I hope everyone reading this realizes that a good percentage (50%?) of US households have very meager incomes in low paying jobs or have no jobs at all. It is a 3 tier system here -- There are the rich --- people who have decent jobs --- everyone else. It's amazing that people can't figure out that someone with a high school certificate, limited job skills/options and a below average I.Q., who came from a similar family situation is poor.
That is the way our system works. Perhaps if we wanted to adopt a more European approach it would be different, but it appears we are o.k. with the way we distribute wealth in this country.
After all, why would you want to pay someone who wipes butts at the nursing home more than $8 an hour without benefits? That just wouldn't make sense.
I would be very happy paying that person a crap (pun intended) load more if that person where taking care of my parents. I want to incentivize that person to care.
Of course, I would also pay social workers a lot more since they are dealing with real problems and real dangers.
The problem is, they aren't what most people see as adding real value because there is no economic return.
So I wonder if we went to a $15 minimum wage if things would change?
I support a higher minimum wage, but I don't think that would help things at all in this respect. Think of it this way: these people don't all make the same wage now, but somehow necessary expenses have ballooned to fully equal (or exceed) their incomes. Without financial education, I would bet the same would be true at higher income levels, given enough time for hedonic adaption to kick in.
It's hard to say. There is research showing that when you are poor and always stressed about money, you make worse decisions in general. The idea is that your brain is already so taxed by the money woes that you don't have the willpower and cognitive reserves to deal with additional decisions as well.
In another study, they did a randomized control trial to give low-income people Medicaid in Oregon. Those people who got Medicaid (a benefit worth a few thousand dollars) had dramatic improvements in mental health, personal sense of well being, and dramatic reductions in financial problems in general.
In other countries, where people have a minimum income provided to everyone by the government, along with free healthcare and college, people seem to do quite well, and people rarely take the income from the government.
