Trump wins presidency for second time

That's some incompetence from the part of the responder. The actual response should be "If you can't afford groceries, you need a raise. Here's how I'm helping you get one."

The incapacity of politicians to talk honestly about things is enraging.

Honesty does not win elections. Trump wom twice. It has squat zero to do with victory for honesty.

well, take your example: what is the politician doing to help me get a raise?

Policy can encourage wage growth, subsidies can be given out, and politicians could increase both the minimum wage and public sector wages whenever they choose.

Lower taxes.

A raise would be nice, I'm making exactly what I made in 2021. Wage growth for software engineers is stagnant because demand for senior software engineers has fallen off a cliff the last few years.

Maybe tie the minimum wage to inflation?

The easiest answer is focusing on policies that encourage low unemployment, which theoretically increases job mobility and wage growth.

Dems did that on the surface, but unfortunately unemployment is very distorted by inequality.

Sort of related to trade policy in that way I think. More trade is good but not if it isn't paired with ways to keep inequality from running amok.

Increase the minimum wage, strengthen the overtime rules, etc.

Honestly at this point we start getting into a long discussion such as benefits of unionisation and why we should support it alongside collective bargaining and the fact that rising the minimum wage floor raises wages of other low paying jobs.

At some point though I’m throwing academic sources to the voter at which point I’ve probably lost the discourse because it’s hard to reason about.

The reality is I don’t do any of the above. I’m not even interested in debating the point anymore. People don’t want to hear long winded academic discourse on the best economic approaches to anything.

I’ve bluntly completely lost faith in American democracy. The candidate with the biggest budget has won consistently and the biggest budget comes mostly from corporate donations via PACs.

Republicans just voted down plenty of bills that would have raised the minimum wage in a few states, so I don't think you understand how incompetent republican voters are.

Harris significantly outspent Trump, particularly in key swing states.

The Harris campaign spent more money directly, but the GOP had quite a lot more 527 funding. This is typical of modern elections.

>you need a raise. Here's how I'm helping you get one.

Said no politician ever, even the most union-supporting :0

> we start getting into a long discussion

I view this as the major contributing cause to the current situation. The cyclic dependencies among issues that need attention mean that explaining a fix simply and truthfully is no longer possible. In the current system, a simple explanation is a prerequisite for winning the votes to implement anything. Parties acting in good faith don’t stand a chance.

> completely lost faith in American democracy

Exactly. It doesn’t function without intangibles like “good faith” or “norms” which have been discarded.

I don't really know the details of the US election. But two things that I know are that Kamala couldn't be pro-union, what sucks for her, and Trump spent a really huge amount of time talking about ways to increase people's salaries that can't possibly work, but were actual proposals he made.

Even if you change jobs? I thought it was common to leave your job for a better paying one in software engineering

Its been hard, the past year I've had very little luck doing so.

There's also an over supply of these engineers. The H1B program was intended to address a shortage that no longer exists, yet the workers and program remain, ruining the market for citizens.