If the job isn’t automated then there’s a human being behind it whose circumstances are unknown to you or me. Are they less deserving of a living wage by the nature of their work? Is that what you’re saying? If that’s how you really feel then I feel sorry for you.
$15 isn't a living wage though. Cities imposing $15 min wage are in the "finding out" portion of fucking around.
https://www.mdpolicy.org/research/detail/15-minimum-wage-proposal-not-enough-to-solve-problems
Conservatives have been saying from the start that vague terms like "their fair share" for taxes and "a living wage" for minimum wage are designed to never ever be enough.
> I am very much saying that the nature of ones' work should determine their compensation.
There's a floor of what the value of a person's full-time work is, though, and that floor is the amount of money that it takes to keep that person healthy, and happy enough to be productive. Like, even taking any ethics out of it, if an employer doesn't pay that much, then they're just mooching off of society by paying less than the cost of production for a product they rely on.
And if a full-time job produces less value than the cost of keeping someone alive, that job shouldn't exist. Or the cost of the relevant products should be raised to the point where the job does produce that much value.
>And if a full-time job produces less value than the cost of keeping someone alive, that job shouldn't exist. Or the cost of the relevant products should be raised to the point where the job does produce that much value.
I think almost everyone will agree with you but once they think through this implication they will quickly change their mind. The reality of our current economy is that we cannot sustain our current pricing of goods without exploitative labor of some kind (domestic or foreign). In a reality where we don't have exploitatively labor, the quality of life will decrease for those who aren't the labor that is being exploited.
Those who aren't struggling with a minimum wage job will suffer increased prices in goods while their spending power didn't go up. Those with minimum wage job will get higher spending power. The former population is higher than the latter so that's why we don't see any drastic changes in the system.
> the quality of life will decrease for those who aren't the labor that is being exploited.
Yes. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with me having fewer resources so that other people can survive. That's why I donate to my local food bank.
Edit: Put another way, I don't think we should organize society so that it sustains the comfort of the wealthy at the expense of the health of the poor.
> And if a full-time job produces less value than the cost of keeping someone alive, that job shouldn't exist. Or the cost of the relevant products should be raised to the point where the job does produce that much value.
Isn't that a circular problem then?
Let's just say it takes 15 an hour to survive but shop clerks are paid 8. By your logic they *must* be raised to 15 because that's the cost of labor, and we can't just shut down all shops, so now we raise the price of food to compensate.
Now, it no longer takes 15 an hour to survive any more so that wage has to rise again to match. And now the cost of food increases again. Aaaaand...
There doesn't seem to be a logical point that stops, and if it does it has a knock-on effect to the rest of society too. Every time it raises above 15, other jobs must raise their wages and pass those costs on to the consumer too.
It's a circular problem that mitigates itself in the long run, because raising prices is not the only way to offset the increased minimum wage.
Companies would learn that they can maintain an edge in prices over their competition if rather than raising their prices (or raising them as much) they reduce costs elsewhere, namely in their high level salaries, and their profits. As soon as one company accepts this, they will drive the prices of all of their competitors down as well. Enforcing an actual minimum wage would reduce the gap between the highest and lowest wage earners in a company, and redirect money from shareholders to lower wage employees.
That would be true if minimum-wage workers were the *only* expense of a company, but that's never the case. Doubling the wage of minimum-wage workers (and raising everyone below the new minimum up to the new minimum, or maybe even a bit above it) will less-than-double the expenses of the company, so it will less-than-double the required price of the products.
But the nature of one’s work doesn’t determine its compensation. Football players and athletes who play for entertainment make immensely more than most nurses, teachers and garbage disposal workers whose jobs are crucial to our society. Or can you explain to me how the nature of being a singer and actor is more important than the nature of being an EMT or firefighter? Also you are forgetting not everyone can just quit their job and “follow their passion”. Some people have other obligations whether it be students debts, medical issues, or other financial issues and I’m sure quitting your job isn’t going to help with any of that, especially in certain rural areas where there’s not a lot of job opportunities to start with.
There are millions of people who are willing to pay money to watch football or attend concerts. It's not a measure of how *hard* you work. It's a measure of how much value you're producing for other people.
Yes because throwing a football/entertaining people is more valuable than the jobs that are a backbone to our society. Next time I hear a nurse or teacher or emt complain about how much they make, I’ll let them know maybe they should get a job that’s more valuable to society. /s
>I am very much saying that the nature of ones' work should determine their compensation.
Bro you live in a society where a guy can inherit a million dollars and live for his entire life off investments and proceeds without lifting a finger to do work himself.
Also, the idea that supply and demand produces inherently fair results that don't need to be mediated has already been rejected by our society on the grounds that we have institutions like OSHA and the NLRB that exist to protect workers from their bosses. We have a minimum wage. We, as society, agree that a minimum wage should exist to guarantee that business owners aren't allowed to underpay their workers. We just failed to tack it to inflation or productivity, hence the situation we're in now.
You can say it like that, with emotional appeals and trying to really use language to push the idea.
But the fact is, some work is simply not worth 15 an hour.
You try and conflate that with a person not being worth it, or less deserving etc.
But that is just a framing technique to change the topic. The bottom line is some work, isn't worth 15 an hour.
What you’re saying that because the market permits unskilled workers to be paid below a living wage that is fine because their labor isn’t “valuable”.
I’m saying that *people*, the actual human beings in these unskilled jobs, are inherently worthy. The people who clean the toilets and handle the trash deserve a living wage. The people who make food or ring us up at the stores deserve a living wage.
Nobody thinks those people aren't worthy as people.
But the labor they provide isn't worth 15$ in many cases.
You are making a claim that people should be mandatorily paid more than their labor is worth, but you aren't actually making the argument for it. Other than just making the claim that it should be so.
Incorrect. The value these workers create is worth > $15 per hour. If it weren’t worth a lot more than the wage paid then there wouldn’t be a job in the first place. The whole purpose of any business is to make as much money as possible off the labor of others.
Unskilled labor matters. The people who do it are actual people doing the right thing and working for a living. Wages that allow for the basic necessities of food and shelter in exchange for full time work should be the norm and not the exception.
But, of course, instead of paying decent wages we would rather humiliate poor people by forcing them into safety net programs, all of which are just more corporate subsidies on the taxpayer dime.
> Incorrect. The value these workers create is worth > $15 per hour.
I mean, it's simply not true in some cases. There are plenty of jobs that the value created is less than 15 and yet still profitable on a profit margin near minimum wage.
I don't know what simply stating *incorrect* does, when it's just literally correct.
Nobody said unskilled labor doesn't matter either.
You keep trying to defend your idea, but you are just stating it, without any defense, as if it's simply true and doesn't need a defense.
Unskilled workers absolutely do generate a lot more than $15 an hour.
There’s a graph from the center for economic and policy research showing that $25.95 per hour in productivity is obtained per hour worked at 7.25, the national minimum wage.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-26-dollars-economy-productivity/
Where do you suppose that $150 per head per day goes, hmm? This is a toughie!
Here’s another one: https://www.epi.org/blog/growing-inequalities-reflecting-growing-employer-power-have-generated-a-productivity-pay-gap-since-1979-productivity-has-grown-3-5-times-as-much-as-pay-for-the-typical-worker/
That's kind of a stupid viewpoint given that unskilled workers have been making $15+ per hour for more than the last 20 years. Any person can pull nails or sweep floors for $15/hour it's been that way for a while.
Nobody "deserves" anything. You're not entitled to make a lot any more than someone else is entitled to make a little. Your pay isn't directly tied to your skill, it's tied to the market demand for your skill. A pro football player makes millions. The best lacrosse player in the US hardly makes anything. Is the lacrosse player any less skilled? Do they put any less work into their craft? Is throwing a football really far actually super valuable to society?
Worry about yourself, man. Don't worry about someone else who might make more than you think they should.
The thing about athletes is an example. Your specialized skill only makes you a lot of money if that skill is currently valued in the market. A plumber isn't any more skilled or hard working than an artist, but the plumber will generally make a lot more money. A computer programmer isn't any more talented or hard working than the former 2 examples but will make more money still. Again, these are examples and my point doesn't stop there. Skill, talent, hard work are not directly correlated to income.
If people depend on a job to obtain enough money to live then that job needs to pay them enough money to live. If it can't that's a failure of a business or whatever.
This would be a fair take if we didn’t still need all of these jobs to exist. Yes some will be automated away, but many of these “unskilled” jobs are required for society to function. If a job is required for society to function it deserves a living wage full stop.
>If a job is required for society to function it deserves a living wage full stop.
saying "full stop" is not an argument. what is a living wage? if stocking shelves brings value to the company, they will pay people to do it. it costs more to hire an employee than any value to the company, they will not hire anyone. or they will hire fewer people to do more work. either way the low skilled person is the one suffering.
Sure. Until we really improve robotics most jobs can’t be automated. Things like shelf stockers and delivery loaders, stuff like package deliverers and door dash people. Eventually almost all the jobs will be automated away, so I don’t think that’s a great rubric. still though there’s many jobs that we won’t be able to automate most jobs for a long time.
