This is a good talk on Libertarianism
Specifically the section around 16:35. Earlier, Sandel gives the two main requirements based on Robert Nozick's justification of what makes income distribution just; 1. Justice in Acquisition (initial holdings) & 2. Justice in Transfer (free market)
The problem I have with the discrepancy in income is the justice of acquisition for corporations like Walmart or McDonalds. They're very clearly exploiting their employees labor, the fact that they utilize government welfare programs to survive is the evidence. So @ginwilly or @Rob Roy , according to Nozick's interpretation of libertarianism, why do you believe corporations like the ones in my example are justly acquiring their wealth even though they're exploiting their labor force?
I dont think you have any comprehension what poverty means in America. It is an arbitrary number determined by the government.
What are poverty thresholds?
The
poverty thresholds are the
original version of the federal poverty measure, which was developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration in the 1960s.
[2] Updated each year by the Census Bureau, the thresholds are used mainly for statistical purposes–for example, preparing the estimates of the number of Americans in poverty for each year's poverty report. The measure was devised to define and quantify poverty in America, and thereby provide a yardstick for progress or regress in antipoverty efforts, and in that sense has served the nation well.
Values of the poverty thresholds for the years since 1980 for families of different sizes are available on the
Census Bureau's website. The most recent values of the poverty thresholds are provided in the table below. For example, a four-person family with two adults and two children is poor with annual cash income below $23,283; the threshold for a four-person family with a single parent and three children is $23,364.
U.S. Census Bureau Poverty Thresholds, 2012
Size of Family UnitPoverty Threshold
One person (unrelated individual)$11,720
Under age 6511,945
Age 65 or older11,011
Two people14,937
Householder under age 6515,450
Householder age 65 or older13,892
Three people18,284
Four people23,492
Five people27,827
Six people31,471
Seven people35,743
Eight people39,688
Nine people or more47,297
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Weighted Average Poverty Thresholds, 2012, released in September 2013.
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Walmart pays at least 9.34 an hour.
If you were working full time at walmart you would have to claim more than two dependents to meet the poverty level.
Is walmart supposed to pay their employees by the number of dependents they have? Is that going to be one of your new requirements? According to this a person making over 23 bucks an hour is below the poverty level if they are claiming 8 dependents. Walmarts problem or yours?