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I’ve been thinking about these agents, and what it all means.
In Ontario, Canada, the law about police identifying themselves is really straightforward:
- (1) A police officer shall not deliberately conceal any of the following information that is part of their uniform or is otherwise required to be displayed:
- The officer’s name.
- The officer’s badge number.
- The name of the officer’s police service.
(2) While acting in the course of their duties, a police officer shall, upon request, provide their name, badge number and the name of their police service to any member of the public in a manner reasonable in the circumstances that allows the member of the public to identify the officer, unless the officer has reason to believe that doing so would undermine the safety of an individual.
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/r23407
In France “Police officers must clearly display their identification number badge”. In Germany “you have the right to ask for the police officer’s identity card and to write down their details”
But, apparently in California the rules are a lot weaker:
“Any uniformed peace officer shall wear a badge, nameplate, or other device which bears clearly on its face the identification number or name of the officer.” But, this allows for them to wear a badge or nameplate, and then wear something over top of it, or obscuring it. In addition “Neither California nor federal law explicitly mandates that officers must identify themselves.” I mean, that’s pretty fucked up to begin with.
I can understand that because doxxing is relatively easy, a criminal might find out a cop’s home address if the officer has to give their full name on request. So, maybe in 2025 an officer giving out their full name might be a legitimate problem, especially if they have an unusual name. But, how can you expect to have a reasonable society if police don’t need to provide any identification on request?
The very concept of badge numbers is about trusting cops. Badge Numbers come from Collar Numbers, used on the collars of Metropolitan Police in London. Robert Peel introduced those in the 1860s to increase accountability and gain public trust. Those original numbers were short and easy to read, just 3 numbers, and being on the collars of the uniform they were very easy to see at all times. So, even someone almost illiterate might be able to use them when filing a complaint. In the modern world, badge numbers seem like the perfect compromise between the public’s right to know if someone is a legitimate cop, and to have a permanent ID for them, and the officer’s right to avoid having their family put in danger by being doxxed.
It seems like there’s some effort in California to make police identify themselves, the No Secret Police Act prevents cops from covering their faces, and requires that they be identifiable by their uniform. IMO it should also require that they verbally identify themselves if asked. If a cop is say, kneeling on a guy’s chest, you might not be able to see their name / badge number.
As for the “Secret Police”, it really seems ICE is 90% of the way there. Wikipedia defines it as:
Secret police (or political police) are police, intelligence, or security agencies that engage in covert operations against a government’s political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents… They protect the political power of a dictator or regime and often operate outside the law to repress dissidents and weaken political opposition, frequently using violence. They may enjoy legal sanction to hold and charge suspects without ever identifying their organization.
When Rumeysa Ozturk was snatched in Boston by a guy in a sweatshirt, tossed into an unmarked van and driven away, look how many elements of “Secret Police” that checked off right there:
- Covert Operation: check. They were not wearing uniforms and didn’t use a police car
- Repress dissidents and weaken political opposition: check. She was legally here on a student visa, and had done nothing more than exercise her free speech rights, but she said something that went against what the government likes, so she was snatched.
- Operate outside the law: check. She had not broken any laws. She was legally in the US on a student visa. The only thing she had done was say pro-Palestinian things, which falls squarely in the free speech category.
- Legal sanction to hold and charge suspects without ever identifying their organization: half check? In this case they did pull out badges and lanyards after they grabbed her, but before they threw her in an unmarked van. For a full check they’d have to have never identified themselves at all.
The only parts of the Secret Police definition that the ICE agents haven’t yet fully checked is going completely without ID of any kind, and the direct use of violence. Although there has been violence associated with their arrests, they’ve used excessive force, and a lot of the detention facilities seem to involve low-intensity torture, that’s not quite the normal “secret police” trick of jumping out of a van and beating the shit out of somebody then driving off, or grabbing someone, hauling them off to a torture site, pulling out their fingernails, then dumping them somewhere, etc. But hey, it has only been 6 months so, who knows what’s next.
If the US survives the next 3.5 years, it really seems like a nationwide policing reform is necessary, on top of everything else. They should really start with Peelian Principles that are designed to have an ethical police force so that you can have “policing by consent”.
