Why You're Screwed If You're Low Income
1. If you're low income, you could only afford to buy used, old car. If you try to take out a loan, you pay higher interest rate if you buy an old car. You pay less interest if you buy a new car, which is expensive for you cause...you're low income.
2. You try to buy cheap foods which are low in nutritional value but high in harmful effects on your health.
3. You look like you're low income when you actually are low income.
4. You get poor quality services provided by poor quality establishments. Apparently, discrimination against low income people runs rampant in poor quality establishments.
5. You don't ever try Michelin star chefs' foods cause you can't afford it. So you miss out on quality service and quality food. Btw, Michelin star chefs do not discriminate against who can and can't afford. Visit their restaurant once every 5 years.
6. You face more inconveniences -- late for work because car is broken, babysitter not available, toilet clogged and plumbing sucks.
7. You live in undesirable areas.
8. Your boss acts haughty because they think you don't have a choice of employment.
2. You try to buy cheap foods which are low in nutritional value but high in harmful effects on your health.
3. You look like you're low income when you actually are low income.
4. You get poor quality services provided by poor quality establishments. Apparently, discrimination against low income people runs rampant in poor quality establishments.
5. You don't ever try Michelin star chefs' foods cause you can't afford it. So you miss out on quality service and quality food. Btw, Michelin star chefs do not discriminate against who can and can't afford. Visit their restaurant once every 5 years.
6. You face more inconveniences -- late for work because car is broken, babysitter not available, toilet clogged and plumbing sucks.
7. You live in undesirable areas.
8. Your boss acts haughty because they think you don't have a choice of employment.
Comments (102)
2. Rice is cheap. Does good for a major world power.
3. You can get pretty good bargains at the right place. Even new a nice or average "first world" outfit is little more than $50 including shoes. At a thrift shop, even less.
4. Lawsuits galore! I came in for a $50 job and left with $5 million. Not too shabby.
5. Half the people who eat there wouldn't know how to grow a single potato if they ever had to. Lack of luxury = excess of knowledge. Just watch a zombie movie to discover the worth of said knowledge.
6. You face more opportunities to learn how to do things without relying on others. That's priceless.
7. A society is only as good as its most vulnerable. Perhaps we're there to help.
8. That's just you projecting. They act above you because according to your willing agreement to be part of whatever organization or service, at least for the hours of your work, they are. Grow up.
Can you drive oxygen to work?
What is work. Something you do to live. Can you live without oxygen? It's a few dollars, sometimes less for a reasonable enough distance to walk after using public transport.
I don't know. I haven't tried it yet. Maybe some people can.
Quoting Outlander
So a public transport doesn't pollute the oxygen?
Is being a monk the same thing as getting screwed? I guess for monks, it's consensual screwing but in the case of the poor, it's not (rape)! :chin:
In a region where the people work in eco-friendly jobs that offset their carbon outputs, no, it does not. In fact, it does the opposite. Fool.
There are other kinds of pollution besides carbon dioxide gas. The folks who work in region with eco-friendly jobs are often exporting pollution elsewhere. It might suck to be stuck in a place that manufactures public infrastructure supplies for rich "eco-friendly" regions.
[quote=https://www.corebuffalo.org/impact-of-solar-panel-manufacturing]The solar industry, like other electronic industries, relies on many well-known toxic chemicals. For solar, these include arsenic, cadmium telluride, gallium arsenide, hexafluoroethane, hydrofluoric acid, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride, putting frontline workers and communities at risk to toxic chemical exposure.[/quote]
I was going to ask that this thread be deleted. But your comment deserves a reply. Yes, this is what I'm getting at. There are jobs that sacrifice health so that others could live in an eco-friendly environment.
I think my no. 6 has a different meaning than your no. 6.
There are inconveniences that build up to work-related stress.
Okay. But that doesn't negate what I said.
Okay, this is one good way to put it. Why I missed this comment earlier is beyond me.
It's one thing to voluntarily give up income and benefits to live like a monk. It's another when you try to make a life and you're just screwed. You feel frustrated, tired, helpless.
Really, low income-ness is thrust upon people.
Anyway, Yuval Noah Harari (Israeli historian) has an interesting theory which he writes about in his book Spaiens. It seems that back when religion was in heydays, it was impossible to get rich without, at the same time, making someone else poor (the economy didn't permit anything else). That's why the Church, he says, institutionalized poverty/austerity and was dead against money-lenders who charged exorbitant interests.
