I assert that individuals can make it on minimum wage.

[MatadorMedia]

You can definitely live on minimum wage if you have a roommate. Not extravagantly, obviously.

[Spectral]

<snip>
No - it is pretty much the US and anyone under the influence of the US that is formally fascist.

You realize Political Compass isn't objective truth, right? It's one view of an Overton window, but one that's pretty obviously absurd once one considers that it doesn't allow for the possibility of anyone existing that's farther right than Marco Rubio. If Marco Rubio is the farthest right human being you can possibly imagine, you probably don't have a wide enough Overton window.

- - - Updated - - -

Firefighters are not politicians.

Firefighters are part of the government (well, usually).

Fail.

As someone else noted, you should consider a posting style that doesn't involve being as much of a dick as possible at all times.

[Tijuana]

Clinton is just as authoritarian right as any of the republican candidates. How did someone come up with those charts? Did they just put clinton further away from the others to make her seem less bad?

I would say the Democrat party is significantly more authoritarian than the Republicans. The Republicans only grudgingly give voice to Libertarians, but at least htey have some in their caucus. However, if you go to that website and read their definitions, it's HEAVILY biased. The questions basically ask you how long it's been since you beat your wife, and if you say never, you are a lefty.

[Total Crica]

Don't then. But don't complain that there aren't tools at your disposal to go to school, because there are.

If you're not willing to take a calculated risk to succeed then by all means keep working in minimum wage hell.

If businesses are not willing to take a calculated risk to succeed by giving educational debt in exchange for a contractual job, then they don't deserve to remain a business.

[Toppy]

Student Loans not being repaid is a huge problem, and one that I don't think should be swept under the rug. Personal responsibility is important, and if it means that your paychecks are garnished for the next 10 years, so be it.

These costs should NEVER be absorbed by the taxpayer.

There should be no forgiveness.

The issue is that college is becoming a requirement, but then the graduate comes out to a job market with no well paying jobs unless you happen to know someone.

Then there is the issue of what happens if you get hurt. Health insurance is a thing but in the united states its severely lacking. Many people where I work have lost their job due to injury since it required multiple doctors visits and eventually they ran out of unpaid occurrences. They've also lost their job due to lack of transportation since they're just barely making basic living expenses.

Though with the extreme costs on employers to give out health insurance, many employers are just resorting to not hiring people on full time so they dont have to provide health insurance. This forces the worker to work two jobs and push their income past the laughably low "free" govt healthcare barrier so the person still cant afford anything.

This is only worsened by the disability system being state driven so in many cases people with very severe disabilities sit around for years waiting for their disability hearing only for it to be rejected because in many states your first submission is always rejected: speaking for my own state, they do this to keep the disabled from getting an income based on their last job. Since after a certain period of time your prior salary no longer matters and you fall into the lowest income bracket and make a disability income so low you can't really survive on it.

But no, clearly its the minimum wage workers fault for not being able to educate or better themselves while struggling to make basic needs. How dare they ever get sick and then never be able to recover. Bunch of welfare queens.

[Kathandira]

You can definitely live on minimum wage if you have a roommate. Not extravagantly, obviously.

Thats sort of the debate here though. Should you be forced to live with a roommate? Or should the minimum wage support a single individual to live on their own?

[Gamdwelf]

Thats sort of the debate here though. Should you be forced to live with a roommate? Or should the minimum wage support a single individual to live on their own?

I'd say it does depending on what part of the country you live in.

[Fugus]

I'd say it does depending on what part of the country you live in.

Where ever that is, I have never seen it. No matter where I have seen, it always took either roommates, welfare, or some kind of unique situations or discounts to do so and those people weren't even what I would call living so much as they were just not dying and minimum wage was intended to be enough to actually live on.

[Tijuana]

Of all the political quizzes I've seen, despite its flaws, political compass is my favorite.

I think a lot of people have an understanding of what they consider right and wrong but for whatever reason those values and principles don't transfer similarly into their ideology or policies. So when they take the test they are shocked to be labeled a liberal when they claim to be a staunch conservative. Quickly followed by "use my head, not my heart" or something.

A lot of people have flirted with the party of Libertarians for the past four years largely due to being hands-off social issues (and because it's an easy excuse to not identify as a major party). But then they take a quiz and find out they don't agree with Libertarians on economic issues and the quiz labels them a liberal instead, to their horror.