But, until then, drive them out of those jobs. They do not have the public’s consent. It doesn’t matter if they’re “just following orders”. When those orders are illegitimate, that means that they are not legitimate figures of authority, they’re illegitimately using violence, and can expect just about anything including violence in return.
The BBB kicks anyone who is single and without kids/with kids over 14 off Medicaid if they don’t work at least 80 hours every month of work, absent some really obnoxious paperwork requirements that may or may not have an agency to process them by the time the rule goes into effect.
Cops and other security workers regularly just get to sit around in their trucks playing Candy Crush and racking in overtime up to the six figures.
ICE just got a $175B budget increase in order to swell its ranks with a bunch of unemployed single men who need healthcare.
I’m not saying this is a deliberate policy decision but… it’s one hell of a coincidence.
Are we sure ICE agents even get healthcare? They usually look like just random dudes pulled off the street and given a balaclava and a rented van and told to round up brown people. I’ll bet they don’t get much more than minimum wage and no benefits.
I suspect the $175B isn’t going to matter a whole lot in terms of the number of boots on the street. Most of that money is just going to be absorbed by the higher-ups.
My city closed a two block stretch of road for a day this week. Instead of a sign or cones, they had cops just park their cruisers across the lanes with their lights on and sat there all day.
Well the cops put some cones around their cruisers too, but this way about six got a full days salary, if not that overtime pay.
No body has ever begrudgingly become an ICE agent either. You do not stumble into it. Every ICE agent did so because they wanted to be deport people. Remember that.
It doesn’t even pay that well. Like, it’s fine, but a sheriff’s deputy or city cop makes more; multiples in a big city.
Every single one of these fuckers needs to be hanged when the regime falls. Any government that won’t back that effort is just some vichy west german bullshit.
It doesn’t even pay that well.
$34/hr to fuck around all day pretending to do law enforcement is a pretty sweet deal. With overtime, you can get into the low six-figure salary, just crushing candy on your phone until your shift ends.
Yeah vop salaries are insane. Ice doesn’t pay as well,
It didn’t pay well until recently. With approx. $150 billion USD I’m willing to bet a Jr. ICE agent’s starting hourly wage will be enormous. Probably the highest entry level pay scale out of all American law enforcement agencies and armed forces.
Why would that money mean higher wages for the grunts on the ground, when it can be absorbed by higher-ups in the organization? Walmart has tons of money coming in and that doesn’t result in higher wages for workers.
More likely youll see signing bonuses. They cant hire enough goons for what theyre truing to do right now, much less to expand.
I think the complete anonymity of the ICE costume is by design from the top, to suppress individual reluctance to obey orders. Think of the speech Marcellus Wallace gives Butch about throwing the fight:
"Now, the night of the fight you might feel a slight sting. That’s pride, fucking with you. Fuck pride. It only hurts, it never helps. Fight through that shit, because a year from now when you’re kicking it in the Caribbean, you’re gonna say Marsellus Wallace was right.”
Pride pushes a thug’s buttons when he’s doing something he wouldn’t do if everybody knew it was him doing it. With that uniform he can step out of himself and just be the job. If anything he does bothers them later he can always just get drunk. Right now he can think about next year when he’s kicking it in an America that’s Great Again! He’s gonna know kneeling on that lady’s back was the right thing. I really think that’s the inspiration for the terrorist costume.
Nobody forces anyone to be a police officer.
These thugs have all willingly chosen to do that job. They could quit any time they want.
Remember that.
True for all cops. True for all garbage careers built solely on harassment and fucking with people.
Fuck em all.
Their boss was like “youre going to breaching charge a baby because their mom talked shit about us on facebook”
and they were like “hell yeah”
the same way nobody forces you to work at mcdonalds and shit
but sometimes you just can’t take the risk to lose your job
Many are probably not in this situation though
Bet the Nazis working at Auschwitz only wanted to feed their families. They led the death marches not wanting to risk losing their jobs. So sad /s
Comparing ICE to Nazis and genocides is… bold
And disrespectful
ICE is quite literally the exact same thing as the gestapo. They are nazis.
Gestapo was the German abbreviation for “Geheime Staatspolizei” which literally meant “secret state police” - exactly what ICE is.
Explain the difference?
