1046
It's rigged
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
founded 3 years ago
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Social Security is supposed to be like a forced retirement account - what you pay in is what you get out of it later. It was essentially an emergency measure put into place when a lot of Americans were struggling. Since it doesn't make sense to have a payout above a certain amount, as it would be above the average cost of living, there's a cap of how much is collected per person per year.
Probably made sense at the time with reasonable minimum wage and super progressive income tax
But that's never been the way it works. Your payment finances the government budget, one of whose functions is to pay out social security money to current retirees. If you set up the income tax in such a regressive way, there will not be enough money to pay social security, which is of course what Republicans want so that they can have another excuse to cut the program entirely.
Ostensibly you would only draw from SS what you've paid into it; of course, that's only how it's supposed to work, and not how it actually works. In reality, current SS payments go to pay benefits for current retirees, making it more of a Ponzi scheme that will leave today's workers hung out to dry with nothing to show for all the money they've poured into it when it gets inevitably murdered.
But you still can only draw payments if you've been paying into it for at least ten years, which essentially makes it like giving the government a decade-long zero-interest loan.