Or! Universal basic income.
Minimum wage should be money used to enjoy life, since the rest would be covered by a socialist safety net.
A man can dream...
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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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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The minimum wage should be tied to GDP.
If I pay you a living wage, how do you expect me to buy my own, private Lolita island?
I'm all for the residents of apartment buildings to own the space where they live, collectively.
Everyone can have enough in this world - with all the technology and advancement we have been able to do together. The only thing stopping that is the parasitic hoarder class who lets the half the world suffer to exalt themselves.
Honestly what’s the point of minimum wage if you can’t survive? Why even bother to have a minimum wage at all?
May as well just do crime 🤷♂️
*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.
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I think minimum wage isn't sufficient. Inflation will keep striking, employers will continue wage theft and abuse, billionaires will keep engineering laws that benefit them at the expense of all others.
Replacing the entire economic system outright is the true minimum. At best, minimum wage alone is just a tiny bandaid covering a spurting stump. To save society, abandoning capitalist tradition is key.
Yep, it's a treadmill. Raise wages and cost of living will rise to meet it. That's why I'm not convinced a UBI on it's own will be helpful. You need to find a way to govern end costs; but how you do that I have no idea.
Personally, I think the key is to create an income bottleneck: Each type of job falls into a rank, each rank giving a fixed income each year. Rank of a job type is determined by the effort, risk, and knowledge required. So a migrant working the fields, gets higher pay than a waiter, because that involves effort and possible damage from being out in bad conditions. There are only 7 or so job ranks. By limiting incomes, we also fight inflation, because sellers have to work within predictable income bands.
Rank 0 is UBI of $10,000 for citizens, which is replaced by job income if a citizen gets a standard job - but schooling grades adds to their pool. Jobs give more money than UBI. Students are payed $2,000 to $10,000, depending on their grades. Waiters and other basic roles get $20,000. $40,000 for managers, cops, and the like. $60,000 for produce pickers, delivery drivers, and soldiers in safe conditions. $80,000 for regular teachers, doctors, and researchers, fire fighters, lumberjacks, ambulance drivers, and so forth. $100k for surgeons, university-grade researchers, and astronauts.
Workers vote for their leaders within their unit and for leaders above their unit. They determine who gets to lead, and sets their pay rank every 3 months. This makes it harder for leaders to get entrenched and abuse workers.
I have more thoughts on this sort of thing, but the key thing is to seriously limit the power and authority of individuals: Limit total incomes each year to a hard cap, absolute limits on wealth and assets, guarantee universal services that allows people to quit and avoid bad jobs without risking their wellbeing. Free universal healthcare, basic food, generic goods, and basic shelter with internet, all of these freely given without means testing. Migrants also get universal services. The government gets the bulk of taxes from companies, and assigns a rotation of book-keepers from the state and federal government to ensure that companies aren't lying.
The free stuff provided by the government also grease the wheels of genuine capitalism - paid goods and services have to be better than the universal items, else they won't sell. That helps against inflation, since the government is basically setting the base price of things.
So then what do you do with all the extra money made by independent salesman? Already people cook books in order not to declare some if their income. Plus there are so many self employed professions that make money based on how much work they do, how do you scale them when their work might be seasonal or not a regular income?
Or do the ranked salaries only apply to certain sectors?
People who do personal work or have income from a product, has their income passed through the hands of the government. They, like the highest ranked profession, have a $100,000 income cap each year. The government extracts the taxes and takes any amount of money that is over the $100k limit, be the source from works, personal sales, or stock dividends.
As to seasonal workers, one idea is that government enforces a contract. The worker actually has two jobs - during the seasonal work, they do the job for one of two employers. Off season, they work for some other job sector, such as a warehouse. Employers for each respective season pay for the worker jointly. A seasonal employer is obligated to partner with an off-season employer before they can offer jobs.
Failure of joint job offers, means that the government will prevent the two employers from hiring anyone. In turn, the government can drop the hammer if the employers are hiring people and making money off the books.
In the event that a seasonal worker is prevented from doing their second job, the government pays for an income that is equal to the worker's first seasonal job if it was full time. This gives the government more incentive to keep employers on the level.
The implication here, is that government controls hiring practices. Abuse like ghost jobs exist, because employers dictate the terms of the proverbial battlefield. Employers in our current society create tests, scheduling requirements, enforce non-DEI policies, do nepotism, and so forth.
I think that government should be the clearinghouse for job offers and hiring standards, containing the resumes of employee and determining whether the employer is offering jobs in good faith. Positions for jobs are publicly posted, and workers can send a universal resume to the government that can be used for any position. If there are missing details, the worker can have their resume expanded and clarified, replacing their old resume.
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.
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In 1978, DJing at a small town daytimer, I made 70 cents above minimum if you don't count all the mandatory unpaid OT. I kept an apartment, ate OK, had a cat, paid my utilities, and was able to take my new girlfriend out on weekends. NO ONE could do that now. Also, my parents had given me a year of cable as a gift.
And the problem is not with the individual. The problem is that capitalism is working exactly the way it's designed to.
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.
Rent nothing, minimum wage should enable home ownership.
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)
Yeah, I'm fine with publicly owned apartments as well, so long as they are held to high living standards and priced to drive down the cost of housing.
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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.
SoCal/Bay Area is a place where the average house is 1M$. People making that kind of money have a car, and those without a car leave California or live with roommates.
California infrastructure was built in the 20th century by hard right wingers, and by time Cali became a blue state at the turn of the century, it was too late and expensive to build public transit.
The entire state as a whole is fucked as far as public transit is concerned, and since everyone moving there is already financially successful, it makes it impossible to force in the legislature.
since everyone moving there is already financially successful,
I would like to live in that reality please. Financial success is at least a year away.
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.
Incorrect.
They should also be able to afford basic creature comforts.
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It's in the name. Minimum wage to live!
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 argued for “great healthcare” for everyone. I can’t imagine how people think some people deserve better healthcare than others. Liberals need to get their priorities straight.
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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.
Yeah its the liberals that got us into this. Very observant.
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.
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Almost as though that wage should pay at least the minimum to accomplish that.
A mortgage.
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