Maybe we should explore the value of labor. Unskilled or minimally skilled labor.

The call today is to pay everyone a living wage. Is unskilled labor worth a living wage. What is a living wage? Bread, water, a bath, a tent, clothes and a blanket. That is sort of what many soldiers get on a good day. Some of those soldiers that is actually all they get, no pay sent to family just we will keep you alive if you fight.

The market suggests that low skilled labor is not worth much more than that. It is not even worth what it takes to keep the laborer alive. If unskilled labor was worth more than bread, water, a bath, a tent, clothes and a blanket then every refugee camp would be empty of able bodied individuals or every refugee camp would have adjacent manufacturing facilities to use that labor. Refugees are often not allowed to leave the camps to work because the would suppress local wages which are already too low.

Inequality exists because some people can rise off the bottom and when they do they don't stop rising. Every little rise opens the door to greater advancement. Some take advantage of that. Others do to different kinds of generational wealth start well off the bottom.

TEK