If the children are our future and we truly believe that, then teachers should be in the top rank of pay.
Comment on Minimum wage isn't survivable anymore
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 3 days ago
For my argument, assume that the American Dollar has utterly failed, and a new currency is invented. The numbers make much more sense in an engineered economy, rather than one that has inherited technical debt from millennia of worker-employer relations.
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I think the way forward is to rework income to be a floor and ceiling, with jobs being assigned ranks. By doing this, we can limit the maximum amount of money that people can make - and in turn, the economy will ‘rubberband’, according to what income brackets that goods and services are priced for.
A national review board sets what rank a job class falls into. East coast, west coast, Hawaii, all the same exact pay annually. Workers don’t negotiate for higher pay with their employers, and the employers can’t set standards or expectations for what they pay. This prevents employers from abusing people through ‘circumstances’, or using promotions as a stick, and so on.
Ranks are based on the effort, risk, and knowledge that a role entails. The national board uses research to determine what a job type requires asks of people.
Below is an example of what I would like rankings to be.
- Rank 0 - Citizens get a UBI of $10,000 annually. This is replaced by other ranks when working.
- Rank S - Students receive $10,000 to $20,000 according to grades. All levels of education pay money.
- Rank 1 - Waiters and cashiers, receive $20,000 annually.
- Rank 2 - Managers, sex workers, caretakers, game developers, journalists. $40k.
- Rank 3 - $60k. Delivery drivers, nurse, soldiers outside of warzones, teachers, crop pickers.
- Rank 4 - $80k. Scientists, Doctors, engineers, warzone soldiers (disabled veterans get a better UBI).
- Rank 5 - Astronauts, lumberjacks, firefighters, surgeons, advanced researchers, get $100,000 annually.
Leadership positions give Rank 2 during the first three months after being voted into place, but workers below the leader vote for pay rank, and may also elect to remove the leadership position or to replace the person there. So worker satisfaction is tied to whether or not a leader gets a decent income.
On top of that, everybody should get a fixed amount of hours they may work each day. If they work even just an hour, they still get a full day’s pay. Each worker is capped at 9 hours a day, and can only do 5 days of work a week. 45 hours total each week.
People earn a 1:1 ratio of retirement benefits based on hours worked for a given rank. So someone who worked a full year at Rank 1 has $20,000 in benefits paid by the workplace. These benefits are only in effect when going on paid vacation, sick leave, fired, or in retirement. A business that goes under or is bought, has its obligations passed to government or to the new owner. Citizenship UBI is replaced by benefit income ranks, starting with the best payout rank.
Companies that use AI to displace workers, have to pay into a government fund. This fund is used to give ranked UBI to citizens, paying them for a job they can no longer obtain. A company’s limit on wealth and assets is based on employee headcount or the amount of citizen UBI it is paying for, anything beyond the limit is 100% confiscated by government, with penalties if the excess is found to be deliberate. Local and federal government split the confiscation 50-50.
Individual people have limits on liquid wealth and assets. Non-citizens have $50,000 caps on each pool, and a citizen a $100,000 cap for each. Any amount of wealth beyond these limits are confiscated by the government. This helps prevent the development of millionaires and billionaires.
Hypothetically, the ‘banding’ of incomes like this would also prevent or mitigate inflation, because wealth distortions and labor manipulation would be curtailed. By making incomes predictable, the markets can price goods accordingly.
Neverbeaten@lemmy.world 3 days ago
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Unfortunately, there is an issue with making teachers the highest paying job: the sheer number of them needed. The system would probably break under that. 😕
Trev625@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Personally, I feel like the gap is too large between the top earners and the bottom earners. The minimum is 10% of the maximum. And this is cumulative so every year that passes the rich are getting richer. I am fine with a system where people who do more for society make more currency but the wealth divide shouldn’t be this drastic IMHO.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Today’s American elite have considerably greater wealth gaps than what I described for the system. There is roughly a 400% to 1,100% difference between a minimum wage worker and an executive, before considering things like stocks and options.
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Since there are absolute wealth caps and the rule is that only one income stream can be active, there is essentially a soft limit on accumulating benefits. People who earn enough benefits from work, are likely to retire or go on vacation - which leaves a vacuum for other people to fill up, who in turn earn enough benefits to move on, and repeat. The people with stockpiled benefits also create opportunities for new businesses to crop up, since they would need things to keep them busy - an ambition, touring to see the land, activities, and so forth. This creates jobs due to demand, thus creating new upper ranks that need to be filled.
Students earn money from learning, which means they can comfortably obtain the qualifications to obtain better paying ranks. Thus, there are many people who can enter the upper ranks. Due to universal services, people can wait for jobs without danger - and people who work, can leave jobs if the work conditions suck. So there is a lot more mobility for income seekers.
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While I very much doubt that the proposed Universal Living system to be an panacea, the important thing is to enact something considerably better than what we currently have. Perfection isn’t the goal, since that requires a lot more understanding of economics than humanity has learned up to this point.
ebc@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Interesting ideas. A few comments:
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 3 days ago
I have a slide deck that includes taxes and whatnot. They are divided into two pieces for individuals: “Social” and “Cultural” tax. The Social Tax pays for roads and other communal goods, with taxpayers being able to use an app or website to assign what projects the money goes towards: Potholes for a certain street, playgrounds, ect. The cultural tax is a form of crowdfunding, where the taxpayer can assign the tax towards projects that promote culture - festivals, games in development, TV shows, ect. Failure of the taxpayer to earmark their taxes, has the government using them as a discretionary fund.
The way I figure, this encourages individuals to think about their society, and gives them a pool of money that they can’t spend on themselves. The government gets the bulk of its discretionary taxes from the regulation of companies.
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The system I outlined, already forces people to not hoard money: The absolute caps on wealth and assets makes them inclined to spend their money, else it would overflow, and that excess collected by the government. We want people to have enough money to have a big buffer for major expenses, while also encouraging regular spending.
Plus, universal services and free generic goods encourages the spending of money. People will focus their funds towards what they want, and be economical in the spots they don’t care about. This is a bit different from what we have today, because people are obligated to pay for their food, utilities, goods, services, and so on. By offering free but boring options, society allows people to focus their investments on the things that interest them.