I am kind of leaning toward you operating at an oxygen deficient level currently. Don't write self help books eh. Maybe read a few, talk to a counsellor. Your responses strongly imply a deep depression state.
Now, now, ladies! Please.
Sure, but just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand. We all make what we feel is the best move.
2. Produce is subsidized in the US, so all the veggies you can eat so long as you don't shop for them in high markup stores.
3. A shirts a shirt. If it's clean and not damaged it's sort of hard to gauge low versus mid income levels.
4. You learn how to make genuine connections with people and overtime they'll look out for you if you look out for them.
5. If this is your number 5 then you ain't been broke.
6. Life does require more planning when you can't just throw money at problems.
7. What? Generally, you don't call them that when you are the one living there.
8. Again, haughty acting isn't really what I'd say defines the struggle. Get one with a solid personality disorder and let me know how that goes.
It comes across as someone offended at making entry level pay and wanting to identify as being oppressed. I'm just stating my impression of how it reads. Been wrong before.
That is a wonderful rationalization for the perversions of capitalize. Next thing you'll be telling me is that Jeff Bezos actually deserves a quadrillion dollars, making sure the the most wretched in society are not spoiled by health care and education.
While it may be true that being poor in the country is less stressful than the city, at least it sounds intuitive true, you still sight the virtues of being poor. Listen to the hyper wealthy talk casually about poverty, and you will find exactly that kind of dismissiveness. Jeff Bezos and his ilk are especially flippant about what is in fact a living nightmare, being poor that is.
However, putting aside how this kind of thinking plays into the hands of a wealthy person's rationalization, my happiest days were when I was, well, free of the bondage of possessions.
Okay, thank you for a bit of history. But yes, that's a zero sum game. Which is also true today. People argue that it's no longer true. But they fail to see the big picture. It's not just satisfying the basic needs of a person.
Quoting 180 Proof
Not on me. I can't answer your question, that's why I skipped it. I can't answer it cause my answer is irrelevant to what I said in the OP. If I answered one way, you'd have more criticisms.
Quote me, I've no idea what you're talking about.
My first post was in reply to the dismissive smugness of the OP. I am trying to ascertain whether or not s/he has any firsthand experience being poor. I do.
:up: I hadn't thought of it that way. A lesson learned. Thanks.
That's answer enough. :shade:
Try harder. That's a cheap shot.
Tell me, @Book273, when was the last time you spoke the truth while feeling good about the world? Oh, yeah, right. You must only be thinking of telling selective truth -- one that awards your vanity, I suppose?
Stop taking cheap shots. Tell me why my post disturbs you -- not why my post disturbs me. My post doesn't disturb me, telling those bullet points in a public forum does not disturb me.
Half right Constance. It is a myth that the rural poor are happier. In a world where entertainment does not run cheap, the only ones happy and poor are monks and nuns.
Just curious, what is the "big picture"?
Thinking a lower interest rate on a marked up vehicle is advantageous exhibits a misunderstanding of the auto market. I'd rather buy a depreciated car for 8k at 6% interest then one that's getting ready to lose 80% of it's value at 2%.
It wasn't intended as a "cheap shot" we've all been under valued at one time or another. But, the chronically underpaid have more to worry about and appreciate a different spectrum of life as to suggest longing for a michelin rated dinner isn't on the radar. It sounds like a poor rich person. Correct me as needed.
I mean I'm low income, but I don't think i'm screwed. I wonder why.
I suppose there are people who genuinely believe that people need to be taught about the advantages of being wealthy.
Utopian world, I guess?
:up: An noble objective, no doubt but what's our strategy, economically?
Give me a sec, I'll launch my spreadsheet for the calculation per capita of the basic needs first, then entertainment second, then ability to enjoy luxury, travel, and leisure for everyone. :meh:
:grin: Gotcha!
Your post reads as a long winded whine, generalized in an attempt to capture everyone who is poor and wrap them in your description. By removing any possibility of improvement and listing all the reasons the poor are forever screwed, as per L'elephant, It reads as a motivational speech for suicide among the poor. Well done; you have damned an entire economic class with your limitations.
Worth noting, you are posting stuff online, so how poor are you really? Maybe your plan is to convince the poor of the value in ending their life of meaningless suffering. One never knows eh.
Am I? How so?
