Jan 10, 2025
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Interesting mug from a casino found in Powell, WY USA
erika ishii confirming that dropout is, indeed, the best. (paraphrasing)
What is poverty?
tweet source: X
to estimate annual full-time (40 hours weekly) income based on an hourly wage, multiply your hourly rate times 2000 (to find hourly pay, divide your quoted annual salary by 2000)
according to the US Census Bureau, in 2020, 37.2 million people - more than 12% - in this "rich country" were living in poverty. the percentage goes up for children
the bureaucratic definition of what officially qualifies as poverty (to receive meager benefits) in the USA has a family (not individual) threshold of $32,000. that's two full-time workers earning $8/hour
makes $15/hour look great!
but what is actual poverty?
let's say you live in a small Kansas city (it me), where average rent is $1100/month. that's $13,200/year in rent (or $1500/month for taxes, insurance, and mortgage payments if you're lucky enough to own)
average food expenses are about $800/month, so budget about $9,600/year to eat
in Kansas, monthly energy cost is about $170 or $2000/year to keep from boiling or freezing, to cook, and do forth
transportation costs about $1,150/month, so there's another $13,800/year
want healthcare, you spendthrift? add $1,380/month or $16,560/year
then add other necessities like clothing, education, and unexpected expenses? better add at least $600/month or $7,200/year
those earning $15/hour working full time pay $1,860/year for Social Security (6.2% of 30k)
(and this assumes you pay nothing in taxes, when in fact it's closer to $800)
(plus, according to all the capitalist cost of living calculators, no entertainment, phone, or internet for you!)
that's an absolute minimum of: 1860+7200+16560+13800+2000+9600+13200
which adds up to $64,220 in annual household expenses just to survive
in a relatively cheap state - this is budget-friendly Kansas we're talking about here after all. fugettaboutit if you live in New York, California, Colorado, etc
that family threshold of $32,000 begins to look ridiculous in light of all this, doesn't it? you'd have to remove healthcare and transportation just to survive on that kind of income - but if your family earns $32,001? you're just out of luck
and that's still way below expenses!
now let's go back to that wonderful $15/hour pay rate. if both adults in a two-earner household earn that, you're making way over the official poverty rate (while earning less than half of your cost of living, remember)
to heck with $15/hour, then: how about we make corporations share the profits earned from their workers' labor and ideas?
for example, Amazon - which brags about paying $15/hour (with some earning $18) pulled in $33.6 billion in profits last year. about one million people work for the company. if the profits were evenly shared among those million, they would each earn an extra $33,600 in bonuses for 2021 - more than doubling their salary
...most importantly, boosting them out of practical poverty
even if we do the capitalism and hold back $3.6 billion for CEO-types and other dead weight, plus investors who've done nothing for the company after the stock IPO, such profit-sharing would still have doubled actual Amazon worker salary last year
the only people who would lose income from real profit-sharing are parasite billionaires and Wall Street Greedists. those who earn corporate profits could finally see their income rise to match their cost of living (except those in the Bay Area or Seattle or such, but that's a different issue). heck, let the top administrators earn up to 10× the lowest-paid workers to stroke their egos and let them buy expensive toys and vacation homes
too radical for USAian capitalism? okay, then let's institute a Universal Basic Income that fills in the gap between underpaid salary and cost of living. it wouldn't need an army of auditors if it were based on tax returns (which could be automated right now, allowing IRS auditors to spend their time on big-dollar tax fraud)
still too radical for those brainwashed by right-wing Greedist media? okay, let's at least offer Universal Healthcare and free transportation to make up for those expenses. Universal Healthcare would have the side benefit of eliminating the huge wasted cost of for-profit insurance - and if it's truly universal, there's zero overhead cost for "means testing," eliminating the argument Big Government-fearing types use to block healthcare for all. (rich people can still spend more on magic medicine and a fleet of Ferraris if they wish)
to be clear: none of this requires socialism - true profit-sharing is the most capitalist-friendly idea here - and absolutely no communism. these are all easy to implement, free-market solutions that we could start doing next year
knowing the figures, if any of these solutions to American poverty still seem too radical, you're not conservative but are either one of the Greedist 1% or else literally brainwashed by those taking advantage of your labor and value to their companies
the solution to poverty and vast income inequality is at our fingertips
we just have to want it enough to force our representatives to make it happen
This 1916 Experiment Made Workers Wealthy
Profit-sharing is an old idea that emerged in 1916. Major companies like Sears, Procter & Gamble, Pillsbury, Kodak, and U.S. Steel all joined the profit-sharing movement, giving their workers shares of stock so the workers actually owned part of the company.
Profit-sharing gave workers an incentive to be more productive since the success of the company meant higher profits would be shared. It also reduced the need for layoffs during recessions because payroll costs dropped as profits did. But profit-sharing with employees has all but disappeared in large corporations, which have increasingly focused on maximizing shareholder returns.
At the same time, profit-sharing with top executives has soared as big Wall Street banks, hedge funds, private-equity funds, and high-tech companies have doled out huge amounts of stock and stock options to their MVPs. Share prices have gone into the stratosphere while wages have barely risen.
Sharing profits with all workers is a logical and necessary step to making the system work for the many, not the few.
Sing Sing Movie Made with Real Profit Sharing with Entire Cree
Sing Sing Movie Made with Real Profit Sharing with Entire Cree
Investor Tuntut Pembayaran Profit Sharing Kondotel Le Eminence dalam Aksi Damai di Jakarta
Jakarta — Puluhan investor yang memiliki unit Kondotel Sahid Eminence (kini beroperasi dengan nama Hotel Le Eminence) menggelar aksi damai di depan kantor Kurnia Land yang juga menjadi kantor PT Eminence Hospitality Services, di Jalan Otto Iskandardinata, Jakarta Timur, Selasa (17/6/2025). Aksi tersebut merupakan bentuk protes atas belum dibayarkannya hak profit sharing (PS) yang seharusnya…