Unpopular Opinion

100% agree. And I think that's the basic idea behind labour unions. You'll pay some percentage of your salary. That means some person at the poverty line will chip in some small amount (in absolute numbers). And middle-class people chip in the lion's share. It's the same relative number for everyone, but obviously some fraction of a percent is way more if you take it from $120,000. I think it's roughly the idea you outlined.

And it's kind of an investment because unions provide all people with the ability to go on strike. They'll have lawyers ready in case you get in trouble for fighting for your rights. And they're supposed to keep an eye on things and demand more pay due to inflation and these things, so you'll get a direct return on your contribution.

They also tend to have rent on their agenda, where I live. I suppose affordability of rent is a worker's thing, too. (Or leftist?!) But ultimately I think this is a government thing. They're the entity who is supposed to regulate, and make society work. In the long term, you can't pay taxes towards a good-for-nothing government to break things. And then after that also pay towards some benevolence fund to fix it again. That's silly. And a bit undemocratic, since they're not legitimized by the people. They'll likely need to push for whatever is on the agenda of their contributors, not what's good for the people in total. And the entire approach is limited since it's just a private organization. They can't pass law or anything like that to properly change the situation.

I think ideas like that might work. But it's more an intermediary state. I don't think there's a way around fixing the government. It's their job and the major reason we have governments in the first place.

(And I'm not saying it's the disproportionately harmed people's responsibility. I said we need them on board. And find a way to enable them to do it. My reasoning is: Nobody will even notice if you have some nice 6-digit office job as a paper-pusher and don't come in for 3 days. Or you're a computer programmer and write a bit less code for your employer. Your team will be fine even if the manager is absent for a few days... But(!) even the richer people will start to notice something is wrong once their door-dash food doesn't arrive. The truck drivers don't refill the vegetable section in the supermarket on a daily basis. Maybe the daycare is on strike so even you as some middle-class person gets to care because it ruins your day. Or a substantial amount of the small underpaid cogwheels in the machinery make manufacturing grind to a screeching halt. That has some big effect. And it directly points at the issue at hand. That's why I think this kind of struggle regularly happens bottom-up. Not top-down. And moreover I think it's a bit questionable whether higher class people even care. I mean why should they, the situation is still kinda alright for them. And in practice, the USA are a bit more oriented towards individualism. There isn't a lot of solidarity with poor people to leverage, here.)