Afaik people are expelled and deported outside of USA? Not massively killed for racist reasons
I mean putting illegal migrants away isn’t a new concept, but I must admit that the USA situation is wild and idk much about it
They just built a concentration camp out of tents in a flood-prone area during hurricane season. They are wearing masks and sending anyone who looks vaguely brown there without due process or trial. The people in charge have repeatedly doubled down on their “jokes” about feeding the inmates to crocodiles.
Did you forget about the el Salvador concentration camp? That they sent legal residents to.
deleted by creator
I know I’m gonna get shit for this, but I’m someone who always tries to be fair and look at things from all sides so…
I suspect like many things in late stage capitalism, for at least some not insignificant portion of them, it’s not much of a choice. I’ll lay odds a good number have a hard time getting jobs that pay worth a damn. I wouldn’t be surprised if many were ex-cons, for example - which is why they’re encouraged to wear masks, because those in charge don’t want to allow that fact to be used to “de-legitimize” what they’re doing. The “choice” from the agent’s perspective is quite possibly do this, or be homeless & hungry. It’s more deliberate cattle-herding of the powerless by those at the top.
I’m sure the majority are probably into the job, but I suspect those that are just doing it for lack of options is not a small percentage.
Nah, fuck em.
Plenty of ex cons or people in shitty situations in general do their best to get by without directly harming people, by having or gaining morals and trying to genuinely be a good person.
Taking the path of least resistance in terms of ‘career options’ just makes you a bully and a coward.
I am a person who has gone homeless and hungry, from being the victim of these kinds of people… I’ve never hurt anybody, I put up with all the bullshit and paperwork and constant harassment from every member of society that comes along with being homeless, and managed to crawl my way back to not being homeless, and doing PT, and repairing my credit after having my wallet/bank cards/id stolen.
I have infinitely negative sympathy for people who have actually done crimes and then victimize more people out of the mere fear of ending up dispossed.
Fuck, they could just go work on the farms instead, that would be a legitimate line of work, lots of job openings there!
Your logic is horrendous and allows for a society where anyone doing anything shitty for basically any reason can be pearl clutched and crocodile tear’d away by unduly sympathizing with their personal sob story.
You really think you’d feel the same if these ex con neo nazis fucks busted down your door and sent you to GITMO, CECOT, or Alligator Auschwitz, simply on account of your skin being too melinated and you having a foreign sounding last name?
Gimme a break.
You gonna sympathize with their victims? Write an opinion piece from their perspective?
You are doing apologia for the modern Gestapo, that shit didn’t fly at Nuremberg, if it flies with you now, you’re a fascist apologist.
These motherfuckers looked a job description that read ‘You will routinely carry out crimes against humanity’ and said 'Hell yeah, sign me up!"
They deserve all the sympathy of the Nazis captured by the Inglorious Basterds, tap tap tap goes the baseball bat.
EDIT: But hey, at least your user name is apt, Sanctimonious Ape.
How very absolutist of you. The real world isn’t so black and white as your idealistic view of things. There’s nuance to everything, and to go straight to labeling me as a “fascist apologist” for recognizing that fact makes you no better than any other the other propagandists. Black & white judgements of people are designed to separate us into camps where each thinks they’re better than the others, rather than recognizing the humanity in all of us making us all rather imperfect.
EDIT: also, how convenient of you to ignore the fact I acknowledged that most were likely indeed into the job. No, you’re not manipulative at all. 🙄
Regarding your edit: I probably haven’t moved my profile description over from Reddit, but it went something along the lines of “to ‘ape’ is an old term used as a verb for imitation, so I’m ‘aping’ your sanctimoniousness, and giving it right back to you.”
Oh what a suprise you’re a reddit power user, I am shocked, shocked I say, to find such a person being a fascist apologist via dubious rhetorical manipulation!
Yeah, many situations have nuance.
I have considered, and indeed, first hand experienced the ‘nuance’ that you describe and now hint at, and find it hollow.
You are obviously an extremely privileged perma online person, who delights in being theoretically morally superior in all situations, not actually giving a fuck about the plain and obvious injustice of a situation.
Yes you truly have mastered the art of sanctimonious aping, bravo at being a completely insufferable ass.
You can’t seriously be trying to deploy the ‘you’re doing black and white logic’ tactic when… you yourself acknowledge that these people are into it, that they voluntarily engage in it, and also just utterly ignore that I’ve personally known many drug addicts, ex cons, who have ended up homeless, and actually did their damndest to get off drugs, to go straight/legit, to recover, that they walked the hard path because it was the right path.