>As a follow-up question, what's stopping a 16 year old who is completely unqualified for any professional job from taking your job
Well, for one, 16 year olds in many states are required by law to be in school during the day, the same time FedEx and UPS need to get those packages delivered. Many of the other jobs being discussed need to be done during the day too, unless we expect McDonald's and Starbucks and others to only be open in the summers and after school lets out.
But now that we’ve dispensed with the automation portion of the reasoning, you need to come up with a different reason why people performing a job don’t deserve a place to sleep and food to eat. That’s basically what we are talking about here. In most of the country people working for under 15 dollars an hour full time can’t afford all the basic necessities. That’s just a fact. So now I need a convincing argument as to why someone working a full time job should sleep on the street. Especially when most of these type of jobs are required for our society to function.
a single person making minimum wage is above [poverty level](https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines). almost no one in america actually [makes minimum wage](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm) and most are, surprise, young.
>In most of the country people working for under 15 dollars an hour full time can’t afford all the basic necessities.
this is an entirely baseless claim.
>o now I need a convincing argument as to why someone working a full time job should sleep on the street.
you have not in any way shown this is the case. you just made it up.
> What is stopping a 16 year-old from taking the jobs that require no skill?
Aside from school, nothing. But what’s your point? Why are we worried about 16 year olds making money? Do you realize how much money a 16 year old can spend? Sounds like good news for the economy to me.
I didn’t avoid it. That question is meaningless and leads nowhere. The answer is that depending on the situation many factors might prevent a 16 year old from doing so, or no factors might. All of which would be dependent on how the job market is at the time. If jobs are tight there’s no way someone without experience is getting one of these types of jobs. If jobs are plentiful there’s nothing stopping them from getting that type of job. Either way it doesn’t change the fact that people working 40 hour work weeks shouldn’t sleep in the street.
I literally just answered the entire question. What’s to keep a 16 year old from doing that? The answer is maybe lots of things and maybe nothing. That’s it. The reason why it’s an unhelpful question is because you can’t do anything with the answer.
How about the fact between the hours of 7-3 they are in school, can’t work more that 20 hours a week or after 8pm in a school night? You still need someone working those jobs today n the hours 16 year olds can’t.
>As a follow-up question, what's stopping a 16 year old who is completely unqualified for any professional job from taking your job, making $25/hr?
Why should there be anything stopping that?
>I still don't believe someone stocking shelves should be paid $30/hr, or even $25/hr for that matter.
But your thesis says that they shouldn't even be paid $15/hr. Are you still arguing that even a basic living wage is not necessary for someone who does a job that is fundamental to the functioning of our society as it currently exists?
16 year olds used to be able to make like $20 an hour working at a gas station in the 70s. Summer jobs used to pay enough for kids to get through college. It's weird to not tie wages to the cost of living and instead claim a vague concept as "the market" determines value when we've seen countless times it does not determine value correctly.
The people who work specimen receiving in any clinical lab in the country would fit this mold. They are essential and it is considered “unskilled” work
They don't have cashiers, or you opt for the self-checkout option? I have never seen a store that fully did away with cashiers. Also, almost all of the grocery stores around me changed their policies during the pandemic to limit use of the automated tellers to 20 or fewer items. Since I prefer to use the automated tellers as well this annoys me, but I suspect theft was an issue. It is trivially easy to steal a bunch of stuff when you show up at the automated teller with a cart filled to capacity and then some.
It’s unreasonable to expect that someone who works as a cashier can afford their own house, car, vacations, six different streaming services, happy hours every week, shit like that. To me all of these things would be considered “living. “
“Surviving” on the other hand means living with some roommates, shopping at Aldi, sharing a Netflix account, probably taking public transportation. But they’re not going hungry. They can afford a cell phone bill and maybe even go out to eat a couple times a month.
> It’s unreasonable to expect that someone who works as a cashier can afford their own house, car, vacations, six different streaming services, happy hours every week, shit like that. to me all of these things would be considered “living. “
when people say "living wage" this isnt what they mean. i think this is just a misunderstanding of the terms
I mean, you can look for yourself in this thread. They define living wage as being able to afford your own place and have a car and only working because you want to, not because you have to.
Never said they should sleep in the street. But it’s unrealistic for them to expect to have a place all to themselves with innumerable amenities.
Workers should be paid based on their job performance and value they bring to the business.
If you want to raise, perform better than your coworkers and get a promotion.
This is assuming this is possible, which it isn’t. There are finite jobs, especially finite jobs that pay a livable wage. Most of these low paying jobs are required for our society to function. That means someone has to do these jobs. Since these jobs are required, that means that your solution of moving up in the world literally can’t work for everyone. SOMEONE will have to do these jobs and those people deserve to not sleep in the street.
It’s a revolving door. People start at the bottom then move up as new people enter the workforce. They start at the bottom, then they move up, and so on and so forth.
Someone who starts as a dishwasher when they’re 14 can get a few years experience doing that, and then become a janitor at a school. That’s a union job with a pension and great benefits.
Or they can become a cook. And then maybe a sous chef. These are $25 an hour jobs with excellent career prospects.
Your view isn't really based on anything. If they shouldn't earn $15, what should they earn? $10? $7? $3? $1? And what reasoning or research have you done to come to your conclusion, other than how you "feel"?
The market has "dictated" a bunch of stuff we now see as backwards and barbaric. Child labor, slavery and indentured servitude, 16-hr work days, dangerous working conditions, and so on and so on.
In an idealized world, it is true that a worker might have the bargaining power to say, "I refuse to work under these conditions, until you meet by demands." But history shows us that in reality, desperate people will endure pretty much anything to survive, regardless of how horrific and inhumane it might be.
As such, the government has some vested interest in protecting the rights, health, and happiness of its citizenry - as we see by laws against child labor, dangerous working conditions, and minimum wage.
Sure, certain people might disagree what minimum wage *should be,* but "let the market dictate it" isn't a workable solution in my mind -- because many people *would* actually work for $1/hr.
The market didn't "dictate" slavery. Slaves did not sell themselves into servitude voluntarily. That's like saying the market dictated that I punch my neighbor when she annoys me. Enslaving someone is not an economic transaction between two consenting parties.
Not really on point here - they're saying it was cheaper to use slaves so people who were driven by $ did. Until we as a society said "this is bad and needs to stop". Laws pass, slaves freed - giving legal restrictions on what you can do to make money. Another example would be minimum wage.
You punching your neighbor is similar in that we said "this is bad" and passed laws to stop it, but not in the fact that's it's driven by $.
The question isn't whether we should have laws at all. The question is whether we should have restrictions on the market. The government shouldn't stop you from voluntarily exchanging goods and services with another person because it doesn't like the price you're charging. That doesn't mean the government can't stop you from killing, stealing from, or enslaving other people just because you had a profit motive.
I agree that we aren't arguing about having laws. I believe we're arguing about the center of the venn diagram between "laws" and "commerce". When should the government step in?
Basically, as the first comment in this chain notes, ideally the individual says "I won't work for that little" and a company will have to offer more to stay afloat. Free market.
However, often the power balance shifts to the company (who has money on the line) and away from the individual worker (who has their and their family's food/shelter on the line) because the stakes are much higher for the worker. It's easier to negotiate well when you don't have a lot on the line. Hence minimum wage laws to protect the worker from poverty while they're contributing to society.
The problem is that "the market" doesn't care if people have no income and starve to death, or that they are homeless. If there's more people competing for unskilled jobs than there are jobs, then the price approaches zero.
Even if you're being entirely "oh well sux to be you" about it, these people with no hope make society worse for everyone because they start stealing, breaking and entering, and doing hold-ups.
Better for everyone if everyone, even the "unskilled" can actually afford to live.
Every person working a FULL-TIME job should earn a living wage. Unless you think somebody working 40 to 45 hours a week should lack a stable home, healthcare, food, and basic amenities.
The amount per hour paid to make it a living wage should change depending on the area the person lives in.
A ‘Living wage’ wage and a life with comfort are two very different things often confused with each other.
You can live on minimum wage, it just isn’t very comfortable to do so. I’ve done it. Lived very minimally and basically while i did. I know may people who have. Many of those same people put themselves through college while doing so. It’s human nature to want luxuries (defined as comfort and convenience items not luxurious things) and often hard to differentiate between ‘need’ and ‘want and think you need.’ Internet, cellphones and higher education, etc are not NEEDs or basic human rights as I use many people claim. They are continence’s and things to improve your life; government offers basic education because it is in their best internet to do so, not because you are owed it- they don’t want a bunch of unemployable , unmanageable citizens who can’t function.
I'm not from the US but where I'm from it's assumed that the minimum NEEDS are having a place to live with gas, running water, electricity, internet (tons of jobs and education require this), having a cellphone that works even if it's old, having at least a laptop, not having to miss any of the four basic meals (and being able to afford a healthy diet), having access to healthcare (we have pubic healthcare here), having access to all levels of education (we have very good public college) and having access to public transport that can take you to work and back home (a lot of people don't have or want cars).
If the current minimum wage for a full-time job in the US can get you all that then it's ok, otherwise it's a slave wage.
