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For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

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Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#251

Post by dv_dt »

rayiner wrote: post #205
luckydata wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you're told you're supposed to "make it" since birth, and you don't, you feel like a piece of shit. Marginalized communities have been told the other story, every little thing is a win. Difference in expectations is huge, and source of all sort of bad things (like racial resentment etc...). Solution: make this country slightly less "dog eat dog" and you'll solve a LOT of social issues almost overnight.

Is there evidence for this? An alternative explanation is that black and Hispanic people are more likely to be religious, and religious people have lower suicide rates in the United States. They are also more likely to have kids, which also is associated with lower suicide rates.

We are making comments underneath a article with research for this area ..

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#252

Post by JDiculous »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #2

I wonder what would happen to the suicide rate with medicare for all, and creating a max-wage that is (avg of contractors + employees * 150), or something similar, w/ additional 'bonus' multipliers for increasing # of U.S. hired. UBI would also probably help. As a freelancer I've had some really slim months and depression hits hard when money is tight. There's a very direct correlation between income security, insecu…

Don't forget student loans. Having six figures in student loans simply from getting a masters degree is enough to make one almost consider abandoning the U.S, especially when you consider that the older generation who caused this never experienced it themselves.

My most depressing times were when I was unemployed (not to be confused with "funemployed") and not making any money.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#253

Post by syockit »

lsiebert wrote: post #136
ComputerGuru wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it definitely does. I’m not talking about the old “everyone’s income will just go up” defense. There is a “time added” cost that is a part of the price of any good or service (which may comprise only a part of the value added measure). Imagine a product that is created from raw materials so abundant as to be in and of themselves worthless. Its cost is purely the cost of the time (and effort, which is actually con…

I think that ignores, in a holistic sense, the effect of increased consumer spending, health benefits/better health outcomes, tax revenue etc. If people are buying more because of wage increases, what is the macroeconomic effect? If people have better health care and take less sick days, what is the effect? If the government has more revenue to spend on programs to benefit people like public transit, job training, dr…

If people are buying more then it means more demand, leading to increased price, unless there was an excess in supply (production capacity) in the first place.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#254

Post by dv_dt »

tunesmith wrote: post #134
0000011111 wrote: post #47

I see income inequality as a key issue here. I recently read the "Triumph of injustice" and came away with a changed view in our tax system. After reading the book, I now believe that any household with a net worth over $100 million should be subject to both an income and capital gains tax of 99%. In short folks with income come and or net worth at levels that surpass their ability to buy a life of finical security f…

That's interesting because... right now we have a system that examines income and taxes income. The "wealth tax" is a system that examines wealth and taxes wealth (not income). It's theorized that it's unconstitutional, and even if it isn't, the conservative US court might cause it problems anyway. But if instead you examine wealth and tax income , maybe that gets around the issue. Higher income tax brackets for thos…

Property tax on homes is a wealth tax...

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#255

Post by susijdjdjxa »

ggreer wrote: post #222
aaron_m04 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cases like the Manhattan project team are rare. Cases like grossly overpaid managers and executives in FIRE industries are common.

If managers and executives are so overpaid, why aren't top firms outcompeted by companies that offer lower wages for such positions? Lower wages would allow those companies to offer the same services at lower prices and take over the market.

I think the “outcompeted” argument proves too much. Nobody does anything wrong, otherwise they would be outcompeted.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#256

Post by tombert »

alexashka wrote: post #244

When idiots try to use simple math to try to model complex phenomena, I can only assume they have idiotic simplistic goals in mind. Why do we need to prevent suicide? Maybe we need to remove the stigma around it so that people who got dealt a shit hand, aren't further burdened by getting shamed by everyone around them for wanting to end it. We have too many people, it'd be an improvement for those who want to live an…

I used to think this way when I was a teenager, and I'm really glad that I grew out of it.

When I turned ~20, I started getting really bad insomnia and depression, and there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think about suicide for years. At some level, I sort of planned around it (when I'm dead, x will happen).

I was incredibly fortunate to have a good support network of friends and family that helped me through the worst of it, and thanks in no small part to medication (and probably some hormones balancing out as I've gotten older), I am still alive, and happy to be alive.

It's not hard for me to imagine the alternate universe where no one tried to help me out of this depression, where there's no "stigma" around killing themselves, and I don't get the assistance I need to make me better; I'd be dead.

Now, granted, maybe it's no big loss for me to be gone, I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like me, but considering how it ended up being a "phase" for me with no undo button, I'm pretty glad that we don't encourage people to killing themselves.

Just a note, I want to make it clear that I am ok with suicide in certain instances (like people with terminal diseases), but I really don't like the tone in this comment.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#257

Post by dunstad »

mc32 wrote: post #241
crooked-v wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond the surface-level pithiness of the joke, the point is that having money may not guarantee happiness, but it makes it a lot easier to distract oneself with viscerally pleasant experiences and engage in new hobbies that may in fact lead to genuine happiness.

Hmmm. Bourdain, Robin Williams. I don’t think you can distract yourself from depression.

Robin Williams actually had a degenerative brain disease. I know a lot of the news didn't wait long enough for that information about his situation to come out, but it's on Wikipedia.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#258

Post by kardos »

amelius wrote: post #110
gremlinsinc wrote: post #2

I wonder what would happen to the suicide rate with medicare for all, and creating a max-wage that is (avg of contractors + employees * 150), or something similar, w/ additional 'bonus' multipliers for increasing # of U.S. hired. UBI would also probably help. As a freelancer I've had some really slim months and depression hits hard when money is tight. There's a very direct correlation between income security, insecu…

I think a max wage totally makes sense, because nobody is more than a modest constant times more productive than anyone else, and anything created by a person is always built on existing knowledge and constructs created by society. Also, risk does not really exist anymore these days (with minimum wages, financial constructs around bankruptcy, etc.)

A max wage will just lead to workarounds, hiring each family member at the maximum rate for instance, or schemes where a family member sues the company and the company "loses", etc. Is it worth it to play that game?

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#259

Post by int_19h »

ixwt wrote: post #166
eplanit wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no statistical support of these ideas, though. Suicide rates in countries with Socialist economies are higher than in the U.S. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

This is disingenuous. It doesn't classify by Socialist, but by country. Russia is #3 on global suicides, and when I think of socialist healthcare, my first thought isn't Russia. Many of the countries I think of as socialist healthcare (UK, Denmark, Canada, to name a few), they all come up below the US in suicides.

Russia does have free public healthcare. It's not a stellar system, but it works.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#260

Post by jtolmar »

kardos wrote: post #258
amelius wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a max wage totally makes sense, because nobody is more than a modest constant times more productive than anyone else, and anything created by a person is always built on existing knowledge and constructs created by society. Also, risk does not really exist anymore these days (with minimum wages, financial constructs around bankruptcy, etc.)

A max wage will just lead to workarounds, hiring each family member at the maximum rate for instance, or schemes where a family member sues the company and the company "loses", etc. Is it worth it to play that game?

"Somebody might work around it" is never a good argument against a policy. Whatever the policy's goals are, even a version full of loopholes will accomplish more of those goals than not implementing the policy at all.
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