Again, I can only hope that ‘nuance’ visits your doorstep and impacts your life personally, because you are obviously a disingenuous, solipsistic troll who can’t learn anything until it hits them in face like a brick.
Kindly fuck off back to reddit, most of lemmy is really doing its best to be rid of people like you.
People like you are the reason I’m here, so the same in kind. I have to get going now, so rant away. Your lengthy diatribes just lend credence to my point, anyway. Only bullies try to overwhelm everyone else’s perspectives with so many assumptions resulting in so much BS.
Aggrandizing yourself is not the flex you think it is. Your selective concern trolling is nothing but a push to divert the issue at hand to make yourself feel better, or more sinister, a part of a subtle propaganda machine to stop people from pushing back.
You should sit at the front lines amongst the ones being affected and we’ll see how your statements stand up.
Again, another absolutist - at least you recognize some nuance.
I never said any of this was okay. I did recognize that there are likely some among them who are simply people trying to survive who saw an easy to get job that paid reasonably well & decided to put up with the crap in order to get the money they needed. They aren’t likely educated enough to understand the full moral implications, and too pressured by life’s demands to spend much time caring about them. Once they’re in, I’m sure there’s plenty of “team building” manipulation that helps keep them there.
I’m sure to you that makes them evil, but I think ignoring the fact they’re human just propagates the hate and division. Like I said earlier, I’m sure they’re not saints, but they may not be so far gone that respecting their humanity would be a waste of time. Some of them probably just needed support they weren’t getting elsewhere. If you actually want to change their mind, you’ve first got to understand what got their mind there to begin with. Treating them as subhuman isn’t going to get you very far. You can respect the person without respecting their job.
Ignore them. I’ve had more issues with dbzer0 users than from any other instance. They are clearly attacking you then when you try to defend yourself they try to use that against you.
Really, this all started because you just were trying to think of the person behind the badge, while acknowledging that cops are still bastards. But, because you didn’t use the right phrasing they are vilifying you. It’s crazy that you’re literally being attacked because you’re trying to empathize with another human, as if that’s a bad thing.
And Putin doesn’t have a choice either or he will be killed, same with Kim Jong Un and Trump would be in prison if he wasn’t a tyrant.
It’s always a choice no matter how you try to paint it, stealing from supermarkets to eat is above being an ICE officer morally speaking.
I don’t really get your first paragraph - there’s a world of difference in options between those at the top & those at the bottom.
Nonetheless, I agree it’s always a choice… to an extent. When you’ve got others depending upon you to provide, or you’re not educated or mature enough to understand what all this means and are just trying to survive - how much of it is really a choice?
I’m not saying they’re saints, but I expect at least some of them would rather be doing something else if they could get enough pay for it.
or mature enough to understand what all this means and are just trying to survive - how much of it is really a choice?
Then nothing is a choice, everything is a product of your nurture and nature and free will is an illusion
Everything is a product of nurture and nature. Free will is an illusion. Your brain doesn’t give a shit.
Also, law and order isn’t based on if there were better choices but which choice you chose.
The fact that your choice was based on fate doesn’t change the consequences. It doesn’t unassault a 70 year women.
nothing is a choice, everything is a product of your nurture and nature and free will is an illusion
I unironically believe this, yet I also believe that all fascists (including ICE, obviously) need their “medicine” (lead)
There can be a noticeable difference in choices when there’s a lack of understanding what that choice means. If Trump getting into office again didn’t make that clear, I don’t know what to tell you.
I wouldn’t be surprised if many were ex-cons
proudboys, oath keepers and 2%s, of COURSE they were at J6th. so while I agree with the conclusion, I have zero fucking sympathy for their tenuous position. It’s probably real hard to keep a job in the real world when you hate everyone.
Yep, I’m sure that’s absolutely true for most of them. But it’s unlikely to be all of them. If we are to be the better people, then we need to remember not to dehumanize them like they do their victims. Absolutely defend yourself (or whoever they’re after if you’re up for putting yourself in harm’s way), but no more than necessary, or you will be no better than them.
