View attachment 61849
44% of the US workforce doesn't earn a living wage. That is almost HALF of the jobs that exist.
There are 168.4 million people in the US workforce.
168.4M x .44 = 74.09 MILLION workers.
Of those 74.09 million, 1.06 are earning minimum wage or less.
74.09 million people that you think should just "move up". Unless you think there is some magic jelly bean field they can go to and get paid more money, they must be "moving up" into a different job.
74.09 MILLLION is MANY "tens of millions" of jobs that need to be available for all the workers to "move up" to.
Even if that sector only turned over 1/4 of its workers each year, that's almost 20 MILLION empty jobs that need to exist for people to just "move up" to
Show me just 10 million available jobs that exist in the US for these workers to "move up" to, much less 20 million.
Perhaps the question should be:
"If working below living wage is just for people 'starting out in the workforce', why are almost HALF the jobs paying below a living wage?"
"Starting out" implies young people (teens to very early 20's) getting their fist job.
Are we saying that 44% of our workforce is composed of these young people? If we are, then we are wrong.