When people are living on low wages in North America, the government is essentially subsidizing their employers. It's as though we are saying "we (the taxpayers) are willing to contribute directly to their basic needs for food and shelter so you can have low prices at Walmart and McDonalds." All this would be out-of-scope for this newsletter were it not for the fact that so many academic workers fall into the same category (I had an argument with a York university administrator recently while in Armenia; he felt it was perfectly fine for sessionals to live on $10,000 per semester). As this article notes, in the U.S., 25% of adjuncts are on social assistance. This means governments are subsidizing colleges and universities by paying adjuncts things like food stamps directly. It's shameful, and academic employers should be ashamed.
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