Wages--Public

In contrast to personal wages which is remuneration one receives from paid employment, public wages refers to “wages” one receives in kind that benefit the majority of the citizenry aimed at enhancing authentic democracy and paid for through their taxes (and which also include benefits of the social safety net). Such wages range from measures to ensure access to clean air and water to publicly funded education and healthcare, to development of transportation infrastructure to old-age insurance (social security); and so on. In other words, in capitalist democracies the true value of wages a person receives must be calculated on the basis of the following formula:

(a) personal wages from employment; plus

(b) employer-provided benefits (e.g. paid lunch-breaks, health insurance, retirement benefits, etc.); plus

(c) tax-payer provided employee benefits (e.g. unemployment benefits, disability compensation, etc.); plus

(d) public wages.

To the extent that measures offering protection from the predatory activities of the capitalist class (by means of legislation that prohibits child labor, establishes minimum wage baselines in employment, mandates over-time pay, protects the public from the manufacture and sale of bogus and/or harmful medicines, etc.) impose an economic cost on corporate capital, then such measures could also be considered as part of the public wage.

Important: the term public wages should not be confused with public sector wages (wages received by employees in government sector jobs) in contrast to private sector wages (wages received by employees of privately owned enterprises, businesses, factories, and the like).