Yes, of course. The screwedness of the poor is what keeps those who are not low income YET working, striving, and persevering. It's essential to have some unemployed and low-income workers in the economy to serve as a reserve and a warning, A reserve in that the non-employed can start working when there is a big demand for unskilled labor (not so much these days). As a warning for compliant unorganized workers to stay that way. Step too far out of line and you'll end up being one of the poor scum we all know and loathe. You can be replaced, if not by an unemployed person, then a robot. So just shut up and get back to work!
It's helpful to have a few homeless, hungry, and addicted people living in misery on the streets as a further reminder of how [i]arbeit macht frei[/I], or at least keeps workers out of the gutter. The working poor have lives that are better than the broke homeless.
Lots of people are devoted to upward mobility. So focused on that as they are, they have not noticed that downward mobility is a real possibility, even a likelihood in some situations. "So you think you've reached bottom? Oh no, there's a bottom below! There's a low below the low you know, you can't imagine how far you can go
DOWN..."
By means of inflation and stagnant wages over several decades, American workers have experienced downward mobility. Generally they don't want to acknowledge it.
Go ahead and acknowledge it. Admit it: you've been had by your capitalist employers. The sons of bitches ripped you off. They don't care about you. You are free insofar as you are profitable.
I looked up the definition of trailer trash. Perhaps, you are correct. My OP is directed towards those with jobs, but earning at poverty level or below that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
True that.
Many people can't. There's just too much worship of billionaires and multi-millionaires. Notice that you see rationale here and there defending the accumulation of wealth by the very few, while at the same time, berating the low income people for being...well..low income. lol.
Many actually live vicariously -- watching the lives of the rich and themselves feeling as if they've own the material possessions. It's pathetic when the number one past time of people is watching the everyday lives of the rich.
I wonder what happens when the average people just stop caring about those segment of society and start living their lives as it is.
(Because screws are very expensive?)
Everyone has their cross to bear. A rich man can be just as screwed and unhappy as a poor man.
If it's organic based, in America you are screwed if you are poor, but can get over the unhappy if you are rich. If you are rich, you can afford therapy and drugs, if you are poor, you can't. Also, in a more severe situation, you can afford guns and ammunition if you are rich, but can't if you are poor. In certain jurisdictions, I imagine, they hand out handguns and bullets in soup kitchens along with essential food items, such as rolls of toilet paper, because "bearing an arm" is not only a privilege, but also a right of every American citizen.
That's what I thought as well. I don't think wellbeing is correlated to your enviroment. At least that's my experience.
Money is certainly rewarding.
But only to a point.
Recent research has unearthed that we feel elated (temporarily very happy) when we get a reward that is way bigger than expected.
Many instances of human responses can be explained by that:
1. Why a spouse takes a compliment from the other spouse for granted, but when from a stranger, then values it highly.
2. The first heroin hit is the most pleasurable.
3. The first orgasm of your life blows you away.
4. The more money you win and the earlier in your gambling life, the more addicted you get to it.
etc.
What causes unhappiness? I guess the opposite: not meeting expectations. Which includes unexpected disasters in one's own life, such as a loss of a limb or a loss of an iPhone due to theft.
But death we all expect and yet we fear it most of all mishaps in life. I explain that by saying that we expect to live forever, and death is not something we actually believe will happen. Hence, the afterlife myths of many cultures.
Atheism is a new movement, it is born of science, knowledge, and the lack of gambling for survival. Atheism rejects the afterlife (not all; Buddhists, who have no god, therefore they are atheists, believe in reincarnation) because it views it as a stupid idea. Atheists, at their best, call them as they see them. No evidence -- no speculation.
Damn. Wise words.
Quoting god must be atheist
I am my own reward, hence I am in a perpetual state of bliss. :cool:
(or so I tell myself.)
self-suggested happiness is where it's at. I was for a number of decades grossly overweight. Women looked at me (men too, but that's not of interest to this parable). Because women gave me longer glances than usual, I felt I was very attractive. I felt attractive for twenty years and never got laid. But it did not matter, because I was attractive, according to my delusion, and that made me happy, which is an illusion, just like the mind, which feels the happiness... Yikes.
How do you handle the effect of the diminishing return of marginal utility? Or maybe I shouldn't have asked that. Oops. :-)
Quoting god must be atheist
Self suggested happiness's margin is infinite! Poof?
Quoting god must be atheist
Or at the very least, pretty long. Long enough that there seemingly is no diminished return.
That last phrase was so poetic It compelled me to organize it.
I felt attractive for twenty years.
Never got laid.
