# What's wrong with income inequality if everyone is well off? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 16, 2021, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044 "2021-03-16T20:42:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/61 "2021-03-24T05:03:40Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I’m saying that if the goal is, as you said, for everybody to make a comfortable living—and if that living, for people who are able to work, is to depend on their earnings from work—then yeah, every job that someone might depend on for their living needs to pay a comfortable-living wage. I mean, that ain’t rocket science. So if we work off of this, why can’t we simply say that, no, you should not depend on working at McDonalds or selling hot dogs at a baseball game, or whatever hypothetical job my wife is doing for $15k per year to sustain yourself or your family. Just that these jobs will not support you; pretty much what we say now and always have. Has there been any point in history where we have said that any job offered should pay a living wage? I mean, McDonalds jobs were always for teenagers working 20 hours a week for beer money. When did it become morally mandatory that if you worked double the hours that the wage be enough to support yourself or a family? That’s the part I am having difficulty with. It is only recently that this mantra that EVERY job must pay a living wage has come into being. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/62 "2021-03-24T05:35:56Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > So if we work off of this, why can’t we simply say that, no, you should not depend on working at McDonalds or selling hot dogs at a baseball game, or whatever hypothetical job my wife is doing for $15k per year to sustain yourself or your family. Fine, as long as everybody has reliable access to enough of the other kinds of jobs that they can depend on to sustain themselves and their families. I mean, if we really do want everybody to be able to make a comfortable living, then obviously that’s the priority we’ve got to start with. You seem to be looking at this the other way around: i.e., starting with the priority that we must ensure there are ample low-paying sub-living-wage jobs available for spouses and children of high earners to pick up some extra pocket change when they feel like it. And then maybe we can get around to the secondary consideration of ensuring that the non-wealthy who do depend on their work for their living can actually earn a comfortable living from their work. I think that’s backwards. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/63 "2021-03-24T06:01:19Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Fine, as long as everybody has reliable access to enough of the other kinds of jobs that they can depend on to sustain themselves and their families. I mean, if we really do want everybody to be able to make a comfortable living, then obviously that’s the priority we’ve got to start with. > > You seem to be looking at this the other way around: i.e., starting with the priority that we must ensure there are ample low-paying sub-living-wage jobs available for spouses and children of high earners to pick up some extra pocket change when they feel like it. And then maybe we can get around to the secondary consideration of ensuring that the non-wealthy who do depend on their work for their living can actually earn a comfortable living from their work. I think that’s backwards. It’s not so much backwards as it is accepting reality. There are ample jobs that don’t provide support level earnings. That’s just a fact. The question and the problem solving that I think we are all engaging in good faith is how to provide sustenance level earnings to people who otherwise don’t have marketable skills to get such a job. One of the solutions, which I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but which I feel safe enough to assume, is that you would propose that you simply force business owners to pay these workers at least double or more what the market will bear for them. I think that is an unfair proposal. If I need a job done that the market suggests $8/hr is a fair wage, but the guy needs $15/hr to live, well, I didn’t create that deficiency in his income. I didn’t make him drop out of school in 10th grade or get a felony conviction or have a substance abuse issue. I would certainly feel sorry for him, but why does society’s burden fall on me to alleviate his poverty? I didn’t create the problem in the first place, and by paying him $8/hr, I am doing something that nobody else in the world is doing, which is going more than half way to partially help him out, but the increased minimum wage would put the ENTIRE burden on me instead of on society where it belongs. We could have a UBI, but we’ve debated that in other threads and it has it own problems. I think there is no magic bullet here; certainly not one where we just scrape a layer of gold from Scrooge McDuck’s vault and pass it around so that everyone is satisfied. That has been tried with horrible results and I thought we had learned the folly of that throughout the Cold War. I hope you realize that me and others on my side want to help out the little guy just as much as you do. But I think that history teaches that it just isn’t possible the way you are trying to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/64 "2021-03-24T06:04:00Z")
To put it another way, would you rather see a society where some people who don’t need the job to survive get more than they absolutely require, or a society where those who do need a job to survive are getting less than they need. You seem to be worrying about the first but we live in the second. This is kind of both the rich and poor have the right to sleep under a bridge issue. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/65 "2021-03-24T12:18:42Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > What does this mean other than inserting anti-competitive forces into the marketplace? Maybe a guy could play wide receiver for the Chiefs and he “only” makes $100k per year by his full and free agreement. Why should “stronger union laws” stop that from happening? Or why should a 19 year old kid with a high school education get muscled out of a hot dog vending job because the union has it locked down for its members who make an inflated wage, making you and I pay more for hot dogs at the game? > > I’m all for a solution where everyone can make a comfortable living, but these suggestions just seem to allow for SOME to have an undeserved and elevated status. It would depend on how the compensation system is set up. In the case of the NFL, it’s more obvious than in most other cases, which is why it’s such a good example. Without a salary floor, the money that the owners save goes straight into their pockets. That money wouldn’t go to making the game a better product, or to the game tickets being lower priced, or for stadium improvements. It would simply make the number in Stan Kroenke’s or Robert Kraft’s accounts a little larger. Regarding the jobs being distributed by some patronage system, the NFL doesn’t do that, so why should others be allowed to do so? If a union does that, then they leaders doing so should be removed and replaced by someone who isn’t corrupt. In the NFL, jobs aren’t “saved” for someone by some union patronage system, they go to whoever is the most talented. Other unions should be the same. Let’s imagine a system where hot dog vendors have negotiated a salary floor similar to NFL players. Why should that money come from higher prices on the person buying hot dogs? Why not simply have the owner take a smaller cut of the profits, just like Jerry Jones takes a smaller cut of the profits from the Dallas Cowboys these days than he did back in 1990? Despite a smaller cut of the profits, the owners still have an incentive to grow the business, and now so do the players. Why would other businesses not function on a similar model? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/66 "2021-03-24T12:48:38Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Again, I sympathize with the plight of those who bust their ass working for peanuts, but what is the solution? The best solution is a UBI, and then it doesn’t really matter. However, as long as we have a system where people are dependant on employers to survive, then employers need to pay a wage that allows them to survive. Society provides these employees for employers to use and make money off of. In return, the employers should be required to pay enough that society doesn’t need to continue to support them, even while the employer is profiting off of their labor. If the wealthy and businesses would rather pay a tax to support _everyone_, and then offer jobs to those who want the challenge or experience rather than needing it to provide food, clothing and shelter, then that would be a better arrangement. But most want it both ways. They want society to provide workers for them to profit off of, and they don’t want to be responsible to that society. Pretty much the definition of class warfare is putting the wants of the well off above the needs of the less fortunate. It’s just that the war is one sided, and those on the losing side are forbidden to even speak of it. > [@UltraVires](#): > > If you can’t pay $15/hr (or $30k-ish per year) then the job just goes undone? That’s not actually how the labor market works. If a job needs to be done, then someone is hired to do that job. If it has to pay $15 an hour, then that is what is paid. A job only goes undone if the job does not need to be done. I don’t base when I hire people on my labor costs, I base it on my demand. If I have too much work for my workforce, I hire people. If I can pay someone $15 an hour as an entry level position where I provide all the training, then I can’t imagine why a company worth hundreds of millions cannot do so as well. Unless these team owners are actually losing money, then they are not paying their employees more than they can afford. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/67 "2021-03-24T13:08:25Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > We could have a UBI, but we’ve debated that in other threads and it has it own problems. I think there is no magic bullet here; certainly not one where we just scrape a layer of gold from Scrooge McDuck’s vault and pass it around so that everyone is satisfied. That has been tried with horrible results and I thought we had learned the folly of that throughout the Cold War. When has that actually been tried? Never in the United States as far as I know. Not in the so called communist countries (USSR, China, Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, etc.) either. What those countries did was simply take money from one Scrooge McDuck and give it to a different person who then became the new Scrooge McDuck. They never got around to passing it around to the people. The closest real life example I can think of are the social democracies of northern Europe. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/68 "2021-03-24T13:08:46Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > In other words, what if the hot dog guy isn’t supporting a family or even himself (his wife has a great job to pay the bills), but just enjoys a free view of the ball game? Let’s say he misses his father and it makes him feel closer by having that job. Illegal? In this hypothetical, this person is underbidding the wage of someone who does need a job to support a family. For nearly any job, there is always someone who is willing to do it for less. A labor market that incentivizes a race to the bottom is a loser for all. For instance, do you want to rely on this person? If he doesn’t actually need the job, if he just does it because he enjoys a free view of the game, then how do you get him to show up on days he doesn’t really feel like it? What is the motivation to do a good job in serving the public, rather than just sitting back and watching a bunch of overpaid men play with balls and sticks? You get what you pay for, both on an individual level and on a societal level. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/69 "2021-03-24T13:31:37Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > It’s not so much backwards as it is accepting reality. There are ample jobs that don’t provide support level earnings. That’s just a fact. That fact is exactly the problem that we are looking to alleviate > [@UltraVires](#): > > If I need a job done that the market suggests $8/hr is a fair wage, but the guy needs $15/hr to live, well, I didn’t create that deficiency in his income. The market is not an all knowing and wise arbiter of wages. Without a MW, there is _no_ floor that you will not find someone willing to work for less. > [@UltraVires](#): > > I didn’t create that deficiency in his income. If someone needs $15 an hour to provide the basics of food, clothing and shelter, and you only pay $8, then yes, that is exactly what you are doing. > [@UltraVires](#): > > I didn’t make him drop out of school in 10th grade or get a felony conviction or have a substance abuse issue. That’s a very classist mentality there. But, it makes sense, so long as you consider it to be _their_ fault that the wants of the wealthy are prioritized over the needs of the less fortunate, it allows you to dismiss their concerns. Not your fault, and they just deserve to live in squalor, because they were stupid enough to choose the wrong family to be born into. > [@UltraVires](#): > > I would certainly feel sorry for him, but why does society’s burden fall on me to alleviate his poverty? Because you profit from his misery. Both as an employer, in receiving more from his labor than you pay him, and as a member of a society that puts your wants above his needs. > [@UltraVires](#): > > but the increased minimum wage would put the ENTIRE burden on me instead of on society where it belongs. So, do you advocate for a UBI? If not, then you not only don’t want the burden on you, you also do not want to pay for a society that supports him either. If you do advocate for a UBI, then we are in agreement on that, at least, but we still need to deal with the current situation, where there is not a UBI, and you are still profiting off of his labor. > [@UltraVires](#): > > We could have a UBI, but we’ve debated that in other threads and it has it own problems. So, you don’t advocate for a UBI either. You basically just don’t want to deal with the problem at all? > [@UltraVires](#): > > I think there is no magic bullet here; certainly not one where we just scrape a layer of gold from Scrooge McDuck’s vault and pass it around so that everyone is satisfied. Of course there is no magic bullet. It is a complex problem with a complex and dynamic solution. It is this very mentality that the solution _should_ be simple, that we should be able to do just one trick and solve it all, that is exactly the way that it _should not_ be framed. As long as you demand a simple solution, while also stating that there is no simple solution, we will not make any progress. > [@UltraVires](#): > > That has been tried with horrible results and I thought we had learned the folly of that throughout the Cold War. How is that? Is anyone saying we should emulate the Soviet Union? If so, please cite. If not, then please stop with the straw. > [@UltraVires](#): > > I hope you realize that me and others on my side want to help out the little guy just as much as you do. I really don’t think so. With your dismissal and outright blaming of the plight of the less fortunate for their own circumstances, you have demonstrated that you do not feel a compelling need to help those who need it. > [@UltraVires](#): > > But I think that history teaches that it just isn’t possible the way you are trying to do it. I think that you both have a poor understanding of history, as well as the proposals to address this problem. Here is a fact: There are enough homes for everyone. There is enough food for everyone. If someone does not have a home or food, then that is a failure of society’s ability to efficiently allocate resources, not a failure of those who society has failed. So long as you blame those who society has failed, rather than work to fix that failure of society, you will always come to the conclusions that you have. In basic market economics, profit is considered to be an inefficiency. A good or service would be less expensive, better, or produced with a more sustainable labor pool if no one made a profit off of it. By taking a profit, the owners of the means of production are making the economy less efficient, and putting the proceeds of that inefficiency into their own. Unless the owners of the means of production are not making a profit, the idea that they cannot afford to pay more for the labor that allows them to take that profit is simply untrue. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/70 "2021-03-24T17:28:48Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > If I need a job done that the market suggests $8/hr is a fair wage, but the guy needs $15/hr to live, well, I didn’t create that deficiency in his income. I didn’t make him drop out of school in 10th grade or get a felony conviction or have a substance abuse issue. > > I would certainly feel sorry for him, but why does society’s burden fall on me to alleviate his poverty? I didn’t create the problem in the first place This part is definitely irrelevant. What we’re talking about here is the fact that we want everybody to be able to make a comfortable living, and how best to achieve that. We’re not talking about who’s to blame for “creating the problem in the first place”, or whether some low-wage workers “deserve” not to be able to attain a comfortable living because they dropped out of school or committed a felony or had a substance abuse problem or whatever. We’re starting from your statement in post #55 (and the premise of the OP as well) that the goal is “a solution where everyone can make a comfortable living”. So, if that’s our goal, what is the best way to attain it? It’s certainly reasonable to argue that some of the burden of providing the elements of a “comfortable living”, such as healthcare coverage, education and other childhood needs, etc., should be taken on by the government instead of requiring wages to be high enough to fund them all out of pocket. The issue of which solution we choose doesn’t have anything to do with blaming anyone for “creating” the problem, or holding anyone personally responsible for other people’s situations, or how “sorry” anyone feels for anyone else who’s not making a comfortable living. It’s simply about which solution will be most effective in solving the problem. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/71 "2021-03-24T20:48:34Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > This part is definitely irrelevant. What we’re talking about here is the fact that we want everybody to be able to make a comfortable living, and how best to achieve that. I’ll pick this one out as it is representative of the replies. The issue I have is that you are all comparing two completely separate things: 1) the needs of the individual, and 2) the wage that an employer pays him. They are such different issues as to be meaningless. They only superficially make sense to compare the two because it seems like the simplest route to get there as in “because you are already paying me some money, just go ahead and pay the rest of what I need” and I think when you look at it that way you see how truly silly it is to connect the two. First, we all have different needs. Maybe I have a chronically sick child, or a sick spouse who is unable to work to contribute to household expenses while the other person has a spouse that makes six figures. Maybe this other guy lives with his mother or inherited the family home free and clear versus the other guy who has an expensive mortgage that was probably too much for his budget, along with the two brand new cars. So given all of this, how does this individual’s need who I am hiring have _anything at all_ to do with what wage he should get in the free market? I mean anything at all. Remember, we haven’t even talked about what the position is but you are likely already agreeing with the “need” proposition. Explain how comparing need to the market value the person brings to the job means anything logical? > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I really don’t think so. With your dismissal and outright blaming of the plight of the less fortunate for their own circumstances, you have demonstrated that you do not feel a compelling need to help those who need it. And there we have it. We can’t have quality debate any more because if you don’t fall in line with the left, then you simply hate people. Yes, it some ways I am “outright blaming” people. That is reality. Those are facts that need to be dealt with in any solution. I’m not saying that because someone dropped out of school or got a felony conviction that means that we should just dump them in the streets and let them starve. We already have a massive social safety net that is not only not working, but making the problem worse. Which side is less compassionate here? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/72 "2021-03-24T20:52:19Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > We can’t have quality debate any more because if you don’t fall in line with the left, then you simply hate people Please cite where I said that. Maybe the reason that we can’t have quality debate is becuase you make assumptions and assertions like that. > [@UltraVires](#): > > Yes, it some ways I am “outright blaming” people. That is all I said you were doing, and that is what you just admitted you were doing. I’m not sure why you have to play a victim game and make up things that I didn’t say. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/73 "2021-03-24T21:04:52Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > First, we all have different needs. Maybe I have a chronically sick child, or a sick spouse who is unable to work to contribute to household expenses while the other person has a spouse that makes six figures. Maybe this other guy lives with his mother or inherited the family home free and clear versus the other guy who has an expensive mortgage that was probably too much for his budget, along with the two brand new cars. There are a number of standards you can use. Federal poverty level is one of those. You obviously cannot anticipate all needs, so there certainly is a limit, so whatever argument you are trying to make here is rather specious. However, what you should not do, since you cannot anticipate the needs of any given worker, is simply make the assumption, as you have done, that they simply don’t have _any_ at all. > [@UltraVires](#): > > I’m not saying that because someone dropped out of school or got a felony conviction that means that we should just dump them in the streets and let them starve. However, you are implying that those are the only people that end up being less fortunate. This is utterly false. There are plenty of people who have done everything right, and still end up at the bottom of the economic pile. > [@UltraVires](#): > > We already have a massive social safety net that is not only not working, but making the problem worse. Cite? It certainly could be better, but I disagree that it is not working at all, and I absolutely disagree with your unfounded assertion that it is making it worse. > [@UltraVires](#): > > Which side is less compassionate here? The side that wants to scrap any sort of social safety net because they asserted that it’s not working, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/74 "2021-03-24T21:19:14Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Please cite where I said that. Maybe the reason that we can’t have quality debate is becuase you make assumptions and assertions like that. You said that you believe that I don’t feel a compelling need to help people simply because I don’t support your way of doing it. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > However, what you should not do, since you cannot anticipate the needs of any given worker, is simply make the assumption, as you have done, that they simply don’t have _any_ at all. I’m not assuming that they don’t have needs at all. Everyone has needs. I am saying that in a face to face negotiation with a stranger, the amount of money one pays the other for a particular job is not dependent on need. It is not even part of the equation. Almost every transaction is like that. If a person buys a cup of Ramen noodles at the grocery store, it is 33 cents. And that is true whether the person hasn’t eaten for a week, or just likes them to have for lunch a day or two a week before going home to a steak and lobster dinner. The grocer is a human being like the rest of us and does feel sympathy, but the price of an item doesn’t take into account a customer’s need, nor should it because it is _completely unrelated._ > [@k9bfriender](#): > > However, you are implying that those are the only people that end up being less fortunate. This is utterly false. There are plenty of people who have done everything right, and still end up at the bottom of the economic pile. There is a lot of correlation between the two. Sure, some people just have a rough life. If you cut down on poor decision making, you go a long way here. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Cite? It certainly could be better, but I disagree that it is not working at all, and I absolutely disagree with your unfounded assertion that it is making it worse. We’ve had a social welfare system for nearly 90 years and it really took off 50 years ago. Has that slowed or alleviated poverty? If not, then it isn’t working. It is creating generational poverty and dependence. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > The side that wants to scrap any sort of social safety net because they asserted that it’s not working, IMHO. Nobody is saying to scrap _any sort_ of social safety net. I’m all for a program that temporarily helps people through rough patches, gives them job training and so forth and allows them to get back on their feet and support themselves. What I don’t support is a system where if someone has a great idea for a small business that you immediately place two strikes against them because if they hire anyone at all, they must pay the workers no less than their “need” even if it means the business owner is losing his shirt. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/75 "2021-03-24T22:24:30Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > And that is true whether the person hasn’t eaten for a week, or just likes them to have for lunch a day or two a week before going home to a steak and lobster dinner. The grocer is a human being like the rest of us and does feel sympathy, but the price of an item doesn’t take into account a customer’s need, nor should it because it is _completely unrelated._ You’re right - it doesn’t. But it does take into account the grocer’s need not to lose money overall. If that cup of ramen costs him 40cents, he’s not selling it to you for 35 cents unless he gets some other benefit of selling it that cheap. But while it’s true that everybody has different needs and there’s no way an employer can everyone’s individual needs into account when setting wages , it’s also true that nobody is advocating for that. Maybe this isn’t an issue where you live, but [nobody](http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/personal+finance/almost-300-of-nyc-s-municipal-employees-are-homeless/article/444574) who works [full-time](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-city-homeless-shelter-saving-requirements-rent-new-york-city-20190823-kmr5p6q77fcwvofqgunva3iexi-story.html) should have to live in a homeless shelter. But that’s what happens - minimum wage is $15 in NYC right now. That comes to about $31K . Renting a room will be at least $750/mo - that’s $9000/yr ( if you can get a room that cheap). That leaves 22K a year for everything else including taxes. Now imagine trying to live on the Federal minimum of federal minimum of $7.25 which is about $15K a year for fulltime work. How much can someone earning $15K pay for rent? ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/76 "2021-03-24T23:00:22Z")
> [@](#): > > But, I do believe that we should be able to reach a point where food, clothing, shelter, running water and sewage, electricity and communication, healthcare, education, and at least some level of discretion in entertainment can be enjoyed by all. One thing about this - and I don’t think it’s a bad thing, myself - is that “needs” grow. I mean to say, once upon a time electricity and running water were not considered needs. Refrigerators weren’t needs (and still aren’t in many places). A lifestyle that once seemed entirely reasonable to the majority (when only the rich having these luxuries) is now seen as unacceptable by the majority in developed nations. So as we go further into this society set out in the OP, does there come the time when those things only the rich (now) have also become perceived as needs, rather than luxuries? Certainly there historically has been a tipping point when it’s cheap enough or enough people have for it to become regarded as a need (there’s debate over the Internet as a public utility, a need, as it were). Doesn’t even have to be local now, when people can see how others all over the world live. Anyway, my point is I’d kinda find it unacceptable to firmly set down concrete, unchanging, ungrowing needs, even those laid out in the opening post. Because if they’d been set 200 years ago (according to what was perceived as a need then) in this scenario, well, that’s a significantly lower quality of life for the 99% (in developed countries today). So 200 years after this foundation is set…well, the gap in between lifestyles grows a lot. And that’s even disregarding all the power issues other have reasonably set forth. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/77 "2021-03-24T23:31:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Everyone has universal basic income whether they work or not - quite generously so. Nobody is homeless, nobody is poor, everyone gets free high-quality healthcare if needed, everyone gets free (or affordable) high-quality education. If people do choose to work, the wages are good. Nobody is poor. Housing is available to all. The environment is good, the society is safe, crime is low, and it isn’t hard to climb the opportunity ladder. > > Now, in such a society, what would be wrong with there being billionaires (or perhaps even trillionaires), as long as they accumulate their wealth the honest way and pay all proper taxes? Suppose that you have 1 percent of people at the top who own 50 percent of all wealth. I know this is a hypothetical but I want to point out that if society had all those nice, expensive things (free high-quality education and healthcare, Universal Income, good housing for all, etc.) it would be because rich people were paying a LOT LOT more in taxes. Maybe there would be the odd billionaire or three but in general, obscene wealth wouldn’t be very common. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/78 "2021-03-24T23:56:27Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > The issue I have is that you are all comparing two completely separate things: 1) the needs of the individual, and 2) the wage that an employer pays him. They are such different issues as to be meaningless. […] > > First, we all have different needs. Maybe I have a chronically sick child, or a sick spouse who is unable to work to contribute to household expenses while the other person has a spouse that makes six figures. […] > > So given all of this, how does this individual’s need who I am hiring have _anything at all_ to do with what wage he should get in the free market? […] Explain how comparing need to the market value the person brings to the job means anything logical? What you’re saying very strongly here is that it’s not logical to expect people in general to be able to rely on their earnings in a largely unregulated labor market to make a comfortable living. I think there’s a good case to be made for that argument; but if that’s the position, then obviously if we want everybody to be able to make a comfortable living, we have to do one of two things (or some combination of them). Either (1) we have to regulate the labor market sufficiently that people in general can rely on earned wages to be able to make a comfortable living—which is a prospect that you seem to be strongly opposed to—or else (2) we have to decouple all or most of the needs of a comfortable living from individual earning power, and provide for those needs by some other mechanism than earned wages. I’m open to pursuing whichever of those strategies, or whatever combination of them, will work best, or whatever other alternative would achieve this goal better. But it seems pretty obvious to me that if we really do want everyone to be able to make a comfortable living, we can’t just leave them dependent on a labor-market system where many of them can’t make a comfortable living. Just saying “we want everybody to be able to make a comfortable living”, but then denying that there’s anything we can do to accomplish that, is not addressing the problem. It’s just more of that lip service I was talking about. > [@UltraVires](#): > > We already have a massive social safety net that is not only not working, but making the problem worse. This comes across as outright nonsense. Are we really expected to believe that getting rid of, e.g., Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and CHIP and other social services would make poor people’s situations better? ISTM that, flawed as the social safety net is in this country, it is very obviously not “making the problem worse”; rather, it’s keeping the problem from being catastrophically bad. And other countries that have significantly better social safety nets have significantly less problems with poverty, too. If you continue to insist that you want everyone to be able to make a comfortable living, but you’re convinced it’s impossible and/or intolerably unfair to do anything that would actually achieve that, then there’s really no point in discussing the subject with you further. In trying to figure out how to solve a problem, it’s useless to seek input from someone who’s already irrevocably committed to the position that the problem can’t be solved. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2021, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/79 "2021-03-25T14:05:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > We already have a massive social safety net that is not only not working, but making the problem worse. > > This comes across as outright nonsense. Are we really expected to believe that getting rid of, e.g., Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and CHIP and other social services would make poor people’s situations better? > > ISTM that, flawed as the social safety net is in this country, it is very obviously not “making the problem worse”; rather, it’s keeping the problem from being catastrophically bad. And other countries that have significantly better social safety nets have significantly less problems with poverty, too. This piece of UV’s post has been ‘haunting’ me. Thanks for such an erudite response. I had no end of pithy replies at the ready: - And safety nets haven’t reduced the number of falls when circus performers do acrobatic maneuvers - And seat belts and air bags haven’t reduced the number of car accidents - And auto body shops haven’t reduced the number of motor vehicle collisions - And mammograms haven’t reduced the number of breast cancer diagnoses - And personal locator beacons haven’t reduced the number of people who find themselves in jeopardy while out in remote areas And on and on and on. Safety nets. That’s their function: as safety nets. It’s insurance for when all else fails. It’s harm mitigation, pure and simple. It’s our responsibility as a society to try to improve the capacity of those in this country to _be_ independent, but those who want to do away with the safety net are – as a class – highly responsible for people _needing_ the safety net in the first place. They’re the ones who, in the main, dramatically jacked the extent to which the US has privatized profit and socialized loss. It’s very akin to reproduction: can’t teach comprehensive sex education, no social safety net, no contraception, no abortion. When you give people no options, you steer the country toward emerging nation conditions. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2021, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044/80 "2021-03-27T02:21:13Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > The issue is that money is power. Too much unchecked power is generally a bad thing. > > > > Rich people don’t just use their money to buy ferraris and truffles. They use it to bribe politicians, fund think tanks that manipulate the public into supporting the agenda of the rich, break down the welfare state and labor movement to increase their wealth, bribe politicians to cut their taxes for them, and in some countries bribe the police and military. In the US the Rich fund think tanks to manipulate the public into thinking estate taxes and capital gains taxes are bad. In Columbia when Escobar was alive, Rich people (like escobar) bribed the military to try to overthrow the government or destroy legal documents. > > > > The problem isn’t just how objectively wealthy people are. In a society 300 years into the future, poor people may be millionaires and rich people may be quadrillionaires. But the issue is also whether a small group of people have outsized, and unchecked power in the form of wealth that they can use to remake society in their image. > > They don’t even need to bribe politicians or manipulate the public. If you are that much wealthier than everyone else, you can effectively isolate yourself through gated communities, private security, private health care, private education. You control the capital which serve as potential sources of investment for others to become wealthy, basically becoming a closed ecosystem. > > And that system doesn’t just exist in isolation. The 2008 financial crisis demonstrated that when it breaks (because it is largely unchecked), it can break everything else around it. > > The OP asked what’s wrong with inequality if everyone is well off. I would say the answer is “nothing”. In fact, some level of inequality is good. Why should Derek Jeter earn the same amount as the guy who sells hot dogs at Yankee Stadium? People who contribute more or generate more value should reap more of the benefit. > > The problem is when you have a system where too much wealth is concentrated in the top, it becomes closed off to others being able to contribute in a meaningful way. It’s effectively a class system. Another thread the OP asked why highly educated people would subject themselves to working 100 hour weeks. Because our current system has evolved to where the wealth and power is controlled by those who run investment banks, hedge funds, Amlaw 100 law firms, Big-4 accountancies, FAANG tech companies (lets stop calling them “startups”), white-shoe consulting firms like Mckinsey, Bain and BCG, Silicon Valley venture capital and other entities that don’t really produce anything of value and serve a dubious benefit to society. Well they aren’t just looking to just give that wealth away. So to “earn it”, they require you spend years of your life dedicated to the single-minded purpose of pursuing wealth (after you have already invested hundreds of thousands in obtaining the necessary education and have more or less proved yourself to be the right “sort” who probably came from that background already). > > Wouldn’t society be better off if you had those people with that level of dedication to work spending those hours being schoolteachers, civil rights lawyers, running a small local business, pretty much anything other than working for a giant machine that serves no purpose other than to accumulate more wealth? Society needs some inequality I agree. Thats why Physicians make more money than walmart workers, because you need some inequality to keep society going and to reward people who provide more useful and harder to provide goods and services. The lowest level that western industrialized nations seem to accept is a GINI coefficient of around 0.25 to 0.35. Maybe levels lower than that cause harm, I don’t know. But no developed nation seems to push for a GINI lower than around 0.25 after taxes and transfers. But my original point stands, too much inequality makes it very easy for the powerful to just use their wealth to reshape society in their own image. They can buy media outlets, politicians and in some cases bribe police and military to do their bidding. Even if everyone is well off, the rich and powerful can create a more dysfunctional society to increase their levels of wealth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-income-inequality-if-everyone-is-well-off/938044.md?page=5)