Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is at it again. She has unveiled her Social Justice Warrior (SJW) legislative package, six bills, in the hopes of ensuring "a path forward to economic freedom for everyone." One would require the Census Bureau to generate poverty guidelines in order to recognize poverty. (Frankly, I don't think we do that at all these days -- recognizing poverty. This isn't a horrible idea even if the implementation is doomed to fail.) She has a bill to cap rent increases nationwide to help with the housing crisis and a bill to provide federal benefits for people convicted of a criminal offense and a bill to guarantee access to federal benefits regardless of immigration status. Another would require the Department of Labor to create a "worker-friendly score" for federal contractors, and a resolution would require the Senate (When did the House of Representatives get to require something of the Senate?) to ratify the U.N. Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. (Does she know that the covenant includes the "right to work," which would directly contravene labor unions?) And, of course, the covenant includes, as a fundamental right, the requirement that employers pay a living wage, a term that screams for but has not yet found a viable definition.
Now, despite the beliefs of my detractors, I am not heartless. Nor am I greedy. But I am curious. I ask questions. I try to figure out what's being said. So I started to examine this concept of a "living wage" and "poverty." I want to know what's what in order to do the most good. It turns out I'm not the only one unclear on the concepts.
A living wage calculation for Arizona is suitably vague. A "living wage" for 1 adult alone would be $11.68/hr. That's not $15/hr. A poverty level wage would be half that -- $5.84/hr. Arizona's minimum wage is (currently) $10.50/hr. So it is above the poverty wage but not quite to the "living wage" level. And I'm confused. What is between "living wage" and "poverty"? Well, move along, because from here it gets worse. For 1 adult with 1 child the living wage would be $24.56/hr. For 2 adults (1 working) and 1 child it would be $23.09/hr. For 2 working adults and one child it would be $13.51/hr. So a family of three (2 adults with 1 child) with two adults working requires less than $15/hr while a that same family with only 1 working adult requires substantially more than $15/hr. So what "minimum wage for a living wage" do we shoot for? "Well, you can't require that there be two parents or that the two parents both work, so ..." Oh, okay, so in order to provide a living wage to that family of three, it will be necessary to make $23/hr the minimum wage in the state of Arizona ... for now. And I am lost.
I don't know what a "living wage" is. The default definition is "a wage high enough to maintain a normal standard of living." Surely you can see my immediate confusion. What is a "normal standard of living"? Normal to whom? Where? Because the "normal standard of living" in Beverly Hills is not the same as in, say, Bakersfield. Or Tucumcari, NM, or Arkansas. A "living wage" in San Francisco County, CA, is nearly double that of a living wage for the state of Arizona. What level of "living wage" do we need to demand of the nation? (Think "federal minimum wage".) The range of "living wage" is huge in this country alone and that's without even a clear definition of "living wage."
One website says that a living wage is the amount of money a full-time worker must have to "live above the federal poverty level." The federal government puts out poverty guidelines and thresholds. According to the government the national poverty threshold for a family of one (in 2018) is $12,490. For that family of three it would be $21,330. Above that you are not "in poverty" ... officially. According to the Center for Poverty Research at UC Davis, currently (2017 estimates) the poverty rate in America is 12.3%. Poverty for the U.S. Census Bureau is measured in terms of meeting basic needs. USLegal.com defines "basic needs" as those things necessary to sustain life including "adequate food, shelter, and clothing plus some household equipment and furniture." Because without furniture you cannot live. Okay, that was snarky, but you have to understand my confusion. One article I read said that there is a large group of Americans living in "deep poverty" (defined below 50% of the federal poverty threshold). But if the poverty threshold is the level "necessary to sustain life," how can there be people living below the level to sustain life? And who is telling us the truth? One article tells us that "As of 2012, poverty rates in America had reached the highest rate in half a century" while another holds (as does the U.S. Census Bureau) that poverty has declined over recent years.
"Dirty, rotten, white supremacist," I can already hear. "All you care about is your own money." (The correlation of "white" and "white supremacist" and "your own money" is very vague to me, but it's what I hear from folks.) The characterization, at least in my case, isn't accurate. It's not that I don't care about these people. It's that I do. It's not that I'm unwilling to help. It's that I am. I'm simply pointing out that we're quite vague on "poor" and "poverty," on "living wage" and its definition(s), and all of our thinking about this stuff. I want to help. I just need to know where and how. And the current information isn't clear enough to offer an opinion. When the homeless guy panhandling at the corner is making an effective income of better than $15/hr tax free and I'm being asked to vote for a "living wage" (that apparently well exceeds "poverty levels"), I'm unclear on how to vote. Largely because I still don't understand what is meant by "living wage" or "poverty" and because no one seems to be taking into account that a vote for a "living wage" minimum wage increase will absolutely increase the cost of living. That is, I don't know where to go to get some actual, coherent thought on the topic in order to do the most good. I am pretty sure it's not AOC.
6 comments:
See, there's your problem. You're thinking about the problem. No no no. You must feel the problem. How do poor people make you feel. You must empathise with them, not give actual thought to the situation. If you're not feeling it, you're not a good person.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like your issue isn't so much with the messengers as it is with the vague, undefined, and contradictory message. I'm with you in not wanting to see people suffer unnecessarily, but wanting a rational balanced approach to finding solutions. It almost seems as if the vagueness in intentional or something.
You're right, David. No one wants me to think about it. Just feel it. If I think about it, I'm a rich, white racist. (Yes, I've already been told that on this topic today.)
It is, Craig, the undefined and contradictory message. I want to give help where it is needed. If "a normal standard of living" is the problem being addressed with the term "poverty," then the help needs to be different than it would be if the problem is a lack of "those things necessary to sustain life." (I was fascinated that "furniture" was on the list. In the places I've visited, people had no actual furniture but seemed to be happy, content, and even alive. Go figure.)
I agree that furniture was on the list. It’s also interesting that global poverty is dropping and this is a conversation. “Poverty” in the US is an aspirational standard for the rest of the world. I’d be interested to see how many US poor have things like TV, smart phones, air conditioning, etc. I’m guessing the numbers are pretty high.
I've seen a couple of reports about what America's poor actually have. It's a bit surprising. Here's one. The problem with these things is they tend to end up obscuring the very real problem because so many are shouting, "I'm poor!" so that the actual poor get missed. And that is my point.
Oh, I completely agree. Back in my section 8 inspection days, I was surprised at how many people on the program had 50” or larger TVs. This is back when a large screen tv was several thousand dollars. I’m doing a transaction with some people who somehow quality for a zero down loan program, but are sitting on 50k in cash. There is definitely some obscuring going on.
Post a Comment