living-wage
Explanation
The Joke
A politician stands at a podium declaring, "I say, people should be paid a living wage!" The audience appears to be a mix of ordinary citizens. In the second panel, we see that one of the audience members is a vampire, who indignantly responds, "How DARE you?" The vampire is flanked by other monsters or undead creatures who share his outrage.
The punchline hinges on the double meaning of "living wage." To humans, a "living wage" means a salary sufficient to maintain a reasonable standard of living. But to the undead -- vampires, zombies, and other creatures who are definitionally not alive -- the phrase "living wage" is exclusionary. The vampire takes offense because the politician is specifically advocating for a wage for the living, implicitly leaving out compensation for the undead workforce.
The Humor
This is a classic SMBC wordplay gag that takes a common political phrase and re-contextualizes it through a fantasy lens. The joke works because the vampire's indignation mirrors real political outrage -- the "How DARE you?" is the kind of performative offense seen in actual policy debates -- but the source of the outrage is delightfully absurd. It satirizes how political language can inadvertently exclude groups, while simultaneously poking fun at how easily people (or vampires) can find reasons to be offended by well-intentioned proposals.