The world’s 500 richest people added a record $2.2 trillion to their collective fortunes in 2025. That’s according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which found just eight billionaires accounted for about a quarter of those gains. Meanwhile, millions of U.S. residents have been hit by soaring health insurance premiums, after Republican lawmakers thwarted Democrats’ efforts to extend Affordable Care Act tax subsidies, which expired on December 31. The Urban Institute and Commonwealth Fund forecast the higher premiums will force some 4.8 million people to drop coverage this year; this, as Reuters reports at least 350 branded medications will likely see price increases this year, including vaccines against COVID, RSV and shingles, and a blockbuster cancer treatment. On Thursday, minimum wage increases took effect across 19 states, averaging 67 cents an hour. But the federal minimum wage remained unchanged with the start of the new year, as it has for the past 16 years. In response, Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders wrote, “A $7.25 federal minimum wage is a national disgrace. No one who works full time should live in poverty. We must keep fighting to guarantee all workers a living wage — not starvation wages.”
  • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
    5·
    6 days ago

    No one who works full time should live in poverty. We must keep fighting to guarantee all workers a living wage — not starvation wages.”

    It’s the government’s job to provide the difference between fair market wage and “living wage”, if its aim is to guarantee that. The fact is, there is a LOT of work out there that creates less value than “a living wage”, and forcing employers to pay a “living wage” for those jobs is a very effective way to torpedo the vast majority of small business.

    • winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      51·
      6 days ago

      The janitor isn’t bringing in sales but he is still a vital piece of the puzzle. He should be punished because he isn’t bringing enough value to the table? Or maybe the business should expense properly and the wages should be a little more evenly divided between him and others. Because if he doesn’t take the trash out, it piles up, then you get ants, and nobody wants ants. If the business can’t run without government subsidies then its not a functioning business, its a charity case. Or if its a necessary thing, like the post office, that is a service and shouldn’t be run for profit anyway.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
        12·
        5 days ago

        He should be punished because he isn’t bringing enough value to the table?

        No, but neither should his boss (in the form of the forced charity that is paying someone more for their work than their work is worth). Hence my position that:

        It’s the government’s job to provide the difference between fair market wage and “living wage”, if its aim is to guarantee that.

        Or maybe the business should expense properly and the wages should be a little more evenly divided between him and others.

        So the others who would otherwise be getting paid properly, according to their labor’s value, have to now get paid less, to subsidize those whose labor isn’t as valuable? That’s not fair to them.

        It’s not the boss’s, or the coworkers’, responsibility to ‘pick up the slack’ for work that’s paid fairly according to the value it generates, while also being less than a “living wage”. Neither are to blame for a particular job generating less value than the worker needs to have a “living wage”, so neither should be held responsible, either. Again, it’s the government’s job to fulfill that promise, if it makes it.

        If the business can’t run without government subsidies then its not a functioning business, its a charity case.

        If you force the business to pay more in wages than the labor is worth, it’s still a charity case, you’re just arbitrarily forcing the citizens who own the business to be the source of the charity.

        It’s passing the buck to other citizens, which primarily harms and has a chilling effect on entrepreneurship/small businesses (big megacorps can just ‘eat’ the additional cost without a problem), which in turns reduces competition and overall reduces the bargaining power of the workforce, as they compete for fewer jobs.

        Market forces will naturally arrive at a price for job X, and shift as the state of the market shifts. I believe it is absolutely the government’s responsibility to both regulate the market so that said price isn’t manipulated (preventing monopolies, etc.), and to ‘pick up the slack’ when it wants everyone in the workforce to be earning at least $X, whenever the market price of their work falls below $X.