Better cut the top tax bracket and corp taxes some more
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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I mean, it's just a matter of time before it starts trickling down, right?
Right??
Where does that threshold come from though? Like is it adjusted accordingly with inflation or is it just a made up number from 1993?
Because seeing the effects of the tariffs this number should've doubled in the past months.
The federal poverty standard is horribly low. Like you're still on the brink of homeless at twice that wage.
I always liked the definition of financially stable to be at a state where you can weather two major life events at the same time and not be devastating. Replace a vehicle and pay your max out of pocket for health insurance at the same time.
What we find is that so many of us are one bad day away from doom.
It's like 70% or something of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. It's crazy, but we all keep voting in the same group of assholes who haven't changed a thing in decades. So frustrating.
Edit: The first site I saw (I have no idea if it's credible or not) says "seventy-seven percent of workers in America would experience financial difficulty if their paycheck were delayed a week" - source
What's even more disturbing is when you think of how much savings would be needed to weather the storm. If your car is totalled and you had to find something, one of the adult loses their job and you have to cover a month or three of life. We are talking tens of thousands of dollars.
But maybe even worse is how quickly that can be replaced. If shit hits the fan and you survived, how long are you vulnerable? Two years? A decade of saving?
When you look at the top 10% of society there just aren't that many problems that could cause them to be homeless in 24hrs.
Tfw I might not have a job in 2 months and this will be me :D. I have some savings to get me through for a bit, but not very long. If I do end up getting laid off and any other major event happens at the same time, I will be absolutely fucked.
Would you pay for an insurance to help you weather the storm?
$7.25 has been poverty wages for over a decade.
With most states having their own minimum wages higher than the federal one, how relevant is this really?
Thank you for the response from the Democratic Party.
Fuck workers in red states. They deserve it for being outnumbered.
$15k a year??? That wouldn’t even cover my food let alone a shitty hotel room. Anything below $50k as a single earner is deep in poverty.
IIRC, the federal poverty level doesn’t account for housing, transport, utilities, etc… It basically only accounts for food. And even then, it only accounts for the cheapest of the cheap food; You’d basically be eating white rice and instant ramen every day.
What absolute dumbass thought that would be a good metric to track?
probably economists and politicians, transit is hard to quantify a minimum of because walking is a technical option in many situations.
This is America. Walking is almost never an actual option.
if you have enough time it is though, it's just that the poor don't have time.
How should it be possible to leave poverty behind with minimum wage? It's the minimum. Only people without work can have less.
It's unfortunate but those who make the least are inevitable the ones who are poor. Not calling it poor is misleading.
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
THAT was the actual reason the minimum wage was established in the first place. And businesses have been fighting against it ever since - through a combination of lobbying (bribing) politicians and propaganda designed to convince people that those who earn the minimum wage “deserve” to suffer.
Instead of replying to each comment, one big reply here.
Minimum wage works for jobs where people are underpaid because they outcompete each other and drive prices down. It's essentially a forced union for unskilled workers which is fair because they don't have the mental capacity to organize themselves.
But listening closely to Roosevelt, 'any right to continue' means that those businesses that don't supress the wages cease to exist. This ends poverty because those people become unemployed and thus don't count as low income anymore.
As long as there are illegal immigrants who earn less than legal residents, the minimum wage is not really the minimum wage. To be fair, illegal immigrants go to California, New York and Florida while states without own mimimum income laws are mostly southern states.
The real probelm is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour
If there were enough jobs, there would be no competition to go below the poverty line.
Additionally, the main problem must be the housing market. Create cheap housing and huge parts of the income don't go to rent. It's almost funny that the cheap workers who work in construction cannot build cheap housing for themselves, thanks to zoning laws.
Overall, why should minimum wage work if it would be ridiculous to do that for comfortable wages? If there were a law prohibiting any job that doesn't pay enough to own a house with pool, we wouldn't expect that everybody would own such a house. We would expect that the majority of people would be unemployed. Why should that be different for lowpaying jobs?
Minimum wage works for jobs where people are underpaid because they outcompete each other and drive prices down. It’s essentially a forced union for unskilled workers which is fair because they don’t have the mental capacity to organize themselves.