It did not matter; I was attractive,
according to my delusion
That made me happy,
Which is an illusion
Just like the mind: which feels the happiness...
Yikes.
I have to apologize for not considering this. I only went on the fact that you said you've been poor. In a way, that's a marginalized stratum of a super-wealthy society... Poof.
Ah yes, the so telling indicator of low income in this Millennium in the West: you cannot afford to go and eat at a Michelin star restaurant. But perhaps every 5 years. Mmmm.
I remember the story of Finnish artists of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century having dinners in the most fanciest restaurant in the country and basically each one spending an average workers monthly salary in the meal filled with caviar, champagne and cognac. Back then it was an average workers monthly salary.
Now that would be the equivalent of having a meal of 4 000$ to 5 000$, which is way much more that a full meal costs in any Michelin restaurant. But of course, I'd guess you could blow that amount of money by drinking the most expensive wines, which likely the restaurant has purchased just for your kind of sucker that comes around every once in a while and orders the most expensive they have.
Thank you! Do you do windows as well? Sorry, I mean, Windows.
Are you an editor? Or a kindred poetic soul. I asked Amity that, and she told me to go fuck myself. Or maybe that was to some different expression I expressly expressed.
Come to think of it: poems don't ever get edited. This is a shame and a blessing at the same time. Shame, because there is too much bad poetry; good because may a poem be good or bad, it is still precious and special to its creator.
If a poem gets edited by other than its creator, it is fucked. If a poet asks someone to edit his or her poetry, he or she is fucked, along with the shiny poem s/he rode in on.
I just realized, that I need to clarify this: Your organization I did not view as editing, only as enlightening. Thanks, I appreciated your work and am actually impressed by it. Although that's a covert compliment to myself as well. Oh, well.
I'm no editor, but when inspiration strikes, I think anyone can be an editor.
Quoting god must be atheist
That's true...It's why I hesitated a bit before going in the deep end.
Quoting god must be atheist
Haha! Well, you are the person who wrote it after all.
:lol: :point:
I've had both. TB when I was about 9, and DB since about 45. But on a second take, I think they are both poor man's diseases. The difference lies in TB in poor countries, DB in rich countries, but you are poor if you got either in their respective countries.
Sometimes you irritate the heck out of me and I don't even know why.
Where in my post does it say it's meaningless suffering? Some low income people are actually assholes who couldn't give two three fucks about you or me. Think about that. You want them to feel suffering, but instead, they strut their way to the liquor store or fast food. Laughing. Yeah, the laughing poor people irritate the Berkeley graduates of engineering to no end. Who do they think they are not worried about the future when others have busted their way to a diploma sacrificing their social life and family.
Where on earth do you find people who just got paid and already broke? The next morning, they're sober and no money, and they feel the same way. That's not normal to responsible working adults! You can't be broke, make a joke about it, go to work, and do it over again.
Quoting ssu
I think I should have said in my OP that before you could post in my thread, that you must have calibrated your estimates about history. There were no average income indicators during the late 19th c or early 20th c. because there was no law about wages or labor. You could work and make zero dollar per hour back then. Your equivalent is grossly incorrect.
There's not the same statistics as now, but there truly is information how much people were paid. The basic point is that salaries and real income has increased in 100-150 years. And I would argue that they have increased so much that even low income people can dine in a Michelin star restaurant, if they preferred to save and spend their money like that. (Perhaps every 5 years, as you said.)
I think it's important to notice that if absolute poverty has decreased (especially on the long time scale), many can be worse off than before even if they aren't literally starving. It is important to define what low income or poverty means. Just taking a segment of people who earn the least and declaring them to be poor doesn't tell much.
Abject poverty no longer exists now because it is a crime. I am talking about low income, as in minimum wage. So, normally this would be single income, minimum wage earner, in western society. But I guess, we don't have destitute people these days because there are always supplemental help or income provided by the government.
It's more complex than this. I know of many people who live and die on the streets of our city of 5 million people (in Australia) who do not get any kind of government welfare - often because they are unable to meet criteria or because they are unable to be organised enough to meet the requirements. Poverty often being the consequence of physical and mental ill health. As a result in this wealthy city there are people who eat out of rubbish bins and sleep in parks and under bridges, etc. This I have seen in cities all over the world.
Someone once said, the only certainties about life are death, taxes, and mental illness. Scary shit.
Did you know that it costs so little each year to end severe poverty around the world?
