Renting what though? How many bedrooms?
Comment on Something something far-left
rockerface@lemm.ee 4 days agoAs the screenshot said, enough to pay for rent, bills and groceries. That’s is, enough to not be homeless, starving or unable to afford healthcare.
ryannathans@aussie.zone 4 days ago
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 4 days ago
Uh. One? Then if two people had basic jobs…Maybe two?
Maybe someone is able to claw their way above minimum wage and the other can quit entirely, whatever.
Nobody’s demanding McMansions for McDoubles. They just want the concept of a job to be more than an endless void that arbitrarily takes exponentially more than it gives.
Working two jobs and being one major illness or injury away from losing it all is a sick insult to humanity, for all it has achieved up to this point.
ryannathans@aussie.zone 4 days ago
Do you guys not have salary continuance and disability insurance by default through your retirement accounts? Over here by default if we hurt ourselves at work we get workers comp and outside of work we have salary continuance insurance (unless you’ve unsubscribed). If it’s bad enough you get a lump sum from total disability insurance
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Hehe, that’s how pathetic things are here.
Retirement accounts? Since we’re talking minimum wage workers here, most of them have probably never even heard of those. I know I don’t have one, because I’ve only held part time employment while self-studying a bunch of other skills. I have just a savings that gets cleaned out whenever the car makes an expensive noise I can’t fix myself.
We pay into “Social Security” that you’re supposed to be able to pull from when you retire, but that’s been an iffy thing for years now and it’s definitely not something that can be lived off of anymore.
Over here by default if we hurt ourselves at work we get workers comp and outside of work we have salary continuance insurance
Yeah I didn’t even mean at work, just y’know, life happening can absolutely tank your finances with medical bills. Insurance is an absolute scam here, where the affordable ones can have a “deductible” in the thousands you need to pay before the company even pays out a time.
At work? Yeah, workers comp is a thing, but to your job that’s like declaring war on your employer, the way I understand it. Often you’ll need a lawyer and they’ll send private investigators to stalk you trying to catch you being “not disabled” so they can kick you to the gutter.
(Allegedly lots of people to try to scam the system, like anything else, but dystopian employer paranoia is comically ridiculous.)
If you’re curious about the situation here, there’s a book called “On the Clock, what low wage labor did to me and how it drives america insane” or something like that. Super eye opening.
Screw amazon but this is the first link I found because I’m literally rushing out of the house lol.
www.goodreads.com/book/…/42779084-on-the-clock
Hope this illuminates things a little. Pray for us plz. :)
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 4 days ago
I know a lot of people around here aren’t a fan of cars, but minimum wage workers need to be able to afford one. And even used cars have gotten crazy expensive. Even if you can find a cheap used shit box it’ll need expensive repairs quickly.
I know there are places where this isn’t true, but where I live, if you don’t have a car, you can’t get to work, the grocery store, or anywhere really. If you try to ride a bike, you will die. If you try to ride an escooter you’ll get ticketed for riding it in the driving lane, and even if it were legal it wouldn’t be an option in the winter when they don’t even clear the whole road of snow and ice. People go homeless before they give up having a car.
rockerface@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Needing cars is caused by the same capitalist system that produces jobs below livable wage, so I totally get it. But if we were able to push for better salaries and working conditions, surely we’d also be able to push for better urban planning and public transport.
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 4 days ago
It’s already been built wrong, and redoing those places will take decades and will cost trillions. They have been adding little token projects here or there, but our zoning still doesn’t even require sidewalks or bike lanes for new construction. So honestly we’re generations from it at the pace we’re moving. We could pay living wages now though.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 4 days ago
I think that if a new style of government is created, free transport and fuel should be an universal right. The government just lends a basic small car for free to people. Once that person buys a fancier car, the rental is returned to the government to be loaned out to someone else in need. Bus passes and passenger rail is free.
This greases the wheel of economy, along with easing pressure on people.
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 3 days ago
Okay. How close are we to that? How about giving a huge bump to minimum wage and tying increases to inflation, now? Even the Dems aren’t running on this.