The idea that "anyone who works 40 hours a week should not live in poverty" is NOT a radical idea

 I don't know who needs to hear this (looking at you, right wingers), but the idea that "anyone who works 40 hours a week should not live in poverty" is not a radical idea. It's really the bare freaking minimum of the existing social contract. The idea being that you work and give your time for the allotted amount of time, and you should be able to live a dignified life. But for some reason, a lot of people on the right seem to think this is crazy. I was asked tonight "so should you be able to feed a family on a job that is meant for teenagers?" YES. First of all, the idea that some jobs are "low skilled" and "meant for teenagers" is a right wing capitalist myth to justify paying poverty wages to some people. The idea being that not only should you have to work 40 hours a week, but "low skill" jobs should pay less than you need to survive. It's ridiculous.

I might crap on the "dignity of work" people sometimes due to their fetishization of labor itself, but at least at their core they have the idea that if a job exists and is needed by society, the work has dignity and should carry a dignified wage. As I like to say, going back to my human centered capitalist perspective, does this economy work for us, or should we work for the economy? If we work for the economy with no guarantee of a livable standard, then we are basically slaves, and we have no reason to support or care about the economy either way. The right wants slaves. They want cheap labor that can't afford to live comfortably. And given the other coercive aspects of the economy they really are using coercion to keep people in line. The threat of even worse poverty if they say no, the overflooded labor market during normal economic times. Really, these guys' idea for how the economy must run sucks.

And then I hear, "but but, what about the small businesses, they can't afford to pay such a wage". DID I FREAKING STUTTER?! They shouldn't exist. Period. If you can't pay that living wage, in this job obsessed society of ours, then you don't deserve to stay in business. 

 Then you might say, "well if business creation is reduced due to high minimum wages, then that means there are less jobs to go around. " At this point, I can concede at least on paper, but not really. First of all, the fed is the fulcrum that ultimately determines how many jobs exist via setting the interest rates and monetary policy. It literally gives low to no interest loans to open businesses during bad times, while jacking up that rate in good times. Sometimes it will just pump money into the economy directly via quantitative easing, which it used liberally during the great recession years. Second of all, there will never be enough jobs for everyone outside of rare situations like now where turning the economy off and on again cause the variables that determine what the economy is to be out of whack. Our economy is designed to support a 4-8% unemployment rate, with the economy basically being rigged in favor of employers to keep the currency stable in the first place. And third of all, there's little actual evidence that the minimum wage destroys as many jobs as people claim it does. If people can't pay for workers those costs are passed along to consumers in the form of inflation. So this whole debate between the left and the right over the minimum wage is just misguided. There's no real debate between not having enough jobs and a living wage and having enough jobs and too low of a wage. The debate is that the economy will ultimately be geared toward maximizing employment while keeping the currency stable. And often times because we are so inflation conscious we often err on the side of being repressive toward workers. We could have a much higher minimum wage and still not be too inflationary. How high? Well, I looked at that previously, but I estimated somewhere around $15-18 an hour, or more than double than what the minimum wage is now. 

Also, ideologically, the idea that a minimum wage is a living wage is NOT that radical. It literally stems from social liberalism, which influenced a lot of my ideas back when I converted to atheism and liberalism, and served as the basis of my political ideology, eventually expanding into social libertarianism. This is the ideology of FDR. The guy who literally said that a business that can't pay workers a living wage doesnt deserve to exist. He didn't talk about "jobs for teenagers" or "what about small businesses", he said, no they don't deserve to exist, PERIOD. END OF STORY. And I know Americans like to see FDR as extreme as he was the most left wing American president to ever exist, but this actually is fairly mild. This is still capitalism, and a fairly bog standard form of capitalism that dominates much of the liberal left. And even my social libertarianism is still capitalism, although it has gone beyond that. 