A quick google reveals it's $175B! Think about that. The billionaires themselves can end global poverty each year.
Of course but the problem is much more complex than money.
If it's so easy to end poverty, then why is it more complex than money?
Drum roll....
I can't imagine it would be easy - my response was glib and inadequate. Ending poverty permanently - not just bailing people out temporarily by throwing billions in different directions is the salient matter. I am no expert but I would imagine it's about dealing substantively with complex social systems and structures, the workings and failures of capitalism and building people's skills and supporting them to gain more control of their lives and power in society. This would require radical social change, not just dollars or rubles.
The richest 10%, all together, control a very large share of the world's wealth. They, being Homo sapiens, are predictably NOT going to give it up. And even if they were willing, it would be difficult to convert that much wealth, much of it in kind of abstract paper instruments, into wealth the rest of the world could use productively. [the 1% and 10% mostly apply to the developed world. Wealth outside the developed world is even more concentrated.]
The world economy is a horrendously complex machine and who knows where to begin pushing buttons, pulling levers, turning wheels, opening and closing valves -- etc? Not I.
The poor are screwed because once they are poor they are generally going to stay that way, unless their economic environment changes--which it might, or might not. In general the same is true with people who are have reasonably stable, if barely adequate income. Barring some change, they will probably stay that way. The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor. So do most people, wherever they are at on the economic ladder.
I think if you are low income with no kids, you should go vegetarian. It is cheaper and more practical than veganism and meat-eating, and also reduce your food intake and look into different diets and fasting.
I am personally not low income, but I live frugally and believe in saving money. Gardening and learning how to grow my own vegetables and fruits maximizes my chances of survival if something terrible happens.
With that, fresh vegetables, grains and beans are very cheap, and sustainable for a good well-being and healthy life.
There are many resources out there for low income to make life easier. I bought a car from the junkyard for $5000 that got me through college and was $24 for a full tank that lasted over a week. I'm not some boomer either, I'm a 90's baby.
The guy spoke about Thrift Stores was also right. There is designer clothing in the Thrift Store. Just last week, I thrifted a new coat, 6 blouses, 3 pairs of new jeans for $30. Most never worn.
If you want to live like Jeff Bezos, then yes your life will suck as a low income person.
What do you mean it's a crime? If the economy is weak and people are poor, how can it be a crime? Must be a lot of criminals in Lebanon nowdays.
Quoting L'éléphant
And just why is that? First and foremost, it's the economy. Only then it's that there are safety networks.
The reason is that the majority do live in prosperity, compared to earlier times. That governments do have the ability of giving such amounts to transfer payments tells also about the prosperity of the society. In fact, that there isn't widespread abject povetry shows that things can indeed improve. Likely if prosperity increases, in the future people with low income will enjoy a lifestyle that now is limited to upper middle class and even upper class.
In western societies it's a crime.
Quoting ssu
So you assume the same poor people occupy the low income class. They might be able to move up, but then there will always be other people who would just occupy that place. Are you really not getting this? The state of being low income is what's permanent, not necessarily the people.
Quoting Cobra
I agree. I'm mostly vegetarian by choice.
Quoting Cobra
That's not happening now. Covid-19 has brought out the worst in people. Have you tried looking at the prices of stupid used cars these days? What about housing? Overpriced real estate, realty companies/realtors hording...houses!
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, one indicator of the state of well-being is how long do poor people remain in that same economic level, as in how many years or generation. Another indicator is the existence of the middle class -- if it shrinks or expands.
Just wondering, would you be satisfied if everyone were middle class but the only hitch were that there were really really rich people that ran the companies that the middle class were working for?
In other words, as far as power and wealth differentials, there is a wide gulf, but in terms of everyday living (as long as the living is relatively moderate), you are satisfied? Basically what is happening now, but with just "working/poor classes" making enough to be middle class?
I'm just curious for various philosophical implications.
I don't know. In western societies, the "necessities" are different than in other countries. For example, creative self-expression and low unemployment rate are necessities in the first world. By creative self-expression I mean, the freedom and opportunity to be able to do things that one enjoys outside work, or to be able to be employed according to one's passion. Being a middle class but controlled by business owners is not satisfying. A finding in psychology reveals that the most satisfying way to earn a living is by getting paid per project you complete (not by wages or salary where you have to meet the number of hours worked and be present at the location fixed by your employer).
It would be hopeful if the economy moved in this direction. Of course, this only matters for those kind of white collar jobs.. automation for the rest? Much further down the line of course.
