@judykinsman3258 Fun fact $1,000,000 a year is the equivalent of $114 an hour. That's based on 24 hours a day 365 days a year which no one works. If you base it on 8 hours a day 50 weeks a year, its $500 per hour.
Why do you not pay enough taxes to cover the cost of Democrat programs we have a debt so big it defies belief our children will inherit a bankrupt shell of a nation because you won't pay enough taxes to pay for the handouts Democrats want why is that stop believing in democrat lies quit bankrupting our nation for our children vote out handout Democrats before it's to late
The people making seven hundred dollars an hour are the surgeons in NYC who after maney years of college and working long hours that's who Democrats think should support the rest of us republicans party of Lincoln Democrats party of Bernie Sanders
It is an insidious process: 1. Take someone who has little experience 2. Saddle them with student loan debt when they have their lowest earning potential 3. Saddle them with more debt because they live in a car dependent society that requires a car to get to work 4. Make it difficult to switch jobs due to job related health care benefits 5. Make it difficult to start a family because childcare is expensive and two income households are now the norm to survive 6. Manipulative the money supply and real estate markets so that their housing is expensive 7. Shame them when they can no longer pay their mortgage 8. Switch them from guaranteed pensions to more volatile stock market based retirement schemes 9. Take steps to dismantle and privatize Social Security and Medicare 10. Live in a constant state of financial instability, continual war, and fear 11. Pit them against the people who should be their ally by dividing people based on race, sex, ethnicity, middle class/poor, blue collar/white collar, etc. 12. Provide distractions in the form of TV, movies, sports, pornography, drugs, gambling, etc. 13. Rig the political process by creating false choice 14. Rig the judicial process 15. Declare that corporations are people and allow them to contribute unlimited funds to election campaigns 16. Drill for more oil in your own country and control the supply in other countries 17. Create chaos in other countries to make refugees (see number 11) 18. Sap funding for government services, but expand military spending
@@PAMELAPORTER-ci7mr Yes, even though daycare is expensive the daycare workers also get paid very little. There is a long list of important positions, often requiring considerable education or training, that get paid very little.
Another step: take away abortion access, deny schools ability to teach actual sex-ed and push a "abstinence only" program, and make contraception hard to get access to, so that more and more people who are not financially ready for dependents have children. This way, more people (and especially women) have a harder time switching to jobs that have better hours, wages, and benefits, or speaking up in the work force against poor treatment, because now they're desperate to provide for the children they can't afford on top of everything else.
I agree mostly, but #4 should be Condorcet or Approval voting. Ranked Choice Voting (more properly known as Instant Runoff) doesn't really improve things compared to Plurality (a.k.a. vote for one, or first past the post). The ranked ballots are great, and are also used by Condorcet systems... but Instant Runoff throws out most of that data and mostly elects the same bad candidates as a simple "vote for one" system. The IRV/RCV algorithm explicitly ignores as much of the ballot as possible, so that most of the preferences you express are literally not counted. In contrast, Condorcet systems use _all_ the data, to make much more sensible decisions about which candidates should win.
..also repeal two other High Court rulings: The First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (which defined the right of corporate "free speech" by the ability to make contributions to ballot initiative campaigns) and Buckley v. Valeo (which declared limits on election expenditures as being unconstitutional) rulings both which set the stage for the disastrous Citizens United v. FEC. We need to go to equal funding and equal media time (which also was done away with) as campaign reforms.
As a primary care doctor, now retired after 40 years in practice, here's what I have learned: We PCPs (Primary Care Physicians) are the "Minimum Wage" earners in the medical profession. Underpaid, overworked, overburdened. A cardiologist ran a $5000 test on a patient, and when the patient called to get the result, he was told, "we sent the result to your PCP; ask him to discuss the result with you." The reason most of primary care is being handled by PAs (Physician Assistants) and FNPs (Family Nurse Practitioners) is that no bright young doctors want to do primary care. They go where the money is, to big dollar specialties. Like vascular surgery, charging $25,000 for one hour's work or neurosurgery, charging over $100,000 for one hour's work. That is, until the vulture capitalists swoop in. Take Oncology for instance, where the big money is. You can always tell where the big money in medicine is, simply by finding out which specialties the vultures want to swoop down on. Before the vultures, the hospitals were the ones buying up the big-money specialties like cardiology and orthopedics. They only bought up PCPs to make sure those PCPs referred patients exclusively to their own specialists. Ah yes, PCPs do have a role after all: feed the vultures!!!
I believe that worker solidarity and poverty can not both exist at once. The truth of our political values lies in the risks we refuse to accept, and it is rising worker power, not continued poverty, that our political and corporate leaders find unacceptable.
@@lightwavesolutions4300He’s not complaining you idiot, he’s illustrating how the ones with money create a hierarchy that is self defeating to the purpose of medicine, as an analogy for other types of work. Reading comprehension isn’t your thing it seems.
@@lightwavesolutions4300 They make good money... before student loans, incredibly pricey malpractice insurance, and hiring extra staff to wade through the oceans of red tape that insurance companies throw at doctors. I'm not saying "Boo hoo, poor doctors!" but one reason we're in the pickle we're in is because we don't have enough doctors, and one major reason for that is that it's expensive to practice medicine. Becoming a doctor means taking a big gamble that you'll be able to cover all those costs once you start practicing, which takes awhile. This is one reason, for instance, that we have a lot of immigrant doctors; demand for doctors is high, and they aren't saddled by the same student loans.
Thank you for saying this! If nothing else, Covid should have taught us how valuable these “low wage workers” really are. Where would we be without them? We need to do better.
As a grocery clerk I was making an extra $4/hour hazard pay during pre-vaccine Covid. I still wasn't near $20/hour and it was taken from us when vaccines became available. Another grocery store only threw a $50 gift card for that very same store the employees' way every so often.
@@mariawesley7583wow you got hazard pay!!! The company I work for stayed open all through the pandemic and we didn’t get extra nothing!!! We stayed open 24 hours too!
My company went from a straight across-the-board 7% incentive payout to a tiered incentive payout: 5% for hourly workers, 8% for salaried workers, and 12% for the executive staff. They had an all-staff meeting to announce this, and when it came time for questions, I stood and said, "I don't have a question so much as a statement: It sounds like the rich are getting richer." (I can be really ballsy sometimes.) The HR director looked me in the eye and said, "Yep, that's pretty much it." Vile woman. She went on to explain that the executives get more because they're assuming more "risk." I wasn't expecting that, so I didn't have a good comeback, but after thinking about it, I WISH I'd said, "What risk?!? How many executive have you fired for screwing up versus regular workers? And even if you did fire them, I'm sure they all have golden parachutes to ensure a soft landing." God, the lies we've been told just so the rich can continue to hoard their money. Sad thing is, there are still too many people willing to blame their hand-to-mouth existence on immigrants, welfare recipients, affirmative action, gov't regulation, etc, etc.
@@SharienGaming Exactly. And like I said earlier, you almost never see an executive being unceremoniously tossed out the door. They're given a big bag of money and a stellar reference to go quietly, so NO risk for them!
I have a friend who, unfortunately, thinks she is paid what she's worth. She has worked her entire adult life at a grocery store and in a handful of years will retire. I told her that in her lifetime working there she won't even earn half of the CEO'S annual salary. She still insists it's fair. A lot of people won't admit they're being exploited. It's too shameful.
Well yeah, normal people aren't narcissistic sociopaths, and they don't usually challenge the norm because they have social skills, and they know it results in unpleasant interactions. Speaking up isn't rewarded in our community, in fact we are beaten down into submission from a very early age. It's hard for some to realize that yeah, this isn't fair... The people are the top are not there because they're smart, or learned, or have special skills. It's sociopathy, and what would be regarded as extremely destructive behavior in a societal context. There's a reason that greed was thought to be a deadly sin in Christianity, the bible literally specifies that rich men "won't enter the kingdom of heaven". Whether or not you're Christian or believe that this is true, is still irrelevant. The point here is, that from a very long time ago, humans have caught on to the fact that certain individuals can be quite destructive in a societal context due to hoarding resources. It's baffling that it's 2023, and people need to be reminded of that.
@@Zach-ju5vi How you can equate the two is a mystery to me. Not that I think Kennedy was perfect, either, but he actually had policies that made this country better to live in for ordinary folks. Whereas Trump's policies were all about taking things away from ordinary folks -- ask those farmers who paid the "Chinese" tariffs s s and had to go under; some were bailed out by the government or otherwise they would have gone under.
I was a job and employee compensation analyst for 40 years. There are no less or unimportant jobs. Three factors. 1. Supply and demand, applicable to the rank and file. The destruction of unions ended the ability of workers to deal with employers as a single entity. We are back to competing with one another for jobs and pay. 2. Executives. Executives set their own pay. The SVP of Executive Compensation better give the executives what they want or the executives will find someone who will. 3. Globalization. Our government has allowed if not enabled US companies to use foreign labor to make and deliver products and services elsewhere and then return them to our market with no downside. This not only is destroying our middle class but it is a serious national security risk as illustrated by the micro chip crisis, rare metals, and supply chain flaws and vulnerability that severely disrupted our economy during Covid, and our coming face off with China. Shame on Congress. Good job Secretary Reich!
Then why didn't you raise peoples pay if that was your job for 40 years? Why not start a business and pay people more money than the business across the street. Surely by paying more you would get the best workers. The best workers would create the best products and you would sell them for the best price. You would have the best reputation and everyone would love you. Everyone except all of the workers at the other business's that you put out of business, losing their job, their cars, their homes. You cruel capitalist!!!! See how that works.
You are correct sir. If a CEO dies the business keeps on chugging. But if the real workers don’t work the business comes to a standstill. So who’s more valuable?
@@Zach-ju5vi incompetence flows upward. Understand, we’re not talking about small business. We’re speaking of companies that have a CEO and a board of directors
The simple truth is, you can remove the CEO, and entire board, and all high level excuitives from any company. Do it with out saying anything, and the company could keep running for months before anyone noticed they were gone. And even after, it wouldn't have any effect at all. Remove the workers, and the company falls apart later that same day.
The simple truth is you are an idiot if you honestly believe that. Minimum wage workers are a dime a dozen. That's why they are paid a (figurative) dime. The entire crew of a McDonald's can walk out today. GM on down to janitor. That McDonald's will shit down, true. But it will be running again in a week. If the CEO and entire board walks out, ALL McDonald's shut down about a week later. And they STAY shut down for months. Workers are paid what they are worth to the Company. Not what they value themselves at. Worth = what other people will pay. Value = what you will sell for. If you were harder to replace, you would be worth more. We see this play out time and again with pay raise negotiations. The top performers are hard to replace, they can demand higher raises. But so are the NICHE performers. Even an average worker who does what no one else can do can get top raises. Worth.
@Zach-ju5vi it is set up that way, they don't do anything with that part of the business. Managers at individual stores will often be directly in charge of payroll. But no excuitives in any large business are. That isn't how that works, at all.
I have to add another big thanks to Professor Reich! I was lucky enough to attend his last Cal lecture with my Cal Senior in May. It was such a joy to have been able to sit in on a few of his lectures and then see him off on his last day. Let's hope his wonderful teaching, amazing experience and incredible intellect has spurred on HUNDREDS of graduates and graduate students to carry on his mission. It's SO BADLY needed today!
@@Zach-ju5vi Look everyone Zachoff the bed wetting, corporate bootlicker, troll is still triggered by the many here who agree with the great Dr. Reich.
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 We all feel sorry for you. Pushing the same old anti worker, pro corporate conservative think tank propaganda .Hit the bricks, chief.
I wasn't paid what I was worth. That's because management considered me a threat that could make them look like they didn't know what they were doing. They weren't wrong about that threat, but I never wanted their jobs. Talent is wasted by promotion. Talent should be rewarded by advancement of their talent.