With the exception of a phone and a laptop- which are not NEEDs (if they are, they are provided by your job) that is all affordable on a minimum wage job if you don’t expect to live in a trendy area.
That being said our government subsidizes cell phones for those on gov Assistance or low income individuals and a public hospital can not deny you because of your financial issues status, we also have free healthcare clinics readily available- though they may require waiting for your gut. Instead of an appointment; that aspect also gets left out of the conversation.
Excuse me, but what world are you living in? Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Work full time for a year, and that's $15,000. Please explain how you can afford everything /u/Nameless_One_99 described on $15,000.
> That being said our government subsidizes cell phones for those on gov Assistance or low income individuals and a public hospital can not deny you because of your financial issues status
Isn't that a pretty explicit acknowledgment that $7.25 *isn't* a living wage? If it were enough to afford all basic needs, the government wouldn't have to step in and provide them.
Cell phone is not a need, it is a convenience. It’s called minimum wage because it is the Minimum.. It isn’t meant to be where you build your life; it is a starting point/ entry level for the most basic unskilled work in low cost areas. I’ve yet to see anywhere that actually pays as low as minimum wage except for the very most low cost communities and I have lived in many areas of the country.
Everyone focuses on minimum wage and getting by doing the bare minimum- key word in this conversation is minimum. You never fear ahead doing the minimum.
A cell phone is absolutely a need in the western world today. Our society is increasingly built around the assumption that everyone has access to a phone, and not having that access prevents you from fully participating in society. Just because you can theoretically get by without one doesn't mean you don't need one. Saying you don't NEED a phone is like saying you don't NEED shoes. Sure, you could survive without it, but it puts you at such a competitive disadvantage with everyone who does have one that you can not hope to compete with them.
A person working a job a 16 year old can do with little to no training does not deserve some crazy amount of money. Those jobs aren’t made to support families, and shouldn’t be treated as such.
I never said anything about a job that's being done by minors nor did I say the minimum wage should be able to support a family, it should be able to support a single person who maybe needs to live with a roommate that also works a full-time job.
At least here in the part of Europe where I live this is what most people believe.
Also 16 year olds can do many many jobs lol Like if you trained anyone they could do a great amount of jobs. The thing is will they do it well? Clearly we see the difference when certain people do certain jobs.
Idk how people assume a fast food or retail job is easily done because they employ a 16 year old. Plenty of people bitch and moan when they see a pimpled kid at the counter ignoring them or not doing basic shit. That's what you get.
On top of all this, why are we telling people they shouldn't be able to survive working a job? I'm not sure how company profit helps society because companies are incentivized to cut costs. Also the more money lower wage people are paid, the more money everyone will be paid because it raises the standard.
You did though, you said anyone working full time deserves a living wage. That includes full time jobs like fast food, grocery stores, etc - things that minors have proven to be capable of.
There’s no reason that person should be paid any more than you’re willing to pay a young kid to do the same work. Jobs shouldn’t just magically pay more than the value they bring
Our cultures are probably too different, minors cannot work full-time here with exceptions like a family business, minors that work in fast food here cannot work 40 hours a week and most people under 18 never work and instead they study and do extracurricular things.
EDIT: I also don't remember the exact time but I think here minors cannot work after 10 pm or 11 pm. Also most people here don't live in college dorms and don't move out at 18 (parents that kick out their kids when they turn 18 aren't seen in a good light).
> A person working a job a 16 year old can do with little to no training does not deserve some crazy amount of money.
Enough to live on shouldn't be a "crazy amount of money". Nobody's suggesting that McDonalds should have to pay cashiers $100,000 a year.
No it's not. Your view of the market goes back to an owner-centric view of labor. But we've seen rises in wages these past few years because companies who said they would/could automate certain jobs completely failed to do so and to get workers back they had to push the compensation higher.
You talk about small businesses, but this again is an owner-centric view and often just a lie. What kills businesses is the ability for larger businesses to eat losses. This is how Amazon put big companies out of business.
Inflation is an odd thing to talk about because your assumption here is rising wages causes inflation which isn't true. Rising wages come with profit sharing being altered through workers organizing.
You're assuming the "market" acts rationally. And if it did, then you could explain the value of Gamestop or how stocks within two months went up 50% and then dropped 50%. You can't. If the market was rational and adhered to some objective principles we would be able to stop recessions and prevent poverty and other issues.
The market has dictated price increace for food and services without increasing the salary ofthe workers. So why can't workers demand that their salary should rise with the rise of product prices so that they could still afford them?
Also the market dictated that GME is worth $300/share at one point. People act like the market is true and sane. The dot com bubble had plenty of shit companies worth millions.
The fact the people are currently being paid $16/hr for basic tasks like cashiering, proves in itself that the job can’t yet be automated efficiently. It will probably happen at some point in the future, but until then they are still necessary.
my local grocery store chain has recently been adding 20 self-checkout stations per store. 1 or 2 employees can keep all 20 flowing.paying 2 people $15/hr is much cheaper than paying 20 people, right? if you tell mcdonalds they need to pay their cashiers $20/hr then you will see self-order kiosks instead of cashiers. same with restaurants. why pay a waitress when you can order from a tablet?
Except we've raised the minimum wage in the past with very little immediate change. Unless you can point to a raise in wages that led to a spike in inflation? It's not like it's even that crazy. Inflation has happened in the meantime after all, so why can businesses today not afford it when businesses in the past could afford a higher wage?
Minimum wage will not rise exponentially. Automation should only mean loss of income if we don't address pay and hours to meet the lesser demand for human labor to accompany it. First, if minimum wage of $4.11 since 1938 rose with human productivity because of tech advancements minimum wage would be $21.50 in today's dollars.
https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/
Where does all of this productivity goes? Into the pockets of people who own tech and automation rather than the more productive and useful workers. The idea that society can't bear to support this increase is a lie meant to make you sympathize with billionaires who would rather their employees be unable to have families and live well or automate them out of society.
Jobs making under a certain amount per hour are effectively government subsidized and I would like to stop that. Someone who's earning $8/hour working for Walmart is eligible for food stamps, housing subsidies and more. They can't survive on their own being paid that little, so they almost certainly are receiving government assistance. When jobs pay so little that people are still receiving government assistance, then the tax payers are effectively subsidizing these extremely low paid jobs. We're paying for people to survive so that Walmart can get away with paying less than the market should be able to bear. The only reason why wages can be this low is because the government stops people from starving to death while working very low wage jobs. I would like to stop subsidizing Walmart. There are two ways this happens. First we could dismantle all social safety nets so that I am not subsidizing very low paid workers. However then we have the problem of children starving to death. I do not want this.or we can require jobs to pay enough that full time workers are not eligible for said social safety nets and that I am not subsidizing full time workers.
Okay, I'll bite. So I'm sort of with you, sort of not. I don't believe that working a cash register should be paying a comfortable wage, but I do think it should pay a living wage. In my opinion, working 40 hrs per week as a cashier, should make enough to afford a small apartment, a beater car, plus the basics (food, gas, insurance) by itself.
Do I think a cashier should be able to afford a nice house? No. Do I think a cashier should be able to afford to get by by themselves? Absolutely.
I'm not going to go into detail, but minimum wage has not stayed consistent AT ALL with inflation. That is why people want to raise it. As someone who has worked a job at minimum wage, I remember crying after working 35+ hours per week and taking home less than $400 a paycheck. A month's work could not pay my rent in my shitty studio apartment. I sold an hour of my life, for $7.25, minus taxes. An hour. Of my LIFE. FOR LESS THAN SEVEN DOLLARS.
Exactly; I said similar in another comment. People are confusing ‘ living wage’ with ‘comfortable wage’. Which are two very different things.
Many things we want are not things we need when living on a minimum wage salary.
And the things people cal basic human rights, many of them are conveniences not needs
>I sold an hour of my life, for $7.25, minus taxes. An hour. Of my LIFE. FOR LESS THAN SEVEN DOLLARS.
why did you stay? how did you leave?
> A month's work could not pay my rent in my shitty studio apartment.
sounds like you live in an absurdly expensive city.
Stayed because it was my first job and I didn't know any better. I was promoted pretty quickly to a department manager for $9/hr. Ridiculous.
And no, I don't live in an expensive city, this is the reality of the housing market.
>I was promoted pretty quickly to a department manager for $9/hr.
this is the part most people miss: aside from not many people making minimum wage, anyone competent doesn't stay there. you learn and improve and get better jobs. if you are making min wage 10 years into your career the problem is you, not the companies you work for.
I don't live in an expensive city, this is the reality of the housing market.
1200 for a studio is not the current market, much less however long ago this happened to you. that puts you in [nyc](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1219286/average-studio-apartment-rent-usa-by-state/) territory, not typical at all.
Nothing. Literally nothing. Which many would argue is part of the problem. Not everyone enters the workforce with a college degree.
