Not only have our minimum wage laws not been updated to realistic levels, neither has the poverty level. Half of Americans are indeed too poor to support themselves. They are not even making what the minimum wage should be and should get government assistance. Hard to keep calling America a developed country when easily half of its population cannot support itself and most of that half is not supported by the government. Definitely can't call that democratic either.
From the union discussion the other day, one thing that always struck me was how weird it was that more conservatives don't encourage labor unions in the private sector.
I'd have thought, since fundamentally union membership is about private contracts between employers and a group of workers, that conservatives would see it as an alternative to government stepping in and setting up minimum wages.
If we had friendlier labor laws and we allowed more groups of workers to organize, the need for the federal government to step in with wage floors would decrease and, importantly, there would be more flexibility for employers AND employees -- like instead of paying above a certain minimum wage both sides could agree to more generous healthcare and/or retirement packages.
Doesn’t a consultancy business work like this? A business outsources work to another (business) group of people and they both sides define the contract between them
The problem comes in with compulsory contracts were like “Hey, you now deal with all of us”
> From the union discussion the other day, one thing that always struck me was how weird it was that more conservatives don't encourage labor unions in the private sector.
At least in the US, I attribute this to "big business" interests being a major faction in the Republican coalition, more due to contributions of money than votes. Their ideology is ultimately self-interest, they benefit from weak unions/worker disorganization, and have the resources to promote their self-interested view as that of the party/ideology. They've been successful, because most people have more of a political tribal identity which dictates their positions than a well-thought-out ideology.
Modern conservationism in the United States is, by definition, anti-union. [1] This sort of political view aligns more with libertarian socialism, specifically in ideas like syndicalism.
Your comment is an interesting one, so not trying to disagree, but...
Modern conservatism is not so well-defined. I'd say "conservatism" is best defined by the values of people who call themselves conservative, not by political theorists. And that therefore that it's more partisan and tribal than ideological.
there is a big lack of information in theses poor written 20 lines, and probably misleading on purpose.
- Are theses low-wage jobs only considering full time jobs?
- What about student jobs?
- If some people have multiple part-time jobs but all of them individually fall under the median annual wages of $18,000, then they are increasing the statistics
How much of that is because they are accruing credit card debt while simultaneously living without health insurance knowing a severe illness will leave them in even more crushing debt. While also feeling that they don't have real access to a greater life and the wealth they see around them in their own countries while being barraged with advertisements tempting them to spend money on goods to temporarily ease the built up day-today frustrations they experience. And the physical toll that their labor intensive jobs take on their body?
- There's no need to take on credit card debt while making $10/hr
- Proper diet and exercise is far more important to your health than health insurance. Health care has little influence on health outcomes (see the Oregon Medicaid Experiment and the RAND Health Insurance Experiment).
- A substantial minority of jobs in the US that pay <= $10/hr require strenuous physical labor.
Credit card and predatory loan companies target low wage workers before they are even old enough to vote. They aim to get you in a cycle of debt and many of the targets for this type of lending do not have family support to help them avoid falling into the trap. In fact their family are likely to be other impoverished people who have fallen into the same trap.
10 x 8 x 22 = 1760$ monthly salary
where I come from, minimum salary is 250$
sure COL is cheaper but not 7 fold
also a phone, a car, and everything else is the same price for both US citizens and me
actually some are even cheaper for you, because you manufacture them
but yeah, i agree with the comment bellow
just because there is worse, doesn't mean it's good
The Washington Post article above puts it at around 90%.
Here's an article saying 34K/yr puts you in the top 1% in the world [1], which is consistent with the above. Entering this number into my globalrichlist site gets 0.88% (pretty close) and the wapo article above gives 97th percentile, again close.
If you have a similar site that computes world income rakings that doesn't reach such high values then please post it.
