Everyone should have a living wage, and we really need Universal Basic Income!
- One basic job of a nation is to make sure everyone has housing, food, healthcare, education, and other opportunities.
- Requiring that workers are paid a living wage is one way to accomplish this job.
- Another way is Universal Basic Income.
Living Wage Background and Proposal
We can do it, technically. The United States, the wealthiest nation on Earth, has a minimum wage of only $7.25, while in California the minimum wage is now $15 for employers with more than 25 employees, and $14 when there are fewer. However, in California a living wage for one adult is more than $20.
A Universal Basic Income would make a huge difference in the quality of our lives. Imagine a system in which young people at the age of 22, if they’re lucky enough to get a college education, start out their lives in debt for tens of thousands of dollars. That’s not hard to imagine — it’s what we already have.
Imagine a different system in which people young and old could live satisfying lives with basic needs covered while giving the gifts they were born to give, such as (ABC order!) art, care-giving of people, care-giving of the planet, cooking, dance, music, teaching, and writing. To help imagine that, there’s a book worth reading by Rutger Bregman, a young Dutch historian, who wrote his book Utopia for Realists to focus on Universal Basic Income, open borders, and a 15-hour workweek. He presents unexpected examples from around the world including the US.
The problem is “political will” which increasingly translates into, “Do the billionaires want it?” The billionaires have amassed more money than they need for jets, yachts, islands, and parties, and so they buy power, particularly in the form of media outlets and politicians. Then somehow a Universal Basic Income just doesn’t seem politically feasible.
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Let’s compare $15 to the hourly wage a billionaire would have made if they earned their money working at a wage job. Here’s a question, “Is anyone worth $10,000 every hour, 40 hours a week, for 50 years from age 20 to age 70?” I don’t think so, and yet that’s the hourly wage it would take to build up to a billion dollars. Of course, they would have to tighten their belts and live on only $800,000 a year. It’s inconceivable, really, how much money that is in so few hands. $10,000 an hour?
If this country can set up a system of rewards and taxes that creates billionaires who then exert their “political will” over our lives, we can certainly propose and establish a living wage and even a Universal Basic Income.