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Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps.
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 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.
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Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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- Better and fewer working hours.
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I think that's at least partly because people don't understand money. We could give every American household a million bucks right now and I can guarantee you it would not solve their problems. In fact, it would almost certainly make them worse.
UBI is not theoretical. It's been tested numerous times, and the chalkboard arguments like this have been disproven. Look it up!
a million would eliminate my need to worry about next month's rent and let me sit down and properly create stuff without worry for a few years (more like a decade, but I'd want plenty of buffer room). Sure, it's easy to waste a milion and it won't fix all my demons. But it'd take most of my stressors away instantly.
The problem is if you get a million bucks, and everybody else gets a million bucks, demand for goods and services would skyrocket, taking prices with it. Essentially everything would get more expensive. Your rent would go up. A lot. Now, if only you got a million bucks, then, yeah, everything you said would apply, but while that would fix your problems, everyone else would be left in the lurch.
this post is talking about "your" problems. Not society's problems. Societal fixes need to be more subtle than "give everyone a million dollars". But giving one person 10k dollars can be life changing money.
We separate the two fields for a reason.
You mean like when everyone got their stimulus checks during covid and a lot of people used it to pay down debt and bills?
The inflation rate in the US has been above the Fed's 2% target every year since 2022. That's by no means a result of the stimulus checks, but it is a result of relatively cheap money and growing incomes without a sufficient corresponding increase in the supply of goods and services.
where have you been the last 3 years? It's because assets have been outpacing inflation to the point where it's destablizing society. the American GDP is being carried by AI speculation. Not productivity: hype.
Meanwhile, compensation has only been outpacing inflation if you're an executive.
Median household income has increased about 18% since 2021. Source.
Don't know why you're talking about income when I'm talking about assets.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/09/acs-rent-burden.html
any gains in household income was completely cancelled out by the fact that everything got more expensive, and more people were impacted by layoffs. Homelessness also increased, and those without a home (or who move into their parents' home) do not count for household income
I'm not saying those caused inflation. The original idea was that just giving people money would make them worse off. So I pointed out a real world example where people were just given money and a lot of people used it responsibly. Yes some people bought meme stocks but that wasn't the norm.
What if instead you gave them Universal Basic Services? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_services
Bringing the costs of necessary goods and services down would help people significantly. But the opposite would happen if everybody had more money. And that's what I'm saying: more money isn't the answer, lower prices are the answer. Just giving people more money to try and keep up with ever increasing prices is a never-ending cycle that doesn't result in anyone actually being better off.
We're not talking about printing money and giving it away. We're talking about taxing and spending. This doesn't cause inflation as resources are redirected from the pet projects of the wealthy to the needs of ordinary people.
I already know how inflation works thanks ๐