Where I live, if you don’t have a car or access to one you are worse off than if you’re living in your car. Most of the homeless in my area have cars they live in.
First time I experienced this was in the US. I went to San Diego on a student summer visa and you were fucked without a car. Large metropolis. It took me a while to actually cop it.
Luckily for us we made friends with some lovely rednecks from Alabama and they drove us around a good bit but that gift from them really impacted our whole summer.
For most of us in countries where we vote in any numbers basic healthcare is already taken care of.
more easily accomplished via income tax credits…
but the tax code is damn hard to touch because the chant “NO NEW TAXES” rolls so easily off the tongues of politicians and voters.
tax credits are not the ONLY way, but they are easier (since they already exist in the tax code, only the AMOUNT of the credit needs to be adjusted…) No political campaining or ballot proposal process needed… and those are often the 2 toughest hurdles to get over.
Example: simply make the individual exemption $100,000.00 for anyone making less than $55,000.00 per year.
At some point you just gotta start writing poor people checks. there’s no away around it. redistribution.
That’s a great idea - I’m glad somebody thought of this!!
The USA, the richest country in the world by far, has been surpassed by Poland (about the same population as California alone)
https://www.dudkowiak.com/employment-law-in-poland/employee-benefits-in-poland
TLDR They have universal healthcare, family leave, vacation, and retirement that the vast majority of US workers can only dream of. No state in the union has this many benefits to my knowledge (but we do have 50, I apologize). Their minimum wage is almost as much, and they pay fewer taxes than many Americans (again, some states may be an exception).
An Eastern Block nation has managed to surpass the USA with far less money, in just a few decades.
Our politicians are not that stupid. They could pass legislation tomorrow with a simple majority vote (no need for super majority, let’s not be silly) and change our laws whenever they would like to. They choose not to, it’s a calculated choice.
They could pass legislation tomorrow with a simple majority vote (no need for super majority
But that would eat into shareholder profits, and we can’t have that, especially with insider trading politicians.
Honestly, this needs to be fixed. Mamdani has proven that the politicians have been trash, and it needs to go.
A mortgage.
I see a lot of people rightly disagreeing with this meme for not just having this stuff baseline regardless of work, forcing rent instead of ownership and no comforts. But i dont see anyone attacking the “basic” healthcare. It should be ALL healthcare. Fuck off with this basic bullshit.
I guess it depends on what’s meant with basic healthcare. All matters regarding your health? Yes. Purely cosmetic things like bleaching your anus? I don’t think so.
Why do liberals so often want people to suffer?
How about meeting people’s needs not giving them the bare minimum levels of things if they perform “minimum wage”/lowest price point capitalists can get away with giving jobs?
Why can’t you just argue for great healthcare for everyone? Why can’t people just be entitled to a house, food, needs met, etc?
This radical centrism is why things never improve.
I’d love a maximum wage, amirite? LOL
Although, we should get rid of the social security cap on high earners. It’d solve a lot of this insolvency talks, promptly.
In a world with infinite resources where these things require no labor to produce, you would be right. Sadly we don’t live in that world.
Because the smaller goal is more achievable and is a step towards the bigger goal.
Saying “let’s not even try to go for the more achievable goal because it’s not quite enough” is counter-productive.
Yeah its the liberals that got us into this. Very observant.
“Be kind to each other”
Likewise, an unemployed crumlord with previously undernegated transgender hypiograms and a general association with incest should have their court bills paid for any accidental public masturbation charges that totally deserve to get dropped because I’m retarded despite having proved P=nP, amirite guys? I’m with you people if you’re with me, and I’m Jesus for Christ’s sake!
Alliances, amirite guys?! 🏳️🌈🇺🇸🌎
*from a single job.
Every full time job should pay a living wage.
Unless ‘full-time’ is 30 hours a week or less, even a part-time job should be enough to earn a living.
In some countries it actually is, but mentioning that would be communist propaganda.
It really should be 20 hours or less.
Speaking as.one of the 1980s latchkey kids, we don’t allow our adults the time or energy to parent. Nor do we allow anyone the energy to be civically engaged.
Since the 1970s there’s been an onslaught to capture government so it only serves business interests, which allows big business to flourish even when they are run incompetently, or in bad faith.
We are seeing the owner class cannot function even in their own best interests, rather they manage industry entirely on vibes and feels. And the feels usually are I deserve everything and workers are trying to steal from me.