I agree that it's the best one around. But, it's still shit, and still has highly biased questions. My issue is that the questions are worded in a way that makes it hard to see how it would not steer the user of the quiz to the left.

[Vizardlorde]

I believe data is also skewed cost of living varies by city in florida i could buy a house in tampa for a lower monthly payment than it would take to rent a shitty 1 room apartment in a Miami suburb.

[Zan15]

Of course they can make it on minimum wage. They very fact you don't have hoards of minimum wage workers dying left and right means they are making enough to survive.

Sure they can, they have to living in bording houses where they pay rent by the week and have up to 8 roommates.

or

they also get $$ from your and their own TAXES.
Food stamps, rent subsidies, cash payments (mostly women/children), heating assistance, etc etc

so instead of having the corporation pay them a standard fair wage that would allow them to live a bare minimum life, they just get the tax payer to do it.

Then the Taxpayer complains when they fight for more money
Then the Taxpayer complains when they have to pay more taxes
Then the Taxpayer complains when they see people using food stamps
Then the Taxpayer complains when they see CEO making millions.

etc etc etc


If people would have just supported the workers of this country, you would not have wage stagnation and deflation in the bottom 98% of the workers in this country since 1998!!

[Gandrake]

Utter bullshit

my sister lives in a three bedroom apartment here in virginia and thats not even $300

[Cthulhu 2020]

If businesses are not willing to take a calculated risk to succeed by giving educational debt in exchange for a contractual job, then they don't deserve to remain a business.

Yeah, you gotta love how the conservatives will demand that workers take any and all burden upon themselves to get better, but we must help businesses as much as possible and make doing business as easy as possible!

In reality we should see both, and Democrats push for both, but while Republicans love easing of business, they hate helping out workers, so the easing for businesses gets passed, while workers get fucked.

[VTerpsichore]

Not sure where the "Bernie Map" came from, but this one was around much longer i think...



Maybe "he" did the math or just posted something
This one is based on 2015 two-bedroom rental unit housing wage
Represents the hourly wage that a household must earn (working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year) in order to afford the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom rental unit, without paying more than 30% of their income.

[Shawken]

Things like gay marriage.. abortion.. maternity leave..

Those things are not an authoritarian issue. They are a conservative/liberal issue. You can be conservative and not authoritarian although those things typically go hand in hand in america.

For reference, I would be considered more libertarian. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

[Theodarzna]

Student Loans not being repaid is a huge problem, and one that I don't think should be swept under the rug. Personal responsibility is important, and if it means that your paychecks are garnished for the next 10 years, so be it.

These costs should NEVER be absorbed by the taxpayer.

There should be no forgiveness.

This is the kind of suicidal moralism that ruins nations.

[Tijuana]

Not sure where the "Bernie Map" came from, but this one was around much longer i think...



Maybe "he" did the math or just posted something
This one is based on 2015 two-bedroom rental unit housing wage
Represents the hourly wage that a household must earn (working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year) in order to afford the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom rental unit, without paying more than 30% of their income.

Wow, so Bernie plagiarized the map also? This guy...he not only wants to take your money, he wants to take your intellectual property as well.

[Total Crica]

Yeah, you gotta love how the conservatives will demand that workers take any and all burden upon themselves to get better, but we must help businesses as much as possible and make doing business as easy as possible!

In reality we should see both, and Democrats push for both, but while Republicans love easing of business, they hate helping out workers, so the easing for businesses gets passed, while workers get fucked.

I think that model of an individual signing a contract to work for a company until they repay the educational debt incurred by the business IS helping that business as well as the individual. I also know that this model works well. How do I know? Because it's how the USA military works.

[VTerpsichore]

Doesnt matter what you believe, minimum wage is slave labour for a modern country, it should be living wage by law, dont accept the shit your fed, rise up and demand better of your country.

I dont, nor shall I ever respect any business that pays its employees minimum wage, if you need a job done, you should beable to respect the person thats doing it for you.

I agree minimum wage sucks
and I more than agree people should get paid for what they are worth
However, what is the worth of a "dime a dozen employ?"

[pmkaboo]

you can barely survive on minimum wage, but you certainly cant live.