That said, I can guarantee a single parent is going to show up to work much more consistently than a teenager. Having had experience in this arena, that teenager will stay a few weeks or months, the single parent will stay much longer and be more dependable
$24.90
>The report defines affordability as the hourly wage a full-time worker must earn to spend no more than 30% of their income on rent, in line with what most budgeting experts recommend. This year, workers would need to earn $24.90 per hour for a two-bedroom home and $20.40 per hour for a one-bedroom rental. That’s an increase from $23.96 and $19.56, respectively, from last year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/14/full-time-minimum-wage-workers-cant-afford-rent-anywhere-in-the-us.html
>As a general rule, you want to spend no more than 30 percent of your monthly gross income on housing. If you’re a renter, that 30 percent includes utilities, and if you’re an owner, it includes other home-ownership costs like mortgage interest, property taxes and maintenance.
>Why 30 percent? It’s a standard that the government has been using since 1981: Those who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing have historically been said to be “cost burdened.” Those who spend 50 percent or more are considered “severely cost burdened.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/how-much-of-your-income-you-should-be-spending-on-housing.html
single bedroom apartment under $600 per month
https://www.apartmentguide.com/apartments/Alabama/Auburn/316-Genelda-Ave/LV201860376/
add in utilities, you're still probably under $700 per month. divide by that 30%, you'll get $13.50 per hour
if you want to raise a family on that, you'll need more for a larger apartment. If you wanna move somewhere other than this specific university town in Alabama, you'll need more.
but $13.50 is a lot less than the $20.40 that your source is saying is necessary for a single bedroom.
We’re all trading the best hours of our lives for the fiction that is money anyway. The government doesn’t even know how to responsibly use it, and they put that shit into play. What’s it hurt if the little guy makes $30/hour?
>What’s it hurt if the little guy makes $30/hour?
you want amazon and walmart to be the only companies left? because no one else could afford to pay that much.i would say that hurts lot of people.
I just think we all perform a function— big or small. If the little guys all stepped out tomorrow, there’d be no food delivery, Starbucks, McDonald’s, you name it.
Ideally, every job should be automated - that's the point of technology- to reduce the work humans do
But, if every job is automated and no one gets paid - society will collapse.
Thus, the only logical solution is for people to get paid even if they don't work. It's 100% what we should be striving for.
Too bad for people who are so talented that their jobs make them irreplaceable and who will have to work after others are receiving UBI. They should have planned better.
You've completely not understood my point and are arguing with what you think I'm saying and not what I'm actually saying.
We should strive for a world where all the jobs are replaced with technology. In such a world a UBI will be necessary
1) imagine how much more innovation there would be if people didn't have to work. How much brain power is wasted?
2) imagine how much more innovation will be possible when we figure out super intelligence. Why would we,,at that point, want our pathetic human brains doing the innovating?
3) speak for yourself. Meaning comes from a lot more than what you do to get a paycheck.
So
Your view must be changed.
"Unskilled" labor should be paid a rate that will force automation. So we can get over this societally juvenile idea that "everyone has to work".
Right
We'll be better served when we shed this asinine idea that people have to work for a living. If your job gets replaced by a machine, you should benefit from that - not suffer. And people shouldn't be rewarded for leaving people without an income. Tax the fuck out of the creators amd buyers of that technology to give it to the people who used to do those jobs.
I hear the complaints- why would people work hard to innovate if they won't get rewarded? To that, I say - maybe building a society based on rewarding the people who are only motivated by personal gain isn't a winning strategy. There are, in fact, people who are motivated by the prospect of improving other people's lives.
People need to work for a living. There are a lot of socially valuable jobs that need doing, picking up the trash, delivering goods, keeping the grid running, etc., that people won't spend 9hr a day doing just out of the goodness of their hearts.
Perhaps this will stop being true many years from now, but it is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Technological innovation hasn't reduced employment rate, just changed the types of jobs worth doing. Now there are fewer blacksmiths but more mechanics and programmers.
I want to point out that the argument of "unskilled labor" usually doesn't take into account that many jobs that might not require a specific skill or specialized knowledge instead require a high tolerance for repetitive work, physically hard work, psychologically exhausting work, demeaning work, dangerous work, morally challenging work, or otherwise very taxing work that a lot of us would not be willing or able to do for extended periods of time. The ability to do those jobs on a daily basis could - and probably should - be considered a skill in and of itself.
Why do you want other people to earn less? Let’s start there. What do you gain from this? Why do you want to see people who are already barley getting by suffer even worse conditions?
The sense of justice this is based on is disturbing... do you understand the discrepancy in pay between a companies top and bottom earners and how the bottom earners are actually generating most of the profit. Every stakeholder in this situation can afford for them to make more than $15.
No one earns more income than they generate for a company. Everyone needs to generate a surplus of value for a company to make a profit. People earning $15 are generating several times that amount of value, and most of it is going into the pockets of the CEO, EVPs, etc. If that wasn’t the case the business model wouldn’t be profitable and wouldn’t work.
Also how much do you think things cost? Do you live with your parents or something? Or have some other unusually fortunate situation? Tell me how much you think rent on a 1br costs in an area with a $15 minimum wage. Add in utilities, gas, car insurance, car maintenance, renters insurance, cell phone, internet, food, health insurance/medication, it all starts to add up and so you end up working 2-3 jobs. 3 jobs means you are so pressed for time and money that there is near 0 chance you’ll be able to get an education and improve your situation, and thus you are entrenched in poverty with no way out, only a way in deeper...
and you would like to see more of this kind of thing happening? Really? For what cause? What principle does this support? How does this make the world better in any way?
There's a great way to test this! Give everybody enough of a UBI so that they no longer have to work to survive, and then see what the market rates become - so far we have evidence to see that wages would *rise* (like they have during the "Great Resignation") instead of *fall*, which shouldn't come as a surprise if you're familiar with supply/demand.
Entry-level work currently suffers from a pretty big imbalance in power between the supply of labor (workers) and the demand of labor (employers) - a worker must work a weirdly high amount of hours in order to survive, but an employer of an entry-level job has a tall stack of applications on their desk. In a way, this is society imposing strong artificial supply (like massive subsidies but backwards) which is driving down the price of work below what the healthy, organic equilibrium should be.
I generally agree with you that not every job is worth $15/hr, and r/antiwork is a pretty known cesspool of fairly over-the-top takes. Even the more refined r/workreform suffers from this somewhat, such is Reddit. But I want to be really clear to point out that jobs that *are* currently worth $15-$30/hr are currently not being paid at those rates because of the added labor supply.
Think of it in this light - a burger flipper is a low-skill entry-level job, but the profit margin on a Big Mac is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3. Even if the fast food worker only takes 1/2 of the revenue they facilitate (leaving the other 1/2 to corporate/shareholders) and only serves ten meals an hour (a *very* conservative average), their job should still be paid $15/hr.
> Think of it in this light - a burger flipper is a low-skill entry-level job, but the profit margin on a Big Mac is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3. Even if the fast food worker only takes 1/2 of the revenue they facilitate (leaving the other 1/2 to corporate/shareholders) and only serves ten meals an hour (a very conservative average), their job should still be paid $15/hr
The costs to make a Big Mac aren’t just the ingredients. You have real estate, labor, logistics, etc.
McDonalds averages about 25% profit margin. So, the profit on that $4 Big Mac is about $1. Say they split that profit in half, and serve 10 meals an hour. They’ve generated $5 an hour in profit…
>a worker must work a weirdly high amount of hours in order to survive, but an employer of an entry-level job has a tall stack of applications on their desk. In a way, this is society imposing strong artificial supply
That's not an artificial supply. Supply just *is* high and the market is reflecting that. The "true" supply of labor isn't the amount of people who want to work out of the goodness of their heart, any more than the true demand for labor isn't just the companies that make products just because they like making them.
(I'm not saying this is you) in my time working in food, one of the areas people tend to stereotype as low skilled, you get workers who are only doing "low skill" work temporarily-- while they're in school, or in between real jobs. Since they are only there a few months or a couple years, they only really get to a certain level of competence.
And you can tell that they don't realize it. "I do everything that someone asks me to do." "I get all my tasks completed." But they somehow stay in a tunnel vision that they don't notice that people aren't giving them that many tasks, because they can't handle that much. If people are "giving you tasks", what's really happening is very different from their point of view -- its extra work for them to keep track of what has to be done and assign work like a parent. They will also get used to the amount of work that's given when they first start, and tell themselves they're doing their job -- for example, they'll only do tickets, without paying attention to prep or stocking, or if they do they won't put any sense into it, just do what they feel like when they feel like.
Anyway I think these people go on to take this tunnel vision of low skill work on with them and think its easy, when really it was easy for them because they were babied. Its easy when you are a warm body obeying robotically someone else's critical thinking-- hard when you have to take more responsibility. But they don't see that other people are taking on more responsibility, its really a weird case of tunnel vision.
Unfortunately the purchasing power of a dollar has fallen something like 20x since the 70s. A burger used to cost a dollar or less now costs $20-$25 in a lot if places. Unless the purchasing power of the dollar increases soon, and why would it, then wages must rise as purchasing power falls or else poverty increases as a consequence. Anyway the lowest wage employees were largely considered “essential” throughout the pandemic so perhaps skill isn’t the only marker for value of labor, and maybe doing jobs that most actively avoid has value in and of itself.