I’ve heard rumors that back in the 90s is was considered normal to work a 20hr part time job and split a 2 bedroom apartment with a friend that also worked 20hrs or so. With a bit left to spare even.
Not sure how true it is
Are there not worthwhile services or items that someone may want to or have to do that don’t profit 50k/yr per person? Should all of those things just go away or be banned?
If there’s work that needs doing, that work should pay a living wage. If it doesn’t, yes, it shouldn’t exist. Raise prices until it can support those workers, and if people won’t buy it at that price, get rid of it. Otherwise, the argument you’re making is that someone needs to do this work, but that person should be destitute.
If someone wants to do something on the side as a hobby, that’s fine, and that’s not what we’re talking about here, obviously.
Lots of things are nice to have’s, almost everything actually. Door greeter, ice cream server, shoe shiner, small gyms, and probably a million more. There are so many small things that by themselves, cannot generate even 2 or 3 employees worth of revenue, which is like at least 250,000 a year. Lots of jobs have to be part time or side hustles, and when you allow that, some people will take those jobs as their primary full time job even though it is not a livable wage. Sometimes because that’s what’s available, and sometimes because that’s all they can do. If you open that door then someone will walk through it, and if you close that door, I bet a shit ton of things we all enjoy would disappear. For better or worse, without UBI, there will be jobs that don’t and cannot pay a living wage, that will exist, that people would like to exist, and that people will do. Any rules or sentiment surrounding that must take all that into account.
A lot of jobs only exist because we need people to be working. There’s no societal need for a door greeter. If your ice cream shop doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay someone working there a living wage, it isn’t a viable business, or your prices are too low.
You mention UBI and really, that’s the answer, but without it, everyone needs to work to survive and when there isn’t enough work that needs doing, we invent bullshit work just to say we’re employing someone.
And this is how we get Amazon as the only source of ice cream, and no other social pleasantries to make it cost effective or viable. Everyone here is just virtue signaling, the reality is shit would collapse or at least consolidate to total garbage without low wage jobs. The only solution is UBI, and that can work in societies with extreme logistical excess who also have a culture that wants to help the less fortunate. That’s surely not the US.
Amazing how some countries have much more survivable minimum wages, more vacation time, low cost health care, and still have local ice cream shops
And I’m just talking about Western European nations
Low-wage jobs are just exploiting desperate people. If the cost of living were more reasonable, it wouldn’t be an issue - it doesn’t need to be an ice cream shop paying $40 / hr, it needs to be housing and necessities being cost-limited or subsidized. Subsidies for necessities and increased taxes on luxuries would help.
Most of these services are exactly the places that expect the most demanding work for the lowest pay. Easy to fix: make sure the c-suite does not get more than 10x of the lowest salary in the company, and suddenly the there is enough money available for a living wage.
Everyone should be able to afford their necessities even if they’re unable to work
There’s more than enough wealth in this world to do it too. We just let greedy parasites hoard it for no good reason.
Rent nothing, minimum wage should enable home ownership.
So long as “home” doesn’t mean “house.”
Duplexes, townhomes, etc are necessary to limit sprawl. If everyone has a separate home, driveway, and lawn that’s a lot of land use.
That depends a lot on the housing market of the specific country. Here in Vienna, renting is the normal thing to do. we have lots of Apartments which are property of the city, renting them out to make sure living space stays affordable as much as possible, and that is a valid way of doing things too. I am currently living in one of these, and i never had a living space that cheap while also in good condition before (my last apartment on the open market was 1.5x the price, while being not a lot bigger and being utterly outdated regarding heating, electricals and isolation, with walls so thin that you could hear the neighbor sneeze)
One of the smaller but still really bad problems with renting (at least in the UK) is that you can’t redecorate and all the landlords have the shittest taste in decor. So much crap white paint on every surface.
Swear when I have my own place there won’t be a single white wall. It will be maximalist as fuck, and very colourful to make up for all the years of hideous ‘landlord specials’.
I came to say the same thing. It’s a good message but we could improve it by not having too low of a bar. Fuck landlords, everyone should own their housing.
Basic healthcare should be covered without any wage.
While disconnecting health care from a wage, may as well disconnect the others also with a UBI. People shouldn’t be living on the street, no matter their circumstances.
Incorrect.
They should also be able to afford basic creature comforts.
People love to ignore that part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs :’)
“Just be a workslave bro! Just don’t do literally anything fun; don’t watch TV, don’t watch movies, don’t play games, don’t go out with friends. Just go to work and go home and that’s it, and you’ll be set for life!”
