> a "Living Wage"

> enough to live

The term is capitalised because it has an actual defined meaning beyond the etymology derived from its component words. If you think everyone earning just enough to keep themselves physically alive is a sufficient standard to strive to for modern society, then I would question your ethics.

The "living" in the term Living Wage is about being able to actually live a life, not just survive it.

> We should look at things from the other direction...

There is nothing about the Living Wage that precludes doing that: it's a quantitative metric to be accompanied by your qualitative suggestions, not to supplant them.

As with all economic metrics, it's only relevant in context. If you define a living wage standard that others agree is useful - it's useful to understand what portion of your population fits this category. Alternately, it's useful to assess a static standard over time to see if equality problems are getting worse or better.

Having seen both sides of this equation, It's increasingly unclear to me whether wealth inequality has crossed the takeoff threshold where outcomes no longer correlate with Merit. Observationally, I encounter many in high status fields who got their due to familial wealth + guidance on pathway. I worry that we are seeing more people who are wealthy because their parents were wealthy, potentially to the point where labor is no longer required beyond perception maintenance.

Such an arrangement is fundamentally anti-productive to the economy. It removes capital from skilled individuals to support leisure. It reshapes the economy to support the leisurely whims of a few individuals. I don't think its a coincidence that as wages and inflation rose GDP growth rose. It's a reallocation of capital from unproductive sectors to productive sectors.

[...] (T)he estimated living wage for a single adult with one child in New York County (Manhattan) is $43.18 [...]

So you can 'live' below this if for example:

- You work more than 40hr/week, have a second job

- Have no children

- Commute long distance

I haven't dug into the methodology, but for example, a lot of apartments in NYC are rent stabilized. There is universal preK. Many receive Medicaid. Also, did they check whether the household has a living wage or just each of its working age inhabitants?

I'm not defending these mitigating factors as a good solution to people's money problems in NYC, but like you say, "living wage" is a fraught term that conjures up vague and charged imagery inappropriate for a rigorous analysis.

> If the city was populated by 60% people who do not earn enough to live

Earning enough to live is a fuzzy idea. I'm not satisfied unless I'm maxing multiple retirement accounts, have a year of saved income, insurance, etc. I think the figure is believable if you're fine with not saving, not having insurance, dodging taxes, etc. An alarming number of people are okay with this.

Looking at the calculator they're using[1], I spend probably 15% less than they say is a living wage for my city, even though I spend more on rent and food. In my case, transportation and healthcare are both estimated too high, and "Civic" and "Other" make up most of the difference.

[1]: https://livingwage.mit.edu/

Lets not look at roman slavery as abhorrent, lets reframe it instead, as living organisms, getting a meal, having a roof and occasionally warmth in the winter. Suddenly, the nightmare is not so horrific anymore. And we should ask ourselves, how we can normalize a downfall like this even further. Maybe, this is what humanity always wanted all along. A boot to the face.

Guess what pal, everyone's up to their eyeballs in debt and living check to check.

Don't you think it is chaos already? I mean there's literally two murders a day and 100k homeless ppl