06/27/2025
Today i read this comment he could not have said it better
And i quote
This whole post is a trainwreck.
There are 2 HUGE things to consider here. Both of which sucks for everyone involved.
First is a compound problem, and I'm only scratching the surface here.
If we go back just 6 years to BC times (Before COVID) in 2019, to afford the same life today that someone had in 2019, they need to have increased their income by 40%.
Four Zero.
Forty. Percent.
That means for someone making $20/ hr in 2019, they need to make $28/hr just to have the same things.
Further, for your average laborer, who has a significant other/ spouse and a child or 2 will need an income of about 60k or $30/hr, or 80k ($40/hr) if you include child care. Just to include a basic cost of living. Less than that, and they're relying on government assistance to live.
One of the biggest issues with this topic is that a lot of industries are used to paying the people on the bottom of the ladder so little that they actually HAVE to rely on government assistance to hold up the rest of their life.
Now of course everyone is responsible for themselves, and I'm not saying we should hand everything to everyone, but trying to make decisions as a business owner without taking all of this into consideration would be silly.
The second is that the business can only justify paying so much for certain tasks. If you've built your business around paying someone $15 when they should be $25, then your prices and the rest of your structure probably reflect that. So even if you wanted to double pay for laborers, it would take an overhaul of your entire business to afford it.
A HUGE part of this issue is that a lot of business owners simply do not realize how much the bottom tier cost of living has increased, and because of this, they don't realize how much more people genuinely need to be paid now. So there are businesses everywhere who are having trouble keeping people, they're getting low quality work, everyone is complaining about entitlement, etc. Ironically, the very people who accidentally drive their employees to government assistance, are the ones who complain about those programs the most; when in reality, their labor costs are subsidized by it.
The problem lies on both sides of the fence.
The people on the bottom need to learn how to better take care of themselves. They need to learn better skills and pursue higher pay. They need to manage money better. They need accountability. I grew up poor, I know very well the mistakes they make that keep them poor.
The people on the top need to take better care of their people. They need to run a tighter ship, they need to put people before profits. They need to manage their business better.
Unfortunately the punchline means that until there is some way for bottom tier cost of living to be reduced, human beings can't afford to do bottom tier work for much longer, without prices raising so much that other humans can't afford to purchase the product or service.
If you're not in front of the problem, you're behind it, and it will continue to drag you along as it is now. Nothing will get better if you keep doing the same thing you've been doing while complaining about the workforce and how things used to be.
