welfare vs wages

[Danzig]

except minimum wage used to mean people were earning enough to be above the poverty line. that's no longer true. why? that's why i wonder if, as the govt started showing a willingness to pick up slack, that helps explain why businesses aren't willing to pay as much...something explains why wages haven't kept pace with the economy. lower skilled, yes. in an industry many use. at the very least, these workers should be able to make a decnt living. they used to in those jobs, and the skill level is the same.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

except minimum wage used to mean people were earning enough to be above the poverty line. that's no longer true. why? that's why i wonder if, as the govt started showing a willingness to pick up slack, that helps explain why businesses aren't willing to pay as much...something explains why wages haven't kept pace with the economy. lower skilled, yes. in an industry many use. at the very least, these workers should be able to make a decnt living. they used to in those jobs, and the skill level is the same.

Because we've had 30+ years of economic policy that says that if the majority of productivity gains flow to the top 1 percent, that prosperity will trickle down to everyone else. Except it hasn't, and the lower and middle classes have ended up in debt in order to maintain the same standard of living they had before wages flatlined (because credit became easier to obtain during the same period. Coincidence?).

The government isn't picking up slack; aid to the poor started getting slashed in the 1980s (I just recorded a book that had a chapter discussing welfare programs and the War on Poverty and "reform" started much earlier than 1996).

As a kid, I remember the attitude about gov't jobs is that they didn't pay great, but at least you knew you'd have a comfortable (not wealthy, but comfortable) retirement. The problem is not that they have suddenly become lavish jobs; they're the same or less than what they were when I was growing up. The problem is that private sector jobs have become so poorly paid and with crappy benefits that government jobs now are better compensated. But that doesn't meant the gov't job has changed; it means the private one has become that bad.