I think your focus on the Federal Government to set a minimum wage at a living wage level and the Federal Government to lead in efforts to end homelessness is misguided. I believe this needs to be tackled at the State and Local Level. Look to your Mayor and Governor for solutions and tailor the solution to the local problem. Really these are local problems being much worse some places than others.
I would suggest that a living wage should provide an 40 hour a week income equal to the family of 2 local poverty level. It is a given that working minimum wage for 40 hours a week will mean you will be poor but you should be above the poverty level. Federal guidelines would say that minimum wage would be $8.13 but we know that that is not enough in many places like big cities. I think that a minimum wage of $15.00 an hour is appropriate in many big cities but I don’t think there is a single state where it would be appropriate statewide and would actually be harmful in some rural farming communities, every state has some farming communities. Requiring $15.00 an hour for people picking crops would put farmers out of business and all our produce that is hand picked would end up being imported.
It is a silly idea that the Federal Government can really understand local housing issues, HUD is too big and bloated and misguided to be really effective. They have been failing for decades and communities still look to them for a solution. Well not everyone, cities are beginning to take this ball and run. People and Companies have got to start to understand they need to invest in their communities. You can starve Local Governments of funding. We need to agree to increased local taxes. We also need to be less pro-growth and more about better not more. Sustainable high quality communities not biggest, most crowded, most expensive.
Regarding family size. If you have more kids than it takes to replace yourself then you are taking a bigger share of the pie than you deserve. It is greedy, gluttonous, wrong. If you have one kid and can barely provide for that child and then you have another child, you are hurting your first child, it is very close to what I would consider abuse. If you can afford it and want more children then adopt or foster but don’t add to the population. We are past the point where it is good for society and the planet. I don’t advocate for a law restricting reproduction but we should not encourage people to have more children. There should not be incentives to have more children. There actually should be more disincentives to having children. This is very hard to do without hurting kids so the alternative would be to provide a incentives to not have kids. There is a huge moral hazard to rewarding people for getting sterilized, it is just not going to happen. Shaming people who advocate for large families is right. Just so you understand that I walk my talk. I adopted one child, am a multiple step dad and I am pretty sure that I never got anyone pregnant.
I think that it is right that we have WIC, SNAP, Headstart, Medicaid, etc. we do need to help people who are disadvantaged or have suffered setbacks. I think we should do more for these people but we need to do it at the State and Local level. If people really cared about their communities then they would open their wallets and let their money do the talking instead of lobbying Washington D.C. It should be more important who is your Mayor and Governor than who is your President.
I am a tepid supporter of Universal Basic Income, I wish it had been in place in some other country for a decade or so, so we could see the real world results. I think it is too radical to implement first in a huge economy like the U.S.A.
I can go on and on. I have written a lot of responses to posts here, I might be a benevolent friendly troll.
I might seem critical but I don’t mean to be disrespectful.
TEL