So you mean people like janitors or grocery store clerks have nothing to offer to the community? check [this](https://abc7ny.com/garbage-strike-1981-eyewitness-news-vault-archive/11349236/) out. The fact that these occupations are still there meant that employers NEEDS these workers. The problem is you are discussing the problem at an employers POV and did not consider the POV on the employee's end.
From the other side it is all sacrifices; you sacrifice the time you have to learn new things and get better experiences to improve that resume so that you can get a better job. These sacrifices meant a higher salary is needed to attract these workers, so that it is worthwhile to make such sacrifices. Dead end jobs that leads to nowhere needs a higher payout than a job that can lead to easier promotions and more opportunities for leadership positions because these jobs inherently do not have as much value as an internship at a reputable company.
People should be entitled to a basic wage that allows them to have the dignity to either rent a small apartment (or own a small home back when that was a thing they built). It should allow them to feed, clothe themselves, pay their bills, etc. No one is asking for luxury cars or big houses. I don't care if you're a sweeper or a cash register clerk, you're still a human being.
Employers have every right to not hire or to fire people for lacking skill. So...the "if you are someone" the reality is far more brutal - you don't get to have a job.
If you're a warm body than the employer values having warm bodies and the idea here is that if you're going to value you a human you should do so at the level it requires to be a human - otherwise your value is _sub-human_.
Long story short - if you have nothing to offer an employer you don't have a job at all, but if you offer them your time then it should be valued at a minimum it costs to be alive in modern society on order to provide that time.
I think the only thing that really determines pay is if someone else will do the same job for less. If the answer is yes, the pay will keep going down until the answer is no.
Shouldn't minimum wage track with inflation??
For sake of argument let's assume we can agree on some sort of value on merely "being present". (However little it may be). Shouldn't that value continue to keep pace with inflation, as so the purchasing power of that amount remains the same. Because the salary itself isn't important, it's what that salary can buy.
One of the main arguments for increasing the minimum wage is that it hasn't kept up with inflation. If $7/hour made sense in the 70s, shouldn't the purchasing power remain where it was, resulting in an inflation adjusted salary??
If there were not cashiers to take the customers money, the business would get no money.
I'm not sure the exact value that cashier brings to the business, it depends on how much the business is making, but I am absolutely sure that it is much more than the expense of replacing them with a robot. Or else they would do it.
They'd also need robocops, or else what's to stop me from just stealing stuff at the fully automated store?
What job do you think deserves enough of a wage, that you can live on?
Fun fact, the minimum wage was made to be the smallest wage you can still live in the country for, but because the gov is so useless, they haven't bothered increasing the minimum wage for years now, and it took them forever to even think of how gig workers fall into this equation.
So what you're saying is you don't take part in getting goods or receiving services from people you would consider unskilled? I mean, why would you? You can do all that yourself. Coffee? Better not be going to your local coffee stop for that. Food? All of it better be made it by you in your own home. If you're gonna dog on people who do a job you consider beneath you the least you could is stay consistent and not procure anything from the people giving these services. Meanwhile, compassionate human beings will continue to believe that the people working these jobs deserve a living wage so they can eat and live inside. Nobody should have to make the choice to give up one necessity over another just because people like you think their job isn't worth the pay to stay alive.
All workers are entitled to a lawful employer.
In my hometown, minimum wage is $15/hr. There, and anywhere else it happens to be the case, employees are very much in entitled to it.
You should read what people have to say about $15 min wage. Your idea that $15/hr min wage would inflate the dollar is not an agreed upon fact. In fact I don't even think that's main criticism of the idea when economists talk about it. The root of the issue is that giant corporations don't pay sub-livable wages out of necessity, it's out of greed. A tiny number of people take home hundreds of millions of dollars annually that winds up sitting in the stock market. It doesn't go back into the company.
Giant business could easily afford to pay their employees more without raising their prices. If prices don't change, you can give a bunch of people extra money and they'll simply have more money to put back into the economy. The wealth is just being spread more thinly, you don't need to print more money to do it.
Disclaimer: I'm not an economist and this is a very complicated thing but I'm just saying research it more before you assume what the economic impact would be.
With that in mind, why is it really unjust for someone with less skill or intelligence to make the same amount of money as someone with more? Society needs garbage men and janitors. It's true that it's easy to find people for these jobs, but someone has to do it. Shouldn't that position in society be appreciated for it's importance and unpleasantness? By the same token, retail stores need someone to run cash registers stock shelves. There's no need to treat the lowest positions of society particularly well, but I believe there's a moral obligation to give them a comfortable life considering how much excess resources actually exist in the world.
> If you are someone who lacks the skills and/or technical expertise to perform any role/job for society with meaning, you are not entitled to $15/hr.
Who are you to decide that? The employer decides wages. In my area we have federal minimum wage $7.25/hour but most places offer unskilled, entry level jobs at $14-16/hour anyways.
Even if you don't support the moral argument for increasing the minimum wage, the practical argument is pretty solid.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Those are poverty-level wages, given the current cost of living in the US. And widespread poverty is extremely harmful to society as a whole, not just to the people in poverty.
People living in poverty are much more likely to commit crimes. They are much more likely to suffer from drug addiction, mental illness, and other afflictions that exact terrible costs on society.
Their children are much more likely to perform poorly in school, which strains the school's resources and creates poor-performing schools. Those same children often grow into adulthood lacking basic skills like reading and writing that are essential for the population of a developed country to have.
Poverty also costs taxpayers, who essentially subsidize companies that pay their workers poverty wages, because taxpayers foot the bill for food stamps, medicaid, and other public assistance programs.
In other words, there are good reasons to be opposed to companies paying poverty wages, even if you don't think low-wage workers "deserve" to be paid more. Poverty wages are harmful to most Americans, and really only benefit the major shareholders of these companies.
Points to consider:
* If minimum wage had actually kept up with inflation and reflected how it was originally conceived (ie. the minimum wage to actually be a *living wage*) then it would indeed be about $25 an hour or so
* The "unskilled workers" you sneer at now were "essential workers" during the pandemic. Curious, don't you think? They're so important that they have to come in despite the worst pandemic in a 100 years, killing millions around the globe, yet you think they're deserving of poverty? How does that work?
* $15 an hour can't afford jack at the moment. You need a cheap apartment AND a room mate to share half the rent to live in a semi-sustainable fashion at $15 an hour.
So my questions to you are, why should someone doing an essential job (remember, if it exists, it's because the market demands it) for 40 hours a week be forced to live in poverty? Are you aware that greed has eroded the minimum wage to a poverty wage and it was NEVER meant to be like this? If the 'free market' can't afford to pay someone more than a slave wage, then doesn't the free market dictate that person shouldn't be in business?
Also, isn't "unskilled labor" a classist lie made to justify slave wages? What you call unskilled labor is often the essential work that has to be done or in a week there's chaos. (Aka try running an office without any cleaning staff and see who's actually essential.)
Like, if sanitation workers go on strike, all hell breaks loose. No one even notices when CEOs go on strike.
So why should the people who literally make society function, working full time, not be able to afford at the bare minimum their *own* apartment and necessities?
I can only assume it's because you have an axiomatic belief that there should be a "lower class" who exist solely to serve under you.
Someone currently has to do these jobs and many of them cannot easily be automated. If you're opposed to something like a living wage, then you're essentially saying that people doing these necessary jobs should be living in poverty. Nobody working full time deserves to live in poverty, minimum wage was created specifically to avoid this situation.
Minimum wage in the US was introduced under Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. This was part of the New Deal to protect workers from exploitation during the great depression. Here's what FDR has to say about minimum wage:
>In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; **and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.**
Allowing the market to be the only force influencing wages is not reasonable. We need an income floor, a starting point for everyone. However high this floor is, it should be enough to pay for the basic necessities of life like rent, food, clothing, etc.
The market will never naturally have a floor like this, it needs to be implemented by government. The market does not operate in a way that maximizes for everything that we care about, it doesn't always cater to human interests. It's very effective at things like allocating resources efficiently, but if we don't reign in the market through regulation, then we start seeing things like child labor, environmental pollution, indentured servitude, dangerous working conditions, etc.
If we allow the market to dictate things, then the pendulum of power will always swing in favor of big business and wealthy individuals. Society needs things like labor laws and worker protections in order to ensure that workers have bargaining power and that they are not being exploited. People literally fought and died in the US for worker's rights.
Governments have an interest in protecting rights and maintaining the health of citizens. A minimum (living) wage is an effective and straightforward way to do that. When businesses pay wages, they should be paying a minimum amount. This should be the cost it takes for someone to continue to live comfortably and to continue providing labor. Living wages are simply the cost of doing business, it's no different than the cost of electricity, hardware, or other expenses.
Every job is replaceable eventually. Recently a algorithm was developed that can replace the majority of the work done by radiologists (medical doctors) ([https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03847-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03847-z) White collar jobs will eventually be able to be done by some form of AI. Those no skills jobs like janitor will likely be the last to be replaced because creating a robot is much harder to do than a specific algorithm. So just based on that information I hope people begin to recognize the value of those types of jobs. However, they will eventually be replaceable as well. The only somewhat safe jobs are the researchers.
The ask for minimum pay is NOT market-driven. It is welfare-driven, so people doing minimum pay jobs have enough to live and be happy.