I looked back to the 1850s to figure out what "unskilled labor" was worth vs the cost of living. It is very interesting, because the unwritten rules pop up where a person could afford to rent a place at $4.00 a month because this figured into an average weekly wage of just over $4.00. (Long before the minimum wage was enacted). The irony is that "Unskilled labor" was paid more than a slave or indentured servant who was in all actuality, a highly skilled laborer who would work from sun up to sun down. An "Unskilled laborer" of the 1850s could actually rent and save up for a home on the range, and have the place paid off in a matter of a few years. When slavery was made semi-illegal during reconstruction, the largest argument was against wage slavery, because somehow slaves were supposed to be better off than wage earners. (That's some jurassic KATO institute shizzo gaslighting). I think the objective goal between the wealthy and the religious right about 50 years ago was to attack the middle class, or somehow reduce it so that they could overtake the U.S. The attempt by the Religious right to take over the U.S. in the 1980s failed because the middle class was too strong, and the RR could not outvote the middle class majority. Minimum wage being stymied has helped usurp our representative democracy and replace it with an oligarchy, which is soon to be followed by an authoritarian/dominionist theocracy.
the real reason conservatives hate a living wage minimum wage is because of ideology: they believe unskilled workers don't deserve to make that much money. Conservatives are saying some workers deserve poverty and that it's their right to tell poor people how much money they deserve to make.
The dystopian future I feared as child has begun to take shape. My children and grand children will never experience a world were life is worth more than money.
When i was starting out, i assumed that if you were paid $20 or more an hour, you would have tremendous responsibilities and workloads that i could never be capable of handling, so i told myself that i would need to settle for around $10 an hour. Through the years, my experience and observations proved just the opposite -- that all too often, the less you're paid, the more you actually have to do. And if you're really good at your job, and the company is already paying you peanuts, they'll decide to continue their great fortune and reward you with even more work but not any more money; my dean used to call this a yeoman's promotion.
In my state which is Colorado, the minimum wage is $17.23/hr but I'm still getting paid $15.38/hour because Im not working in Denver. What kind of BS I have to go through and wait another year for the 17.23 minimum wage to pass in other counties but paying 1500/rent for a one bedroom is ridiculous.
Personally, I feel like Upper Management should be capped at earning a % higher than their median (or lowest) workers. The exact % could be debated, but the idea being that in order to make more themselves, they'd have to make sure that those below them are also able to make more. ("A rising tide lifts all boats") Instead, it seems to be a constant cycle that the "owners" are the only ones allowed to increase profits while those who actually do the work make less and less.
Quite agree and I think the strongest argument for that is that not too many years ago the top management were doing very nicely when their pay was a lot closer to that of the average in their company whereas now that multiplier is far greater. The 'rich elite' are paying themselves sums of money that they could never spend in a dozen lifetimes let alone one.
The one and only reason these massive pay differences exist is because of a power differential: This pandemic proved that the government could create and sustain more robust income support programs and give poor people more power and eventually eradicate poverty... if that was truly their priority.
Dear Reader: Do you fear plans by Republican fascists to cut Social Security and Disability, to put the homeless population in concentration camps, to end our right to read what we like and to protest and even vote? Are you convinced that Donald Trump bought the electoral votes he needed in 2016? Do you wish that there were something you could do about all this? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then read on. This the letter for you. This is a chain letter. Please make 12 copies and send them to 12 different people, before it's too late. The time is now to spread the word by any and all means possible. Let's spread the word to vote blue, to vote all of the GOP fascists out of office. Let's spread the word to petition our representatives for a constitutional amendment to elect the president by popular vote so that another rich tyrant like Donald Trump doesn't buy any more electoral votes. Our freedom and democracy are at stake here. Get busy and do your civic duty now. A Concerned Citizen
We should be so lucky as to live in a world where people are paid based on the value they bring to the company. I'd like to see any of these CEOs try to justify how their contribution is 300x more valuable than the typical employee in their organization.
CEOs and the alphabet soup of top level executives personally claim the collective value created by the employees who did the actual work as their own. They then use that to justify taking the lion's share of profits off the top. They don't work 100x or 1000x more than the average workers, or do anything worth that much more. They just take it. Or rather the board gives it to them while robbing the company by using its money to fund stock buybacks that only serves to enrich shareholders at the works' expense. BTW, paying execs through dividends that are taxed at a much lower rate is one of the schemes they use to dodge taxes that they'd normally pay on their salaries.
@@Zach-ju5vi Come you Zachoff . That's another load of the usual anti worker, pro corporate propaganda you spew here on a regular basis, that nobody is buying anymore. Now go home and get your shine box.
@@Zach-ju5vi oh is that why those companies are making record profits and their ceos are the richest people in the work? because they are constantly losing money? nothing to do with systemic exploitation of their workers, the environment and theresources of the global south?
You are 100% right, and Jamie Diamond a famous CEO is not worth the money he is paid. Roberts video is 100% right, these myths are wrong, and hurt America.
@@Zach-ju5vi No that's objective when someone's paid more than me and can't even freaking get simple things right they are not worth anything and I am worth a lot more than them so I am paid a lot less than I'm worth
I did the math once, when I was a supermarket "grunt" making minimum wage and working part-time. My gross pay was around $680 a month. My CEO at the time had a salary of around $1.5 million per year, meaning that he made around $700 an hour, while I made $8.50. In other words, he made 82 times what I made. Somehow I found it very hard to believe that he did 82 times the work. Oh, and that's salary, assuming he works 40 hours a week. That didn't include any of his perks and benefits, like his jet, $10 million in stock options and other investments, or the other $10 million of miscellaneous perks. People still ask me why I'm a democratic socialist...
Something I have noticed in the past 60 years is every generation that inherits fortunes feel more entitled and care less for the workers because they have never worked a day in their lives but expect more than their fathers and don't care how they get it.
What we value is upside down. Our children and seniors are not valued. Caretakers and teachers are not valued. Caretakers of our rights and environment and future are not valued.
Immoral system democrats take by force money from an orthopedic surgeon in NYC who works long hours and earns four hundred thousand dollars and gives to non working people who drag everyones liveing standard down by producing nothing but still consuming
A lot of people who studied some classical economics fall for the idea that wages are determined by a worker’s marginal productivity, and the owners (rich) use that as part of their argument about “the free market” determining wages. I used to teach that in my Econ class, before I began to think about three big holes in that argument. Dr. Reich talked about one, the disparity in power between employers and employees. A second hole is that, in today’s complex businesses, it is impossible to determine how much one new worker adds to a company’s income. A third hole, maybe the biggest, regards CEOs. How many times have we seen companies lose millions, even go bankrupt, while the CEO makes millions. They blame it on market forces, like competition. However, the CEO will rake in extra stock option profits when the company does well, without sharing with the workers.
I work in public education in Australia. We're in the middle of a teacher shortage, with no improvements in sight. Our Union just secured a 2%PA pay rise. If the market dictated teacher pay, it should be a lot higher as there simply are not enough of them. On a similar note, I wonder how the wages of any job deemed "essential" over the past 3-4 years has changed? I never heard of any CEO being deemed essential. I can barely grasp the dissonance.
My depression is directly linked to the fact that as a teacher, I cannot afford to rent or buy and thus must live with my parents as a full-grown-ass adult with 3 kids. I hate this economy so much.
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Because they use that salary to legally bribe the government to pass regulations in their favor, and cut programs that dont benefit them. Programs of which include things like education, which is what pays for teacher salaries. So yea, theyre pretty directly linked. When you live in an oligarchy (which the US is), then the more power and money the wealthy have, the more it negatively effects those not in that group.
Trickle down economics is a damned joke. These companies make millions or billions and those workers get only less than a fraction of the those huge profits. You can’t rent an apartment with the wages these companies pay.
I am a union construction worker that found I was paid $20 an hour on my last paystub. When construction work isn’t is busy, (and therefore no work happening and trying to scrape by), I have found an assistant management position, and another front desk position at one of my favorite museums also hiring for $20 an hour along with the given criteria. Union power and solidarity all the way! I have considered, (after watching a history channel series about the Gilded Age from Rockefeller to Henry Ford), about possibly starting my own coffee shop as a worker co-op to demonstrate the possibilities and utilities of what Starbucks United can bring to the coffee industry.
@@barryrobbins7694 I have listened to him enough to where he very much inspired me to want to put his ideas and theories into practice. In other words, I am already schooled by him and Robert Reich even though I never took their college classes before they’re pulling into retirement. It is now on us to put their ideas into practice.
@@Zach-ju5viif 4 means "many". There used to be 5, but Switzerland created a minimum wage in 2020. Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway don't have a minimum wage, but their industries are almost entirely ran by unions that have effectively created minimum wages. They also pay far more taxes than in the US, have free healthcare for all, government mandated minimum vacation requirements, free universities, and a number of other social services that make it impossible to compare the potential outcome of removing the minimum wage in the US to.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As we found out so alarmingly during COVID, the lowest paid people are the most necessary. One's "worth" is determined by the Market, and the Market is controlled by the rich. They set their own pay, and everyone else's. If the people at the top all vanished overnight, the economy would not be harmed, in fact it would greatly benefit.
We also need to stop mystifying corporations and see them for the man made constructs that they are. If we allowed the president of the US to set the wages of federal employees we would all see the obvious problem with that. Why wouldn't he give himself a 1 billion dollar per year pay if he is the one who determines? I think we also need a change in regulation of how businesses are structured. The top 5 earners in a corporation need to be exempt from the ones who set the wages. So that means the CEO's have to either give up that control or just accept a lower pay.
That's a myth. For example, if the Walmart CEO had worked for free last year and that money had been given to the regular employees instead, each person would've gotten less than $20 for the entire year!
@@juniorgod321 I have no idea where you got that one from. Most CEO's are paid in stock so yeah their cash income is pretty low. Not that this matters. And the CEO is not the only highly paid employee. Not to mention the huge dividents and stock buybacks. If companies 50 years ago could pay good wages and productivity has nearly tripled due to technology there is no reason they can't do it today.
@@juniorgod321 Also as workers we should not care. If we allow ourselves to care companies will use that to screw us. The directors can take care of the company. We just need to make sure we get our fair share.
It's because Democrats have used open immigration, high taxes, and over regulation to put slack into the labor market year after year. Which gives all the power to employers, driving down wages, and immigration drives up housing prices at the same time. To the point tens of millions of Americans don't have any money left over at the end of the month. And it's the low wages and lack of power at the bottom that allows the excesses at the top. Causing the wealth gap. Compare that to JFK style conservative policies of using low taxes, smaller government, deregulation, and less immigration to tighten up the labor market. Which gives power back to workers. Raises wages. Allows for advancement. Allows for mobility. Allows people with bad job records or few skills to get jobs. And gives people dignity. If Reich actually cared about lower income people, and was capable of compassion and empathy, Reich would be a Kennedy/Reagan conservative
Perhaps the purpose of a company should include providing quality jobs, as well as quality products and services. What is the point of a business if it does not make life better for ALL the stakeholders.
I agree, making money for the sake of money has no sense. Money are a human made tool we should use it to benefit mankind not collect it like we're some silly chipmunk gathering and burying acorns we forget where. I hate that "pursuit of happiness", "it's all in the journey not the destination" stuff, i really think we should "stop and smell the roses" more.
@@somnorila9913i know that this is a late response. But I wanted you to know that those that horde money are rather sick in the head. So poisoned is their world view that if the roses aren't making them capital that they aren't worth anything. If those who control our society are universally I'll what does that say about what truly trickles down? "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Is a saying that was ringing in my head this entire video, I thought I would share even if I had forgotten who had shared it with me.
The minimum wage should be tied to a cost of living index that reflects what is required for a person to pay for their basic needs without government subsidies; it varies a lot from region to region.
True, Democrats have used open immigration, high taxes, and over regulation to put slack into the labor market year after year. Which gives all the power to employers, driving down wages, and immigration drives up housing prices at the same time. To the point tens of millions of Americans don't have any money left over at the end of the month. And it's the low wages and lack of power at the bottom that allows the excesses at the top. Causing the wealth gap. Compare that to JFK style conservative policies of using low taxes, smaller government, deregulation, and less immigration to tighten up the labor market. Which gives power back to workers. Raises wages. Allows for advancement. Allows for mobility. Allows people with bad job records or few skills to get jobs. And gives people dignity. If Reich actually cared about lower income people, and was capable of compassion and empathy, Reich would be a Kennedy/Reagan conservative
With each passing wealthy generation, the amount of wealth transferred is so staggering that the inheritors have less and less need to contribute anything to society. Just party on one of their yachts until they croak. In some cases, it's so absurd that even if they threw away a million dollars a day, they'd still be wealthier at the end of the year than the beginning.