Here's my REAL opinion. "no one who is an American citizen or legal resident should be in poverty." You shouldn't even need to work 40 hours. The 40 hour thing is based in liberal and social democratic reciprocity. The idea that you work, and society takes care of you. It's literally the bare freaking minimum for a social contract to be just. Even then, given my distaste for the idea of work in the first place, the failure of our ability to provide living wage jobs to all Americans, and the fact that work exists for things to be done, not to employ people, I myself ain't so hot on tying living to work. My idea is radical, but it also compromises with the right. Okay right wingers, you win. We don't need jobs to pay a living wage if we don't want. BUT, the government should step in and provide a living wage instead. This is a compromise in the sense that in some ways this is a MORE extreme progressive position in my mind. I'm literally removing the requirement to work in order to be treated as a full citizen of society, recognizing that work and the private sector can never TRULY take care of our needs. But in a way it is a concession to the right and that private sector that okay, maybe we can bend to your way a little but, but at the cost of freeing all the wage slaves from being wage slaves. Now you have to actually compete for labor and provide people a job that they want to do. Which might drive wages and other working conditions up. I'm technically giving the right more "economic freedom" here in how they conduct their affairs, but I'm making it a true free market, one where the other side actually has the right to refuse requests. Which makes the right salty. For as much as they love talking about economic freedom, they really don't like it when the shoe is on the other foot. And it will go back to the same thing. WHAA NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANY MORE. Well, let me ask you, why are businesses entitled to another's labor? That's the thing. They want a working class that's powerless and unable to resist their demands, then hide behind the call of economic freedom, but that economic freedom is really only freedom for the businesses. It's BASICALLY SLAVERY for the workers. These guys want slaves. Capitalism without a UBI is slavery with extra steps. And a minimum wage is just a requirement to pay those slaves properly. Again, it really is the bare minimum.

Now, to be fair, to avoid insane inflationary pressure, the market would need to adjust to a post UBI reality. If there is some work refusal, I dont anticipate a ton, but a little bit, well, that might mean the fed might need to raise interest rates to bring jobs down to increase price stability. And perhaps in the long term this would still lead to an economy that favors businesses, as we will go back to having an economy where whatever the willing working population is, the number of jobs will be fixed to allow for a 4-8% unemployment rate. Okay. Fair. But you know what? A UBI will provide a decent living standard for most families. Let me just give you an idea of how my proposed UBI from March of this year fares in terms of an hourly wage. I support a $14,400 UBI for adults, and a $5,100 UBI for children. If I were to recalculate this, I'd make it a bit higher, maybe $15,000 to account for inflation this year. With $5,400 for children. Let's go with the former, more conservative figure. 

1 adult = $14,400 = $6.92/hour

1 adult/1 kid = $19,500 =  $9.38/hour

1 adult/2 kids = $24,600 = $11.83/hour

1 adult/3 kids = $29,700 = $14.27/hour

2 adults = $28,800 = $13.84/hour

2 adults/1 kid = $33,900 = $16.30/hour

2 adults/2 kids = $39,000 = $18.75/hour

2 adults/3 kids = $44,100 = $21.20/hour

3 adults = $43,200 = $20.77/hour

3 adults/1 kid = $48,200 = $23.17/hour

3 adults/2 kids = $53,300 = $25.63/hour

3 adults/3 kids = $58,400 = $28.07/hour

We can clearly see given UBI is given to people on an individual basis, that it scales with household size. Even a single individual would get a UBI of just short of $7 an hour. Keep in mind, the current minimum wage is $7.25, a truly pathetic amount. Still, let's think in terms of households. Your typical household in the US has around 3 people give or take. Say, given a quarter of the population are children, the most common household composition these days is two adults and 1 child. Well, they would get the equivalent of $16.30 an hour in UBI. That's definitely "living wage" territory. It's not a great wage to live on, but it's certainly doable if you scrimped and saved. Still, the standard narrative I think was that a minimum wage should feed a family of four. Well, considering my UBI plan, I would give the equivalent to $18.75 an hour. Even if we went with a single mom and three kids, we're still talking $14.27 an hour.

The purpose of me showing you this is twofold. First of all, I want to show that if UBI were in place as I imagine it, every family would effectively get a "living wage". It might be a bit rough to live on your own or as a single mom, but if you cohabitate with another adult you should be fine. And given we'd be replacing the horrible welfare system and all of its disincentives people would be free to do so. And given that, the economic coercion to participate in the market place would be lessened. People would be free to participate for further income if they wish, but they would likely resist and refuse bad offers, forcing employers to offer decent wages. Even if the labor market remained statistically in favor of employers, the fact that people could refuse bad offers would cause a form of self regulation to exist because workers wouldn't be powerless any more and they could choose to refuse if they wanted. The consequences of doing so would not be that dire. 