I initially misread this as ‘we shouldn’t dehumanize proudboys/oath chuds etc’ and was like: goddamn this mofo wants me to be jesus
upon rereading: don’t assume all the ice-wads are pb/oathkeeper/derp%ers - which is still pretty fucking generous in my viewing; yeah, people just doing a job, but also, that was tried for the defense at Nuremburg - didn’t fly there either.
It’s always been class warfare. The rich and powerful subjugate the poor, and hold poverty over us to ensure that we do what they want, and we hate who they want us to hate.
Us infighting doesn’t stop the ultra-wealthy from continuing to win, it enables them to. The only way to win is to band together as a people regardless of our race, status, or job, against them.
Fully agreed. The problem is getting that to happen - particularly when they own the bulk of the media from which so many of us “commoners” get what passes for “information.” Never mind overcoming the long-ingrained tribalism keeping the infighting going so strong.
You don’t even have to stretch by talking about ex-cons, it’s worse, it’s just normal people:
Interesting read, but there wasn’t even one vaguely sympathetic applicant among them? Don’t you find that the teeniest bit unlikely?
The slant of the article was so blatant and obvious. For example, the one who claimed he wrote papers in college about “the harms of illegals in America” wasn’t asked further about those papers? Riiggghhhhtttt. Either this was an incompetent interviewer, or they had a bias they wanted to confirm when writing this article.
I can see where you’re coming from, so I started reading the article. But most of what we need to know is right at the top. It was published less than a month ago, and the job fair described was also in June of 2025.
I really don’t expect the people applying for ICE jobs right now have a large percentage of sympathetic characters among them. I would expect there to be some, of course, but not finding any in a random sample doesn’t feel very noteworthy to me.
Oh, I’ve little doubt of that myself. I acknowledged the majority of them were into it in my very first comment, and they’re definitely mostly assholes. Although I try to remember there’s reasons they became that way, I still am not foolish enough to think they’re easily redeemable. However, I would be quite surprised if there weren’t some not insignificant percentage of their staff who are just in it for the easy job that pays reasonably well because they have few other options to survive. There’s always outliers in any grouping - always.
That’s all I wanted to point out - the fact there are still humans behind those masks with a wide variety of backgrounds. This is something that people too easily drop as a factor when making judgements about others. The fact you personally don’t find that “newsworthy” doesn’t mean others don’t need to be reminded of that fact. Just look at all the vitriol based upon exceedingly large and false assumptions about who I am that I’ve received here alone.
I just want to reply that this
Although I try to remember there’s reasons they became that way, I still am not foolish enough to think they’re easily redeemable.
and this
That’s all I wanted to point out - the fact there are still humans behind those masks with a wide variety of backgrounds. This is something that people too easily drop as a factor when making judgements about others.
both hit home for me. I was born into the white religious conservative world. And when I was younger, more naive, and of course much angrier, some of the hollow rhetoric on the right seemed to make sense.
So when looking at some of these awful people out there, it can be a very “there but for the grace of god go I” situation for me. And their humanity deserves that benefit of the doubt.
However, the very unfortunate reality is that every villain has a sad story. I mean, imagine being raised by a monster like Frederick Christ Trump Sr.
So yeah I try to remember that my ignorant conservative relatives didn’t exactly get shown all the truths in the universe and still chose bigotry over community. They have a warped view of the world for various reasons.
But on the other side of that coin, the sad ubiquity of heartbreaking stories can’t keep people from fighting back when appropriate.
It’s that “when appropriate” which is key, along with “in an appropriate manner.” I absolutely support resisting these thugs (& this “administration” in general), but I fear in the heat of anger it’s all too easy to dehumanize them, which makes our side no better than theirs. Often they even deliberately try to provoke such a response so they are “legally justified” in going over the top in “defending themselves.” It’s a tedious & difficult game to come out ahead on. I feel it helps one restrain emotions and keep from reacting to their provocations if one always tries to keep in mind that their opponent is just as human as we are. Be resolute in resistance, but not violent unless you have absolutely no other choice.
Likewise, “just following orders” didn’t fly at Nuremberg, it should fly anywhere.
war criminals should be allowed to fly a few feet until the rope stops progress.
-not
I think you dropped this
Well, yes, but this is a necessity.
You can’t (yet) run such a system otherwise, it would take way too much funding & time/indoctrination to get unwilling-ish people to do this shit.
