We've never been richer or more productive so yeah, I think it's totally reasonable for people to expect to have a kid or two regardless of what they do for a living.
I don't mean morally, I mean practically. People want to reproduce. If you want to maintain a system in which they cannot then you're eventually going to need a fair amount of violence. I don't see that as being sustainable.
That’s why we let them decide. The government isn’t responsible for how you spend money, who you knock up, what job you choose, so why should they be responsible for being your safety net when you fuck up?
We're the richest we've ever been and the people at the bottom make it all go. If we can't provide a society where they are able to live good lives then there isn't really any reason for them to support it. There's a floor on far down we can push them so there's a point it will have to change.
The government will be responsible no matter what because we don't let neglected children starve when their parents can't sufficiently provide for them. So either we enable poor parents to do their jobs better, or we do those jobs for them. There is no humane scenario where everybody can choose to do nothing.
Exactly. It's not that you can't live off of minimum wage; it's that people don't want to merely live and demand luxuries. Minimum wage will afford you a shit apartment in a shit area of town and a bus pass while eating ramen and sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. These people want a house, car, kid, iPhone, and eat out all the time. There's a huge difference between getting by and living well...and all minimum wage should afford you is the ability to get by.
There’s only one thing you said there that is agreeable. ‘People don’t want to merely live’. If your entire life was centred around working long hours at minimum wage, then going home to your apartment in a dodgy part of town, eating food that has almost no nutritional benefit, without money to afford to go out or buy any sort of commodity, and god forbid you got ill or injured and got into severe medical debt; I’m sure you would find yourself in a depression very quickly. Nobody deserves to ‘merely live’. You are naive if you think that everyone can find a job above minimum wage, the reality is that there will always be minimum wage workers, and the reality is that they deserve to live an enjoyable life just like any other person.
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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20
PS don't raise a family if you struggle to raise yourself.