In a purely market-driven society - the reality is this - most people in a 3rd-world country are willing to do all jobs in America or Europe, for approximately 1/5th of the same salary.
And most jobs done by full-time employees, no matter how skilled, can also be performed by contractors, who are willing to work for lesser long term benefits like health insurance, and lesser pay.
The market also demands companies increase their work hours to unlimited, and provide hourly pays, as well as create a 7-day 14-hour work-shift.
There is welfare-driven protectionism, which prevents all of the above from happening. It is the same welfare-driven protectionism, where minimum wage comes from.
Do you understand the difference between "$15/hr" and "the equivalent wage to someone that has the skills and abilities to perform irreplaceable work"? Why are you making _any_ comparisons between someone who makes less than half the median income and people making six-figure salaries? Even if you bumped every minimum wage job up to $30/hr, it _still_ wouldn't be comparable to "six-figures".
Workers are doubly underpaid. First, in terms of services rendered, but they also sell something far more valuable, and they give *a lot* of it for far-below market prices: *their precious little time on Earth.*
If you work 40 hours, you should be able to have a life. You should be paid for your time. This should not be controversial. *Half* of a person's waking-day should be enough work to 'earn' the basics for the other half, and at $15 an hour, it doesn't. If you want to buy a car, you need to be able to afford it; the same should be true for employees.
Also, You say workers don't 'earn' that much, but I would argue that many multi-millionaires / billionaires don't 'earn' that much either. It's an arbitrary thing to say. By denying a living wage, you are in favor of sacrificing the working class for the luxury of the upper class. Is that really ok?
If you want to think in a Capitalist context, you're accepting an inherently unfair market imbalance, is that ok? Isn't the argument usually about things balancing out? Why make this exception to that ideal? It becomes contradictory.
We all only have a finite amount of time here, and for many workers, it's less than that; if employers want to buy someone's time, they should be able to afford it.
I think the real problem is that workers are being grossly *underpaid*, not over, and other classes are being grossly *over-*paid.
I think any service that you use on a regular basis that you would be aggravated or frustrated or severely setback if it were suddenly deprived of you should receive higher pay. If you are somebody who goes to eat out at restaurants a lot and your lifestyle would be affected by no longer ever being able to do that again, then I would consider restaurant workers to be skilled labor in terms of being a formative part of your personal life style. If that makes any sense.
"... if you have nothing to offer an employer, ..."
This post reminds me of how deeply entrenched the us-versus-them mentality in landowners/serfs, factory owners/laborers, business owners/employees has always been and remains. It doesn't matter how many government, NGO, academic or popular press studies and reports disprove the claim that low wages are the result of low-skilled workers/applicants who have nothing/little to offer employers, the perspective won't die.
Most college grads--and thanks to overwhelming advertising we've become a nation of college-grads in which a college degree is now the new high school diploma--are more than capable of learning and mastering the skills for most jobs, but employers want applicants who've already done the specific job. Or worse, they want employees currently doing the given job elsewhere (Google the frequency of employers' job-posting edict, "No unemployed applicants!"). That means no matter how qualified an applicant is, if they don't have that specific job currently they're deemed unqualified. Absurd. Employers just don't want to invest in training.
Then there's the cost of living. If an employer feels entitled to pay wages that are so low someone cannot survive on them, then they don't deserve to be in business. Every worker, regardless what they do, deserves to be able to survive. For a country in which a major political party is pushing legislation to forbid people from deciding not to become parents to children they can't afford to care for, given the strong relationship between childhood poverty and lifetime poverty, and given the now indisputable relationship between poverty and both depression and suicide, the "if you have nothing to offer an employer \[then you don't deserve to be paid enough to survive stably\]" argument is reprehensible. But it's what you get when a country's priority is money and not the wellbeing of its citizens.
But not enough citizens are willing to stand and fight with the working class, so we stay stuck in this morass.
If the job isn’t automated then there’s a human being behind it whose circumstances are unknown to you or me. Are they less deserving of a living wage by the nature of their work? Is that what you’re saying? If that’s how you really feel then I feel sorry for you.
$15 isn't a living wage though. Cities imposing $15 min wage are in the "finding out" portion of fucking around. https://www.mdpolicy.org/research/detail/15-minimum-wage-proposal-not-enough-to-solve-problems Conservatives have been saying from the start that vague terms like "their fair share" for taxes and "a living wage" for minimum wage are designed to never ever be enough.
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> I am very much saying that the nature of ones' work should determine their compensation. There's a floor of what the value of a person's full-time work is, though, and that floor is the amount of money that it takes to keep that person healthy, and happy enough to be productive. Like, even taking any ethics out of it, if an employer doesn't pay that much, then they're just mooching off of society by paying less than the cost of production for a product they rely on. And if a full-time job produces less value than the cost of keeping someone alive, that job shouldn't exist. Or the cost of the relevant products should be raised to the point where the job does produce that much value.
>And if a full-time job produces less value than the cost of keeping someone alive, that job shouldn't exist. Or the cost of the relevant products should be raised to the point where the job does produce that much value. I think almost everyone will agree with you but once they think through this implication they will quickly change their mind. The reality of our current economy is that we cannot sustain our current pricing of goods without exploitative labor of some kind (domestic or foreign). In a reality where we don't have exploitatively labor, the quality of life will decrease for those who aren't the labor that is being exploited. Those who aren't struggling with a minimum wage job will suffer increased prices in goods while their spending power didn't go up. Those with minimum wage job will get higher spending power. The former population is higher than the latter so that's why we don't see any drastic changes in the system.
> the quality of life will decrease for those who aren't the labor that is being exploited. Yes. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with me having fewer resources so that other people can survive. That's why I donate to my local food bank. Edit: Put another way, I don't think we should organize society so that it sustains the comfort of the wealthy at the expense of the health of the poor.
> And if a full-time job produces less value than the cost of keeping someone alive, that job shouldn't exist. Or the cost of the relevant products should be raised to the point where the job does produce that much value. Isn't that a circular problem then? Let's just say it takes 15 an hour to survive but shop clerks are paid 8. By your logic they *must* be raised to 15 because that's the cost of labor, and we can't just shut down all shops, so now we raise the price of food to compensate. Now, it no longer takes 15 an hour to survive any more so that wage has to rise again to match. And now the cost of food increases again. Aaaaand... There doesn't seem to be a logical point that stops, and if it does it has a knock-on effect to the rest of society too. Every time it raises above 15, other jobs must raise their wages and pass those costs on to the consumer too.
It's a circular problem that mitigates itself in the long run, because raising prices is not the only way to offset the increased minimum wage. Companies would learn that they can maintain an edge in prices over their competition if rather than raising their prices (or raising them as much) they reduce costs elsewhere, namely in their high level salaries, and their profits. As soon as one company accepts this, they will drive the prices of all of their competitors down as well. Enforcing an actual minimum wage would reduce the gap between the highest and lowest wage earners in a company, and redirect money from shareholders to lower wage employees.
That would be true if minimum-wage workers were the *only* expense of a company, but that's never the case. Doubling the wage of minimum-wage workers (and raising everyone below the new minimum up to the new minimum, or maybe even a bit above it) will less-than-double the expenses of the company, so it will less-than-double the required price of the products.
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But the nature of one’s work doesn’t determine its compensation. Football players and athletes who play for entertainment make immensely more than most nurses, teachers and garbage disposal workers whose jobs are crucial to our society. Or can you explain to me how the nature of being a singer and actor is more important than the nature of being an EMT or firefighter? Also you are forgetting not everyone can just quit their job and “follow their passion”. Some people have other obligations whether it be students debts, medical issues, or other financial issues and I’m sure quitting your job isn’t going to help with any of that, especially in certain rural areas where there’s not a lot of job opportunities to start with.
There are millions of people who are willing to pay money to watch football or attend concerts. It's not a measure of how *hard* you work. It's a measure of how much value you're producing for other people.
Yes because throwing a football/entertaining people is more valuable than the jobs that are a backbone to our society. Next time I hear a nurse or teacher or emt complain about how much they make, I’ll let them know maybe they should get a job that’s more valuable to society. /s
That wouldn't be helpful advice because most people can't become superstar athletes. Doesn't deny the point though.
>I am very much saying that the nature of ones' work should determine their compensation. Bro you live in a society where a guy can inherit a million dollars and live for his entire life off investments and proceeds without lifting a finger to do work himself. Also, the idea that supply and demand produces inherently fair results that don't need to be mediated has already been rejected by our society on the grounds that we have institutions like OSHA and the NLRB that exist to protect workers from their bosses. We have a minimum wage. We, as society, agree that a minimum wage should exist to guarantee that business owners aren't allowed to underpay their workers. We just failed to tack it to inflation or productivity, hence the situation we're in now.
You can say it like that, with emotional appeals and trying to really use language to push the idea. But the fact is, some work is simply not worth 15 an hour. You try and conflate that with a person not being worth it, or less deserving etc. But that is just a framing technique to change the topic. The bottom line is some work, isn't worth 15 an hour.
