Mary Trump: Why the hell do some of us have a problem with people being paid a living wage...

[demmiblue]

Why the hell do some of us have a problem with people being paid a living wage--regardless of their age or the job they do? The fact that the phrase "working poor" exists should be an indictment of our deeply unfair system, not workers.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[malaise]

1. Trump's base would like no wages at all

They'd welcome back slavery in a heart beat

[erronis]

10. Yeah, but most of the base would be tenant farmers beholden to the company store.

Very few came from the wealthy plantation owners. Perhaps a few had ancestors that treated slaves as oxen/cattle/chattel. But most of their ancestors were dirt poor, also.

[Ferrets are Cool]

12. They are too stupid to realize that.

[malaise]

14. True

The sad truth is that many of them are in the same plight as non-whites but the wealthy, the religious institutions and right wing media have brainwashed them into being clueless about their real enemy.

[iluvtennis]

23. During reconstruction, poor people -- whites and ex slaves -- bonded together. However, the powers

that be didn't want that as the poor outnumbered them. So they did the divide and conquer thing by indoctrinating poor whites to believe they were better than the black people.

It's been over 140 years now, and this nation still suffers from that type of division. It's very sad we haven't been able to dig out of it.

[malaise]

25. Well said

but we all go down unless we find a way to unite

[iluvtennis]

29. Agre, we need to unite, but before that can be done we need the other

side to tell the truth about the election. With that baseline set, we can start to move toward unification.

[malaise]

30. Way more than that

Both sides will have to come to terms with the reality that the neo-liberal model has failed the rural poor, black brown and white and the urban poor, white, black and brown. Vast resources will have to be spent on education health care and infrastructure. The market is not god, everything is not for profit and the wealthy and their media houses have been lying to people about the distribution of wealth.

That more than anything else is why we are where we are. Trump merely used good ole racism and some fake version of law and order as diversion.

It is time for a new world order.

[iluvtennis]

34. Well said +++ agree. nt

[Blue Owl]

2. K&R

[SheltieLover]

3. Because it is not plantation mentality!

[SWBTATTReg]

4. A good question as an economist (degrees), I've always wondered why pay such low wages...

Henry Ford said it as I heard in class, that if you don't pay the workers enough, then how can they buy your cars? This is true for everything. And I don't get it. They don't freak out when the cost of literally everything else goes up and up, and wages stay the same, basically the fed. hourly rate is still the same as it was in the early 80s. Ridiculous and a crime.

[Tommymac]

6. Greed. Pure and simple greed.

It's a disease.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. When Henry Ford decided to pay his workers

enough money so that they could afford the cars they were building, the other auto manufacturers were outraged and tried to get him to lower wages. It was 1914, and he started paying the $5.00 per day, double the prevailing wage. It was the beginning (along with organized labor) or working people making decent money.

My husband's grandparents moved from the south to Detroit to go to work for Ford around that time.

[lunatica]

22. Minimum wage was started to improve the life of working

women and children at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It was considered a living wage and was set in laws.

The problem is that it has to be changed through laws passed by the Congress. This means that in time the minimum wage will stay stagnant while other wages and the cost of living go up. So the working poor end up poor again. It literally takes an act of Congress to raise the minimum wage.

What they need is a law that says the minimum wage must be increased in a given time. Every five years or whatever they decide. Maybe when they vote to increase their Congressional salaries they have to increase the minimum wage at the same time. Congress would make sure people had a living wage then!

[SWBTATTReg]

24. Too bad that ...

people/companies/corporations/whomever should be told that people need decent living wages. Why should there be any laws mandating the minimum wage that someone should make to even live? That's what gets me. They know it. They know what the minimum it takes to live. Congress should have no say in what it takes for us to live, after all, look at the min. wage standard since the 1980s! Still unchanged.

Doesn't that tell people something already? It should be tied to something that only us can change, like voting in a regular election, and no longer w/ the Senate or House of the feds or the states. Seriously. If they're complaining that they can't stay in business, then they're already admitting that the slave wages they're paying are too high and that they can't stay in business. Maybe they shouldn't be in busy anymore. Marketplace decides who stays in business and if business won't allow labor to have a say in what they should bet paid (like all commodities do now, via the marketplace), go figure this one out...

[drmeow]

26. Ford is manufacturing

It produces a high cost product.

Many low paying jobs are service jobs which changes things.

In addition, debt and economic instability can drive wage stagnation. When you've lost your better paying job and haven't found one for a while you'll take a lower paying job.

Americans have been socialized to accept debt as necessary to live and, when things are good, as worthwhile to keep up with the Jones and have some luxuries.

[malaise]

31. this is the root of all the disaffection -

the distribution of wealth

[smirkymonkey]

5. How did this amazing woman come out of the same family as the rest of the

Trumps? It's like night and day. I can't believe they even share the same DNA. There is such a stark difference in every single way.

I listen to a lot of Mary's interviews and I have read her book. She is so interesting and yet very humble and down-to-earth. It is sad the way she and her father have been treated by their own family.

[erronis]

11. Apparently the smarts and humanity went to her father. The greed and hatred to Fred/Donald.

[spooky3]

18. Agree 100% nt

[MontanaMama]

7. I went to the grocery store today

and when I reached for a half gallon of organic milk I noticed the price...which I almost never do because it’s the brand I always buy and I’m going to buy it no matter what...and it hit me like a lightening bolt...the half gallon of milk costs more than half of what someone makes in an hour at the current minimum wage. It choked me up.

[elleng]

15. Awful

[AmyStrange]

28. THAT puts things in perspective...

-

Buy milk or pay rent?

Why do people even have to choose between them?
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[MontanaMama]

32. Yes. And, you can go to McDonald's

and buy a happy meal for less than a half gallon of milk. The choices people must make are horrible and unfair.

[calimary]

33. That's a really good point. REALLY good.

[ck4829]

8. K&R

[JI7]

13. I think her father was treated worse becsuse he was not like them

[TexasBushwhacker]

16. Keep in mind, the companies that pay sub-living wages

are subsidized by taxpayers through EITC, SNAP, WIC, subsidized housing, etc. The old "those were meant to be entry level jobs for high school students" doesn't fly because 1) high school students can't work the breakfast shift at McDonald's or the overnight stocking shift at Walmart 2) anyone working full time should be able to support themselves. PERIOD Anything less isn't a "job creator" it's a "poverty enabler".

[erronis]

20. I work with many that get some form of gov't help - it ain't anywhere near enough

to make up for having a living wage.

In most of this country an apartment for 2-3 person family is $1,200+.

The best way to keep people healthy is to give them stable housing.

[TexasBushwhacker]

21. I don't disagree

My niece works for Home Depot for $10 an hour. She lives in the cheapest apartment in her area which is $685 a month. She squeaks by - barely. The store manager has already informed everyone there will be no raises this year because everyone already got a $1 an hour raise last year as COVID "hazard pay".

[monkeyman1]

19. republican party

same ol' bullshit , ya got ton's of money, people down the food chain should stay at the bottom . republican party is a classic example of this ! trump family is the American con -job . " GET USE TO IT " ----- NOT. DONNY IS ABOUT TO FLAME OUT ROYALE IN THE COURT SYSTEM & LOSE EVEYTHING !! VERY COOL

[AmyStrange]

27. A higher minimum wage will keep more money local, and...

-

less will go for stock dividends.

Heh heh heh, it's a sneaky way to raise the capital gains tax, and I love it.
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