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Social Security can be saved. Scrap the cap!
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 15 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.
- 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.
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Enough to lower the social security age from 67 years to 6-7 weeks gestational age. Remove the cap, include cap gains, and UBI becomes a thing.
Well, no.
The thing is, if everyone's retired and nobody's working, there's no productivity, meaning there's either no money, or money is meaningless
It could certainly be reduced by a pretty good number of years though. Enough that you start your retirement when your body and your mind is still "all there", you get to enjoy it.
Millions of people work for free every day, we call them volunteers. Many of our institutions including hospitals, parks, schools, sports leagues, museums, food banks, community theaters and zoos depend on volunteer staffing to run their programs.
When I hear someone say no one will work if they aren't paid, I hear projection.
OK but a decent minority of people would complain, no?.. "If someone had to spend over a decade of their life in college and grad school to be a doctor or something, and Joe just started driving a forklift out of high school, should they both be working for free?"
As in volunteer work is typically general labor, while many things require very deep, specialized knowledge obtained thru years of schooling. Doctors, engineers, economists, etc. Im sure some people would still pursue those things out of sheer love. But I imagine for some people the potential of earning more is that extra motivation that pushes them down that path.
Where do you get the idea that nobody is working with UBI?
UBI isn't supposed to be your entire, or even your primary source of income. The most basic concept of UBI is supposed to be enough for a roof over your head, rice and beans in your belly, and that's about it. It's supposed to cover the absolute essentials, not your entire lifestyle. It is supposed to remove the desperation of subsistence.
When a man is drowning, he'll do anything to survive. When his lungs start filling with water, he'll drown his wife and kids just for one more breath of air. When a worker is desperate, they will take any work on any exploitative terms that are offered, just to put a meal in their belly. That desperation drags down wages and conditions for everyone. The fundamental purpose of UBI is to ensure that even the most desperate among us aren't forced into exploitation, and in doing so, drag everyone down with them.
There is no shortage of labor. We have a massive excess of labor. We have so much labor available that even though everybody currently needs to work, wages are so low that nobody has any money to spend on anything but essentials. The economy is stagnating because everybody is working, but nobody is buying anything.
UBI is a long-term solution to this untenable situation.