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To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

nytimes.com

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Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#531

Post by dionidium »

ScottBurson wrote: post #524

I think one of the most important issues raised by this article is toward the end: > Ms. Ramos, the Apple janitor, lives down the road in San Jose. She pays $2,300 monthly for a two-bedroom apartment where she and her four children live. Before overtime and taxes, her $16.60 an hour works out to $34,520 a year. Her rent alone is $27,600 a year, leaving less than $600 a month once the rent is paid. $2300 a month for a…

They should move. There are janitorial jobs all over the country, most of them in areas where you could rent a nice two-bedroom for 1/3 that cost. There is just absolutely no reason to stay in the SFBA with prospects like that. I wish more people realized this. They'd be much happier somewhere else.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#532

Post by solomatov »

oarla wrote: post #495
wavefunction wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not the core job, it's the fact that there's zero growth or mobility even possible that is the issue. Not everyone is a 'striver.' Some folks just want to pay their bills and enjoy what time they can with their family and friends.

As a society, if we figure out an economic system which doesn't lead to inflation, then all would benefit by not having to grow their net worth, and in turn, have a job that doesn't have any growth prospects.

How are growth prospect and inflation related? You can keep your net worth by investing into assets which have growth above the inflation level which isn't that hard.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#533

Post by mnglkhn2 »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #389
mnglkhn2 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the assumption that the State is the best ward for your money. Do you fully trust the State to be willing and able to stamp out inequality?

Why must we 'fully' trust the state? We just have to trust it more than the markets.

We first need to know that the current taxes are fully spent on the right things and that the "pork" spending is not actually larger than the amount needed to satisfy the needs expressed by the current movement.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#534

Post by lovich »

sp527 wrote: post #510
esarbe wrote: post #321

What strikes me the most when looking at many of the comments here is the blatant disregard for human suffering that extreme inequality and the resulting poverty cause. The current economical status quo is accepted as a given and all the harm it causes is dismissed with the shrug of a shoulder. "It can't be helped, the poor sods should have made better life choices to avoid ending up as janitor" is the attitude by wh…

There's a fascinating argument in 'The Lessons of History' that suggests we simply haven't accepted, as a species, that inequality is an inherent characteristic. We are quite purposely endowed with varying capabilities. One of the essential patterns of history is the vacillation between freedom and equality as societal ideals. A freer society is a more unequal society, and vice versa. It's a fairly paradoxical and nu…

Might as well give up trying to earthquake proof buildings as well because earthquakes are just an inherent fact of life.

That's doing some reductio ad absurdum on your argument but you are saying we should just give up trying to fight something that bad and give some minor help when possible, correct? We can try to do better

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#535

Post by kevinchen »

dionidium wrote: post #531
ScottBurson wrote: post #524

I think one of the most important issues raised by this article is toward the end: > Ms. Ramos, the Apple janitor, lives down the road in San Jose. She pays $2,300 monthly for a two-bedroom apartment where she and her four children live. Before overtime and taxes, her $16.60 an hour works out to $34,520 a year. Her rent alone is $27,600 a year, leaving less than $600 a month once the rent is paid. $2300 a month for a…

They should move . There are janitorial jobs all over the country, most of them in areas where you could rent a nice two-bedroom for 1/3 that cost. There is just absolutely no reason to stay in the SFBA with prospects like that. I wish more people realized this. They'd be much happier somewhere else.

There are many reasons why someone can't simply move. Maybe they're caring for parents who live in the area. Perhaps they want their kids to attend well-funded Bay Area schools, so the kids can have a shot at earning more money. It could be they can't save up enough money to make the jump.

The list could go on and on... my point is, moving is hard, especially so for those with little disposable income.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#536

Post by mikeash »

jaggederest wrote: post #342
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as we accept the need for people to be janitors, we must accept that becoming a janitor is not a "mistake", it's a useful thing that we all want to see happen for some people. We can't on the one hand say, that we need people to do this job and on the other hand say, "tough luck" to those that do it.

Doing janitorial work is not a mistake, but being a janitor for 40 years certainly is. It's not the core job, it's the fact that there's zero growth or mobility even possible that is the issue.

