ThePromenader's Journal: Slavery still exists

If one were to look at slavery and employment from an economic point of view, comparisons can easily be made: cost per worker to the employer versus profits made. In the days of slavery, the cost per worker was the sole charge of the employer -- costs such as lodging, food, clothing and healthcare (the latter often optional), and today an employer pays wages and moves those responsibilities to the worker, but both conditions remain a "cost per worker" to the employer. Yes, living conditions have improved since then, but take the struggling "working poor", some working two, sometimes three part-time jobs to get by, and not even making it -- many indebted families are actually making less money than their living needs require. Now if one was to throw into the equation the profits the employers of cases such as these are making, one could compare the difference -- and in many cases, at least in my consideration, the plight of many of today's minimum-wage families, work-wise and economy-wise, is even worse than days of slavery. It's only the "moral" context of one human being owning another that has changed: the chain is still there, only in a different form.