An absolutely pathetic Christmas tale

[True Dough]

And it isn't going to get better over the next four years!!

[Walleye]

1. Greedy capitalist business owners look at payroll as highway robbery

They think people should work there just for the honor

[Biophilic]

2. Good grief. Stated like that it's more than appalling.

[markbark]

3. Not as appalling as it seems

Shillings to dollars in 1840 and then converting to modern values is not as simple as it seems:
Politifact reports "....there is no good way to determine what 15 shillings then would amount to in U.S. wages today. He added that "Dickens knew what a barely-above-starvation wage would be for a worker like Cratchit with his family would be, as did his readers."

[True Dough]

4. Bottom line:

15 years of $7.25 as the minimum wage is criminal. Even though it's "only" one million Americans who are trying to get by on that woefully low level of compensation, it's an absolute outrage.

[JT45242]

6. Can be calculated based on government sources

$1 in 1840 is worth $36.26 today - Inflation Calculator

https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1840?amount=1#:~:text=%241%20in%201840%20is%20equivalent,cumulative%20price%20increase%20of%203%2C526.36%25.

since there are 20 shillings in a pound, that would be 0.75 pounds. The conversion if rate of pounds to dollars for must of the 1800s was 1 pound was $2.20. multiplying you get $1.65. multiply that by 36.26 and you get about $60 a week.

The sentiment is correct. But the original math is faulty.

[Igel]

7. I always took that work not as not about greed.

That reduces things to money and little more. Granted, some people see everything in terms of money while some others think of everything in terms of power. (My mother, straight (D) from first vote to last, denominated nearly everything in $.)

Others think in terms of goodness or righteousness (tricky terms to define clearly, those), yet others think in or at least include terms of compassion and empathy--which has $ consequences, but goes way past those.

If $18.70 is starvation wages, then it's obvious that purchasing parity power must be included.

But I'd also be curious as to how they calculated that--15s/day might be for 6 hours or for 12 and that would make a rather large difference in the hourly rate.

[Wonder Why]

5. I have always said Scrooge was really a nice guy. 😀