed to work against the worker.

 

[Handlebar]

In 2017, 80.4 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.3 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 542,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 1.3 million had wages below the federal minimum.

Maff iz hard,
So if I figured this right approximately 1% of all workers in the country make at or below the federal minimum wage?

 

[Deleted member 28227]

We currently have a welfare system that is designed to help those who have suffered. I have no problem supporting a system that helps those who have suffered. Whether that suffrage comes from controllable or uncontrollable circumstances. What I have a problem with is those that want a system that continues to allow people to make a series of crappy life choices all the while knowing responsible people will be there to bail them out. Working minimum wage for any extended period of time is more likely due to you being a poor performer than a system designed to work against the worker.

I personally feel uncomfortable painting with so broad a brush.

Maff iz hard,
So if I figured this right approximately 1% of all workers in the country make at or below the federal minimum wage?

I'm not making any statement with that quote or link, just presenting the data.

 

[LWC55]

Yeah, the benevolent masters who pay us just enough to keep the lights on, but not enough to live freely.

Walmart is a good example. They get massive tax breaks, pay their employees starvation wages, no benefits & they let them qualify for food stamps, section 8 housing, etc. Amazon isn't much better. Tyson, Carrier, etc even find ways to screw labor who have unionized. Tech is no different - google, tesla, etc are ant-labor.

The middle class of this country came about because labor stood up to fight back against management. Between the labor massacres, child labor, etc we tend to forget that the 40 hour work week, weekends, etc, are only inventions of the 20th century. We're regressing from where we were in the 1950's - 1980's due to a short-sighted love of money over all else.

You act like Walmart goes out every morning and loads up their slave workers and forces them to grind over the register. Guess what? They work there voluntarily! The high performers make more than min wage. It is what happens in a capitalist country. It is why millions from all over the world want to come and live here. They want an opportunity to work harder than the the next guy and make more money than him. They don't come here looking for socialism.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

You act like Walmart goes out every morning and loads up their slave workers and forces them to grind over the register. Guess what? They work there voluntarily! The high performers make more than min wage. It is what happens in a capitalist country. It is why millions from all over the world want to come and live here. They want an opportunity to work harder than the the next guy and make more money than him. They don't come here looking for socialism.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

@LWC55 ^ Jokes, just some jokes...

 

[COEngineer]

YOu did this in a time when it was affordable to do so. Today is a much different economic climate than 23 years ago. Do it today. In this economic climate.

How did I know you would find some excuse to negate my experience...just like you did with every other example that contradicts your viewpoint.