How about the very fact that there is a class of people who somehow had the means to scrounge the resources together to create the means of creating stuff of value.. and then there is the rest who didn't do that, but work for that guy.. There's always the owners and the not owners who work for them.
But as an antinatalist, I don't see a solution to this problem. Once born, being not a paradise.. resources get doled out by those who can pay the people who know about the technology to be able to create the stuff... and then workers can work for the owners to survive. Most being not clever enough to create the technology themselves or figure out how to own the means by which to make stuff to sell.
In western economies, there are people who get paid this way -- artists, for example. That's not a white collar job. It's artistic.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Because we were made to believe that economies can only be one way, and not another. I mean, look at the parents who start telling their children before birth what the children are going to be -- an engineer, a doctor, a teacher, an architect -- in other words, salary-earners! Everyone is supporting the economy as it is now. The blue collar work are there to catch us in case we don't want to be one type of salary-earner -- we become the wage-earners. Amazon warehouses abound.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's all about necessity. If that ability is taken away from you, there is a salve for your psyche: your life is much more comfortable if you don't have to work your muscles or brains for the things you need. Do you agree?
You know the memory capacity of the ancient civilization professionals, right? The lawyers, the orators, the philosophers -- like a dictation machine. Yes, that good. Why? Because there were no tape recorders or typewriters during their time. Just their hearing and memory, and they had to wait until the meeting is over before they could start writing things down. Imagine doing that now.
It seem quite hyperbolic which is fine, but I'm not sure where you expect this to go or want this to go?
Hyperbolic? So everything that's said on this thread is just..exaggeration?
Quoting I like sushi
The point is to point out there is a class of low wage earners. I know, funny. It's shallow and lacks imagination.
It's naturally permanent, because naturally there always will be those low income. And income classes aren't fixed. Some rich oil country which has no taxes, provides all the services free and gives salaries to it's citizens still have those who are "low income". Yet one simply has to look at this on absolute terms. Just what kind of lifestyle those that have the lowest income enjoy? That is quite different from country to country.
It's just like with income inequality. Income inequality decreases in a severe economic depression or in war. That's just how statistics work.
I guess you just want us to pay attention to it more. Fair enough. I don't really care much for the post and if there is nothing more so be it.
No it isn't natural that there are low income (and we agree that low income are those who couldn't afford a lot of things that moderate and above average earners enjoy).
You should read Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. This Graeber was advocating basic income for all, so that even low income people don't have to work the stupid jobs.
Good book.
When your pay is subsistence-only, the money you get today can be used only to put enough food in your tummy to get to work the next day. That's a raw deal any way you look at it. The cycle continues daily, weekly, monthly, year on end, until you can no longer sustain it - you fall ill or you die.
Work (today) [math]\rightarrow[/math] Pay (for today's work) [math]\rightarrow[/math] Food (for tomorrow's work) [math]\rightarrow[/math] Work (tomorrow).
Where is the humanity in this?
That's how change begins! Godspeed!
If income varies even a bit, there will be low and high income.
Quoting L'éléphant
Yet this defintion simply needs the idea of absolute povetry.
Okay, I meant poverty income -- those just above or below poverty level set forth by the government, depending on inflation and per capita income of a country. If there's basic income for everybody, no one has to do stupid jobs.
Yep. And for this you basically have to have measure of absolute poverty.
Why I took this up is because if one let's say just looks at income inequality, then you can get draw wrong conclusions about the issue. Because the fact is that income inequality decreases when there is a war or a severe economic depression. That hardly is good for the poorest, who a hit the most.
Quoting L'éléphant
Or perpetual unemployment benefits. Now a welfare state does create it's own problems, but these are really not so big to the problems of there being no welfare state or there cracks in the welfare network, through which people can fall into absolute poverty.
I don't think income inequality is the issue here. I'm talking about meeting more than basic needs and not slave away for crappy jobs. There will always be income inequality, but that's not the same as bringing the bottom on higher economic scale so that housing and healthcare are not based on income.
Quoting ssu
No, not necessarily unemployment benefits. But universal basic income.
Quoting chiknsld
I'm not sure what you mean here. But yes, we can have capitalism without the few getting the lion's share. When wages are a matter of allotted budget, and not what the employees are worth, then we have a problem. The board of directors or business owners could always justify that "this is all we could give to wage budget", without thinking of the worth of labor or contribution employees provide.