Agree, the income inequality that exists today is unjustified and unethical. Workers efforts made the profits feasible. Lowering the gap between different tiers of workers is necessary to create a sustainable, healthy and safe society for all.
Thank You for speaking up .I work as a janitor and I like to ask people -how badly do you want a clean bathroom and toilet paper . Look at the essential workers during covid , we needed cleaners guys stocking shelves not CEOs.
I work in a warehouse for a Fortune 500 company and the CEO makes 350 times what I make. Chief executive pay is unbelievably ridiculous today and the golden parachute clauses they have are obscene
To make matters worse, if ordinary workers get fired, they'd better hope they can live off any savings they may have until they find another job (you can't collect unemployment if you get fired or quit your job), but CEOs who get fired -- uh, excuse me, are asked to resign -- get golden parachutes! Even Carly Fiorina walked off with $21 million after nearly running HP into the ground.
I think that it depends on the state: In New York, you can get unemployment if you're fired; you just can't get unemployment if you quit. The standard is that the loss of work cannot be something that you were in control over.
@@genius11433 In Ohio, where I'm from, there is one circumstance where you can collect unemployment if you're fired, and that's if you can prove you were terminated without just cause. But if as a condition of your employment you signed an agreement to be an "at will" employee (which is often the case these days), meaning you can be dismissed at any time for any reason as long as it's not illegal, you're out of luck.
It is the imbalance in power that is the major obstacle. If everyone gets a quality education and develops “marketable skills”, it doesn’t change the nature of the economic system we all live in. Employers will simply use the situation to drive down wages - workers will be easier to replace.
@@Zach-ju5vi, he does nothing 100% of the time. He is one of the biggest losers on the planet, and an absolute failure in every regard. Holy crap, read a book. Wake up.
in one of your early documentaries, a guy in the front row of some meeting said "I don't earn much bc that's what I deserve, I get that ..." guessing that was 10? years ago. that guy broke my heart back then. for him to dismiss himself was just awful.
The job I had before I was let go due not being able to return work after my shoulder surgery and a very long recovery, I was one of many underpaid for my job title and work I did. I was a thermal spray tech that worked lots of aircraft parts and some commercial parts. There were others who were overpaid for what little work they did and parts they destroyed. Also they got to be on first shift because they wanted it. I am glad that I no longer work in that place.
Yep there's some real shitty crap jobs (that exist because of even worse managers) out there. I worked one of those type of jobs during summers while I was in college. They'd rather pay tens of thousands of dollars in OSHA fines than actually make the place safe. Made no sense.
@@rm3141593 Yes, there's clearly some kind of emotional issue going on when companies make decisions like this. I did contract work for a company that, to raise its quarterly income figures, left goods sitting on the dock because they wouldn't pay their supplier until the quarterly report. Which meant that they items they wanted to sell couldn't be put together and sold, so their income was delayed, and they would pay higher prices for those supplies in future, not to mention the word gets around to other suppliers when you welsh on a payment. Makes zero rational sense. I think a lot of decisions are made from people who are in emotional turmoil and feel they have to hide it; it comes out in idiocies like this.
SOME JOBS DON’T NEED TO BE DONE (OR THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE) 1. Every full-time worker deserves the dignity of a wage that doesn’t require government assistance. 2. A person working a full time job, should be able to afford a one bedroom apartment, transportation, food, clothing, and healthcare - basic needs. This is a true minimum wage. 3. Pay adult part-time workers proportionately. 4. Jobs that don’t meet these minimum wage standards don’t need to be done. Right? The following will help employers: 1. Free national healthcare 2. Free quality education through university, (including trade school) 3. Good mass transit
Amen to all those points! I had to work 2-3 jobs for years. But if we had public health, they wouldn't have to worry about restricting schedules to 28 hours a week (in case of late employees, which could push you up to 32 and make you benefits eligible).
Um no. I hate the full time classification. When i worked at supermarkets, I couldn't work past 28 hours a week. If i worked 32, i would receive health insurance, tuition reimbursement, prescription coverage, 401k, etc. Also i couldn't work full time since I am currently enrolled in community college.(and I was taking care of my sick mom on top of that).
Really i'm going to be in poverty for the next five years. I go to community college, but I'm not backed a full ride scholarship or grant. I worked minimum wage(i'm unemployed now), and i participate in internships that pay me $900/a semester(before taxes). I get no health insurance from any of those things. And even if did, i'd have to pursue one of them full-time to qualify(cutting into the other two).
@@scifirealism5943 Did you read the part in my comment about healthcare and education? …about part-time work? Are you really doing work that doesn’t need to be done?
I sure as heck couldn't walk in and do the job without... ✨TRAINING ✨meaning by definition it's skilled labor. And, even if I knew how to work the equipment and read the orders no amount of reading a manual would make me as productive as someone who has worked the job for months or years
Not enough people see these videos. Plus too many people say and believe there is nothing we can do. So why bother trying. I keep saying this is all coming to a head. It's going to break. I give it less than 5 years.
I would love to see Robert work with or at least go on johns stewart new show, I think in principle these two men would have a lot in common and maybe even get a larger message out there together then apart.
This is capitalism - workers are paid as little as companies can get away with, because that maximizes profits, and maximizing profits is the whole point. What that work is actually worth isn't and has never been part of the equation.
“I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law.” Chris Rock
Yes, capitalism is a completely amoral system. It is one of its major flaws. Immoral people use it to exploit people. That is the main point of the video.
Eliminate elections. All public offices should be filled with a lottery system. Let's say the seat for district 52a will be vacant next session. All names on the voters registration list are placed in a hopper and one is drawn, just like the Powerball. The person is then notified and requested to be at such and such a place at such and such a date to commence serving their term. Just like jury duty, except for 4 years. At $75k a year. Instantly, money out of politics. No more need for a candidate to run an election campaign. No more need to raise money from big business special interest donors. No more incentive for psychotic assholes to seek positions of power and control. Everyone sooner or later gets their chance to be Cincinnatus...
Before retiring, I was a reporter for a daily newspaper in Wisconsin. I produced more copy than any other reporter on staff, I won more awards than the rest of the staff combined, and, yet, I was paid the same as all other reporters at the top of the pay scale. Why? Because the American Newspaper Guild had a chapter at my paper and we all were required to pay dues and belong. In return, we all were guaranteed the same pay once we reached the top of the pay scale. My publisher felt i should be paid what I was worth to him so he got around the Guild pay scale by sending a check whenever I won an award or he particularly like one of my reports and asking me not to mention the extra payments to anyone.
Thank you again, Professor. It makes us normal people feel so bad because we, in addition to struggling, imagine this is all our doing and we beat ourselves up again and again for not having succeeded, when that is not how God sees success so why is it a human measure for success?
Any business that operates in America uses the roads and utilities we all support and build, as well as the backs and minds of workers-AND its natural resources (trees, minerals, water). Much more money should be returned to the country-through taxes and workers’ pay-than goes to individuals at the top today. Using our country’s resources, of all types, should be repaid-otherwise, the business is NOT helping build America’s future.
The top ten percent pay over seventy percent of the federal taxes so they are the ones who pay for the roads and infastruvture seventy percent of it anyway on the other hand if you draw out 1500 a month in ss till your eighty that's over two hundred thousand dollars you did not pay that much in ss taxes and the average person draws out three dollars for every dollar paid in medicare taxes the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare the rich benefit off none of these programs but pay almost all the federal taxes how is that fair it's you and me who are the thieves bankrupting our nation we don't pay enough taxes for the services we receive
Not all pay for the roads over forty percent of the house holds pay no federal income tax it's the rich who's taxes pay for it look at the general accounting office numbers before commenting
@fritzforsthoefel8031 You left out Mortgages charge twice,property tax,gas tax,Federal and state tax,sales tax,car registration tax,inflation a hidden tax,ect.😂
Our narrator does, indeed, weave a fine fairy tale. From a seller's perspective: Worth = what I can get for something Value = what I am willing to sell something for. When value exceeds worth, I do not sell. When worth exceeds value, I do. From a buyer's perspective: Worth = what I am willing to pay for something Value = what others are paying for it / what people are selling it for. If Worth exceeds Value, I buy it. If Value exceeds Worth, I keep shopping. When you go to work, you are selling your labor. Your WORTH is what it costs to buy your labor. Plain and simple. It has nothing to do with production. The only thing skills or education have to do with it is how unique or replaceable they are - and then ONLY if they are applicable to the job at hand. If you are the only left handed backwards juggling mime on the west coast it doesn't matter when applying to an architecture firm. But it might if hiring on to a circus. People are paid EXACTLY what they are worth. Because if they were paid less, there would be no one working in that job. So let's look at the top end of the scale. Again, it is not about production, it is about rarity. Who has the combination of skills, experience, expertise, and dedication (CEOs often work 70+ hour weeks) to fill the job? Small pool. How much will it take to get one of those folks to come fill OUR position? That is what they are worth. Worth does not equal value.
It’s hard not to like Robert Reich. I’ve always liked him, and at times I’ve thought that if I were elected President, one of my first calls would be to Robert Reich. Keep fighting the good fight, sir!
I saw many years go a chart that showed the compensation paid to Japanese auto makers management versus American auto management with the correlation in world wide sales. It was an amazing chart! The Japanese management were paid far less then their American counterparts yet their companies out preformed in every market! Which begs the question: why are these managers being paid so much despite not accomplishing more? Do Detroit trucks and cars get better gas mileage? Are they more reliable? Do they last longer? Do they cost LESS? NO? Then why and the hell are they still in charge?
Love your videos Prof Reich. I urged my mom to watch some. She lives in FL. She did and subscribed to your recent class :) I wish there was more talk & explanation about reversing the antitrust laws & company stock buybacks. People need to know this and understand it better including myself. Thanks for all your hard work sir !
"Conservative" economic views are literally magical thinking. The universe is not enacting a meritocracy. There is no financial karma. They seriously can't tell the difference between a monetary system and supernatural moral concepts. I can't imagine being less connected to reality when everything in life gets boiled down to commerce.
$15/hr is roughly $30,000 a year. It's what the cooks at McDonlds make. $13,000,000 is what the CEO of McDonalds make EACH year. Yet if the cooks don't show up, I can't have a hamburger. The CEO can take the year off, and I can still get a hamburger every day. Which one is getting paid "what they are worth"???
The guy who determines what you're worth has one eye on his profits. That's why that guy always undervalues any worker's worth while severely overvalueing his own worth..
@@scifirealism5943 It's why I think a federal jobs gurantee is a good idea because it would kind of set the minimum in terms of both wage and working conditions.
I used to work at McDonalds (2007-2012) and brought in an additional 1.6m per year my last year. I made $8.50. Last year a only saved my boss about $26,000 and made $30/hr… I’m definitely living proof that people in the US aren’t paid what they’re worth.
Oh Ohio shop Pizza owner evenly split a day's gross sales with his employees: each worker made $78/hr. If places like Chic Fil A adopted this model, their cashiers would be making around $100,000/year.
@@eddiekulp1241 lol I was the assistant manager and the last year I worked at a different store. Before me, 3.1 million, after me, 4.6 million annual profits. So my post should say “1.5m” but yeah. that’s 2012 numbers, these years that’d be considered low I imagine.
McDonald's won't exist without 'workers'. This is the reason so many 'student debt' because 'unskilled' workers were told to 'get qualifications for the jobs of the future'. Tech jobs will always be a few and getting fewer with AI and robots. Thank you Robert Reich!
There is only ONE acceptable reason for the business owners to use that I will accept and that is: They took a huge risk in starting the company; they had to take out a bank loan in that equaled to hundreds of thousands of dollars (which would've required them to have some money saved up to begin with) and HOPE that the business picks up enough for them to be able to pay the loan off and start making money; they also had to pay this loan off while paying for employees and their benefits. If the company failed, they could've lost everything and even ended up homeless. However, this does not apply to offspring who inherit the business and it doesn't justify the owner not paying a decent wage once his company turned enough of a profit.
