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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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(to complete the comment before me) ... and that you assume the technology is also mostly stagnant in the last 2 decades, which it certainly wasn't, especially in the computer science world. Though it could've got much much faster if people were paid more relative to what they produce.
While it is certainly plausible that there are diminishing productivity returns from technology, there is little evidence that paying people relative to their production increases production at all.
Most people in America don't make things, and their productivity is an intangible concept.
There are evidence. A lot of evidence. Any country where the minimum wage was raised significantly, even if most of the time, it's the private enterprises which end up paying those workers, we can see a boost of the GDP, which is the metric usually used to measure the consumption (and therefore production) of a country, considering something like 70% of the GDP is direct consumption (don't remember the exact stat). The simple reason behind it is that if you give people money, they will spend it, paying the companies and people making the stuff so they can make more stuff. How can you except products to be sold if nobody has the money to buy it? And considering a lot of people talk about the price rise and hot having the money to pay this or that, it becomes basic logic, at this point.
Raising the minimum wage is not thing their wage to their production
I'm all for removing all current welfare payouts and simply handing people equivalent cash instead for exactly the reasons you list, as well as raising minimum wage and tying it to local COL
If you do that, you're gonna make people even poorer than they are, making everything more expensive for everybody. Have you ever wondered why health is hell of a lot cheaper in Europe than in places like the USA? It's precisely because we have welfare payouts to let the government take care of the price and regulate abuse by pressurizing the different industries, while in the USA, you have basically nothing, so it's the customer vs the entire industry and guess who wins? Not the people. So you have to pay your meds or consultations 10 times the price you would in Europe. Money you give to the state through welfare is money you give to yourself...
Health care shouldn't be a welfare payout, which may be where our disagreement lies.