Antiwork

With inflation and wages rising, I wanted to think about how it would look if the price of a house stayed the same and we just get paid less money. I think this comparison makes it a lot easier to see how little we are getting paid, vs the dollar rising and seemingly getting paid more. The median price of a home in 1974 was around $30k. The minimum wage was $2/hr. If someone worked full time, negating income tax, it would take just over 7 years to pay off a house. Just for simplicity sake, there would be no other costs or interest on the home. The median price of a home in 2021 was around $250k. Minimum wage being $7.25. With the same math as above, it would take over 16 years to pay off. If instead of the dollar depreciating through inflation and things costing more, what…

I work for a smallish company (500 or so employees globally). The company recently won a number of big contracts and is doing well. My vacation time was listed in my offer letter, but the sick time is part of our company handbook. At the beginning of 2022 payroll sent out an email on something unrelated, but attached an updated table for sick hours based on time with the company. I went from 40 hours a year, down to 8 as I've been with the company under a year, in a few months I'll be up to 24. I've been emailing HR for the past month trying to get an answer as to why they implemented this policy, and the only response I ever got back was a copy-pasted table explaining how sick time works now. I'm kind of at a loss, I like my coworkers and my job itself,…

Finally left a terrible dead end job called Wawa. Thought it would be more dramatic but I just crossed my name off the schedule and said thanks for the last check and walked out.

I think part of the issue with the world today, is that there is no incentive to not make as much money as you possibly can, regardless of the loosing side. Everyone wants to have a comfortable life, including me. However greed can sometimes take hold without notice, especially when the rate of change is slow. When you become a wealthy, super wealthy. All of the laws, tax and social barriers that stopped you go away. There is no longer incentives to stop you trying to make as much money as you can. You no longer need to pay taxes, you have a good accountant and lawyer for that. You not longer need to worry about a speeding ticket or parking fine, you have a good lawyer for that. Once you break past a particular threshold of wealth, it’s like breaking through the sound barrier, the pressure is behind you…

Long time lurker, first time poster. A higher salary is nice but the deck is still stacked against workers due to how taxes are structured and the fact capital can easily move abroad and avoid taxes all together. We need to think about how companies should be structured that employees can become shareholders. Cooperations, dynamic equity systems or something else entirely?

I think we need to start talking about housing in the USA. The situation has devolved from difficult to a humanitarian crisis. On one hand we have 400sq-ft studios requiring $30/hr to qualify and on the other we have reports all over the place of people getting hit with hundreds of dollars of rent increases. Buying property has become completely inaccessible to the working class. And forget going out into the sticks, remote workers have snatched up everything. How many people are stuck in abusive households because they can't leave? How many people are stuck trying to raise a kid in a 1 bedroom apartment because they cant afford or can't find an available 2 bedroom. How many people are stuck in their state or city because there is nothing remotely affordable anywhere else? The mobility of the working class has been virtually eliminated. The ability of the working class…