[billy99k]

Amazon warehouse work pays almost $20/hour where I live, which is well above the federal minimum wage and more than almost every other company in the area for this type of work. This is a living wage.

"should be replaced with robots"

I also think it's funny we are having this discussion. When songwriters and other creators were complaining about piracy in the 2000s, the general response from the tech community was that this was the future and you didn't deserve to earn a living.

My response is the same.

[azemetre]

$20/hr still isn't much money and you can only survive, note I'm not saying thrive here, on that amount in the poor areas in America.

There are very few jobs that actually pay well in America nowadays, and the ones that do tend to be congregated in few geographical areas and require extensive schooling.

The vast majority of Americans deserve more money.

Also check your priors, there are many musicians that do not complain about piracy and even partake in it (see Trent Reznor being part of oink/what, or Dead Kennedys encouraging people to record music on their tapes). I know many musicians that would upload their music on private trackers, regardless of what their label wanted or said.

[webdood90]

> The vast majority of Americans deserve more money.

This is pedantic but I strongly dislike when people say anyone deserves anything.

I support an equitable system that allows citizens to move up in economic class (which we don't currently have) but I don't subscribe to the idea that everyone inherently deserves anything.

[sterlind]

That puts you at odds with the tradition of natural rights. The Declaration of Independence says everyone deserves life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[abduhl]

The Declaration of Independence doesn't actually say that. It says that everyone is endowed with certain unalienable rights including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness whether they deserve it or not. Just like people have the right to free speech or a jury trial in front of their peers, whether they deserve it or not.

The distinction is important because whether someone deserves something is a normative statement while having the right is a descriptive statement.

What you deserve because of your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is up for debate.

[ekianjo]

Does not mean that they deserve a specific fixed income...

[knowitnone]

its "have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", not "deserves" which is entirely different. Go to your boss and tell them you deserve a pay raise.

[webdood90]

I think it's an intellectually dishonest interpretation of my reply

[sterlind]

No, I don't think so. You specifically rejected the idea that everyone inherently deserves anything. Objectivists would agree, but I don't think Ayn Rand would have been popular with Jefferson.

Perhaps you could clarify - what do you mean by "everyone", and what do you mean by "anything?" Does everyone deserve UBI? Do workers deserve disposable income? Do the homeless deserve housing? Healthcare? Food? An attorney, if arrested? Do children deserve college? High school? Primary school? Orphanages?

You can't say that nobody inherently deserves anything, then say I'm intellectually dishonest when I take you at your word.

[billy99k]

"There are very few jobs that actually pay well in America nowadays, and the ones that do tend to be congregated in few geographical areas and require extensive schooling"

There are plenty of blue collar jobs that don't require schooling and can make a comfortable living. If you are talking about a job anyone with a pulse can get? This won't ever pay well.

"I know many musicians that would upload their music on private trackers, regardless of what their label wanted or said."

All the indy artists I knew ended up having to get out of the business because they couldn't sell their music anymore (people would just download it and expect it for free) and making money from live performances are mostly controlled by large corporations.

Piracy only hurt independent artists and forced all of them with talent to sign with large labels to make a decent living.

Again, with piracy, you want no protection for the artist (and even justify why taking their music, without asking, is fine). Yet, you want the unions to collude with the government to force corporations to halt all technological advances, so workers don't lose their jobs.

Doesn't make much sense here.

[rascul]

> $20/hr still isn't much money and you can only survive, note I'm not saying thrive here, on that amount in the poor areas in America.

That's enough to thrive in lots of places in the USA, in some cases. Maybe not the most desirable places, though.

[0_gravitas]

absolutely not, maybe if you're living with parents and not paying for rent or groceries

[rascul]

Or living by yourself or with a spouse, maybe with a kid. Not everywhere is high cost.

[azemetre]

Can you please name a single city in the US where you can easily live on $20/hr that isn't stricken with massive poverty?

I find it insulting that you don't think Americans, especially those that work, don't deserve dignity through their labor in having a meaningful life. Especially when they work for one of the richest companies in the world.

[rascul]

I find it insulting that you're moving goalposts and attributing things to me that I did not say and do not think.

[ThunderSizzle]

A livable wage is a wage a husband can make to raise a family, including housing, food, transportation, schooling, etc.

$20/hr is about $40k/yr. Using 30% towards housing, that means they can only denote $12/yr to housing, or $1k/month. At current interest rates, that translates to a $150,000 house.

What can you get for $150? There's nothing in any area I've looked that was actually habitable ever since the government's COVID debacle.

[therealdrag0]

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people buying in the 100-200 range on r/FirstTimeHomeBuyers. Nit sure where tho.

[93po]

I think your standard for a living wage is way, way too low. We should be able to comfortably afford food, housing, and medical care at minimum - both without spending most of your paycheck, to be able to afford it during periods of joblessness, and with a retirement at a reasonably young age. You cannot do this at $20/hour, and the only reason this isn't the normal standard is incredible greed and capitalism.

[greesil]

Minimum wage != Livable wage

I don't think it's worth considering the comparison.

But sure, maybe working at a distribution center pays well enough where you're located. Likely that's not the case where these strikes are happening. It's expensive out there.