If a bunch of workers get together and start their own business, they can do that, but you can't expect someone else to spend their own capital in order to start a business just to hand it over to you!
Capitalism: 1. Your increasing productivity increases profits. 2. Your increasing salary decreases profits. 3. You can switch jobs, but all companies have the same incentive to work you harder and pay you less.
I took a summer job taking care of the elderly. I'm a student and the job was in my field but got still paid close to minimum wage. I talked about how low the pay is for practical nurses with my co-worker and she just looked at me kind of sad. "It's because we don't produce anything". My millionth reasson to join a union for nurses.
@@moniqueloomis9772 It's hard to directly create a market for happiness and health, not a direct commodity nor good for short term profits. That friend is wise to the type of sad sick minds that control companies. Though those with such stock in the things that make life good know that people like nurses are invaluable to the medical field, the business side of medicine sees them as expendable.
It's sad and funny. Because my company actually told me my labor brings in about $2.3 MILLION/month... I don't even see a % of a % of that in my YEARLY salary.
At one time, don't know about now, Japan's CEOs could not earn more than 13 times more than the lowest paid worker in their company. Not a bad policy. \
The Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain, it is likely even less of a difference. It is the 7th largest company in Spain too. It requires a different mindset.
This has been my mantra for decades only I could never express it so elegantly or effectively. But it also leaves out the element of luck, not in inheritance which you stated, but in success in general. Luck plays a lot bigger role than most people, particularly successful people, are ready to admit. The most perverted aspect of all this is how so many people on the bottom are willing, not just to believe, but to promulgate the ideas you just shot down. Thank you.
Money is the root of all evil... It's a very serious issue right now and there's no sign of it getting any better. Unimaginable wealth is in the hands of a relatively small number of psychopaths...
Your right! David Stockman was the chief economic adviser in the Reagan administration. Upon criticizing Reagan’s “trickle down economics” , he was chastised by Reagan and other Republicans, Mr Stockman resigned in disgust. We are all suffering today because we (I mean ALL of us as a country) did not listen to good advice when it was given to us by a dedicated public servant.
If most people were "paid what they're worth", employers wouldn't hire them, and there would there would be precious few jobs to go around. People don't go into business to lose money. Any rational adult understands that agreeing to take a job involves making some compromises. EVERYONE thinks they're worth more than what they're being paid. If you're unhappy with what you're being paid, find another job, or profession, that pays better. That's what grown up do
I don't begrudge a person making a lot of money if he or she invents something or starts a company. However, most CEOs are essentially hired hands who worked their way through the company system and much of the "value" they create is from "financial engineering" - cost cutting (and repeating that horrible phrase, "work smarter not harder"), stock buybacks, deferral of capital/major product investment (think Boeing). On top of that, they usually appoint board members giving them little or no incentive to rein in executive compensation. Of course then we have politicians who think that the tax rate paid by CEOs should be lower because they will create more jobs if their personal income tax rate is lower. Any CEO of a publicly traded company who makes staffing decisions based on his/her personal income tax rate should be fired because he/she is incompetent.
it's a power differential. A neurosurgeon can make $60/hr to start. A cashier can't demand to make that much even if every fast food joint and supermarket made a septillion dollars in profits every nanosecond.
It needs to be written in the Constitution, that one job must pay enough to people for them to not be in poverty, enough for them to live a healthy and humane life.
that might be a big Duh! for us to realize;........ How do we influence our country men and women that assuring worker's security should be a constitutional right?
Not possible, because the dollar amount of your work doesn't matter the value you bring to it does. You would only cause hyper inflation and destroy the economy. That's why you get paid minimum wage and I don't.
The "market" works by doing whatever maximizes profit. Companies don't pay based on how much you earn for them. Wages are based on return to them. Will a higher paid workers produce enough extra revenue to justify the expense? Of course as Reich says this isn't a true free market. There isn't enough competition and options for workers. Even when multiple openings exist, typically wages are similar. Companies have the advantage in negotiations, when it's a few massive employers organized into corporations versus individual workers. Unions are the counterweight to give workers leverage. A fee workers quiting over low wages is cheaper than raising wages for everyone. A complete stoppage to work is a problem.
Very nice video, a few comments. Incentive bonuses instead of a standard rate of pay, rate of pay was changed. You got a basic pay but got extra for "incentive bonuses" for hitting your targets. However, the next year the level achieved for the bonus becomes the new norm and if you want an incentive bonus the next year you have to reach an even higher target...and so it went on. Slowly the bonuses were phased out and you got the same basic wage however hard you worked. The new "incentive" was to keep your job, if you didn't reach your targets you could be fired. Unions - not only has union membership reduced - the bosses also make sure that the union leaders are well taken care of, so that when there is a change to "working practices" (another word for work more for less) because the union leaders have been bought off they have little incentive to fight the management. Pay for legislation. It is clear that legislation is no longer elector lead but based on what "donors" offer to political campaigns. They are not donors - they want something in exchange - which in some cases is they want the law changed in their favour. International Trade Deals. What I mentioned above has been made worse by international trade deals that strongly favour international businesses and penalise governments. In a nut shell the premise behind these international trade deals, is that international companies should be free to maximise their profit. Government legislation such as environment, workers rights, health and safety can be contested based on the fact they restrict a company from making maximum profit. There are international business law courts that can contest government laws or prevent new laws that might inhibit a company's opportunity to make "maximum profit". A company can sue a government but not the other way around. These are rarely mentioned as a means in which a givernment's power is severely restricted.
![F.HERO Ft. JSPKK x ลำไย ไหทองคำ x M-PEE - ไม่สนิทบิดหมด (Thai Riders Anthem) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kPJZ0UihBfk/mqdefault.jpg)
The people making $700 an hour have convinced the people making $25 an hour that the problem is the people making $7.50 an hour.
@judykinsman3258 Fun fact $1,000,000 a year is the equivalent of $114 an hour. That's based on 24 hours a day 365 days a year which no one works. If you base it on 8 hours a day 50 weeks a year, its $500 per hour.
Since the rich pay almost all the federal taxes what trickle down do you speak of
Why do you not pay enough taxes to cover the cost of Democrat programs we have a debt so big it defies belief our children will inherit a bankrupt shell of a nation because you won't pay enough taxes to pay for the handouts Democrats want why is that stop believing in democrat lies quit bankrupting our nation for our children vote out handout Democrats before it's to late
It's your greed that is bankrupting our nation for our children if you like I can show you the facts vote out handout Democrats before it's to late
The people making seven hundred dollars an hour are the surgeons in NYC who after maney years of college and working long hours that's who Democrats think should support the rest of us republicans party of Lincoln Democrats party of Bernie Sanders
It is an insidious process:
1. Take someone who has little experience
2. Saddle them with student loan debt when they have their lowest earning potential
3. Saddle them with more debt because they live in a car dependent society that requires a car to get to work
4. Make it difficult to switch jobs due to job related health care benefits
5. Make it difficult to start a family because childcare is expensive and two income households are now the norm to survive
6. Manipulative the money supply and real estate markets so that their housing is expensive
7. Shame them when they can no longer pay their mortgage
8. Switch them from guaranteed pensions to more volatile stock market based retirement schemes
9. Take steps to dismantle and privatize Social Security and Medicare
10. Live in a constant state of financial instability, continual war, and fear
11. Pit them against the people who should be their ally by dividing people based on race, sex, ethnicity, middle class/poor, blue collar/white collar, etc.
12. Provide distractions in the form of TV, movies, sports, pornography, drugs, gambling, etc.
13. Rig the political process by creating false choice
14. Rig the judicial process
15. Declare that corporations are people and allow them to contribute unlimited funds to election campaigns
16. Drill for more oil in your own country and control the supply in other countries
17. Create chaos in other countries to make refugees (see number 11)
18. Sap funding for government services, but expand military spending
One more: Day care facilities that charge as much each month as many underpaid women earn.
@@PAMELAPORTER-ci7mr Yes, even though daycare is expensive the daycare workers also get paid very little. There is a long list of important positions, often requiring considerable education or training, that get paid very little.
@@barryrobbins7694 But this is because the government has refused to subsidize early education as other countries have
Another step: take away abortion access, deny schools ability to teach actual sex-ed and push a "abstinence only" program, and make contraception hard to get access to, so that more and more people who are not financially ready for dependents have children. This way, more people (and especially women) have a harder time switching to jobs that have better hours, wages, and benefits, or speaking up in the work force against poor treatment, because now they're desperate to provide for the children they can't afford on top of everything else.
Exactly.
1. Vote
2. Undo Citizens United vs FEC
3. Publicly Funded Campaigns
4. Rank Choice Voting
5. Develop Other Parties
6. Proportional Representation
7. Stay Organized
This should be common sense but unfortunately people have bought into the neoliberal's cult dogma.
I agree mostly, but #4 should be Condorcet or Approval voting. Ranked Choice Voting (more properly known as Instant Runoff) doesn't really improve things compared to Plurality (a.k.a. vote for one, or first past the post). The ranked ballots are great, and are also used by Condorcet systems... but Instant Runoff throws out most of that data and mostly elects the same bad candidates as a simple "vote for one" system. The IRV/RCV algorithm explicitly ignores as much of the ballot as possible, so that most of the preferences you express are literally not counted. In contrast, Condorcet systems use _all_ the data, to make much more sensible decisions about which candidates should win.
8. Expose all gaslighting and corruption.
9. Stop blindly voting along party lines.
10. Question Authority.
..also repeal two other High Court rulings: The First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (which defined the right of corporate "free speech" by the ability to make contributions to ballot initiative campaigns) and Buckley v. Valeo (which declared limits on election expenditures as being unconstitutional) rulings both which set the stage for the disastrous Citizens United v. FEC.
We need to go to equal funding and equal media time (which also was done away with) as campaign reforms.
@@ToyKeeper Great point.
As a primary care doctor, now retired after 40 years in practice, here's what I have learned: We PCPs (Primary Care Physicians) are the "Minimum Wage" earners in the medical profession. Underpaid, overworked, overburdened. A cardiologist ran a $5000 test on a patient, and when the patient called to get the result, he was told, "we sent the result to your PCP; ask him to discuss the result with you." The reason most of primary care is being handled by PAs (Physician Assistants) and FNPs (Family Nurse Practitioners) is that no bright young doctors want to do primary care. They go where the money is, to big dollar specialties. Like vascular surgery, charging $25,000 for one hour's work or neurosurgery, charging over $100,000 for one hour's work. That is, until the vulture capitalists swoop in. Take Oncology for instance, where the big money is. You can always tell where the big money in medicine is, simply by finding out which specialties the vultures want to swoop down on. Before the vultures, the hospitals were the ones buying up the big-money specialties like cardiology and orthopedics. They only bought up PCPs to make sure those PCPs referred patients exclusively to their own specialists. Ah yes, PCPs do have a role after all: feed the vultures!!!
Yep.
I believe that worker solidarity and poverty can not both exist at once.
The truth of our political values lies in the risks we refuse to accept, and it is rising worker power, not continued poverty, that our political and corporate leaders find unacceptable.
Oh my God, a doctor complaining he doesn't make enough money. That's fresh.
@@lightwavesolutions4300He’s not complaining you idiot, he’s illustrating how the ones with money create a hierarchy that is self defeating to the purpose of medicine, as an analogy for other types of work. Reading comprehension isn’t your thing it seems.
@@lightwavesolutions4300 They make good money... before student loans, incredibly pricey malpractice insurance, and hiring extra staff to wade through the oceans of red tape that insurance companies throw at doctors.
I'm not saying "Boo hoo, poor doctors!" but one reason we're in the pickle we're in is because we don't have enough doctors, and one major reason for that is that it's expensive to practice medicine. Becoming a doctor means taking a big gamble that you'll be able to cover all those costs once you start practicing, which takes awhile. This is one reason, for instance, that we have a lot of immigrant doctors; demand for doctors is high, and they aren't saddled by the same student loans.
The disparity in pay between the overpaid and the underpaid is appalling and evil and unchristian and the smugness of the rich is sickening
Absolutely, Jesus himself said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
YES to THAT - This is one of the SICKNESSES Of Our Current Economic/Social System : (
Stay Well -70SomethingGuy
But, didn't Jesus believe in tax cuts for the rich? Lol.
