Elliotblet
23604
715
15
but I'm all for it!
Sep 20, 2025 4:09 PM
Elliotblet
23604
715
15
but I'm all for it!
sokernick
Lowest paid employees don't make a salary. If you work a little over one day, you get sent home early the next. At the end of a pay period lots of people get sent home early. I'm talking about fortune 500 companies. Yep, payroll is the easiest way to cut expenses. Must keep the shareholders happy.
Macewindow54
They won't participate
Howlingowl
Better pitch: a reality show where the CEO has to live for a month AS their lowest paid employee- but the twist is the true intent is to show the board of directors how unnecessary the position is for the company and at the end of the month the board fires him and distributes his salary as a bonus to all employees.
kurvarVillain
Or... How about this:
duktayp
Best I can do is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Super_(1991_film)
Iliekbirbs
at least a year
SkidMarc25
They'd just live off their clout and connections. You'd need to put them somewhere where they are a genuine nobody.
ObserveLearnReact
And do the employee's jobs. We need to see examples of them pulling themselves up by their boot straps
GigglingWordBearer
Mike Black is a rich jerk off who tried to be 'homeless' for a little while; to be clear he was still couch crashing with rich friends, but even in that event he still wasn't able to rebuild himself as fast as he would like and ended the experiment for 'health reasons'... Baring in mind he was still very well taken care of.
hfctom
Meanwhile Nestle's CEO over there like "Pay?"
Ivain
There used to be a series something like that, called 'undercover boss' or something, where executives and entrepreneurs would get a taste of the life of one of their low-level employees. Was definitely a big eye opener for a lot of them, at least on camera. I never got particularly into it (my mom enjoyed it), so I never looked if they actually changed their shit at all, or if it was just acting on camera.
stonerhino
Yep. Secret Boss was another.
Metlahaed
A guy tried this, cried and failed and gave up in like 3 days
XXXSpork
How about a reality where billionaires pay taxes?
yamamasyamaha
Or one where we put them in a pit with a pack of hungry wolves
If they can convince the wolves that “we’re all family” then they win and can try to climb out of the pit while we pelt them with rocks
monkeyfly
Too far fetched.
Brhino
Anyone can live off of someone's salary for a month. It takes more than a month for your shoes to wear out, your car to break down, medical bills to start piling up...
astrangehop
That one episode of American Dad did this pretty perfectly.
xj4low
Give them a Ford fiesta with the check engine light on, bald tires, clunking suspension, and a battery issue and see if they can keep their job across town when there is no public transportation.
Laurifish
Wasn’t there a show similar to this kind of like Undercover Boss where a rich person (and a friend? Maybe one had his son with him?) had to live on a poor person’s budget with food stamps and stuff. IIRC the rich people basically said it was impossible to do and didn’t stay within their budget.
Laurifish
It was a show called 30 Days. People had to live in “challenging circumstances” for 30 days. The first episode was a guy living on minimum wage.
It’s available on “Plex” or episodes can be purchased on Amazon and Apple TV.
billmontgomery529000
I think a year is more appropriate. If they are married, bring the spouse and kids! They would be divorced and the breadwinner would be on welfare.
thatiscomedygoldrightthere
It'll be just like 'Alone' but everyone fails because of abject ignorance and stupidity. "I'm starving, but as God is my witness, I never knew I had to go out and buy food. I mean, how does one even put petrol in a car? They cut off my electricity. How does something like that even happen?"
astrangehop
That was the funniest thing about the dark knight rises. Bruce loses all his money, and they cut his power IMMEDIATELY. Anyone who's ever been poor knows they send you angry letters for a while, then a cutoff notice, then you have an option to set up a payment plan.
eadanke
And the really poor know that sometimes they simply won't turn it off and let the bill keep piling up because turning it off is more expensive than not.
skapanda616
Make that a year or three and you have a deal. People can go without a lot of things for a month and "rough it". Those same people may die, or he irrevocably changed over the course of a year, or more.
BurlRavenscroft
Make it a month but pay and bill them every week like it was a month. So four weeks = four months. Or something. You can speed run it and if they failed they gotta do another month.
itsokimaussie
"Some of them (CEO) may die, but that's a chance I'm prepared to take."
kJerAFK
You over estimate how frail and weak some of these people are.
CaveJohnsonHatesLemons
No we dont.
VikingsAreNinjaPirates
Tell them it's for a month, and then make them do it for a year. Whenever they ask when it's going back to the way it was, break one of their teeth or pour sand in their gas tank and say maybe next month. Call it "Bootstraps".
justfiguredoutimc4azyanddumbb
Ten years or gtfo
gayvillian
You need their equivalent health insurance or lack thereof, too...
Debadguy
If it must be a month, then we need premediated housing and other living expenses based on that monthly expense so that they can accurately go through the intended experience, and if they simply can't afford rent or food based on that income, then congrats, they must start out with $0 and will have to simply figure it out for a month.
skapanda616
In a months time they may not get sick and need to access healthcare, or have a car break down and miss a shift, or you know... All that real life stuff that they're insolated from.
Debadguy
Other than just intentionally making them ill for a month, it's becoming more and more of a challenge to teach a billionaire empathy within the time span of a single 4 weeks.
skapanda616
That's why I suggested 1-3 years.
Heisanevilgenius
I've said this before. A month means only one of each bill to pay. A CEO on a poor person's budget might miss one bill payment and say, "that's not bad. I can budget more carefully next month and maybe do some extra hours and get everything sorted by next month. I think I won this experiment." But then if they have to keep going, they find they barely keep up with the bills or miss another or have an emergency come up. After three months they're in major trouble and they still have nine to go
billstranger
They could literally just pay no bills for the whole month and be fine. Most utilities won't shut you off until 2 or 3 months non-payment. As long as you hit your rent you're fine. And if you have a credit card, even with $300, you can buy food for a month on that and just never pay it. If I only had to survive for 1 month on minimum wage, I could do it while spending zero dollars. The consequences don't kick in until later.
TheWombatStrikesAgain
A month is easy. Just take out a ton of short-term loans. They're super predatory, but if you're back to rich after a month, you won't care.
ZackWester
Also they are given a regular joe name and creddit card info. as the rich can take out loans whit a near zero % intrest rating vs Joe average that can take out the same loan whit a 15% intrest rate.
TheWombatStrikesAgain
Yeah, if they could keep their name and contacts, that would completely undermine the entire point of the exercise. They'd just phone one of their buddies "Hey, I got this stupid thing going for a year. I need a well-paid do-nothing job on the board of directors of one of your companies. Let's keep it modest and say six figures a month. Oh, and a luxury hotel suite for free."
And they'd get it. Exercise over. Nothing learned.
andexer
For a "Quarter" because the billionaires would think it sounds businessy and agree without thinking about it.
Also, make the Quarter an arbitrary amount of time greater than 3 months. Like they do, in contracts, redefining terms.
sneakinglurkingpeepingguy
Also need some legal way to block them from accessing any of their money.
Mairoa
Or living with wealthy friends etc
InfocalypseRising
"Oh, yeah, we meant a quarter of a century. Shoulda read the fine print. Also, we legally own your balls."
MufinMcFlufin
Dang you beat me to the same joke.