Amd to answer OP’s question, I’ve given a bunch of examples of people where measuring their full time wage would be a poor measure of their situation and equally, a poor measure of the economy.
Can you explain why you think the lowest, which is going to be full of outliers and silliness would be more meaningful than say, the median for the bottom 15 or 20%?
To me, any measure that could count Larry Ellison, Elon Musk or Meg Whitman, all of whom have at one point received $1 annual salary, as grievously poor seems silly and pretty poor indicator of the economy but maybe you understand something I don’t?
Because it’s not okay to write off underserved and disadvantaged as “silliness.” How we treat the least of our people says a great deal about how “good” the economy is.
The least paid full time worker should be able to live on the federal minimum wage. They can’t. That should be a huge red flag to anyone who A) cares about people in general and B) understands that corporate profit doesn’t equal a good economy.
And yes, people should be able to waive the salary they are entitled to and take $1 instead, of their own volition. But that has nothing to do with the question: how could the lowest paid full time wage be the best measure of anything in our economy? It absolutely the best indicator of our humanity and empathy (or lack thereof). You could look at the median of the bottom 2% but it wouldn’t point to our failures we need to fix as clearly as looking at the lowest paid full time salary.
Again, there are people whose salary is $1 but they are multi millionaires/billionaires.
So, your measure would “show” people trying to live on $1 a year as that is their full time wage. But surely we both understand this would be a poor measure of what you’re hoping to achieve?
Amd to answer OP’s question, I’ve given a bunch of examples of people where measuring their full time wage would be a poor measure of their situation and equally, a poor measure of the economy.
Can you explain why you think the lowest, which is going to be full of outliers and silliness would be more meaningful than say, the median for the bottom 15 or 20%?
To me, any measure that could count Larry Ellison, Elon Musk or Meg Whitman, all of whom have at one point received $1 annual salary, as grievously poor seems silly and pretty poor indicator of the economy but maybe you understand something I don’t?
Because it’s not okay to write off underserved and disadvantaged as “silliness.” How we treat the least of our people says a great deal about how “good” the economy is.
The least paid full time worker should be able to live on the federal minimum wage. They can’t. That should be a huge red flag to anyone who A) cares about people in general and B) understands that corporate profit doesn’t equal a good economy.
And yes, people should be able to waive the salary they are entitled to and take $1 instead, of their own volition. But that has nothing to do with the question: how could the lowest paid full time wage be the best measure of anything in our economy? It absolutely the best indicator of our humanity and empathy (or lack thereof). You could look at the median of the bottom 2% but it wouldn’t point to our failures we need to fix as clearly as looking at the lowest paid full time salary.
Again, there are people whose salary is $1 but they are multi millionaires/billionaires.
So, your measure would “show” people trying to live on $1 a year as that is their full time wage. But surely we both understand this would be a poor measure of what you’re hoping to achieve?
*bottom 20%