@@MondoLeStraka No.
No it's not
Thank you for saying this! If nothing else, Covid should have taught us how valuable these “low wage workers” really are. Where would we be without them? We need to do better.
As a grocery clerk I was making an extra $4/hour hazard pay during pre-vaccine Covid. I still wasn't near $20/hour and it was taken from us when vaccines became available. Another grocery store only threw a $50 gift card for that very same store the employees' way every so often.
@@mariawesley7583wow you got hazard pay!!! The company I work for stayed open all through the pandemic and we didn’t get extra nothing!!! We stayed open 24 hours too!
My company went from a straight across-the-board 7% incentive payout to a tiered incentive payout: 5% for hourly workers, 8% for salaried workers, and 12% for the executive staff. They had an all-staff meeting to announce this, and when it came time for questions, I stood and said, "I don't have a question so much as a statement: It sounds like the rich are getting richer." (I can be really ballsy sometimes.) The HR director looked me in the eye and said, "Yep, that's pretty much it." Vile woman. She went on to explain that the executives get more because they're assuming more "risk." I wasn't expecting that, so I didn't have a good comeback, but after thinking about it, I WISH I'd said, "What risk?!? How many executive have you fired for screwing up versus regular workers? And even if you did fire them, I'm sure they all have golden parachutes to ensure a soft landing." God, the lies we've been told just so the rich can continue to hoard their money. Sad thing is, there are still too many people willing to blame their hand-to-mouth existence on immigrants, welfare recipients, affirmative action, gov't regulation, etc, etc.
Wow.
That HR lady...what a c*nt. Glad you stood up and said something.
more risk? so her survival hinges on keeping the company alive and holding down that job? cause thats the risk that the vast majority of workers take.
@@SharienGaming Exactly. And like I said earlier, you almost never see an executive being unceremoniously tossed out the door. They're given a big bag of money and a stellar reference to go quietly, so NO risk for them!
They don't get paid if the c9mpany doesn't make profit.
I have a friend who, unfortunately, thinks she is paid what she's worth. She has worked her entire adult life at a grocery store and in a handful of years will retire. I told her that in her lifetime working there she won't even earn half of the CEO'S annual salary. She still insists it's fair. A lot of people won't admit they're being exploited. It's too shameful.
If she felt exploited, she would seek other employment.
@@bartdoo5757his friend probably has stockholm syndrome
Well yeah, normal people aren't narcissistic sociopaths, and they don't usually challenge the norm because they have social skills, and they know it results in unpleasant interactions. Speaking up isn't rewarded in our community, in fact we are beaten down into submission from a very early age.
It's hard for some to realize that yeah, this isn't fair... The people are the top are not there because they're smart, or learned, or have special skills.
It's sociopathy, and what would be regarded as extremely destructive behavior in a societal context. There's a reason that greed was thought to be a deadly sin in Christianity, the bible literally specifies that rich men "won't enter the kingdom of heaven".
Whether or not you're Christian or believe that this is true, is still irrelevant. The point here is, that from a very long time ago, humans have caught on to the fact that certain individuals can be quite destructive in a societal context due to hoarding resources.
It's baffling that it's 2023, and people need to be reminded of that.
@@samf.s.7731 Most of the people that say that think the government should have more wealth and power.
@@bartdoo5757 it's not that easy!
As an example:
If DJT was paid what he was worth he'd be on the corner with a tin cup.
I hope he'll get the Justice that he's worth.
@@Zach-ju5vi Look this channels MAGA stooge, Zachoff is here defending his fearless leader. Big surprise.
@@Zach-ju5vi < little deluded slave. The uneducated trump loves 😅
@@Zach-ju5vi How you can equate the two is a mystery to me. Not that I think Kennedy was perfect, either, but he actually had policies that made this country better to live in for ordinary folks. Whereas Trump's policies were all about taking things away from ordinary folks -- ask those farmers who paid the "Chinese" tariffs s s and had to go under; some were bailed out by the government or otherwise they would have gone under.
Are you saying we should do nothing about our huge trade deficits which allow foreign nations more and more ownership of American property
I was a job and employee compensation analyst for 40 years. There are no less or unimportant jobs. Three factors. 1. Supply and demand, applicable to the rank and file. The destruction of unions ended the ability of workers to deal with employers as a single entity. We are back to competing with one another for jobs and pay. 2. Executives. Executives set their own pay. The SVP of Executive Compensation better give the executives what they want or the executives will find someone who will. 3. Globalization. Our government has allowed if not enabled US companies to use foreign labor to make and deliver products and services elsewhere and then return them to our market with no downside. This not only is destroying our middle class but it is a serious national security risk as illustrated by the micro chip crisis, rare metals, and supply chain flaws and vulnerability that severely disrupted our economy during Covid, and our coming face off with China. Shame on Congress. Good job Secretary Reich!
Then why didn't you raise peoples pay if that was your job for 40 years? Why not start a business and pay people more money than the business across the street. Surely by paying more you would get the best workers. The best workers would create the best products and you would sell them for the best price. You would have the best reputation and everyone would love you. Everyone except all of the workers at the other business's that you put out of business, losing their job, their cars, their homes. You cruel capitalist!!!! See how that works.
You are correct sir. If a CEO dies the business keeps on chugging. But if the real workers don’t work the business comes to a standstill. So who’s more valuable?
@@Zach-ju5vi Now that's some delusional logic expected from the number one corporate bootlicker Zachoff.
@@Zach-ju5vi there will always be some no nothing at the top to sign checks
@@Zach-ju5vi incompetence flows upward. Understand, we’re not talking about small business. We’re speaking of companies that have a CEO and a board of directors
The simple truth is, you can remove the CEO, and entire board, and all high level excuitives from any company. Do it with out saying anything, and the company could keep running for months before anyone noticed they were gone. And even after, it wouldn't have any effect at all. Remove the workers, and the company falls apart later that same day.
The simple truth is you are an idiot if you honestly believe that.
Minimum wage workers are a dime a dozen. That's why they are paid a (figurative) dime.
The entire crew of a McDonald's can walk out today. GM on down to janitor. That McDonald's will shit down, true. But it will be running again in a week.
If the CEO and entire board walks out, ALL McDonald's shut down about a week later. And they STAY shut down for months.
Workers are paid what they are worth to the Company. Not what they value themselves at.
Worth = what other people will pay.
Value = what you will sell for.
If you were harder to replace, you would be worth more. We see this play out time and again with pay raise negotiations. The top performers are hard to replace, they can demand higher raises. But so are the NICHE performers. Even an average worker who does what no one else can do can get top raises.
Worth.
@@Zach-ju5vi except that is mostly automated, and what little requires people is handled by lower level employees.
@Zach-ju5vi it is set up that way, they don't do anything with that part of the business. Managers at individual stores will often be directly in charge of payroll. But no excuitives in any large business are. That isn't how that works, at all.
@@Zach-ju5vi Same old curt reply from this channels bed wetting corporate bootlicker, Zachoff.
You better go talk to Lehman Brothers before it's too late.......
I have to add another big thanks to Professor Reich! I was lucky enough to attend his last Cal lecture with my Cal Senior in May. It was such a joy to have been able to sit in on a few of his lectures and then see him off on his last day. Let's hope his wonderful teaching, amazing experience and incredible intellect has spurred on HUNDREDS of graduates and graduate students to carry on his mission. It's SO BADLY needed today!
@@Zach-ju5vi Look everyone Zachoff the bed wetting, corporate bootlicker, troll is still triggered by the many here who agree with the great Dr. Reich.
We are becoming a nation of low skilled workers end result a starving bankrupt shell of a nation because of people like reich
I feel sorry for you
I feel sorry for our children who will inherit a bankrupt shell of a nation because of democrat handouts
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 We all feel sorry for you. Pushing the same old anti worker, pro corporate conservative think tank propaganda .Hit the bricks, chief.
I wasn't paid what I was worth. That's because management considered me a threat that could make them look like they didn't know what they were doing. They weren't wrong about that threat, but I never wanted their jobs.
Talent is wasted by promotion. Talent should be rewarded by advancement of their talent.
Whitey been keeping ME down ! It happens to Caucasians Too
Underpaid skilled worker vs the overpaid unskilled CEO, welcome to the meritocracy.
Yes, some of the worst performing CEOs get the biggest salaries and other economic compensation.
I looked back to the 1850s to figure out what "unskilled labor" was worth vs the cost of living. It is very interesting, because the unwritten rules pop up where a person could afford to rent a place at $4.00 a month because this figured into an average weekly wage of just over $4.00. (Long before the minimum wage was enacted). The irony is that "Unskilled labor" was paid more than a slave or indentured servant who was in all actuality, a highly skilled laborer who would work from sun up to sun down.
An "Unskilled laborer" of the 1850s could actually rent and save up for a home on the range, and have the place paid off in a matter of a few years. When slavery was made semi-illegal during reconstruction, the largest argument was against wage slavery, because somehow slaves were supposed to be better off than wage earners. (That's some jurassic KATO institute shizzo gaslighting).
I think the objective goal between the wealthy and the religious right about 50 years ago was to attack the middle class, or somehow reduce it so that they could overtake the U.S. The attempt by the Religious right to take over the U.S. in the 1980s failed because the middle class was too strong, and the RR could not outvote the middle class majority. Minimum wage being stymied has helped usurp our representative democracy and replace it with an oligarchy, which is soon to be followed by an authoritarian/dominionist theocracy.
the real reason conservatives hate a living wage minimum wage is because of ideology: they believe unskilled workers don't deserve to make that much money. Conservatives are saying some workers deserve poverty and that it's their right to tell poor people how much money they deserve to make.
So your saying low skilled workers were better off when regulations were lite and the rich wasn't taxed heavy is that what you have discovered
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 There sure are a whole bunch of you drowning in the Kool-Aid.
The dystopian future I feared as child has begun to take shape. My children and grand children will never experience a world were life is worth more than money.
Do you send half your income to the government to pay for the handouts democrats want if not why not someone has to pay for them if not you than who
Thanks Bob, I've noticed workers are starting to look elsewhere and not waste their time working for a nonliving wage.
Skilled workers make decent wages what workers do you refer to
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 All workers.
Skilled workers make a liveable wage what workers do you refer to
Democrats party of handouts republicans party of Lincoln
The Owner Class: "We just need to give Trickle Down Economics another forty years to kick in, and then it will really start working."
This mentality reminds me a lot of how soon workers in the UK will see the benefits of Brexit.
@@Zach-ju5vi ...Howso?
Steve Chance: They can stick "trickle down" in one ear and out the other.
@@Zach-ju5vi Well, well, well look everyone it's this channels corporate bootlicker Zachoff the irrelevant troll spewing the same old tripe.
@@Zach-ju5vi LOL
When i was starting out, i assumed that if you were paid $20 or more an hour, you would have tremendous responsibilities and workloads that i could never be capable of handling, so i told myself that i would need to settle for around $10 an hour. Through the years, my experience and observations proved just the opposite -- that all too often, the less you're paid, the more you actually have to do. And if you're really good at your job, and the company is already paying you peanuts, they'll decide to continue their great fortune and reward you with even more work but not any more money; my dean used to call this a yeoman's promotion.
In my state which is Colorado, the minimum wage is $17.23/hr but I'm still getting paid $15.38/hour because Im not working in Denver. What kind of BS I have to go through and wait another year for the 17.23 minimum wage to pass in other counties but paying 1500/rent for a one bedroom is ridiculous.
Massachusetts min $14, 1bd rent $2000
At least they should have fixed the house market. They really took everything from lower class
@@Watch-0w1 it is fixed, for the rich.
Everyone else is screwed; if you can save money, they want it in their pockets instead.
Good luck, bud. Im highly skilled labor and can't really break past 22 hr
@@Zach-ju5vi More of the same old pro corporate anti worker blather from our boy Zachoff the irrelevant troll.
Personally, I feel like Upper Management should be capped at earning a % higher than their median (or lowest) workers. The exact % could be debated, but the idea being that in order to make more themselves, they'd have to make sure that those below them are also able to make more. ("A rising tide lifts all boats") Instead, it seems to be a constant cycle that the "owners" are the only ones allowed to increase profits while those who actually do the work make less and less.