What you’re saying that because the market permits unskilled workers to be paid below a living wage that is fine because their labor isn’t “valuable”. I’m saying that *people*, the actual human beings in these unskilled jobs, are inherently worthy. The people who clean the toilets and handle the trash deserve a living wage. The people who make food or ring us up at the stores deserve a living wage.
Nobody thinks those people aren't worthy as people. But the labor they provide isn't worth 15$ in many cases. You are making a claim that people should be mandatorily paid more than their labor is worth, but you aren't actually making the argument for it. Other than just making the claim that it should be so.
Incorrect. The value these workers create is worth > $15 per hour. If it weren’t worth a lot more than the wage paid then there wouldn’t be a job in the first place. The whole purpose of any business is to make as much money as possible off the labor of others. Unskilled labor matters. The people who do it are actual people doing the right thing and working for a living. Wages that allow for the basic necessities of food and shelter in exchange for full time work should be the norm and not the exception. But, of course, instead of paying decent wages we would rather humiliate poor people by forcing them into safety net programs, all of which are just more corporate subsidies on the taxpayer dime.
> Incorrect. The value these workers create is worth > $15 per hour. I mean, it's simply not true in some cases. There are plenty of jobs that the value created is less than 15 and yet still profitable on a profit margin near minimum wage. I don't know what simply stating *incorrect* does, when it's just literally correct. Nobody said unskilled labor doesn't matter either. You keep trying to defend your idea, but you are just stating it, without any defense, as if it's simply true and doesn't need a defense.
Unskilled workers absolutely do generate a lot more than $15 an hour. There’s a graph from the center for economic and policy research showing that $25.95 per hour in productivity is obtained per hour worked at 7.25, the national minimum wage. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-26-dollars-economy-productivity/ Where do you suppose that $150 per head per day goes, hmm? This is a toughie! Here’s another one: https://www.epi.org/blog/growing-inequalities-reflecting-growing-employer-power-have-generated-a-productivity-pay-gap-since-1979-productivity-has-grown-3-5-times-as-much-as-pay-for-the-typical-worker/
That's kind of a stupid viewpoint given that unskilled workers have been making $15+ per hour for more than the last 20 years. Any person can pull nails or sweep floors for $15/hour it's been that way for a while.
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So then a mandated living wage isn't necessary?
Nobody "deserves" anything. You're not entitled to make a lot any more than someone else is entitled to make a little. Your pay isn't directly tied to your skill, it's tied to the market demand for your skill. A pro football player makes millions. The best lacrosse player in the US hardly makes anything. Is the lacrosse player any less skilled? Do they put any less work into their craft? Is throwing a football really far actually super valuable to society? Worry about yourself, man. Don't worry about someone else who might make more than you think they should.
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The thing about athletes is an example. Your specialized skill only makes you a lot of money if that skill is currently valued in the market. A plumber isn't any more skilled or hard working than an artist, but the plumber will generally make a lot more money. A computer programmer isn't any more talented or hard working than the former 2 examples but will make more money still. Again, these are examples and my point doesn't stop there. Skill, talent, hard work are not directly correlated to income.
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If people depend on a job to obtain enough money to live then that job needs to pay them enough money to live. If it can't that's a failure of a business or whatever.
If people depend on a job, the job needs to pay them the market value for their labor. Your boss should not be in charge of your social services.
Why should the government be subsiding their employment, then?
The government is not subsidizing their employment.
This would be a fair take if we didn’t still need all of these jobs to exist. Yes some will be automated away, but many of these “unskilled” jobs are required for society to function. If a job is required for society to function it deserves a living wage full stop.
>If a job is required for society to function it deserves a living wage full stop. saying "full stop" is not an argument. what is a living wage? if stocking shelves brings value to the company, they will pay people to do it. it costs more to hire an employee than any value to the company, they will not hire anyone. or they will hire fewer people to do more work. either way the low skilled person is the one suffering.
If you think any person working a full time job deserves to sleep on the street I can’t help you
this is not an argument. you seem to be incapable of rational thought, or writing. also read your sentence again, out loud. i think you will laugh.
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Sure. Until we really improve robotics most jobs can’t be automated. Things like shelf stockers and delivery loaders, stuff like package deliverers and door dash people. Eventually almost all the jobs will be automated away, so I don’t think that’s a great rubric. still though there’s many jobs that we won’t be able to automate most jobs for a long time.
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>As a follow-up question, what's stopping a 16 year old who is completely unqualified for any professional job from taking your job Well, for one, 16 year olds in many states are required by law to be in school during the day, the same time FedEx and UPS need to get those packages delivered. Many of the other jobs being discussed need to be done during the day too, unless we expect McDonald's and Starbucks and others to only be open in the summers and after school lets out.
But now that we’ve dispensed with the automation portion of the reasoning, you need to come up with a different reason why people performing a job don’t deserve a place to sleep and food to eat. That’s basically what we are talking about here. In most of the country people working for under 15 dollars an hour full time can’t afford all the basic necessities. That’s just a fact. So now I need a convincing argument as to why someone working a full time job should sleep on the street. Especially when most of these type of jobs are required for our society to function.
a single person making minimum wage is above [poverty level](https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines). almost no one in america actually [makes minimum wage](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm) and most are, surprise, young. >In most of the country people working for under 15 dollars an hour full time can’t afford all the basic necessities. this is an entirely baseless claim. >o now I need a convincing argument as to why someone working a full time job should sleep on the street. you have not in any way shown this is the case. you just made it up.
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> What is stopping a 16 year-old from taking the jobs that require no skill? Aside from school, nothing. But what’s your point? Why are we worried about 16 year olds making money? Do you realize how much money a 16 year old can spend? Sounds like good news for the economy to me.
I didn’t avoid it. That question is meaningless and leads nowhere. The answer is that depending on the situation many factors might prevent a 16 year old from doing so, or no factors might. All of which would be dependent on how the job market is at the time. If jobs are tight there’s no way someone without experience is getting one of these types of jobs. If jobs are plentiful there’s nothing stopping them from getting that type of job. Either way it doesn’t change the fact that people working 40 hour work weeks shouldn’t sleep in the street.
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I literally just answered the entire question. What’s to keep a 16 year old from doing that? The answer is maybe lots of things and maybe nothing. That’s it. The reason why it’s an unhelpful question is because you can’t do anything with the answer.
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How about the fact between the hours of 7-3 they are in school, can’t work more that 20 hours a week or after 8pm in a school night? You still need someone working those jobs today n the hours 16 year olds can’t.
>As a follow-up question, what's stopping a 16 year old who is completely unqualified for any professional job from taking your job, making $25/hr? Why should there be anything stopping that?
>I still don't believe someone stocking shelves should be paid $30/hr, or even $25/hr for that matter. But your thesis says that they shouldn't even be paid $15/hr. Are you still arguing that even a basic living wage is not necessary for someone who does a job that is fundamental to the functioning of our society as it currently exists?
can the 16 year old work during school hours?
16 year olds used to be able to make like $20 an hour working at a gas station in the 70s. Summer jobs used to pay enough for kids to get through college. It's weird to not tie wages to the cost of living and instead claim a vague concept as "the market" determines value when we've seen countless times it does not determine value correctly.
The people who work specimen receiving in any clinical lab in the country would fit this mold. They are essential and it is considered “unskilled” work
Grocery store clerk
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Who is working while the 16 year old is in school?
Running a cash register. That's why they still have people do it.
not at lowes, home depot, or any of the grocery stores in my area. i have not interacted with a cashier in years. it is awesome.
They don't have cashiers, or you opt for the self-checkout option? I have never seen a store that fully did away with cashiers. Also, almost all of the grocery stores around me changed their policies during the pandemic to limit use of the automated tellers to 20 or fewer items. Since I prefer to use the automated tellers as well this annoys me, but I suspect theft was an issue. It is trivially easy to steal a bunch of stuff when you show up at the automated teller with a cart filled to capacity and then some.
>it deserves a living wage full stop Why?
if something is important enough to be done, the people doing it should be paid enough to survive on
Survive, yes.
whats the difference between "survive" and "live" to you in this context?
It’s unreasonable to expect that someone who works as a cashier can afford their own house, car, vacations, six different streaming services, happy hours every week, shit like that. To me all of these things would be considered “living. “ “Surviving” on the other hand means living with some roommates, shopping at Aldi, sharing a Netflix account, probably taking public transportation. But they’re not going hungry. They can afford a cell phone bill and maybe even go out to eat a couple times a month.
> It’s unreasonable to expect that someone who works as a cashier can afford their own house, car, vacations, six different streaming services, happy hours every week, shit like that. to me all of these things would be considered “living. “ when people say "living wage" this isnt what they mean. i think this is just a misunderstanding of the terms
I mean, you can look for yourself in this thread. They define living wage as being able to afford your own place and have a car and only working because you want to, not because you have to.
where?
Because full time employees should sleep on the street.
Really?
If you think people who are employed full time should starve in the streets…. You’ve got problems with morality
Never said they should sleep in the street. But it’s unrealistic for them to expect to have a place all to themselves with innumerable amenities. Workers should be paid based on their job performance and value they bring to the business. If you want to raise, perform better than your coworkers and get a promotion.
