@Phil @adamgurri i’m glad you pay your workers well!

the lowish prices you enjoy at the grocery store are made possible in part by very low paid pickers and meatpackers. the checkout lady can’t live off 40 hours. she’s unlikely even to be given 40 hours, at least as much as topline wages retail workers struggle with inconsistent and insufficient hours, rendering everyday life impossible both to pay for and to plan. 1/

@Phil @adamgurri the prices you pay at restaurants, well that hostess might make $10 an hour. the waitstaff are all entrepreneurs, living on the limited upside of tips with little guaranteed income. our very expensive hospitals farm out much of their work to not-so-well-paid orderlies and assistants. etc. 2/

@Phil @adamgurri i’m not a socialist. i’m a social democratic. that means free enterprise, but with boundaries. you can earn ten time more, maybe a hundred times more, than the least of your colleagues, but (after taxes) not a thousand times more. and the money those who would become very rich don’t keep ensures a decent baseline for everyone. /fin