Well, high taxes on businesses used to encourage high wages.
Quite agree and I think the strongest argument for that is that not too many years ago the top management were doing very nicely when their pay was a lot closer to that of the average in their company whereas now that multiplier is far greater. The 'rich elite' are paying themselves sums of money that they could never spend in a dozen lifetimes let alone one.
@@Zach-ju5vi The one and only corporate bootlicker Zachoff is back for everyone to laugh at spewing his usual anti worker babble.
@@Zach-ju5vi < the liar speaks again 😅
Sounds like some pinko, commie SOCIALISM! to me! Off to the camps for you!
If you were designated an "Essential Worker" during the pandemic and are not making a comfortable living, you are not getting paid what you are worth.
Exactly.
The one and only reason these massive pay differences exist is because of a power differential: This pandemic proved that the government could create and sustain more robust income support programs and give poor people more power and eventually eradicate poverty... if that was truly their priority.
Please run for President
Dear Reader:
Do you fear plans by Republican fascists to cut Social Security and Disability, to put the homeless population in concentration camps, to end our right to read what we like and to protest and even vote? Are you convinced that Donald Trump bought the electoral votes he needed in 2016? Do you wish that there were something you could do about all this? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then read on. This the letter for you. This is a chain letter. Please make 12 copies and send them to 12 different people, before it's too late.
The time is now to spread the word by any and all means possible. Let's spread the word to vote blue, to vote all of the GOP fascists out of office. Let's spread the word to petition our representatives for a constitutional amendment to elect the president by popular vote so that another rich tyrant like Donald Trump doesn't buy any more electoral votes. Our freedom and democracy are at stake here. Get busy and do your civic duty now.
A Concerned Citizen
Right! 😂
Please move to Canada and become prime minister.
I think foreign policies porton right now and I would love to know where he stood with it. I would love to see him as president too
Yea, no thank you! We already have a Joe Biden. Don't need any more please!
We should be so lucky as to live in a world where people are paid based on the value they bring to the company. I'd like to see any of these CEOs try to justify how their contribution is 300x more valuable than the typical employee in their organization.
Raise your hand if you've ever lived through a New York City sanitation workers strike. ☺️😁😋
Don't tell me those guys aren't worth CEO level pay!
CEOs and the alphabet soup of top level executives personally claim the collective value created by the employees who did the actual work as their own. They then use that to justify taking the lion's share of profits off the top. They don't work 100x or 1000x more than the average workers, or do anything worth that much more. They just take it. Or rather the board gives it to them while robbing the company by using its money to fund stock buybacks that only serves to enrich shareholders at the works' expense.
BTW, paying execs through dividends that are taxed at a much lower rate is one of the schemes they use to dodge taxes that they'd normally pay on their salaries.
You are aware that corperations are taxed three times at the federal level
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 not when they pay zero
Then the shareholders are taxed then the ceo is taxed then various state and local fees no matter if a profit is made or not
Workers are never paid what their worth. Otherwise the ones in charge don't get to make their profits on the workers back.
They would still make huge profits, but no matter how much, it’s not enough
So you support communism where profits don't exist that ended badly everywhere it was tried
Say the following three times communism doesn't work communism doesn't work communism doesn't work
@@Zach-ju5vi Now that's some world class anti worker propaganda we all expect from the biggest Zachoff on this channel.
@@Zach-ju5vi Come you Zachoff . That's another load of the usual anti worker, pro corporate propaganda you spew here on a regular basis, that nobody is buying anymore.
Now go home and get your shine box.
Same logic as " if something bad happens to you, then you deserved it"
It is called just-world fallacy, it fuels Republicanism.
It's a bogus religious belief that's been around for millennia.
@@icaruscrane8846 Calvinism.
@@scifirealism5943 Yep. Although I must admit that I once thought that 'Calvin and Hobbes' was a pretty good cartoon.
i love Robert's drawing and animation and speaking the truth!
@@Zach-ju5vi feel free to elaborate on your attempt at a point lol.
Thanks for your support!
@@Zach-ju5vi Wow big surprise. Zachoff the corporate bootlicking troll is triggered by this fantastic video from the great Dr. Reich.
@@Zach-ju5vi HaIf truths because you're upset by reaIity?
@@améliehester6996 Reality and Zach are strangers. We just laugh at him.
It's always the Rich who define what is fair. Funny how it's always to their advantage. 🙄
They are also more organized.
Nothing will change until people become more civically engaged.
@@Zach-ju5vi oh is that why those companies are making record profits and their ceos are the richest people in the work? because they are constantly losing money? nothing to do with systemic exploitation of their workers, the environment and theresources of the global south?
@@Zach-ju5vi And he's baaaaack. Zachoff the anti worker corporate troll spewing nonsense for us all to laugh at.
No I am not paid what I'm worth I'm worth a hell of a lot more than I am paid
@@Zach-ju5vi keep trolling, clown.
@@Zach-ju5vi YAWN....ZZZZzzzz.....
You are 100% right, and Jamie Diamond a famous CEO is not worth the money he is paid. Roberts video is 100% right, these myths are wrong, and hurt America.
@@Zach-ju5vi No that's objective when someone's paid more than me and can't even freaking get simple things right they are not worth anything and I am worth a lot more than them so I am paid a lot less than I'm worth
Meanwhile, you don't know basic punctuation, grammar or sentence structure. I'm guessing you serve beverages somewhere. @@shellnet411
I did the math once, when I was a supermarket "grunt" making minimum wage and working part-time. My gross pay was around $680 a month. My CEO at the time had a salary of around $1.5 million per year, meaning that he made around $700 an hour, while I made $8.50. In other words, he made 82 times what I made. Somehow I found it very hard to believe that he did 82 times the work.
Oh, and that's salary, assuming he works 40 hours a week. That didn't include any of his perks and benefits, like his jet, $10 million in stock options and other investments, or the other $10 million of miscellaneous perks.
People still ask me why I'm a democratic socialist...
Something I have noticed in the past 60 years is every generation that inherits fortunes feel more entitled and care less for the workers because they have never worked a day in their lives but expect more than their fathers and don't care how they get it.
What we value is upside down. Our children and seniors are not valued. Caretakers and teachers are not valued. Caretakers of our rights and environment and future are not valued.
That's your fault you don't pay enough taxes to value them properly
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Cynicism is the refuge of the hard-hearted.
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 YAWN....ZZZZzzzz....
No it's because you don't pay enough taxes to pay them more why not
Immoral system democrats take by force money from an orthopedic surgeon in NYC who works long hours and earns four hundred thousand dollars and gives to non working people who drag everyones liveing standard down by producing nothing but still consuming
A lot of people who studied some classical economics fall for the idea that wages are determined by a worker’s marginal productivity, and the owners (rich) use that as part of their argument about “the free market” determining wages. I used to teach that in my Econ class, before I began to think about three big holes in that argument. Dr. Reich talked about one, the disparity in power between employers and employees. A second hole is that, in today’s complex businesses, it is impossible to determine how much one new worker adds to a company’s income. A third hole, maybe the biggest, regards CEOs. How many times have we seen companies lose millions, even go bankrupt, while the CEO makes millions. They blame it on market forces, like competition. However, the CEO will rake in extra stock option profits when the company does well, without sharing with the workers.
I work in public education in Australia. We're in the middle of a teacher shortage, with no improvements in sight.
Our Union just secured a 2%PA pay rise. If the market dictated teacher pay, it should be a lot higher as there simply are not enough of them.
On a similar note, I wonder how the wages of any job deemed "essential" over the past 3-4 years has changed? I never heard of any CEO being deemed essential. I can barely grasp the dissonance.
"Essential" was pretty much just code for "expendable."
Since a company cant exist without employees. The dynamics seem upside down. They need us more than we need them.
@@Zach-ju5vi As always Zachoff is towing the corporate line like a good little bootlicker.
@@Zach-ju5vi
And who creates the wealth they feed on ? It certainly isn't the boss.
@@Zach-ju5vi
👍 I'm just to tired for this. Maybe tomorrow i can dig up a shit to give. Right now it's music and some vodka to end the day.
😁
My depression is directly linked to the fact that as a teacher, I cannot afford to rent or buy and thus must live with my parents as a full-grown-ass adult with 3 kids.
I hate this economy so much.
I feel your pain
How does a CEOs salary cause you pain
The most unrealistic thing about TV shows and anime, is when you see these people live in nice ass houses while on a normal workers salary lol
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Because they use that salary to legally bribe the government to pass regulations in their favor, and cut programs that dont benefit them. Programs of which include things like education, which is what pays for teacher salaries.
So yea, theyre pretty directly linked. When you live in an oligarchy (which the US is), then the more power and money the wealthy have, the more it negatively effects those not in that group.
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Hope that's a joke. CEO's take home a MONTHLY salary that is equivalent to a YEARLY salary for a teacher.
Trickle down economics is a damned joke. These companies make millions or billions and those workers get only less than a fraction of the those huge profits.
You can’t rent an apartment with the wages these companies pay.
I am a union construction worker that found I was paid $20 an hour on my last paystub. When construction work isn’t is busy, (and therefore no work happening and trying to scrape by), I have found an assistant management position, and another front desk position at one of my favorite museums also hiring for $20 an hour along with the given criteria.
Union power and solidarity all the way!
I have considered, (after watching a history channel series about the Gilded Age from Rockefeller to Henry Ford), about possibly starting my own coffee shop as a worker co-op to demonstrate the possibilities and utilities of what Starbucks United can bring to the coffee industry.
Investigate Richard Wolff and Democracy at Work.
@@barryrobbins7694 I have listened to him enough to where he very much inspired me to want to put his ideas and theories into practice. In other words, I am already schooled by him and Robert Reich even though I never took their college classes before they’re pulling into retirement. It is now on us to put their ideas into practice.
@@Zach-ju5vi I do still think about it, and it was admittedly a hasty idea even though it’s rather ambitious.
@@Zach-ju5vi Typical curt response from this channels corporate bootlicker, The Zachoff of this channel
Brilliant!
minimum wage = we'd pay you even less if the government let us
absolutely, imagine if there was no set minimum wage.
@@Zach-ju5viif 4 means "many". There used to be 5, but Switzerland created a minimum wage in 2020. Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway don't have a minimum wage, but their industries are almost entirely ran by unions that have effectively created minimum wages. They also pay far more taxes than in the US, have free healthcare for all, government mandated minimum vacation requirements, free universities, and a number of other social services that make it impossible to compare the potential outcome of removing the minimum wage in the US to.
@@Zach-ju5vi Another useless point by this channels anti worker, pro corporate bootlicker. Zachoff the bed wetter troll.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As we found out so alarmingly during COVID, the lowest paid people are the most necessary. One's "worth" is determined by the Market, and the Market is controlled by the rich. They set their own pay, and everyone else's. If the people at the top all vanished overnight, the economy would not be harmed, in fact it would greatly benefit.
they would just get bailed out by their rich friends in the white house aka the rich house
CEOs should be paid what they are worth. There would be plenty of money left over for all employees to get a nice raise.
We also need to stop mystifying corporations and see them for the man made constructs that they are.
If we allowed the president of the US to set the wages of federal employees we would all see the obvious problem with that. Why wouldn't he give himself a 1 billion dollar per year pay if he is the one who determines?
I think we also need a change in regulation of how businesses are structured. The top 5 earners in a corporation need to be exempt from the ones who set the wages. So that means the CEO's have to either give up that control or just accept a lower pay.
That's a myth. For example, if the Walmart CEO had worked for free last year and that money had been given to the regular employees instead, each person would've gotten less than $20 for the entire year!
@@juniorgod321 I have no idea where you got that one from. Most CEO's are paid in stock so yeah their cash income is pretty low. Not that this matters.
And the CEO is not the only highly paid employee. Not to mention the huge dividents and stock buybacks.
If companies 50 years ago could pay good wages and productivity has nearly tripled due to technology there is no reason they can't do it today.
@@juniorgod321 Also as workers we should not care. If we allow ourselves to care companies will use that to screw us. The directors can take care of the company. We just need to make sure we get our fair share.
