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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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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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Main reason I never had kids was I was screwed over by just about everything financially. Student loans, housing/“financial crisis”, medical system, deck stacked against self-employment, predatory credit cards. Great job, USA. Then the same cunts who did that bemoan low birth rates and cry about immigrants.
There are TOO MANY procedures/fees/tax/unsafe ways to lose everything you have or be in a position where you will never be able to live without constantly being demanded to provide more work/cash/time.
Agreed, life wasn't this shakey in the past. Depression era: certainly, but it was caused by the same BS we are dealing with now. For example, it's amazing that medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy and thus degradation of quality of life in the US, and there's little will among politicians or citizens to do much about it. You could save up enough money to retire, even have good insurance, and then be screwed because you or any member of your family had a severe illness or accident, and lose everything.
Even if you make it to 65, Medicare Hospice at the end of your life is designed to wipe you out. So no inheritance...
Right, The hope for Gen X/Z has been "just wait until until your boomer parents die! Then you can have a normal life!" and then it's oh, sorry, guess you have $4 million in medical bills if they don't just die instantly.
Despite all that, things are overall better than previous generations. There is and always has been bad news. Life has always been a constant string of disasters, yet when you pause for a moment to reflect you realize that despite the bad news, overall it wasn't that bad.
In many countries, yes. People in India and China for instance are on average more likely to not be in severe poverty and subsistence vs 40 years ago, though western-style modernization has caused it's own problems. However most people are less well off in the US than we were in the 50s-90s. Reagan economics seems to have been 'wait, why are we letting the middle class exist? We could just keep all their money'. Seriously though i was completely fucked over by what I mentioned and it's only based on luck that I'm not homeless.
Most people in the Us are better off than the 50's-90's. They may feel worse off, but that is not an objective measure.
There are lots of objective measures.
is one for you.
The argument of people being 'better off' now is that technology is better and more available. It is much cheaper to buy a big 4k flat panel tv now than a black and white tv with four channels and no remote back in the 50s. We have the Internet, smartphones, better health care, video games, music, streaming services, cheap air travel, food from all over the world, robot vacuum cleaners, air conditioning etc. etc.
What we don't have so much of is cheap housing, good secure jobs, any reasonable degree of income equality etc.
You must be cherry picking. 3rd world life expectancy is a lot worse than our, while we are very close to the best. If you cut the chart off below us we look bad.
I'm pretty sure I saw this on Lemmy not long ago: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/americans-no-matter-state-they-live-die-younger-people-many-other-countries
But life expectancy isn't the only measure of quality of life and life expectancy can be measured in different ways, especially in a nation with 50 very different states. The most accurate comparison would be to other post industrial western nations.
Right, so my question is whether quality of life or satisfaction has improved. I'd say it has not.
Go find old newspapers and read letters to the editor. The exact problems were different ,but the same ideas .
Sure. That is the position I was speaking from.
Are you fucking high?
Unlikely. Getting high is more often associated with realizing that shit is fucked.
When people could afford a decent home on a single job paid minimum wage? Not so sure.
If you were white, sure. Less likely otherwise.
Okay, fair point that racial equity and access to opportunity has increased significantly in most of the country. Gender equality has come a long way as well, though it’s also a “ha ha you have to work now too and your family is still worse off than it was, good luck with paying for day care”
Which was a huge bullshit injustice which need correcting and hurt a lot of people.
But now we're at the point where skin color doesn't matter in this scenario. Only bank balances matter. And you probably don't have a high enough one to afford a house no matter what color your skin is.
https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/