A living wage and homelessness

[Figgy]

I stumbled across this story about the numbers of homeless in New York

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34574818

What really surprised me was that many people who are homeless work. They work hard, but they cannot afford accommodation. Can they afford medical care as well?

I remember being horrified at a post on UDBB a couple of years back where someone wanted to pay people $1 per deer to skin them. Instead of thinking about modernising, industrialising, innovating, changing product market so that their product was more valuable and increasing profits that way, the poster's first thought was - what is the cheapest I can pay a person.

We've been having an ongoing debate here about wages and exploitation, simply because far too many businesses are rorting the 457 Visa system so that they can underpay foreign nationals to make a profit. One of the 'hidden' side affects of companies focussing on lowest wages possible is that young people aren't being given entry level jobs, and this is going to have flow on effects to our economy.


So where did the debate about minimum wages? or is it every person's god given right to exploit others?

[Crisscreek]

Here's a tangent idea to living wage that I was blown away by when I first heard it on the radio.. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as- ... -1.3074742

Medicine Hat Alberta has created homes for everyone in the city-regardless of criteria such as working/not working/drug addicted etc. I thought it was a brilliantly innovative way to start addressing root problems-and it seems to have paid off.

[KathyK]

Remember the guy who gave his employees a $70,000 minimum wage back in 2011 (and drastically cut his own salary to that figure, too)?

Here's what's happened to the company since then:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/201 ... nimum.html

[Tabby]

For a long time in Canada, we have been told by our politicians that we need to give more money to the corporations because they are the job creators. But the only jobs created were sweat shops in south east Asia or temporary foreign workers who they were allowed to bring in and pay less than minimum wage. Eventually reports started leaking out about Canadians being laid off and replaced by these tfws, as they are now commonly known. It happened in all sectors from mining to banking to fast food. After some public uproar they changed the rules slightly. They could no longer pay less than minimum wage but they had other ways to exploit them. Often the employer provided housing as a part of the deal and charged them 3/4 of their wages in rent. The tfws themselves often didn't speak English and didn't even know what rights they had in this country. They were from desperate places so they put up with the abuse. Finally public pressure forced the government to change the program again. This time they renamed it and made a list of occupations that would qualify. Though a lot of them were in areas I know for a fact there are unemployed Canadians who could fill them, the corporations whined and complained suggesting that the program was likely a little fairer. It was surprisingly not an election issue so I'm not sure what the new government will do about it. Needless to say, it was definitely a dark chapter in our history.

I guess my point is that we've spent a few decades bowing to the corporations who have exploited us at every turn. It hasn't improved anything. Not the economy, not quality of living, not unemployment, not the environment, not anything except the money in a few wealthy people's pockets. I fail to see how continuing down this path will result in anything different.

[WheresMyWhite]

Remember the guy who gave his employees a $70,000 minimum wage back in 2011 (and drastically cut his own salary to that figure, too)?

Here's what's happened to the company since then:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/201 ... nimum.html

I just wonder how successful this approach would be to a publicly held corporation with stockholders... I see the profit is there but Gravity is a smaller company and privately owned.

[Tabby]

I don't ever see it happening with a publicly held company unless they completely overhaul the system so that the board of directors isn't comprised of closed groups of executives from other publicly held companies.

[boots-aregard]

Those couple of examples are fine, but we need to look at the larger picture. What drove the Arab Spring? Lack of work, easily as much as any political dissatisfaction. Where do the terrorist groups find their recruits? From amongst the young people (men mostly) who see no futures for themselves in their countries. Where is the unrest going to arise from in the U.S.? From an educated generation who wind up with nothing like the standard of living they were raised in.

You can indeed to ahead an oppress people and exploit them. But you don't then get to act surprised when revolt happens. And, IIRC, there are enough weapons in this country just floating around to arm every dissatisfied person over the age of 14...

[angela9823]

I remember being horrified at a post on UDBB a couple of years back where someone wanted to pay people $1 per deer to skin them.

You are remembering this incorrectly. It was $1 per hide to SALT them. Huge difference. You can salt about 30-40 hides per hour.