Also, what you wrote gives the impression of "I've got mine already so I don't care what happens to you."

[SoftTalker]

Everyone deserves the opportunity to earn a livable income, but not all jobs can or should be paying a "living wage." Some jobs by their nature are part time and some people only want to work part time.

[pm90]

That doesn’t seem like a contradiction. Full time jobs should offer livable wages, part time could offer less. However, you can’t do some shenanigans like force workers to be part time by making them work less than 40 hours a week just so they don’t get classified as full time.

[IncreasePosts]

What is a livable wage? That differs if someone is living with their parents, or if they have 3 kids and are living alone and the sole earner in the family.

[harvey9]

My unscientific view is a person working 40 hours a week should at least be able to afford a modest home, fresh food and other ordinary expenses. If a job pays less than that and needs to be topped up by some kind of public assistance then we should think of that as a subsidy to the business rather than welfare to the employee.

[therealdrag0]

There’s many facets to the eco only tho. Why blame Amazon for not paying a livable wage instead of blaming the government and NIMBYs for shitty planning and not building enough housing? If housing and healthcare cost 1/3 of what it does today wouldn’t this be more of a living wage?

[sumOne00]

Negative. All jobs should be paying liveable wages. One off type of jobs for 'this and that' sure, but showing up every day and expectation for deliverables or being on time? Absolutely, pay a liveable wage. Too many Ferrari, BMW, new speed boat from the PPP loans greed to show that employees mean nothing. All jobs deserve liveable wages. We should be advocating for a more peaceful society.

[sterlind]

That's fine. Part time jobs can pay a living wage/hr instead.

[greesil]

Uh sure. Then why are they striking? I honestly don't know.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Some large number of them have been "agitated". You can't acknowledge that propaganda exists which is capable of manipulating people into doing things they wouldn't do on their own (or that they shouldn't do), and then say that the left does not create that sort of propaganda.

They're striking not for better wages, but so that some local or state politician wins an election in 2026.

[EarlKing]

Yeah, they're being agitated alright... by horrible working conditions, declining real wages, and the people who apologize for it and pretend they're all bots or something rather than real people with real interests that are every bit as deserving of respect as some corpo's bottom line.

Anyone thinking this is a one time thing and is going to blow over hasn't been paying attention.

[abduhl]

Define what a livable wage is then. Is it $25/hr? $50/hr? $100/hr?

[philipov]

To start with, any definition that ends with a constant number is wrong. The living wage in an area depends on the cost of living in that area. I don't have that number on hand, but I expect it to be included in any discussion of what people should get payed.

After that, we need to ask how much profit a person should be allowed to make on their labor.

[DiggyJohnson]

Okay everyone recognizes this is true. Please share a reasonable number for a medium COL city, ballpark.

[Hikikomori]

Healthcare, decent sized apartment, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free or easily affordable pre school, overtime pay, decent schools and free college, is a good start. Then some left over on top after essentials so you aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

[drawfloat]

Right, but we're talking about Amazon who make billions annually not "lots of companies".

[ssl-3]

So 6 weeks of vacation, then?

[aio2]

Yea no. I understand the sentiment and agree with it, but not exactly feasible for a lot of companies, especially for the type of job they offer

[Hikikomori]

So you acknowledge that the job should be done but the people doing it deserve to live in squalor even though they work a full time job. Just for corporate profit and your convenience.

Just so you know, all things I listed are things most people in Western Europe already have. Including employees of Amazon and McDonald's.

[aio2]

Here's my perspective. Not exactly related, but I hope you understand how I think:

If I am a small shipping company, and all I need is someone to wrap boxes and store them, and the load isn't much, then should I be paying them full time for the job? Heck, should I pay them a living wage? No. I pay them the value of the job.

Obviously, we need a certain minimum wage because nobody deserves to get scammed and make 10 cents a day, but at the same time, this push for all these benefits isn't realistic. I wish it was, but it isn't.

Obviously, my example is different from Amazon, but this is more a business owner perspective.

[rlupi]

Guys, you have to fix USA!

> Healthcare, decent sized apartment, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free or easily affordable pre school, overtime pay, decent schools and free college, is a good start.

This is literally the (by-law) standard of living for people with full time jobs with employment contracts[1] where I grew in Italy... that's not Silicon Valley, but one part of Italy that has been depressed for many years. (It's also the second top region in Italy by life expectation, that's between the 6th and 7th place in the world ranking by country) So much that in this very town Amazon is building a new warehouse that opens next year.

[1] Granted, permanent positions are rare; but permanent or temporary positions do offer this stuff by law. Fake contracts (partita IVA) and the gig economy exists there too.

Free college almost... public universities tuition fees are 500-4000 EUR per year, depending on the location and prestige.

[aio2]

Italy and America are different places, with conditions. Just because one is feasible in one country doesn't mean its feasible in another.

[kasey_junk]

It’s not like this is an unstudied concept.

Here is one calculator: https://livingwage.mit.edu/pages/methodology

[mbauman]

$20/hr fulltime is ~40k/yr or ~$3300/mo. As just one benchmark: can you find housing in your area for $1100/mo?