Invert this whole thing.

Instead of:

>And since we're talking about immensely wealthy corporations, some of which have nice margins and billions of dollars of cash in reserve...

A majority of Americans face cost and risk exposure that exceeds their income. This state of affairs is unnecessary, and unacceptable. I would also argue it is lowering our general standard of living, ability to compete globally, and is expensive, due to the general savings associated with cost and risk prevention or management being significant compared to dealing with one or both post fact.

The discussion becomes about ending the unnecessary and undesirable mismatch between income and cost and risk exposure. It also centers on needs, leaving wants for a later time.

When this frame is in play, few people actually care how wealthy corporations are, margins, cash, or any of it really.

What they do care about is whether their income makes sense. Is the product of their labor, assuming they can even find jobs right now, appropriate given their cost and risk exposure?

It also becomes about "they can't afford it." And a majority of the nation can't. This is true for more Americans every year for decades now, and that all adds right up.

Today, the numbers are hard to ignore. COVID escalated things too. Not helpful.

No matter what any of us actually thinks is equitable, market rates, or any other thing, the hard fact is those costs and risks come due.

Someone pays or people die, suffer losses, harm. And those things happen because "They can't afford it." And for any given person, there are only so many labor hours available too.

Until trends change, and material improvements happen, the number of people as well as their zeal to improve will only grow.

People in this scenario really don't have options. If they did, we would not be having these kinds of discussions, nor see the ongoing escalation of them as we are today.

But we are having them, and they are escalating.

To be perfectly clear, some of this discussion is about people whose cost and risk exposure is well beneath their income. That is a wants discussion. Nothing wrong with wants, nor people getting after them however they can.

That is also not inclusive.

Very large numbers of people face costs and risks that exceed their income, and that is a needs discussion. There is a lot wrong with needs being unmet. That is the unacceptable and unnecessary part too.

Both should be represented in these labor discussions, and often they are not.

What remedy makes sense?

One idea was all this growth, innovation, wealth accumulation was supposed to make it cheaper to live, exist and show up for work.

That has not happened.

Cost and risk exposure exceeds income for most people. Sure, there are ways to manage it cost wise, but risks, and in particular, medical risks have grave consequences.

So how do we make it cheaper to live? How do we reduce risk exposure?

Or, maybe that is simply not possible to do.

How do we match income to costs and risks then?

Either will work. Higher income or lower costs and risks. Could be a combination too.

Which is it?

Notably, however it goes, success means far fewer people will actually care about wealthy corporations and such because they have a reasonable life to live and are quite happy to live it.