[titusjohnson]

I'm confused, are you saying that the tendency for people to want more means we should never re-assess what is considered enough? I hope I got it wrong -- how would you ever improve anything in your life if you live by that rule?

[leetcrew]

I'm mainly objecting to the term "living wage". people who use it are usually unwilling to commit to a specific set of things that a "living wage" should pay for, but are perfectly happy to exploit the term as a rhetorical technique to smear anyone who slightly pushes back on them.

if by "living wage" you mean "able to afford food and shelter", I'm 100% with you; any full-time job should support that. if you bump it up to a modest studio/1br, I'm still with you. but somewhere along the path to "a living wage is enough to rent a 2br+ dwelling, support a stay at home spouse, arbitrarily many children, and have some left over for eating out and putting away in savings" is where you've lost me.

[titusjohnson]

Awesome, sounds like you're on board with the common definition of Living Wage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage): "secure food, shelter, clothing, health care, transportation and other necessities of living in modern society".

[leetcrew]

no I don't think I am. from the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article:

> The goal of a living wage is to allow a worker to afford a basic but decent standard of living. Due to the flexible nature of the term "needs", there is not one universally accepted measure of what a living wage is and as such it varies by location and household type.

this is what I'm saying. who knows what I'm committing to if I say I support a "living wage"?