Poverty is a labor generating mechanism, amirite?

You should be able to rent an apartment and get good food and healthcare for minimum wage. Poverty shouldn't mean destitute in the most wealthy country on earth. I read a study that said if McDonalds was to give it's employees a 20% raise, the cost of a burger would go up less than a dollar.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Could you imagine even if they just had to pay taxes?? Lol

by Right_Host_7885 1 week ago

Minimum wage went up in California recently. It drove the price of the burger at a fast food place up by like $.13 and people lost their freaking minds over it! Lol I don't disagree... just pointing out how crazy people get over this.

by Right_Host_7885 1 week ago

Well, TBF, most places also fired tons of people as well to make up for the wage hike.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Labor has been a requirement throughout all of human history. Getting food requires labor. Building shelter requires labor.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

True, and we keep falling back on the age old method: Keep some poor people around who will work hard for dirt pay

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Who is keeping them poor?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yeah this is what the democrats did to black people and the Irish indentured servants after the civil war there's tons of books on it. Arguably just another form of enslavement with less "community" and much more difficult to get out of because it's institutional and national now

by Normal_Magazine2820 1 week ago

true it was different times

by Normal_Magazine2820 1 week ago

same bird lol

by These_Lemon 1 week ago

"I guess we have to pay you so here's a dollar. By the way, now you have to pay rent since you're not a slave. So I'll be getting two dollars from you tomorrow."

by Anonymous 1 week ago

And then pitted poor immigrants against black folks so that neither focused on who did this to them. Nasty work

by Normal_Magazine2820 1 week ago

How is that keeping them poor?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

You don't see how being evicted and having an underpaid cashier job would keep a person poor?

by Professional_Leg 1 week ago

Being evicted? No, it just means that you can't stay there anymore. You might be evicted because you don't have money, you also might be evicted because you are a horrible tenant even though you can pay rent. For the underpaid cashier - i am trying to understand how you shopping there keeps that person poor.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I am not giving profit to the company out of the charity of my own heart, I am giving them money in exchange for a good or service provided to me. But me shopping there doesn't keep the person in poverty. I don't prevent the person from getting a better job. I don't disagree that they should be paid more money, but I don't understand your point about how retail shoppers are keeping people in poverty.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

You do by supporting the business owner who decides how much to pay them. It's not that you are intentionally doing something ‘wrong', but you are, in fact, supporting his decision to not pay his worker a livable wage. You not thinking you have any effect or influence on the situation of others lends credence to the above point that it's so ingrained into our societal structure that it just seems ‘normal' or acceptable to exploit workers.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Idk i kinda like blaming people who dont actually work and just exploit others labor. Im not talking just billionaires and what have you but anyone who, by virtue of circumstance, exploits the labor of others for their own profit without putting in any effort.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

what is "underpaid"

by Anonymous 1 week ago

"underpaid" I would say if you can work 40 hours a week of focused labor and a 1 bedroom apartment is still more than 50% of your income you're probably underpaid. There are lots of measures but if someone is working full time they should at least be able to own property, provide for a child or two, buy a car. It shouldn't be possible to work full time, live cheaply, and still have 90% of your money dedicated to bills.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I think I know what you are trying to say but you conveniently leave out a lot of harsh realities. Whose really doing the hard work for dirt pay? It's immigrants or people in sweat shops in places like China. There are a couple problems there, that we may or may not be able to effect. Can we control the labor laws in some other country? As far as things that go on in the U.S. (if you are American) the agriculture industry takes advantage of cheap immigrant labor, but who do you know that would otherwise be doing that kind of work unless they were like a dropout with a criminal record who literally can't get another job? I'm not saying it's right or wrong but it's reality and it's easier to say how "sad" and "unfair" it is than look at how you yourself are a part of that system and look at your own position in life. You're a consumer right? You like low prices right?

by Narrow-Meaning376 1 week ago

I think people have a poor understanding of just how much labor and materials is required for everything in our economy. To build a condo complex probably requires about 1 man-year worth of labor per unit and tens of thousands of dollars of raw materials to build. The idea that housing should be free misses the point that lots of people have to put in the work to build the housing and provide the materials, and these people deserve to be compensated for their efforts. The same is true of everything in the economy. If someone refuses to work they're not contributing to society and don't deserve anything from society.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

