Working Conditions and Benefits

And as save money for retirement, the value of that dollar is constantly devaluing so that a $500K retirement today might be a $250K (or less) retirement amount if we compare 2016 dollars to 2036 dollars.Inflation affects the cost of living which almost always outpaces annual raises. That is problematic for people who cannot make yearly raises that are commensurate with inflation rates.So let's look at California as an example. The wages are higher in some sectors of business to cover the exorbitant cost of living. But what you end up getting is gentrification and a mass exodus of people fleeing the state and heading to cheaper places.So if we were to force businesses to pay everyone more money, should Walmart employees in California make more than a Walmart in the Research Triangle of North Carolina?What if we stabilized the purchasing power of the dollar so that we have apples to apples and not apples to oranges?

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You said you wanted it to be a constitutional right, which means everyone will be supplied with a flop house, I mean, a bunk house. So why would anyone be purchasing these tiny houses?

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The constitutional right was in essence an issue of "homeless shelters" being available in more than (presently) 2% of towns, and infact it should be a constitutional rights issue.

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The housing market is terrible, but I'm failing how to see dropping miniature homes all over the place is somehow going to reverse that. You will still have people who desire more for themselves, and as such you will still have a class divide. Actually, it may even exacerbate the class divide.

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The demand, and price, for housing is high because it has been made scarce.As for "bunk-houses", I'm not talking about miniature homes (even the smallest still cost like $40,000 with all the regulations that go with it), but I'm talking about barracks (with a locker). Something like some of the pictures in these photos.barracks - Search$400,000 was the price for a place that housed 200 people in downtown Houston (right where the Greyhound station is). Private run, private owned. Housed 200 people! It was $9 a night ,or $50 a week, or $180 a month. It was always full. People always were waiting at 7AM to see if any beds were available (people have to have payment in by 7AM), and it was rare for somebody to come in later and actually get a bed.There are more bunk houses in Houston but I am not sure where.The best place for a poor person is actually Houston, though Texas has a bad reputation.

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Also, if rich people are allowed to buy them then that implies they also have the luxury of buying all of them, selling them, and marking up prices to fleece the poor.

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I struck up a conversation with a property owner (and landlord of multiple investment properties) in Utah and I was shocked that he knew exactly what I meant when I asked him about "bunk-houses". He said Salt Lake City used to have them but "It was too easy for drug dealers to live, so the community decided easy low cost rent is a bad idea". He said St. George Utah has them but they are always full. Ogden also has a bunk house ($100 a month) but it is always full.He was a property owner, so he had a vested interest. But his criticism of them is that "drug dealers" (a figure of speech for poor people btw) aren't encouraged to go get work when they can pay a cheap bill and get immediate rent.

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You would also have the problem of creating ghettos on a scale reminiscent of the Bowery slums, because no one would want a bunk house. They would only do it out of necessity. And poverty and crime go together like butter on toast. If we look at government intervention now, a la Section 8 housing, you have atrocious living conditions and rampant crime. Now extrapolate that disaster a few million times.

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The one in Houston had an officer there (paid by the rent bill of $180 per month) from 5 PM to 5 AM. There were a ton of employees there.The real concern a non-corrupt person would have is the same concern about single-payer health care. If you reduce the cost of an industry that makes up such a large part our GDP, then will the consumer $$$ go elsewhere or will the economy simply shrink?I will take productivity over inflated costs any day of the week, any month of the year, any year of the decade, and any decade of the century. Any moment, any time.Consumer dollars purchasing something fundamentally unproductive and unnecessary hurts us in the long run.The politicians that tell the truth get "naturally selected" out (they loose elections) so often (like 100%) that there isn't really a voting um "market" for the things I am talking about. You won't ever hear the bunk house issue come up because no politician in their right mind would even think of it as some election winning formula. It just doesn't enter their mind. Police officers have told me they wish bunk houses were available, as it would reduce assault crimes by enabling parties in unfriendly domestic situations to be separated quickly and easily. But I had to bring the issue up to get their response. There is like a 0% awareness of this issue.

Let's ignore the issue that for poor people, retirement savings is not that huge an issue. Instead I'll point out that if your bills go up and your wages don't, you are not going to be able to accumulate any savings to inflate. So even the small amounts of inflation wipe out a person on an income that is fixed in real dollars.Is the problem here inflation or the fact that with the teeny-tiny interest rates we currently have, it is difficult to save in a way that keeps pace with the current rather puny interest rate? That is indeed a problem. So why are wages so low when productivity is at an all time high? When there is more wealth being created than ever before?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Well one thing to consider is that we pay for this one way or the other.Certainly there are a lot if programs that address different parts of this issue, and some of them may be considered social programs: unemployment, social security, food stamps, housing assistance, etc etcAnd some of them could be considered anti-social programs: police, home security systems, security guards, ghettos, prisons, etc etc.One question is how do we want this mix to operate and can we effect some cost cutting measures.Another question is what level of basic service do we want to provide.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

Google Maps I don't understand google maps very well. The 2316 Austin Street is the Homeland Security across the street from 2310 (the site of the former "du drop inn" "Workers Co Op"I read a newspaper article saying it sold in 2012 for $400,000. The hotel owners were constantly trying to buy the site.Now what was once a spot for 200 people ($150 per month till 2008 then $180 per month) is replaced by a perhaps 10 apartments.New Orleans projects destroyed in Katrina are being replaced by high price condos.Public land in New York (with only 22 square miles) has been given away like crazy. Amazingly. The population of Manhattan has dropped from 2 million in 1955 down to 1.6 million today and there were deliberate decisions to put poor people (minorities were a target) far from the island. Far Rockaway in Queens is where most (over 50%!) housing programs presently are located.Manhattan should be 4 million today if the population was allowed to rise with the nation since the 1950s.