Currently ICE HR uses the base mass unemphatic culture with strong branding (+propaganda) & sense of belonging. Which are cheap to exploit/already there.
But even the most sadistic such agents have a limit, more of a hardwired shellshock type of thing that builds up (the more extreme example is how Nazis just had to stop mass executing villages bcs even soldiers that really wanted to do it had like a gore limit that built up to the point of them being unable to physically work).
With ICE agents not seeing the full horror first hand (and just willing to not imagine the consequences) this limit is far off I imagine, unfortunately.I’m not advocating violence, this is just as a system explanation/mechanic, but ICE agents morale (and thus the effort) is def very vulnerable to any violence at this point. That is the reason why they are getting only the tamest job assignments (=human targets), suspiciously so. It’s not like it wouldn’t help the propaganda machine if they busted violent gangs (they have all the equipment & overwhelming numbers, just not the people capable of not falling apart with such actions).
Yeah, it sounds like the “escort an immigrant” drives have been pretty effective so far - it sounds like they’re pretty conflict avoidant when they don’t have overwhelming force. So far, at least.
I kind of want to see how badly these shit gargling einsatzgrupen wannabees would fuck up going after a hard target of some sort.
I mean, besides everything being horrifically bad, from a strictly entertainment pov, yeah, I wanna see a vid where 20 of them run away from a single Florida-man wielding a musket & a gator after the initial assault fails to be effective.
(Still all of the 20 heroes would get medals & lifetime annuities for ptsd.)
Oh shit that wohld be fun to watch.
Same for CBP and TSA. There are other jobs. You don’t need to actively fight the 4th amendment.
Their names faces and home addresses of them and their close networks need to be published when this is over.
If we had killed every member of the nazi party, or even a majority of the SS after world war 2, this would not be happening.
Gotta go further back, we could have skipped Nazis if we had properly handled the slavers and bigots in the Confederacy. American “race science” was a critical foundation for the eugenics that inspired Hitler.
Yeah. If every slave had got that 20 acres or more from the land of those who “owned” them, at least, every confederate officer been hanged, and maybe even every slaver family gutted, with everyone above a very young age being killed and the remainder neing fostered out to or adopted by black families who got paid for the trouble, the world would be a better place.
I respectfully disagree on the TSA, anecdotally.
I know a few people who applied there simply because it WAS a job in their area that paid more than minimum wage and, at least until recently, by virtue of being a government job, it was more likely to actually care about federal protections for employees with disabilities than, say, retail work, which only gives the minimum required number of fucks, and only then when someone is watching or has a lawyer handy.
Also, a significantly larger amount of the population has unfortunately accepted the questionable stipulations of the patriot act than have decided due process is simply too much work, so I feel that’s a distance of an order or three of legal magnitude, comparison-wise.
I’m not saying everyone who works for the TSA is there due to lack of other options, but given it’s ubiquity and level of employee turnover in airport towns, at least SOME them are.
they get paid absolute dick so many of them are just in it for the love of the game https://www.liveabout.com/ice-agent-career-profile-974493#toc-ice-agent-salary
From your link:
- Median Annual Salary: $63,380 ($30.47 /hour)
- Top 10% Annual Salary: More than $106,090 ($51/hour)
- Bottom 10% Annual Salary: Less than $36,550 ($17.57/hour)
Unless you’re living someplace like Martha’s Vineyard, those are definitely respectable numbers - particularly for those usually on the low end of the income scale it’s at the very least not “absolute dick.” Never mind it says those numbers are from 2018, so they’re probably going up considering the recent abomination of a budget bill that was passed having increased their budget to an absurd (practically suspicious) level.
they get paid absolute dick
Maybe op just values (absolute) dick way higher than you do!
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)/s
(So only the bottom 10% get paid about the national median income, 90% are above that. That’s about how much one would pay a "public-"private militia to get. But it’s not even a new organisation, so ofc they are paid OK-ish. And their funding just exploded like an infected haemorrhoid.)…exploded like an infected haemorrhoid.
There’s a visual that’s sure to help me keep to my diet…
Well, texturewise, imagine it like biting & bursting a cherry tomato in your mouth …
Might explain why I don’t like tomatoes. I may have to re-examine liking all the things made from them, however…
~$30 dollars an hour is, across the whole country broadly, just shy of a basic, liveable wage.
