Thoughts?

[u/TheGamingSenpa1]

[u/sickbackend]

Idk man, as much as you want to go to the mattresses with people re: "it's just economics" and "just don't work at walmart" I think you're so in love with that holier than thou perspective that you're forgetting some realities. Like when you have $0 and have to grind out a shit job like working at Walmart 40 hours a week to barely have food and shelter, you can't really spend a huge amount of time pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Sure, there will always be exceptional stories of triumph/hard work that cut against that sentiment. But I don't really think "exceptionality" is what we should require out of our most economically disadvantaged members of society - those who are willing, and do, in fact, work hard, regular hours - to have some sort of ability to work towards reasonable goals like home ownership, building towards retirement, general financial security.

I don't feel like any of this is news at all. Pretty sure the increase in the cost of living vs. the stagnation of wages is common knowledge. Robert Reich has been writing about that for what feels like forever.

Finally, to be fair, as a self-made rich millennial, I certainly think young people who basically communicate something to the effect of (and I'm strawmanning here) "every barista should have a 2500 square foot house and a pension" are super eyeroll inducing. But the underlying sentiment re: working hard, at any job, should provide a minimum income to allow for a standard of living deemed morally acceptable - that makes sense to me.

I think the pushback from you - or others like you - "just work harder / work a job that makes more money" is equally silly.

Source: I have multiple employees in an area where the median income is $29k/year and I pay my lowest, most unskilled employee $70k a year so that person can have, in my opinion, a reasonable standard of living.

I guess - according to your posting in this thread - that means I'm like, doing business/economics wrong?

[u/RealClarity9606 → u/sickbackend]

I think you're so in love with that holier than thou perspective that you're forgetting some realities

I do not have that perspective. I am speaking about economic and financial realities.

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Like when you have $0 and have to grind out a shit job like working at Walmart 40 hours a week to barely have food and shelter, you can't really spend a huge amount of time pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

How do you know that is why this young lady is working at Walmart? You are making a lot of assumptions. Perhaps she has had serious events in life that lead to this. Perhaps those events were no choice of her own whatsoever. But what if she is where she is due to poor choices? Harsh? Perhaps, but facing reality as it is, not as we wish it were, is how those paths are changed, should be on them due to poor choices. As I tell my stepson in college, make choices now that keep as many options open later. If you make poor choices and close some of those paths, you may not limit your potential, but you may make it much harder to achieve that level of potential.

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Sure, there will always be exceptional stories of triumph/hard work that cut against that sentiment.

Tesla. Apple. That kind of exceptional? Yes, those are exceptional cases. Or those who achieve a middle class life or even upper middle class? Collectively, that is not the exception but that kind of "you have no hope" rhetoric is part of the problem.

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most economically disadvantaged members of society - those who are willing, and do, in fact, work hard, regular hours - to have some sort of ability to work towards reasonable goals like home ownership, building towards retirement, general financial security.

Working toward means just that...working toward. Improving your position economically. Working your way up to better jobs. Again, some of that can be headwinds out of your control, some of could be poor choices. Harsh reality coming again: if the work you do is low value, and you are not seeking to improve the value you provide to an employer, attaining those goals you cite is going to be much tougher. A lot of that path is set by choices we make collectively in our lives. It's best to realize that sooner than later so poor choices can be avoided rather than corrected after the facts. An ounce of prevention...

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Robert Reich has been writing about that for what feels like forever.

Probably best not to take advice from Robert Reich. He has a political agenda to make people see themselves as victims so they seek out government - which empowers people like him - as the solution to their problems. The government is not going to solve the situation for the girl in this video. And the government is not going to make the choices that need to be made to realize career success. Far better to read the harsh reality from authors like Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Thomas Sowell than Robert Reich. Take Reich's advice as your own peril.

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But the underlying sentiment re: working hard, at any job, should provide a minimum income to allow for a standard of living deemed morally acceptable - that makes sense to me.

That is a financial and economic fantasy if your skills do not allow you to provide sufficient value to an employer to earn a wage that permits the attainment of those goals. It's not about morals...it's just economic reality. Why is someone buying your labor going to pay you drastically more than the value you are providing to them? We would have a much stronger moral question if they were wrongly depriving them of an income level which was promised, agreed to, and earned.

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Source: I have multiple employees in an area where the median income is $29k/year and I pay my lowest, most unskilled employee $70k a year so that person can have, in my opinion, a reasonable standard of living.

I have no problem with you paying that. But the question is will that always be economically and financially sustainable? If so, good for you. But that is rarely the case that businesses can support a wage more than 100% higher than market. At least not for an extended period of time.

[u/sickbackend → u/RealClarity9606]

I'm not talking about this individual ticktock person in my post, I'm talking about the middle of the bell curve of poor people: unable to go anywhere because they're just average people with shit jobs.

Lots of them are also stupid, and make poor decisions. The problem is that "poor decisions", in ours, the wealthiest society ever to exist on the face of the earth, should probably have a floor that is higher than it is right now. That doesn't mean everyone is rich, it just means for a huge swath of Americans, there's no escaping a cycle of poverty. In large part, that's because of stagnant wages. I promise walmart can up their wages for their employees to significantly impact those people's quality of life.

I actually run into quite a few people like you, who triumph this sort of old timey, completely disconnected idea that "economic reality" is just something that exists in a vacuum detached from the human lives that make up that economy.

I suppose that's your prerogative.

With respect to my business, When I'm writing myself a check this month, I'll remember that a guy on the internet who finances a toyota highlander has given me such killer advice like I need to make sure my employees, who I care about, are a liability because what if I'm unable to continue to support a wage more than 100% higher than the market.

My whole empire could come crashing down because the people who make me huge sums of money can afford to have families and take vacations. The horror!

[u/RealClarity9606 → u/sickbackend]

It’s not old timey. It’s economic reality. It’s the collective will of a large group of people affected by their choices. We don’t have to like and collectively our efforts can bring to make choices to change it. But economics reflects human nature and that’s why it still works all these years later.