Capitalism: an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object

Ah, money, the driving force behind life in the modern world. With such a fickle piece of paper (or plastic, depending on your residency) running our lives, shouldn’t we be concerned? The fact that the one thing running our lives, affecting our decisions, causing stress and anxiety, and worsening our quality of life raises the question: why do we keep it around? With every state in the U.S. having a minimum wage at least $2.84 below the respective state’s livable wage [1], does this not raise concerns? People make the claim “only people who don’t need to move out yet make minimum wage", yet, in 2022, 457,000 workers between the ages of 16–24 were making minimum wage, and 207,000 between the ages of 25–34 were making minimum wage [2]. Observationally, the people making this claim are also the people who claim “kids should be setting up at 16 to move out at 18", but if the minimum wage is below the livable wage, and so much of our youth population is working for minimum wage, how is this ideal expected to be met? Another big issue with this conundrum is that the livable wage is calculated solely from the poverty threshold, which only takes into account a basic food budget [3]. This means that livable wages aren’t accounting for health insurance, car insurance, gas, rent/mortgage payments, utilities, clothing, grooming supplies, and many more utilities which have now become a necessity in our modern society. This counterargument is usually followed by the claim “you have to do good work to gain upwards mobility in a company, and earn your living.” This claim sounds preposterous when you take into account the fact that “In the U.S., 8% of children raised in the bottom 20% of the income distribution are able to climb to the top 20% as adults, while the figure in Denmark is nearly double at 15%.” [4] <a href="https://medium.com/@tategreen2005/capitalism-an-unstoppable-force-meets-an-immovable-object-7593f737e2d3">Visit Now</a>