You cannot pay skilled workers the same as unskilled workers do you not think there should be a wage gap between a doctor and a fast food worker
I've said for a long time that if we were really paid what we're "worth" supply and demand of a job would factor more into pay.
It's because Democrats have used open immigration, high taxes, and over regulation to put slack into the labor market year after year. Which gives all the power to employers, driving down wages, and immigration drives up housing prices at the same time. To the point tens of millions of Americans don't have any money left over at the end of the month. And it's the low wages and lack of power at the bottom that allows the excesses at the top. Causing the wealth gap.
Compare that to JFK style conservative policies of using low taxes, smaller government, deregulation, and less immigration to tighten up the labor market. Which gives power back to workers. Raises wages. Allows for advancement. Allows for mobility. Allows people with bad job records or few skills to get jobs. And gives people dignity.
If Reich actually cared about lower income people, and was capable of compassion and empathy, Reich would be a Kennedy/Reagan conservative
@@practicaliching2311 i'm just going to let you live in that narrow understanding and blame game fantasy. Its more than just left or right
@@practicaliching2311 you keep posting this same rant, troll.
Perhaps the purpose of a company should include providing quality jobs, as well as quality products and services. What is the point of a business if it does not make life better for ALL the stakeholders.
I agree, making money for the sake of money has no sense. Money are a human made tool we should use it to benefit mankind not collect it like we're some silly chipmunk gathering and burying acorns we forget where.
I hate that "pursuit of happiness", "it's all in the journey not the destination" stuff, i really think we should "stop and smell the roses" more.
@@somnorila9913i know that this is a late response. But I wanted you to know that those that horde money are rather sick in the head.
So poisoned is their world view that if the roses aren't making them capital that they aren't worth anything. If those who control our society are universally I'll what does that say about what truly trickles down? "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Is a saying that was ringing in my head this entire video, I thought I would share even if I had forgotten who had shared it with me.
The minimum wage has made CEOs and some workers think that is all they are worth. The $2/hr wage I earned in 1979 is now worth $15-$20.
The minimum wage should be tied to a cost of living index that reflects what is required for a person to pay for their basic needs without government subsidies; it varies a lot from region to region.
Yep.
@@Zach-ju5vi The number one corporate bootlicker, Zachoff can't cope with all the people who agree with the great Dr. Reich. No surprise. hahaha
Public policies have caused this situation and public policy can correct it if there was only the political will to do so.
True, Democrats have used open immigration, high taxes, and over regulation to put slack into the labor market year after year. Which gives all the power to employers, driving down wages, and immigration drives up housing prices at the same time. To the point tens of millions of Americans don't have any money left over at the end of the month. And it's the low wages and lack of power at the bottom that allows the excesses at the top. Causing the wealth gap.
Compare that to JFK style conservative policies of using low taxes, smaller government, deregulation, and less immigration to tighten up the labor market. Which gives power back to workers. Raises wages. Allows for advancement. Allows for mobility. Allows people with bad job records or few skills to get jobs. And gives people dignity.
If Reich actually cared about lower income people, and was capable of compassion and empathy, Reich would be a Kennedy/Reagan conservative
The majority of Americans are in a CEO worship coma.
"Worth" is subjective.
@@Zach-ju5vi Another conservative think tank talking point from the number one corporate bootlicker, Zachoff.
Yes.
With each passing wealthy generation, the amount of wealth transferred is so staggering that the inheritors have less and less need to contribute anything to society. Just party on one of their yachts until they croak. In some cases, it's so absurd that even if they threw away a million dollars a day, they'd still be wealthier at the end of the year than the beginning.
Agree, the income inequality that exists today is unjustified and unethical. Workers efforts made the profits feasible. Lowering the gap between different tiers of workers is necessary to create a sustainable, healthy and safe society for all.
Thank You for speaking up .I work as a janitor and I like to ask people -how badly do you want a clean bathroom and toilet paper . Look at the essential workers during covid , we needed cleaners guys stocking shelves not CEOs.
I work in a warehouse for a Fortune 500 company and the CEO makes 350 times what I make. Chief executive pay is unbelievably ridiculous today and the golden parachute clauses they have are obscene
To make matters worse, if ordinary workers get fired, they'd better hope they can live off any savings they may have until they find another job (you can't collect unemployment if you get fired or quit your job), but CEOs who get fired -- uh, excuse me, are asked to resign -- get golden parachutes! Even Carly Fiorina walked off with $21 million after nearly running HP into the ground.
I think that it depends on the state: In New York, you can get unemployment if you're fired; you just can't get unemployment if you quit. The standard is that the loss of work cannot be something that you were in control over.
@@genius11433 In Ohio, where I'm from, there is one circumstance where you can collect unemployment if you're fired, and that's if you can prove you were terminated without just cause. But if as a condition of your employment you signed an agreement to be an "at will" employee (which is often the case these days), meaning you can be dismissed at any time for any reason as long as it's not illegal, you're out of luck.
It is the imbalance in power that is the major obstacle.
If everyone gets a quality education and develops “marketable skills”, it doesn’t change the nature of the economic system we all live in. Employers will simply use the situation to drive down wages - workers will be easier to replace.
Thanks Reagan.
And W and former prez.
Ironically, the easiest job to replace with some AI program, would be the CEO, since they basically do nothing 99% of the time.
@@Zach-ju5vi, he does nothing 100% of the time. He is one of the biggest losers on the planet, and an absolute failure in every regard. Holy crap, read a book. Wake up.
@@Zach-ju5vi Typical projection we all expect from Zachoff the corporate bootlicking troll.
in one of your early documentaries, a guy in the front row of some meeting said "I don't earn much bc that's what I deserve, I get that ..."
guessing that was 10? years ago.
that guy broke my heart back then.
for him to dismiss himself was just awful.
The job I had before I was let go due not being able to return work after my shoulder surgery and a very long recovery, I was one of many underpaid for my job title and work I did. I was a thermal spray tech that worked lots of aircraft parts and some commercial parts. There were others who were overpaid for what little work they did and parts they destroyed. Also they got to be on first shift because they wanted it. I am glad that I no longer work in that place.
Yep there's some real shitty crap jobs (that exist because of even worse managers) out there. I worked one of those type of jobs during summers while I was in college. They'd rather pay tens of thousands of dollars in OSHA fines than actually make the place safe. Made no sense.
@@rm3141593 Yes, there's clearly some kind of emotional issue going on when companies make decisions like this. I did contract work for a company that, to raise its quarterly income figures, left goods sitting on the dock because they wouldn't pay their supplier until the quarterly report. Which meant that they items they wanted to sell couldn't be put together and sold, so their income was delayed, and they would pay higher prices for those supplies in future, not to mention the word gets around to other suppliers when you welsh on a payment. Makes zero rational sense. I think a lot of decisions are made from people who are in emotional turmoil and feel they have to hide it; it comes out in idiocies like this.
SOME JOBS DON’T NEED TO BE DONE
(OR THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE)
1. Every full-time worker deserves the dignity of a wage that doesn’t require government assistance.
2. A person working a full time job, should be able to afford a one bedroom apartment, transportation, food, clothing, and healthcare - basic needs. This is a true minimum wage.
3. Pay adult part-time workers proportionately.
4. Jobs that don’t meet these minimum wage standards don’t need to be done. Right?
The following will help employers:
1. Free national healthcare
2. Free quality education through university, (including trade school)
3. Good mass transit
Amen to all those points! I had to work 2-3 jobs for years. But if we had public health, they wouldn't have to worry about restricting schedules to 28 hours a week (in case of late employees, which could push you up to 32 and make you benefits eligible).
Um no. I hate the full time classification. When i worked at supermarkets, I couldn't work past 28 hours a week. If i worked 32, i would receive health insurance, tuition reimbursement, prescription coverage, 401k, etc. Also i couldn't work full time since I am currently enrolled in community college.(and I was taking care of my sick mom on top of that).
Really i'm going to be in poverty for the next five years. I go to community college, but I'm not backed a full ride scholarship or grant. I worked minimum wage(i'm unemployed now), and i participate in internships that pay me $900/a semester(before taxes).
I get no health insurance from any of those things. And even if did, i'd have to pursue one of them full-time to qualify(cutting into the other two).
@@MissDorkness that's messed up employers only care about money and have no heart.
@@scifirealism5943 Did you read the part in my comment about healthcare and education? …about part-time work? Are you really doing work that doesn’t need to be done?
Having worked fast food at McDonald's, people think it is just "flipping" burgers, there is alot more skill behind the scenes then people think.
I sure as heck couldn't walk in and do the job without... ✨TRAINING ✨meaning by definition it's skilled labor. And, even if I knew how to work the equipment and read the orders no amount of reading a manual would make me as productive as someone who has worked the job for months or years
i do not understand why people treat mcdonald's workers worse than rapists.
@@Zach-ju5vi Still trolling like the corporate sycophant you are, Zachoff. Seek help !
COVID forced us to see that the "essential workers" are the ones with the lowest salaries.
Not enough people see these videos. Plus too many people say and believe there is nothing we can do. So why bother trying. I keep saying this is all coming to a head. It's going to break. I give it less than 5 years.
I would love to see Robert work with or at least go on johns stewart new show, I think in principle these two men would have a lot in common and maybe even get a larger message out there together then apart.
This is capitalism - workers are paid as little as companies can get away with, because that maximizes profits, and maximizing profits is the whole point. What that work is actually worth isn't and has never been part of the equation.
“I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law.”
Chris Rock
Yes, capitalism is a completely amoral system. It is one of its major flaws. Immoral people use it to exploit people. That is the main point of the video.
I don't know what the answer is but I know it starts with cutting the connection between wealth and political power. Now, how do we do that???
1. Vote
2. Undo Citizens United vs FEC
3. Publicly Funded Campaigns
4. Rank Choice Voting
5. Develop Other Parties
6. Proportional Representation
7. Stay Organized
Eliminate elections. All public offices should be filled with a lottery system. Let's say the seat for district 52a will be vacant next session. All names on the voters registration list are placed in a hopper and one is drawn, just like the Powerball. The person is then notified and requested to be at such and such a place at such and such a date to commence serving their term. Just like jury duty, except for 4 years. At $75k a year. Instantly, money out of politics. No more need for a candidate to run an election campaign. No more need to raise money from big business special interest donors. No more incentive for psychotic assholes to seek positions of power and control. Everyone sooner or later gets their chance to be Cincinnatus...
Before retiring, I was a reporter for a daily newspaper in Wisconsin. I produced more copy than any other reporter on staff, I won more awards than the rest of the staff combined, and, yet, I was paid the same as all other reporters at the top of the pay scale. Why? Because the American Newspaper Guild had a chapter at my paper and we all were required to pay dues and belong. In return, we all were guaranteed the same pay once we reached the top of the pay scale. My publisher felt i should be paid what I was worth to him so he got around the Guild pay scale by sending a check whenever I won an award or he particularly like one of my reports and asking me not to mention the extra payments to anyone.
Thank you again, Professor. It makes us normal people feel so bad because we, in addition to struggling, imagine this is all our doing and we beat ourselves up again and again for not having succeeded, when that is not how God sees success so why is it a human measure for success?
Any business that operates in America uses the roads and utilities we all support and build, as well as the backs and minds of workers-AND its natural resources (trees, minerals, water). Much more money should be returned to the country-through taxes and workers’ pay-than goes to individuals at the top today. Using our country’s resources, of all types, should be repaid-otherwise, the business is NOT helping build America’s future.
The top ten percent pay over seventy percent of the federal taxes so they are the ones who pay for the roads and infastruvture seventy percent of it anyway on the other hand if you draw out 1500 a month in ss till your eighty that's over two hundred thousand dollars you did not pay that much in ss taxes and the average person draws out three dollars for every dollar paid in medicare taxes the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare the rich benefit off none of these programs but pay almost all the federal taxes how is that fair it's you and me who are the thieves bankrupting our nation we don't pay enough taxes for the services we receive
Not all pay for the roads over forty percent of the house holds pay no federal income tax it's the rich who's taxes pay for it look at the general accounting office numbers before commenting
Pay your fair share of taxes for the ss and medicare you will draw out
@fritzforsthoefel8031 You left out Mortgages charge twice,property tax,gas tax,Federal and state tax,sales tax,car registration tax,inflation a hidden tax,ect.😂
I love Robert Reich, maybe he should run for president
word. mr. reich, you're a scholar and a gentleman, a true mensch!
