>Personally, I think there's room for improvement so taxpayers aren't essentially subsidizing the profits of companies who pay a wage low enough that require workers to rely on a safety net while the companies simultaneously post ever increasing profit margins.
Yes. These companies are keeping too much for themselves. There isn't any nicer way to say it. At the same time, the labor creating all that wealth isn't able to keep enough of it to continue to exist and show up for work without someone, somewhere paying for those things to happen.
Re: The mix
#2 is a problem in that we don't just grant the subsidy. It comes with a lot of hassles, checks to limit qualifications, more checks to reduce it should the laborer make a little extra here and there, and of course, a LOT of blame and shame.
Somehow, we've arrived at a place where important, basic labor is seen as a negative, despite the fact that someone is definitely going to be doing it, and we need those people doing that work! This does not sit well with me at all.
Those people have families (well, large numbers of them do), needs, and are in general people same as any of us are, and should be doing that work with the basic dignity and respect any of us would expect when doing our work.
And there is the moral argument you suggested I was making, made here now.
I am making it now because it does tend to complicate the overall discussion. This negativity biases the value perception of both the work and the people doing it away from the objective value it clearly has when one views our society, sans that labor being done for hire. What does getting it done even look like?
We are still somewhere apart on the economic argument.
I said this basic labor could be valued differently, and suggested we value it in terms of what that work being done is worth to others who hold other stations in life, often at higher, can be very considerably higher income. Doing it that way does suggest Tom Brady could pay his basic labor at a very high rate, creating a basic problem you identified easily. Fair enough.
But that really was not my intent. After some thought, maybe this gets at my intent better:
Who pays for the laborer to exist and show up for work?
And by exist, I mean the laborer has a reasonable, though spartan place to live, can see the doctor, has food, and can afford to get to work somehow, and the amount of labor leaves them free to follow other pursuits as any of us may be inclined to do with our leisure time. Put simply, a modest, reasonable, respectable life. And we avoid the live to work, work to live case for the unreasonable life it is.
Having set that up, just because Brady could pay that amount does not mean he should. And that's not really inclusive. We all benefit from the basic labors being done all the time.
The value comes from the fact that when we do have people performing these labors, others do not have to do them, and given labor is valued in a way that provides for life to be broken down into thirds as I suggested earlier in the discussion, this dynamic allows for our leisure third to be ours, generally speaking.
One third is for sleep. One third is for whatever labor we do for income and together that provides the machinery of society to exist and operate as it does today. The remaining third is our time. Family, hobbies, research, whatever we want to do, are inclined to do, and can afford to do.
At another point in the discussion, I also took a look at wealth:
Anthropologists define wealth in terms of time. Poor people have most of their time purposed for them, with slavery being an extreme example of profound poverty. Ordinary people of modest means generally live by the thirds I talked about here, and wealthy people can purpose the majority of their time as they please.
Someone can have a lot of money and it may occupy the majority of their time. The demands related to having or earning that large amount of money can be stiff, largely directing their time. Put simply, they do not purpose much of their time and are living in poverty, despite having considerable spending power.
The same thing is true for someone who makes so little that they basically work to live, and live to work. They purpose very little of their time as well.
An example of a wealthy person might be one who requires little, labors a little to meet those needs, and can purpose a majority of their time. Another example might be someone who has inherited income, or is in possession of a resource of some kind such that it takes very little of their time to labor, and they too can purpose a majority of their time how they please.
And just for shits and giggles, "labor" is generally time spent that is purposed by someone else other than the person doing labor.
People who love to work do present confusion, and that's related to the basic idea of loving what one does for work so that more of life is pleasurable, and or self purposable in that the labor is the purpose... I am just going to ignore this and keep to the basic definition of labor and leisure.
Leisure time is time one can purpose any way they want to. Hobbies, laying out in nature, art, whatever.
When we have many basic labors performed for us, our wealth as a people is very considerably improved! This is why there is wealth in numbers, generally speaking. As there are more of us, so can the basic labors needed to live a life and have a society be well distributed, creating more leisure time. Such an arrangement does provide for advancement in technology, the arts and more, due to some people choosing to invest their time in these ways.
And there is the value I suggested expressed in a way largely ignoring money.
To that end, what is required is basic labors yield enough economically to allow those performing basic labors to live a reasonable, modest life of thirds as I've defined above.
So, who pays?
We could continue subsidies. And if we took this route more formally, recognizing the value backing that idea as defined above, we should also then eliminate the blame and shame. Getting that subsidy should be a rather ordinary, common transaction and those doing the labor should feel no shame related to their contributions to society and the value those have.
Personally, I feel that's something like UBI, and I feel it could work, depending. I dislike the idea of the likes of Walmart and McDees banking billions when they could very clearly afford to pay their labor well enough to live that modest and reasonable life of thirds and still put billions in the bank, just fewer billions. And I would suggest, enough billions with obvious expansions and innovations able to increase the billions they find it possible to bank every year.
For anything like these kinds of value changes to really stick and transform market dynamics, we've got to use law. The likes of Dan Price can successfully model what things can look like, and that's great, but likely seen as a threat and expensive (to them) way to move the discussion forward.
Requiring employers fully fund their labor is an option.
Allowing for that mix, subsidy and employer wages.
We could require neither of those be true, and basically turn charity into a sort of tax with real teeth. (this would be undesirable state of affairs, if you ask me)
Or, nobody pays, and we accept that people will just cease to exist and or show up for work where the costs of doing that simply are not paid.
Who pays?
What basis do they use for understanding whether their people are able to make it?
Finally, I don't have complete answers here. Am just really trying to suggest how we value things could be done differently and provide a basis for ending poverty and or ending the negatives associated with it as we face it today.