Can't tell if centrist or republican.
What's wrong with that analysis?
Nothing, if you're either a centrist or a republican.
And if I am not?
If not you should reexamine which political label you have chosen for yourself and see if it actually matches your contempt for all who earn wages.
It's an analysis, not a solution. Where is the contempt? You can tell me where I am wrong but I haven't said anything about how anybody should be treated.
Where is the contempt?
You don't have the mental capacity to see it.
That's why I ask, I would like to see it.
Scroll back up and read what you wrote, then.
You must mean this:
because they don’t have the mental capacity to organize themselves.
Condescending, like the other thread says, I can see that. How can there be contempt for something that people cannot change. That would be stupid.
Condescending, like the other thread says, I can see that. How can there be contempt for something that people cannot change.
You see poor people and your first thought is how stupid they must be.
Thank you.
I wrote mental capacity because stress, irregular schedules, two jobs and all the other stuff drain energy and trap even clever people. Intelligence is only part of the problem.
My point is that they are not stupid but helpless. Usually I argue that there shouldn't be minimum wage and that people have to organize to earn more, but I can see that it makes sense for that group.
Still, as we can see, relying on others is not sustainable. Minimum wage workers have to find a way to rise their wages on their own.
Usually I argue that there shouldn’t be minimum wage
Shocker, that.
It's the wrong side to tackle the problem.
Wages can be risen with an increased demand for workers. How? That is the relevant question that leads to the right answers. Minimum wage is a distraction.
It’s the wrong side to tackle the problem.
I know. Workers having enough to live on instead of corporations and billionaires hoarding it all is a problem, huh?
Please don't ignore my second paragraph.
Your second paragraph is an admission that you have no better ideas but want to abandon minimum wage anyway. That's basically an admission that you don't want people to be able to earn a living.
Seems like you don't know this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour
I think I point out the obstacle to people making a living. There is no easy answer. Rising minumum wage sounds easy but as I wrote, it is a distraction.
I think I point out the obstacle to people making a living. There is no easy answer.
"Let the corporations exploit people" is a pretty easy answer. It requires no effort and you don't have to waste time supporting the interests of those unwashed mental deficients you don't want to earn a living.
Please read the article. It's one of the most important things to know.
I have read the article, and I don't see where it supports your disregard for the wages of people you consider beneath you.
I don't have that disregard. My point is that the supply of jobs has to be increased instead of setting a lower bound on wages.
Taking them as a whole, the general movements of wages are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army
Focussing on minimum wages makes workers ignore how they are controlled and how they can increase their wages without having to rely on benevolence. To me, that's disregardful.
My point is that the supply of jobs has to be increased instead of setting a lower bound on wages.
And you have admitted that you have no solution in that direction. But you still want to abandon the only mitigation we have.
Focussing on minimum wages makes workers ignore how they are controlled and how they can increase their wages without having to rely on benevolence.
Frankly, I think you just want to abandon the minimum wage and I don't trust anything else you're saying on the matter. Put the measures you want in place first. Until then, fuck anyone who wants to forego raising the minimum wage to a livable wage. I get that exploiting workers is very popular among republicans, centrists, and anyone else who sees workers as resources to be exploited rather than people.
Jobs can always be created by lowering interest rates. It's just not in the hand of the workers to change, neither is minimum wage.
You don't have to trust anything I said. I am telling you about market mechanisms that you can verify on your own.
You are right that I want to abandon minimum wage, or rather the need for minimum wage. I want the demand for work to rise to the point that workers earn livable wages that are secured by the demand for their work.
You can try to rise minimum wages however much you want. My point is that your time is better spent on rising demand for workers. Marx is telling you how that works. You definitely don't have to trust me on that.
You are right that I want to abandon minimum wage
And do absolutely nothing else.
You can try to rise minimum wages however much you want.
Congratulations that both parties agree with you that no one should be paid at all.
Congratulations that you acknowledge that rising minimum wage is a dead end.
I recognize that neither party wants to raise it.
Much to the delight of people like you who don't like worker protections.
because they don't have the mental capacity to organize themselves.
Fuck off
Yeah I stopped reading there. So condescending.