"trickle-down" economics is no more than the rich and powerful pissing on the poor and disenfranchised.
Our narrator does, indeed, weave a fine fairy tale.
From a seller's perspective:
Worth = what I can get for something
Value = what I am willing to sell something for.
When value exceeds worth, I do not sell. When worth exceeds value, I do.
From a buyer's perspective:
Worth = what I am willing to pay for something
Value = what others are paying for it / what people are selling it for.
If Worth exceeds Value, I buy it. If Value exceeds Worth, I keep shopping.
When you go to work, you are selling your labor.
Your WORTH is what it costs to buy your labor. Plain and simple. It has nothing to do with production. The only thing skills or education have to do with it is how unique or replaceable they are - and then ONLY if they are applicable to the job at hand. If you are the only left handed backwards juggling mime on the west coast it doesn't matter when applying to an architecture firm. But it might if hiring on to a circus.
People are paid EXACTLY what they are worth. Because if they were paid less, there would be no one working in that job.
So let's look at the top end of the scale. Again, it is not about production, it is about rarity. Who has the combination of skills, experience, expertise, and dedication (CEOs often work 70+ hour weeks) to fill the job? Small pool. How much will it take to get one of those folks to come fill OUR position? That is what they are worth.
Worth does not equal value.
It’s hard not to like Robert Reich. I’ve always liked him, and at times I’ve thought that if I were elected President, one of my first calls would be to Robert Reich. Keep fighting the good fight, sir!
I saw many years go a chart that showed the compensation paid to Japanese auto makers management versus American auto management with the correlation in world wide sales. It was an amazing chart! The Japanese management were paid far less then their American counterparts yet their companies out preformed in every market! Which begs the question: why are these managers being paid so much despite not accomplishing more? Do Detroit trucks and cars get better gas mileage? Are they more reliable? Do they last longer? Do they cost LESS? NO? Then why and the hell are they still in charge?
Love your videos Prof Reich. I urged my mom to watch some. She lives in FL. She did and subscribed to your recent class :) I wish there was more talk & explanation about reversing the antitrust laws & company stock buybacks. People need to know this and understand it better including myself. Thanks for all your hard work sir !
"Conservative" economic views are literally magical thinking. The universe is not enacting a meritocracy. There is no financial karma. They seriously can't tell the difference between a monetary system and supernatural moral concepts. I can't imagine being less connected to reality when everything in life gets boiled down to commerce.
@@Zach-ju5vi Please you and reality have never met, you Zackoff.
$15/hr is roughly $30,000 a year. It's what the cooks at McDonlds make.
$13,000,000 is what the CEO of McDonalds make EACH year.
Yet if the cooks don't show up, I can't have a hamburger.
The CEO can take the year off, and I can still get a hamburger every day.
Which one is getting paid "what they are worth"???
The guy who determines what you're worth has one eye on his profits.
That's why that guy always undervalues any worker's worth while severely overvalueing his own worth..
The higher I'm paid the easier the job is. It's reverse uno
😂
I would have liked a different way of putting it.
"You are paid what you can demand".
That's why collective bargaining exists.
@@scifirealism5943 It's why I think a federal jobs gurantee is a good idea because it would kind of set the minimum in terms of both wage and working conditions.
@@MrMarinus18 yes.
No doctor is working for $12/hr.
I've never seen that much pay for a cashier.
@@MrMarinus18 I agree.
I used to work at McDonalds (2007-2012) and brought in an additional 1.6m per year my last year. I made $8.50. Last year a only saved my boss about $26,000 and made $30/hr…
I’m definitely living proof that people in the US aren’t paid what they’re worth.
Oh Ohio shop Pizza owner evenly split a day's gross sales with his employees: each worker made $78/hr.
If places like Chic Fil A adopted this model, their cashiers would be making around $100,000/year.
You saying you worked at a McDonald's and you generated 1.6 million in revenue in a year ? Nonsense unless those burgers were 100 bucks each
@@eddiekulp1241 average is $2.7 million. Some get as high as $4 million. Chic fil a goes to $5.4 million.
@@eddiekulp1241 lol I was the assistant manager and the last year I worked at a different store. Before me, 3.1 million, after me, 4.6 million annual profits. So my post should say “1.5m” but yeah. that’s 2012 numbers, these years that’d be considered low I imagine.
McDonald's won't exist without 'workers'. This is the reason so many 'student debt' because 'unskilled' workers were told to 'get qualifications for the jobs of the future'. Tech jobs will always be a few and getting fewer with AI and robots.
Thank you Robert Reich!
There is only ONE acceptable reason for the business owners to use that I will accept and that is: They took a huge risk in starting the company; they had to take out a bank loan in that equaled to hundreds of thousands of dollars (which would've required them to have some money saved up to begin with) and HOPE that the business picks up enough for them to be able to pay the loan off and start making money; they also had to pay this loan off while paying for employees and their benefits. If the company failed, they could've lost everything and even ended up homeless.
However, this does not apply to offspring who inherit the business and it doesn't justify the owner not paying a decent wage once his company turned enough of a profit.
If only the working class owned the means of production.
If a bunch of workers get together and start their own business, they can do that, but you can't expect someone else to spend their own capital in order to start a business just to hand it over to you!
Capitalism:
1. Your increasing productivity increases profits.
2. Your increasing salary decreases profits.
3. You can switch jobs, but all companies have the same incentive to work you harder and pay you less.
@@Zach-ju5vi Same old delusion from this channels corporate bootlicker, Zachoff.
I'm paid weakly, very weekly.
Lol😅, I don't recall hearing that before. That's a great one! Except for the fact that it's completely true😢.
I took a summer job taking care of the elderly. I'm a student and the job was in my field but got still paid close to minimum wage. I talked about how low the pay is for practical nurses with my co-worker and she just looked at me kind of sad. "It's because we don't produce anything".
My millionth reasson to join a union for nurses.
Your friend is wrong. Nurses do create things: hope and health. The good nurses do, at least.
@@moniqueloomis9772 It's hard to directly create a market for happiness and health, not a direct commodity nor good for short term profits. That friend is wise to the type of sad sick minds that control companies.
Though those with such stock in the things that make life good know that people like nurses are invaluable to the medical field, the business side of medicine sees them as expendable.
Robert Reich is a national treasure!
It's sad and funny. Because my company actually told me my labor brings in about $2.3 MILLION/month...
I don't even see a % of a % of that in my YEARLY salary.
😢
because corporations abandoned the profit sharing model decades ago when Reagan busted unions.
Google this: an ohio pizza shop owner paid his workers according to company profits, his pizza workers made $78/hr.
@@scifirealism5943 that was for one day right?
@Kyle Reber yes. He then returned to skill based pay, his workers made $11/hr.
I went to college pt at night and I never made enough money, when I retired I had to use savings to pay off my college loans 😢
Yes, the idea that college guarantees us a decent-paying job has been over since the 1980s, maybe earlier.
At one time, don't know about now, Japan's CEOs could not earn more than 13 times more than the lowest paid worker in their company. Not a bad policy.
\
The Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain, it is likely even less of a difference. It is the 7th largest company in Spain too. It requires a different mindset.
We watched Undercover CEO and that showed us just how unremarkable those people were.
This has been my mantra for decades only I could never express it so elegantly or effectively. But it also leaves out the element of luck, not in inheritance which you stated, but in success in general. Luck plays a lot bigger role than most people, particularly successful people, are ready to admit. The most perverted aspect of all this is how so many people on the bottom are willing, not just to believe, but to promulgate the ideas you just shot down. Thank you.
Everyone is paid what those in power say they're worth
it's a power differential: doctors can demand $90/hr, cashiers can't, even if Walmart made trillions.
Money is the root of all evil...
It's a very serious issue right now and there's no sign of it getting any better. Unimaginable wealth is in the hands of a relatively small number of psychopaths...
"Trickle down", economics have never worked! Ever!
I lost hope in humanity when I heard people actually fell for "trickle down" and didn't laugh at it.
Your right! David Stockman was the chief economic adviser in the Reagan administration. Upon criticizing Reagan’s “trickle down economics” , he was chastised by Reagan and other Republicans, Mr Stockman resigned in disgust. We are all suffering today because we (I mean ALL of us as a country) did not listen to good advice when it was given to us by a dedicated public servant.
@@Zach-ju5vi The poster boy for the saying" figure lie and liars figure" Zachoff the corporate bootlicking troll.
If most people were "paid what they're worth", employers wouldn't hire them, and there would there would be precious few jobs to go around. People don't go into business to lose money. Any rational adult understands that agreeing to take a job involves making some compromises. EVERYONE thinks they're worth more than what they're being paid. If you're unhappy with what you're being paid, find another job, or profession, that pays better.
That's what grown up do
Robert Reich should be President of the United States because he cares about people.
I don't begrudge a person making a lot of money if he or she invents something or starts a company. However, most CEOs are essentially hired hands who worked their way through the company system and much of the "value" they create is from "financial engineering" - cost cutting (and repeating that horrible phrase, "work smarter not harder"), stock buybacks, deferral of capital/major product investment (think Boeing). On top of that, they usually appoint board members giving them little or no incentive to rein in executive compensation.
Of course then we have politicians who think that the tax rate paid by CEOs should be lower because they will create more jobs if their personal income tax rate is lower. Any CEO of a publicly traded company who makes staffing decisions based on his/her personal income tax rate should be fired because he/she is incompetent.
It is a club. CEOs are on the boards of other companies. They essentially decide to give each other raises.
it's a power differential. A neurosurgeon can make $60/hr to start.
A cashier can't demand to make that much even if every fast food joint and supermarket made a septillion dollars in profits every nanosecond.
It needs to be written in the Constitution, that one job must pay enough to people for them to not be in poverty, enough for them to live a healthy and humane life.
that might be a big Duh! for us to realize;........ How do we influence our country men and women that assuring worker's security should be a constitutional right?
@@FatherElectric you can't, unfortunately.
Not possible, because the dollar amount of your work doesn't matter the value you bring to it does. You would only cause hyper inflation and destroy the economy. That's why you get paid minimum wage and I don't.
@@FatherElectric
It shouldn't be a right.
That trickle smells funny…
I didn't consent to these Republican watersports.
The "market" works by doing whatever maximizes profit. Companies don't pay based on how much you earn for them. Wages are based on return to them. Will a higher paid workers produce enough extra revenue to justify the expense?
Of course as Reich says this isn't a true free market. There isn't enough competition and options for workers. Even when multiple openings exist, typically wages are similar. Companies have the advantage in negotiations, when it's a few massive employers organized into corporations versus individual workers. Unions are the counterweight to give workers leverage. A fee workers quiting over low wages is cheaper than raising wages for everyone. A complete stoppage to work is a problem.
Very nice video, a few comments.
Incentive bonuses instead of a standard rate of pay, rate of pay was changed. You got a basic pay but got extra for "incentive bonuses" for hitting your targets. However, the next year the level achieved for the bonus becomes the new norm and if you want an incentive bonus the next year you have to reach an even higher target...and so it went on. Slowly the bonuses were phased out and you got the same basic wage however hard you worked. The new "incentive" was to keep your job, if you didn't reach your targets you could be fired.
Unions - not only has union membership reduced - the bosses also make sure that the union leaders are well taken care of, so that when there is a change to "working practices" (another word for work more for less) because the union leaders have been bought off they have little incentive to fight the management.
Pay for legislation. It is clear that legislation is no longer elector lead but based on what "donors" offer to political campaigns. They are not donors - they want something in exchange - which in some cases is they want the law changed in their favour.
International Trade Deals. What I mentioned above has been made worse by international trade deals that strongly favour international businesses and penalise governments. In a nut shell the premise behind these international trade deals, is that international companies should be free to maximise their profit. Government legislation such as environment, workers rights, health and safety can be contested based on the fact they restrict a company from making maximum profit. There are international business law courts that can contest government laws or prevent new laws that might inhibit a company's opportunity to make "maximum profit". A company can sue a government but not the other way around. These are rarely mentioned as a means in which a givernment's power is severely restricted.