The second reason I wanted to do this exercise was to show, going back to a jobist economy, how pathetic the current minimum wage is. My UBI is generally not far above the poverty line. I think it was what, 105% of it? And given we've had 9% inflation in the past year, eh...it might very well be at or below it right now. So this is what the poverty line looks like. The minimum wage is barely enough for a single individual to support themselves in theory, and honestly, given people really can only live well if they live with others, yeah, it's pathetic. But that's what the current minimum wage is. And yes yes, I know a lot of jobs are never at the minimum wage, but what's common? $8, $9, $10 an hour? Still low for a family. Even $12 is still on the low side and I see that often in the job market, at least on paper. Honestly, in terms of supporting the average family, $12-16 sounds like a nice bare minimum for 3 people. And if we're talking 4 people, $14-19 is closer to what it should be. Which is...about what my recommended maximum was in my minimum wage article. I said $15 now, and $18 5 years from now accounting for inflation. After all, any minimum wage plan passed now likely wouldn't reach that wage until 2028 or so. Which means that we should overshoot closer to $18 an hour.I won't say we should do $20, 25, or even $30 as some crazy people say. I think you can probably live reasonably well on $30k, although it's kind of tight these days. But I think that's a dignified minimum for any member of society. 

If we go the jobist route, that should be the minimum wage. $15-18. If we go the UBI route, well, we can negotiate having a lower minimum wage or a minimum wage at all given how much less central work will be to our lives, but I would still likely retain some labor laws and possibly even wage mandates. It's possible a UBI would make us like Scandinavia, where no minimum wage is on the books but high worker bargaining power via unions ensures reasonably high wages. I could see the right to say no doing that, even if the labor market remains technically stacked in favor of the employer. If not, well, I wouldn't be opposed to having say, a lower minimum wage, around say, $10 an hour. Or just keep it at $7.25. This is why I didn't make a huge deal over Yang not raising the minimum wage. If you have a UBI, work becomes slightly less central to our lives, and we can argue about having a lower minimum wage or none at all. I don't know where I'd fall in that debate, but it would really depend what the post UBI economy would look like.

Going back to the main thesis of this article, I think we can really conclude a few things here. First of all, the idea that workers be paid enough to live on is not a radical idea. It basically amounts to "pay your wage slaves the proper amount to live on." It's literally the bare minimum of a fair and just society, and only for one that allows coerced labor, which is sadly, all of them. Second, the current minimum wage is TERRIBLE, barely enough to sustain an individual, and certainly not a family. A proper living wage for a jobist society IS closer to $15 an hour, if not MORE. I would say $14 to be conservative, with $18-19 if we want to be pushing the envelope. Third of all, if we wanna talk about a radical position, what about giving people a UBI of roughly that living wage level without having to work for it? That's actually my LITERAL POSITION on this. NO ONE should be forced to work and participate in society. The cult of jobs has failed, and keeps us unnecessarily on a treadmill of needing to struggle just to survive, often failing wide swaths of the population in the process. And fourth, if we wanna talk about economic freedom and not having a minimum wage, we can have this discussion AFTER a UBI at a proper "living wage" level has been established. Then you can compete in the market for labor among free laborers who aren't being coerced to participate. But oh wait, business won't want that, they feel entitled to cheap labor that can't say no. It's sickening. If we are going to truly have a human centered capitalist economy, we really need to think about making a system that serves people first. And that means, making a society that works for people, and doesn't make people slaves to the economy. Our current society is cruel and unjust. We expect people to work for a living and then gaslight them into thinking poverty wages are okay. They're not. Again, the BARE MINIMUM is keeping up your end of the social contract. A fair day's work...for a fair wage. And honestly, I think we should shift toward having a society where that minimum living wage goes to everyone regardless of work or not in the form of a UBI. That way, you get your economic freedom, and we have a system where humans are taken care of and free to choose whether to participate or not for additional income. And if you can't pay for labor, well, unless the macro effects of this are so bad it sends the economy into a death spiral, I'm perfectly fine with some businesses going under if their models are unsustainable. 

Really, I'm sick of this crap where we have to coddle businesses but then workers are told to toughen up and deal with garbage or something. Bare minimum = minimum wage as a living wage of $14-18 an hour. Radical position, give people that for free and then you can have your "free market" if you want it.