I’m starting with micro and then moving to macro. An individual is not necessarily wealthy if they have a job. When illegal immigrants come into the southern US, they can get jobs, but these jobs are usually below minimum wage and the working conditions are not always up to legal standards. If people have jobs, but do not have rights or are not making enough money to support themselves and/or their families, then they are definitely not wealthy. However, as we heard about at Bread for the City today, sometimes people who have jobs still need assistance. People who have jobs may still need some assistance with food from non-profits. Having a minimum wage job is not helpful if minimum wage cannot allow for sustainable survival. I may have just invented this term, but I say it means survival on more levels than just living. One has to live at a level where their life is ensured to survive for the long-term. If all the person can afford on their wages is to eat at McDonalds or other cheap fast food chains, their life is not being sustained because of the lack of nutrition in the food and the health complications associated with that diet. In this situation, I suppose I define wealth as having decent wages and working conditions and being able to ensure survival for the long-term.
Does high employment in a state make the state wealthy? I am seriously divided on this one. Originally I thought that unemployment is obviously a bad thing. I want people to have jobs because I want people to have money and get to work and provide for themselves and their families. However, I realize that there are exceptions because if nearly everyone in a nation has a terrible job with low pay and are oppressed by their bosses, then the high employment is not good for the nation and does not make the nation wealthy. Most people would agree that this would be true if the country was the US. But what if this were true in Somalia? Would people think this was a really good thing for the people of Somalia or a really good thing for the state of Somalia? I think that our understanding of wealth is a perspective when considering the wealth of a particular nation. We consider the country’s past wealth and compare that to the present to determine whether it has improved. I think this is not really fair because the US will believe it is a success if more people in Somalia have jobs, but the majority of people may still be struggling to survive. We can have higher goals for the wealth of every nation and of all the people in the world. We can increase employment in ways that will improve the lives of those employed. And we can do so much to help everyone experience a bit more wealth in his or her lives. (Yes we can)
3 comments:
I agree with your writing on individual wealth, but your bit on Somalia confuses me. What jobs are their available in Somalia? How would the state pay those with jobs? Somalia barely has a government as it is. I feel full employment on the state level undermines efficiency. There are cases where the Soviet Union expirimented with full employment, but why employ 100 people with shovels when the same task could be completed with a single man and a bulldozer?
I also think that high unemployment in a state generally does not help it become wealthy, but as you said 100% employment does not ensure a state's prosperity.
When you say "We consider the country’s past wealth and compare that to the present to determine whether it has improved" do you mean to see if the state has gotten wealthier? If I am understanding you correctly every state could potentially be wealthy. If a state went from 50% pverty to 25% poverty would it be considered wealthy according to the US using this method?
Seamus- I meant if magically all people suddenly had jobs. I wasn't going into the details because that is way too confusing and complicated and since I am already confused, I just went for pure hypotheticals.
Syd- I do mean that we have some low expectations for when a country improves and I think those expectations should change. However, I do understand that since we rarely reach those low expectations, it is hard to raise them realistically and have much hope for them to be reached. I did not mean in terms of poverty rate for this argument. I was discussing employment rates. From what I understood, there is a common misconception that employment is the major signal that a country is wealthy. I disagree and I was hoping that my post would illuminate why that is incorrect. Sorry for any confusion.
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