this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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I've been watching a few American TV shows and it blows my mind that they put up with such atrocious working terms and conditions.

One show was about a removal company where any damage at all, even not the workers fault, is taken out of their tips. There's no insurance from the multimillion dollar business. As they're not paid a living wage the guy on the show had examples of when he and his family went weeks with barely any income and this was considered normal?!

Another example was a cooking show where the prize was tickets to an NFL game. The lady who won explained that she'd be waiting in the car so her sons could experience their first live game, because she couldn't otherwise afford a ticket to go. They give tickets for football games away for free to people where I live for no reason at all..

Yet another example was where the workers got a $5k tip from their company and the reactions were as if this amount of money was even remotely life changing. It saddens me to think the average Americans life could be made so much better with such a relatively small amount of money and they don't unionize and demand far better. The company in question was on track to make a billion bloody dollars while their workers are on the poverty line and don't even have all their teeth?

It's not actually this bad and the average American lives a pretty good life like we're led to believe, right?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

I cannot understand the desire to be trapped in a job because without it your family gets no healthcare and will basically either die in a ditch or you'll get a bankrupting bill for it. Not having universal healthcare even as a safety net scares the crap out of me.

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Do you truly think anyone desires that?

[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Some people are convinced that it's the price of freedom

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

50% of people keep voting for it, so some people must love it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Actually 99% of Americans keep voting for it. These systems were built with bipartisan support.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Yes. Even idiot Republicans support it when you tell them about it without using words that trigger their only braincell.

[โ€“] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago

It's certainly preferable to the alternative of forced redistribution by the government

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Most people hate this. It's just impossible for the average person to do anything about it because very few politicians support changing the current system. In the 2020 election for instance there were like 2 dem candidates and 0 Republican candidates who wanted a public option for health insurance. Nationalizing the whole thing, NHS style, is completely off the table.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Policies like Medicare for All are popular with a majority of Americans, but aren't implemented because the parties in charge flatly refuse