~$30 dollars an hour is what the minimum wage would now be, if it was still as it was originally intended to be, a wage allowing for a reasonably comfortable, non poverty existence.
If you think those are respectable numbers, you’ve normalized the idea of tens of millions of people living in poverty.
https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/average-rent-by-year
If trends continue, the average renter will pay $19,801 in 2025 ($1,650/month).
There ya go, 1:3 rent to income ratio means you need to make ~$60k to afford the average apartment.
Annual rent per square foot in 2025 is an estimated $27.67//ft2, up 47.3% from 2020 ($18.79/ft2).
Yep, ~50% increase in rent prices in 5 years.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024/renter-households-cost-burdened-race.html
A household has on average ~2.6 people, so thats uh, ~55 million people that couldn’t really afford rent in 2023… and those are the people who have since 2023ish been putting everything on credit, on klarna, on afterpay… you don’t even want to know how bad the US looks if you take net wealth into the equation… basically, at least 25% of US households have negative net wealth, and that’s obviously going to be more concentrated amongst those who can’t afford rent.
And no, I’m not using the US gov’s definiton(s) of ‘poverty’, because they are bullshit that doesn’t account for what I have above described.
Also, thanks Mr. Trump, bye bye Section 8, bye bye foodstamps/EBT, bye bye Medicaid! I’m sure all those things weren’t helpful or needed by anyone struggling to afford rent.
~$30 dollars an hour is, across the whole country broadly, just shy of a basic, liveable wage.
I do not live in a LCOL area (I’m close enough to NYC that a significant number of people around me commute there for their job), and at my last job, I was making ~$27/hr, and I was saving over $1000 on average every single month. That’s after bills AND discretionary spending.
The definition of “livable” (which never gets concretely defined, by the way) that results in $30/hr being “just shy” of it is frankly absurd.
By the way, it doesn’t fit the narrative, but the fact is that most people who live “paycheck to paycheck” aren’t people who barely earn enough to make ends meet, even though the desired implication is that that’s 100% of that demographic; in reality, in the majority of cases, they are people are able to save but CHOOSE not to. Reminder that 1 in 4 households earning over $100k a year live “paycheck to paycheck” in the US.
I didn’t “normalize” anything. You’re looking at nationwide averages when the reality can vary wildly according to specific area. In the Republican stronghold states especially there are plenty that are responsible from keeping those averages from being noticeably higher. I’ve got to go, so no time to research this now, but I’ll wager there’s plenty of areas in southern states & maybe the Bible belt where that income would be considered pretty decent.
I’ve got to go, so no time to research this now, but I’ll wager there’s plenty of areas in southern states & maybe the Bible belt where that income would be considered pretty decent.
Yes, it would be more decent in the poorer areas with even higher rates of being rent overburdened, higher rates of poverty.
You gave an average, I gave an average.
You wanna break it all down state by state, both metrics, you’ll still find the same broad trend, using averages is a neat way to talk about broad trends without outputting a full 30 page comprehensive analysis.
I didn’t “normalize” anything.
Not in the statistical sense, no.
But your massive internalized privilege has left you bereft of a realistic frame of reference for how bad the economic situation really is for so many millions of Americans.
You’ve thus normalized, in your own mind, the idea of it being ok for a massive chunk of society to be in a horrendously precarious material and financial position.
You gave an average, I gave an average.
I quoted a job posting from a link provided by someone else.
But your massive internalized privilege has left you bereft of a realistic frame of reference for how bad the economic situation really is for so many millions of Americans.You’ve thus normalized, in your own mind, the idea of it being ok for a massive chunk of society to be in a horrendously precarious material and financial position.
Wow, talk about assumptions and leaps in logic! I did no such thing, nor do I believe such things.
Whatever, you’re obviously too enraged to be objective & I’ve gotta go.
all I know is that if I was actually interested in being a federal officer, I could be an FBI agent for the same pay but not nearly as much kidnapping duty
But are the requirements to get hired the same? I imagine/hope there’s not as much expected for the “hired thug” role as for an FBI agent, but then we are talking about things under the Trump administration so I guess nothing’s off the table… * sigh *
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Thug life! Dave Chappelle, that ain’t your wife
