Full Employment

Ruggie's initial argument is totally logical. If the population is employed, they all have resources to stimulate the economy. The poorest of the poor, if employed, will still be using their resources to purchase food and water. If at least 95% of the population is employed then the overwhelming majority is stimulating the economy in some sense. Although, an individual who is employed is not necessarily wealthy. Morgan Spurlock did a spinoff show of his movie "Supersize Me" called "30 Days", where he would do basically the same thing he did in Supersize Me, but in the context of a tv series. One episode he and his girlfriend were going to attempt to live 30 days with a minimum wage job. Between the two of them they had five jobs and only truly paid the low minimum wage. Even with four jobs paying more than minimum wage and clocking 60 hours a week each, they could barely sustain themselves. I think it's impossible to say the employed are wealthy, if they can't sustain themselves. There needs to be a minimum wage that adjust with inflation. There needs to be stricter regulations of this wage. There needs to be more federal work programs. If a person can afford to save at the end of the month, then they are wealthy. Being employed is simply not enough.