So, let's make growth and mobility possible for janitors. The whole point of the article is that it used to be, so we should be able to do it again.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#537

Post by sp527 »

lovich wrote: post #534
sp527 wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fascinating argument in 'The Lessons of History' that suggests we simply haven't accepted, as a species, that inequality is an inherent characteristic. We are quite purposely endowed with varying capabilities. One of the essential patterns of history is the vacillation between freedom and equality as societal ideals. A freer society is a more unequal society, and vice versa. It's a fairly paradoxical and nu…

Might as well give up trying to earthquake proof buildings as well because earthquakes are just an inherent fact of life. That's doing some reductio ad absurdum on your argument but you are saying we should just give up trying to fight something that bad and give some minor help when possible, correct? We can try to do better

I'm not saying we shouldn't try. Each individual person willing to help should do so.

I'm saying more broadly that we're all probably at the mercy of an inescapable cycle that may not end until humanity is willing to cooperate perfectly at the global/species level of abstraction.

'The Lessons of History' also comments that competition is also inherent to our biological nature. There's a passage about how we usually only cooperate in order to compete at plural granularities (e.g. families, corporations, nations, religions). This has obvious implications for the tradeoff between freedom and equality.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#538

Post by mikeash »

sp527 wrote: post #510
esarbe wrote: post #321

What strikes me the most when looking at many of the comments here is the blatant disregard for human suffering that extreme inequality and the resulting poverty cause. The current economical status quo is accepted as a given and all the harm it causes is dismissed with the shrug of a shoulder. "It can't be helped, the poor sods should have made better life choices to avoid ending up as janitor" is the attitude by wh…

There's a fascinating argument in 'The Lessons of History' that suggests we simply haven't accepted, as a species, that inequality is an inherent characteristic. We are quite purposely endowed with varying capabilities. One of the essential patterns of history is the vacillation between freedom and equality as societal ideals. A freer society is a more unequal society, and vice versa. It's a fairly paradoxical and nu…

I'm sure that inequality is inescapable, but it's pretty obvious just by looking at a few decades of history that current levels of equality are absolutely not a given.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#539

Post by chewz »

posguy wrote: post #441
trapperkeeper74 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robots aren't capable of doing everything people can do yet, but as they become more capable, what and how are displaced unskilled workers supposed to do if they can't get any job at all? Starve to death under a bridge? Not everyone can handle social or intellectual labor. I think this is why UBI is essential: prevent riots and meet people's basic needs so they're not pennyless and sleeping rough.

UBI is a bad attempt to patch a broken capitalist system that has no regard for the humans within it. It may delay riots, but people's basic needs still won't be met.

Rome has kept entire population on Universal Basic Income for hundreds of years. Some of best an most peaceful years in the history of Europe.

Wars of I BC century and Roman laws that put people into slavery for debts had brought hundreds of thousands of slaves into economy bringing cost of labour close to zero. Conquest of Egypt and North Africa flooded markets with cheap grain.

That market disruption made artisan shops and small farms unable to sustain/compete on the market with larger enterprises based on slave labour.

Majority of citizens of lower class had been then entitled to free food and free entertainment (bread and circus). It was necessary for keeping their votes and for keeping appearances of the republic. (Even what we call Roman Empire were still nominally a Republic with Senate and elections held for various offices every year at Fields of Mars).

I recommend everyone reading Rubicon by Tom Holland. https://www.amazon.com/Rubicon-Tom-Holland/dp/1400078970

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#540

Post by mikeash »

sokoloff wrote: post #468
barrkel wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If poverty is a relative measure - and as a child who grew up poor, I can assure you that the lived perception of poverty is relative, not absolute - then large inequality implies substantial poverty, for usual income distributions. This is relating to your parenthetical, not your quibble with causation, of course. But inequality of income is different to inequality of wealth, and there can be a causal link there.

I think we experience it as a relative measure, because for most of us, it generally is. However, take Monaco. There appears to be significant wealth and income disparity among residents of Monaco and yet nothing that we would reasonably identify as poverty.

Monaco is such a tiny country that I imagine its residents' perception of poverty is relative to a big chunk of France.
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