I'm using my phone, so I won't be using quotes. I will just address your points in chronological order.The scarcity of personal homes are supplied with apartments and lots of them.As for barracks for homeless people, they often don't use it even when it is available because fights, drugs, thievery, unclean living conditions, etc are rampant in places like that. The homeless go where the money is, and panhandling at a good intersection is incredibly lucrative. Many homeless people prefer homelessness, believe it or not. It's a simpler life with a lot less responsibility and a lot less debt.My issue is with the Constituitonal right you mentioned since it implies that everyone should have access to it. What do you do for homeless people far outside of city limits in small towns? Houston is a major metropolitan center, but what about nowhere North Dakota?Secondly, where does it end? All people need shelter to survive but they also need sustanence. Should it be the responsibility of the federal government to supply food to every American because it should be an inherent right?

Just paying people more is a short term solution, and how does one go about that anyhow? The inflation rates are low now at about .5 but they were as high as 3.8 at the height of the recession which is not just bad for the impoverished but everyone. If interest rates were static and stable, everyone would fare better in the long term.Washington state increased their minimum wage and there unemployment rate is also 15% higher than the national average and according to one study found it to be 42% higher than before they implemented it. Many economists warned that a correlation exists between raising the minimum wage and unemployment rates.

Police and home security systems are anti-social? Can you elaborate?

Yes. Instead of helping, supporting and uniting people, their purpose\goal is to suppress, isolate and divide people -- we have the largest prison population per capita of the developed nations because of this.People will do anything to survive, and if the means are not available to do it lawfully, then they turn to criminal means: stealing, fraud, etc. Police then reacts to this to suppress "crime" -- treating the symptom and not the cause.Again we can compare Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Wisconsin and Minnesota: A One-Sided Political CompetitionWages up, unemployment down.and on crime
‘—‘‘Crime rate ~same, but prison population in Wisconsin is >2x Minnesota, parole population is >3x Minnesota while probation population is ~2.5 higher in Minnesota than Wisconsinie more offenders in Minnesota are on probation (where they can be with family and earn a wage) while more offenders in Wisconsin are in jail (where they are kept from family and work).And total incarceration costs overall are significantly higher for Wisconsin than Minnesota. So Wisconsin is paying more to house inmates in bunkhouse jails and in loss of worker income.Both of these states spend a lot of money to control criminal behavior, so the question is -- what is the root cause of criminal behavior.Interestingly there does not appear to be a significant correlation of crime to minimum wages
Multilevel Study Finds No Link Between Minimum Wage and Crime Rates | University Of Cincinnati

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We were looking at whether we could see a crime trend that moved over time in regard to what we call ‘shocks,’ changes in policy, explains Cohen. These shocks impart change, so if there’s a trend, the rate-of-change-of-crime should increase or decrease, but ultimately, among the 18 states that had raised the minimum wage, there was no significant change — in this speculation — a drop, in violent crime and property crime. If raising the minimum wage is meant to impart a change in crime rates, we should have seen a more pronounced deterrent from crime.

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So I read this to be a small and relatively insignificant drop in crime with higher minimum wages, however they were not compared to living wage levels, just to the Consumer's Price Index. As wages remain below living wage levels, the economic impetus for crime to compensate remains.Minimum wage was increased here from ~50% of a living wage to ~60% ... not a big help in reducing poverty imho.What we DO see is a reduction in the use of SNAP (food stamps) by people with higher minimum wages.Again, it is a matter of how we pay for basic standards of living, because we do end up paying one way or the other.Enjoy

The simplest way would be a minimum annual living cost benefit, run as part of the IRS tax structure, and replacing minimum wage, unemployment, food stamps, welfare, social security, etc. etc.Indexed to cost of living -- everyone gets a weekly check, monthly check or annual check\tax deduction, depending on your choice.Wages above that would be earned additional income, and employers could offer anything from 1 cent/hour up, but they would have to pay enough to make it attractive to the worker.Enjoy

There isn't 'a' root cause; it's complex. The summarised position is that crime is normal - that is, we're all capable of and even willing to commit every crime if the circumstances permit. Circumstances are the complex bit - opportunity and propensity are two main chunks, each influenced by numerous factors - age, sex, upbringing, state of mind, environment, genetics, chance of being caught, beliefs etc etc etc.

And I agree but we could also admit that there is possibly some correlation to"(perceived) need" and "opportunity" and that crime would tend to increase with an increase in either. The basic impetus of laws and courts and security systems and police is to reduce "opportunity" while the impetus of social programs is to reduce "(perceived) need" (a well fed person doesn't steal food, when a starving person would, given the same opportunity).If a living pension\wage\dividend provided one with shelter food and security, then the need to resort to crime to obtain these would be lessened.Enjoy

I don't think the USA allows people to starve on the streets unless they are rejecting help? Most low level theft isn't to survive, it's to support drug and alcohol addiction.I think it's a stretch to suppose that higher beneits or that increasing minimum pay rates would reduce crime given that basic needs are met. The evidence is rather against it - in the last recession crime rates fell.But I do agree that pursuing a living wage is a worthy goal in its own right.

So let's decriminalize and nationalize drugs and give them away free through a chain of health clinics that could also provide free basic health services and education.Pay for it with the savings from quitting the stupid war on drugs.

That gets my vote. Sadly it doesn't get the politician's approval because they don't think the public would go for it. In fact they continue to act against the evidence.