[bluGill]

Inequality is NOT a problem though. Poverty is a problem, but that is a different issue from inequality. Once you have the basics met (food, shelter) everything else is a luxury. A mud hut without enough to eat is not a life I would want to live, but I could live that way. Take away the hut or the food and I won't survive.

I like not having to cook over an open fire. I like having lights in the dark, a cell phone, a car, a washing machine, a table saw. Those are all luxuries and I want more of some of them.

[Shikadi]

Okay, except that in plenty of places being homeless is illegal, mud huts on property you don't own is illegal, you can expect your lifespan to be cut down by more than half, and the level of income inequality in the US is staggering. 95% of households make under $200k, while 3 million people make millions of dollars and do whatever they can to make sure nobody catches up to them. Even if you take poor people out of the mix, it's still a problem.

[bluGill]

I understand that a true minimal lifestyle is illegal. However if we ignore that issue (I in fact do not agree with those laws) we can look at what our true minimums are.

A mud hut will not cut your lifespan. A mud hut of course implies that you don't have access to good medical care, don't have good heat, and cooking on a smokey wood fire. All of those will cut your lifespan, but it isn't the mud hut it is the rest of what it implies. In short poverty which I already said is a problem.

We can move up a step: at $5/hour (less than minimum wage in the US, but lets call the rest lost to taxes) you can potentially earn $800/month, put $600 into rent in a cheap apartment and that leaves $200 for food. You will be walking everywhere, getting clothing at goodwill, but it is enough to live to a fairly old age one (once you get old you can no longer afford your medical bills, but most people can live to old age with minimal medical care)

[Shikadi]

$200 is left for food and medical and clothing, and won't buy you a very healthy diet, at least where I am, which is considered a cheaper place to live. Also that's ignoring, the systematic barriers in the way of doing that. In a place where you don't need a car to get from cheap apartments to work, "cheap apartments" cost more than $600. In a place where apartents are actually cheap enough, and someone walks say a mile every day to work, they're competing with everyone else to find work in a small radius. That's a tiny tip of the iceberg, but in a perfect world minimum wage would be enough to live on for everyone everywhere. We don't live anywhere near there