(Almost) everyone can contribute to society, whether you have Down's Syndrome and can only bus tables at McDonalds or you have a physical disability. We have an obligation to ensure that the least capable of us have an acceptable standard of living but are under no obligation to provide that same standard of living for those who are capable of providing it for themselves.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Affordable housing was so nice in the 60s and 70s and they were wrecked/destroyed.

by Mundane_Walrus 1 week ago

Well put. Ever since the beginning of civilization there have been winners in losers in the rat race. Some people are just given better starting positions.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Marx would be a Tumblr addict for sure

by Anonymous 1 week ago

If there aren't poor people to exploit for their labor how else are you supposed to get rich?

by AdDependent510 1 week ago

Lol The evil geniuses who designed food and shelter in a way that requires work for it to be realized! Oh the horror!

by Anonymous 1 week ago

There are jobs where you can work 40 hours a week and still not ever afford to buy a house. Of course food and shelter require labor but that labor shouldn't be placed on people being forced to do it from threat of eviction.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Would you say that school lunches shouldn't be free because children don't contribute labor to society?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Poverty is a labor generating mechanism, yes. But Poverty is not the only labor generating mechanism. We also have greed that keep our world running. I am not so worry that no one will work if we eliminate poverty (If that's possible) because everyone wants more things once they have escaped poverty.

by imelda67 1 week ago

I would qualify: " … a low-skill labor generating mechanism".

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Video good yes

by Anonymous 1 week ago

This isn't an opinion it's just fundamentally wrong. I mean you're close to the truth, but we don't rely on poor people because they work harder. We rely on poor uneducated people to do all the simple jobs noone with an education would want to do. Poor people uneducated people often aren't prepared to get an education and if they are they probably can't afford it. As a result, these people are the ones with the working class jobs and they are the ones in the military. Without these uneducated people to work the hard labor jobs, society would "collapse". Hard labor would become a lot more expensive. There are also other more fundamental reasons unemployment is necessary.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

You're agreeing with me, I think. There need to be poor, uneducated people with little social mobility for society to continue functioning how most people expect, whether we like it or not.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Moloch consumes everyone, ignorant or aware

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Certain people would be worse off without an extremely poor underclass, but it makes no sense to think that an economy requires it.

by Mundane_Scholar 1 week ago

Those middle class people need poor people who will do the work to actually fulfill all that. Middle class people can only chase after iPhones because there's a kid in China being forced to make iPhones.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yeah exactly, it's the crappy reality of what's happening. It's cheaper to get children in the congo to mine our batteries than to do it ourselves, so that's what happens

by Anonymous 1 week ago

There's more to it. Giving everyone more money so they can afford more things generates inflation and makes prices go up, so our economy is dependant on a (large) part of people not being able to aford stuff. Plus look at Maslow's pyramid theory. If everyone can afford basic necessities, they'll start wanting ideals.

by UnhappyWork 1 week ago

You just need to shift the motivation of work from survival to supplementation. We're getting there. Maybe in a couple decades.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Labor is needed for everything. EVERYTHING. there's is a weird leftist circle jerk around the idea that, if everyone was provided with universal income and free housing etc, that the people would continue to work. The truth? They won't. Why work? Why do anything like that when one can live without putting in labor? It's the old joke. "There's a reason why we can't have nice things". There will always be the dirt of humanity that will ruin it for everyone. They will take and take without contributing. You think billionaires are bad? You should visit some of the non working people in the hood. Those are the real gem of human beings too. That's when society falls apart. People are intrinsically selfish and flawed.

by MinimumAgitated 1 week ago

if everyone was provided with universal income and free housing etc, that the people would continue to work. The truth? They won't. how do explain billionaires not quitting their jobs?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I feel the same. Starting from 0 should be hard but not impossible. In America the treadmill sucks away so much money that starting at 0 is actually starting in debt. Public transport but only accessible by car. Predatory loans. Doctors appointments in the $500 range. Plus most people giving advice about how to escape poverty are just trying to make a quick buck themselves. Seems impossible to escape from an outside perspective, I don't know how people can say "just work harder" to those people

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Makes sense

by Anonymous 1 week ago