[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.

[int_19h]

If they are working for you full time, but you aren't paying them living wage, how exactly are they supposed to make ends meet?

[FireBeyond]

My ex wanted to go work at a veterinarian's office. Several in the area had openings, but one significant caveat:

Each was offering only part-time hours (16-24h) but required "full-time availability".

That is not an fair exchange of effort.

Small business owners all too often (as much as they are also a valuable part of the community) think that they are entitled to far too much of their employees, and seem to think they have some inherent right to not just their business, but to their desired profit margins.

One local business here closed recently with this self-centered, presumptuous and tone-deaf message:

> It is so sad to see that our dream with all its potential has collapsed because the community was not willing to support it.

[Hikikomori]

Unless you're the only one selling a product that people need and want to buy you're going to be undercut by your competitors that aren't paying for these things either as that is how it works in America. Quite expected when there's no worker shortage so companies have to compete for workers, but that's not the kind of competition capitalists want.

In most of Europe workers wouldn't have to worry about any of that, everyone enjoys the basic package. So your competitors wouldn't be able to undercut you on price by not providing healthcare and thus force you to do the same.

Is it the best system for startups, corporate profits and the stock market? Obviously not but people are happier.

[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.

[sobani]

Yeah @rlupi, America is far too poor to afford basic living conditions. /s

But seriously, no US state is as poor as Italy, in GDP per capita terms (Mississippi 50K vs Italy 40K).

[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?