There is a mentality from Boomers and passed along to Gen X that full-time work does not entitle you to anything. That there are just millions of jobs in America that shouldn’t be required to pay people enough to live in the community they work, or anywhere for that matter. As long as that mentality aligns with the goals of capitalism, nothing will change.
You will hear all the excuses in the world justifying low-paying jobs. “Just get a better job if you don’t like the pay” “Those jobs are only for high school kids” “If they raise the pay they will raise the prices” The list goes on. None of them make a ton of sense if you explore the idea any further.
The idea of working hard and being, eventually, rewarded with good pay has been dead for decades. It is widely accepted that the easiest way to increase your pay is moving to a different company, which speaks a lot about longevity in this late-stage capitalism era most of us are living in today.
I agree that people sbould be able to live comfortably with their job, even a low skill one. But the idea that raising wages will mean increase prices does check out though. That, or people with higher skill jobs will be paid less and then they will be the ones to suffer the most.
Imo, we should aim to make things more efficient, thus cheaper because they actually became cheaper. E.g. solving the housing crisis => cheaper rent. Public healthcare => cheaper healthcare. Better schools => better citizens that leave less trash around => less expensive trash management. More public transport, less need to buy or do maintenance to a car etc. And so on and so forth.
Minimum wages can’t fix this problem (they can fix others), they’re just a bandaid on a severed limb.
This is how brainwashed capitalism has made us. In a society that is purely driven by money the thought that giving people their fair share means my prices might increase. Instead, we should fix every societal problem first before doing the one thing that would actually work.
We have record inflation now, is it because major cities have passed $15+ minimum wage? Not at all, not even a little. Further proof that a pandemic has a thousand times more influence than simply paying people more.
Oh and the horrible thought a “high” skilled laborer might be paid less shudder. Like a doctor might only get paid $90k instead of $150k. How could they survive!?
What other convenient tropes should we trot out to disfranchise the only real solution of just paying people what they deserve. Oh that’s right they don’t deserve it because they are lazy or low-skilled or any of the other bullshit excuses we have been force fed our entire lives.
There is a mentality from Boomers and passed along to Gen X that full-time work does not entitle you to anything. That there are just millions of jobs in America that shouldn’t be required to pay people enough to live in the community they work, or anywhere for that matter. As long as that mentality aligns with the goals of capitalism, nothing will change.
You will hear all the excuses in the world justifying low-paying jobs. “Just get a better job if you don’t like the pay” “Those jobs are only for high school kids” “If they raise the pay they will raise the prices” The list goes on. None of them make a ton of sense if you explore the idea any further.
The idea of working hard and being, eventually, rewarded with good pay has been dead for decades. It is widely accepted that the easiest way to increase your pay is moving to a different company, which speaks a lot about longevity in this late-stage capitalism era most of us are living in today.
I agree that people sbould be able to live comfortably with their job, even a low skill one. But the idea that raising wages will mean increase prices does check out though. That, or people with higher skill jobs will be paid less and then they will be the ones to suffer the most.
Imo, we should aim to make things more efficient, thus cheaper because they actually became cheaper. E.g. solving the housing crisis => cheaper rent. Public healthcare => cheaper healthcare. Better schools => better citizens that leave less trash around => less expensive trash management. More public transport, less need to buy or do maintenance to a car etc. And so on and so forth.
Minimum wages can’t fix this problem (they can fix others), they’re just a bandaid on a severed limb.
This is how brainwashed capitalism has made us. In a society that is purely driven by money the thought that giving people their fair share means my prices might increase. Instead, we should fix every societal problem first before doing the one thing that would actually work.
We have record inflation now, is it because major cities have passed $15+ minimum wage? Not at all, not even a little. Further proof that a pandemic has a thousand times more influence than simply paying people more.
Oh and the horrible thought a “high” skilled laborer might be paid less shudder. Like a doctor might only get paid $90k instead of $150k. How could they survive!?
What other convenient tropes should we trot out to disfranchise the only real solution of just paying people what they deserve. Oh that’s right they don’t deserve it because they are lazy or low-skilled or any of the other bullshit excuses we have been force fed our entire lives.