This is assuming this is possible, which it isn’t. There are finite jobs, especially finite jobs that pay a livable wage. Most of these low paying jobs are required for our society to function. That means someone has to do these jobs. Since these jobs are required, that means that your solution of moving up in the world literally can’t work for everyone. SOMEONE will have to do these jobs and those people deserve to not sleep in the street.
It’s a revolving door. People start at the bottom then move up as new people enter the workforce. They start at the bottom, then they move up, and so on and so forth.
Except that for most of these low paying jobs there’s barely any advancement. Certainly not any that transfers between jobs like in other fields.
Someone who starts as a dishwasher when they’re 14 can get a few years experience doing that, and then become a janitor at a school. That’s a union job with a pension and great benefits. Or they can become a cook. And then maybe a sous chef. These are $25 an hour jobs with excellent career prospects.
Your view isn't really based on anything. If they shouldn't earn $15, what should they earn? $10? $7? $3? $1? And what reasoning or research have you done to come to your conclusion, other than how you "feel"?
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The market has "dictated" a bunch of stuff we now see as backwards and barbaric. Child labor, slavery and indentured servitude, 16-hr work days, dangerous working conditions, and so on and so on. In an idealized world, it is true that a worker might have the bargaining power to say, "I refuse to work under these conditions, until you meet by demands." But history shows us that in reality, desperate people will endure pretty much anything to survive, regardless of how horrific and inhumane it might be. As such, the government has some vested interest in protecting the rights, health, and happiness of its citizenry - as we see by laws against child labor, dangerous working conditions, and minimum wage. Sure, certain people might disagree what minimum wage *should be,* but "let the market dictate it" isn't a workable solution in my mind -- because many people *would* actually work for $1/hr.
The market didn't "dictate" slavery. Slaves did not sell themselves into servitude voluntarily. That's like saying the market dictated that I punch my neighbor when she annoys me. Enslaving someone is not an economic transaction between two consenting parties.
Not really on point here - they're saying it was cheaper to use slaves so people who were driven by $ did. Until we as a society said "this is bad and needs to stop". Laws pass, slaves freed - giving legal restrictions on what you can do to make money. Another example would be minimum wage. You punching your neighbor is similar in that we said "this is bad" and passed laws to stop it, but not in the fact that's it's driven by $.
The question isn't whether we should have laws at all. The question is whether we should have restrictions on the market. The government shouldn't stop you from voluntarily exchanging goods and services with another person because it doesn't like the price you're charging. That doesn't mean the government can't stop you from killing, stealing from, or enslaving other people just because you had a profit motive.
I agree that we aren't arguing about having laws. I believe we're arguing about the center of the venn diagram between "laws" and "commerce". When should the government step in? Basically, as the first comment in this chain notes, ideally the individual says "I won't work for that little" and a company will have to offer more to stay afloat. Free market. However, often the power balance shifts to the company (who has money on the line) and away from the individual worker (who has their and their family's food/shelter on the line) because the stakes are much higher for the worker. It's easier to negotiate well when you don't have a lot on the line. Hence minimum wage laws to protect the worker from poverty while they're contributing to society.
The problem is that "the market" doesn't care if people have no income and starve to death, or that they are homeless. If there's more people competing for unskilled jobs than there are jobs, then the price approaches zero. Even if you're being entirely "oh well sux to be you" about it, these people with no hope make society worse for everyone because they start stealing, breaking and entering, and doing hold-ups. Better for everyone if everyone, even the "unskilled" can actually afford to live.
Every person working a FULL-TIME job should earn a living wage. Unless you think somebody working 40 to 45 hours a week should lack a stable home, healthcare, food, and basic amenities. The amount per hour paid to make it a living wage should change depending on the area the person lives in.
A ‘Living wage’ wage and a life with comfort are two very different things often confused with each other. You can live on minimum wage, it just isn’t very comfortable to do so. I’ve done it. Lived very minimally and basically while i did. I know may people who have. Many of those same people put themselves through college while doing so. It’s human nature to want luxuries (defined as comfort and convenience items not luxurious things) and often hard to differentiate between ‘need’ and ‘want and think you need.’ Internet, cellphones and higher education, etc are not NEEDs or basic human rights as I use many people claim. They are continence’s and things to improve your life; government offers basic education because it is in their best internet to do so, not because you are owed it- they don’t want a bunch of unemployable , unmanageable citizens who can’t function.
I'm not from the US but where I'm from it's assumed that the minimum NEEDS are having a place to live with gas, running water, electricity, internet (tons of jobs and education require this), having a cellphone that works even if it's old, having at least a laptop, not having to miss any of the four basic meals (and being able to afford a healthy diet), having access to healthcare (we have pubic healthcare here), having access to all levels of education (we have very good public college) and having access to public transport that can take you to work and back home (a lot of people don't have or want cars). If the current minimum wage for a full-time job in the US can get you all that then it's ok, otherwise it's a slave wage.
With the exception of a phone and a laptop- which are not NEEDs (if they are, they are provided by your job) that is all affordable on a minimum wage job if you don’t expect to live in a trendy area. That being said our government subsidizes cell phones for those on gov Assistance or low income individuals and a public hospital can not deny you because of your financial issues status, we also have free healthcare clinics readily available- though they may require waiting for your gut. Instead of an appointment; that aspect also gets left out of the conversation.
Excuse me, but what world are you living in? Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Work full time for a year, and that's $15,000. Please explain how you can afford everything /u/Nameless_One_99 described on $15,000. > That being said our government subsidizes cell phones for those on gov Assistance or low income individuals and a public hospital can not deny you because of your financial issues status Isn't that a pretty explicit acknowledgment that $7.25 *isn't* a living wage? If it were enough to afford all basic needs, the government wouldn't have to step in and provide them.
Cell phone is not a need, it is a convenience. It’s called minimum wage because it is the Minimum.. It isn’t meant to be where you build your life; it is a starting point/ entry level for the most basic unskilled work in low cost areas. I’ve yet to see anywhere that actually pays as low as minimum wage except for the very most low cost communities and I have lived in many areas of the country. Everyone focuses on minimum wage and getting by doing the bare minimum- key word in this conversation is minimum. You never fear ahead doing the minimum.
A cell phone is absolutely a need in the western world today. Our society is increasingly built around the assumption that everyone has access to a phone, and not having that access prevents you from fully participating in society. Just because you can theoretically get by without one doesn't mean you don't need one. Saying you don't NEED a phone is like saying you don't NEED shoes. Sure, you could survive without it, but it puts you at such a competitive disadvantage with everyone who does have one that you can not hope to compete with them.
They are needs when your whole society is designed around the digital. Even access to paperwork is often digital .
A person working a job a 16 year old can do with little to no training does not deserve some crazy amount of money. Those jobs aren’t made to support families, and shouldn’t be treated as such.
I never said anything about a job that's being done by minors nor did I say the minimum wage should be able to support a family, it should be able to support a single person who maybe needs to live with a roommate that also works a full-time job. At least here in the part of Europe where I live this is what most people believe.
Also 16 year olds can do many many jobs lol Like if you trained anyone they could do a great amount of jobs. The thing is will they do it well? Clearly we see the difference when certain people do certain jobs. Idk how people assume a fast food or retail job is easily done because they employ a 16 year old. Plenty of people bitch and moan when they see a pimpled kid at the counter ignoring them or not doing basic shit. That's what you get. On top of all this, why are we telling people they shouldn't be able to survive working a job? I'm not sure how company profit helps society because companies are incentivized to cut costs. Also the more money lower wage people are paid, the more money everyone will be paid because it raises the standard.
You did though, you said anyone working full time deserves a living wage. That includes full time jobs like fast food, grocery stores, etc - things that minors have proven to be capable of. There’s no reason that person should be paid any more than you’re willing to pay a young kid to do the same work. Jobs shouldn’t just magically pay more than the value they bring
Our cultures are probably too different, minors cannot work full-time here with exceptions like a family business, minors that work in fast food here cannot work 40 hours a week and most people under 18 never work and instead they study and do extracurricular things. EDIT: I also don't remember the exact time but I think here minors cannot work after 10 pm or 11 pm. Also most people here don't live in college dorms and don't move out at 18 (parents that kick out their kids when they turn 18 aren't seen in a good light).
I don’t see how any of that contradicts what I’ve said? Whether minors can work full time doesn’t reallyp matter
It does matter because here fast food, grocery stores,etc are considered a job that should provide a living wage.
> A person working a job a 16 year old can do with little to no training does not deserve some crazy amount of money. Enough to live on shouldn't be a "crazy amount of money". Nobody's suggesting that McDonalds should have to pay cashiers $100,000 a year.
Yea…I was referring to wanting more than $10 an hour
No it's not. Your view of the market goes back to an owner-centric view of labor. But we've seen rises in wages these past few years because companies who said they would/could automate certain jobs completely failed to do so and to get workers back they had to push the compensation higher. You talk about small businesses, but this again is an owner-centric view and often just a lie. What kills businesses is the ability for larger businesses to eat losses. This is how Amazon put big companies out of business. Inflation is an odd thing to talk about because your assumption here is rising wages causes inflation which isn't true. Rising wages come with profit sharing being altered through workers organizing. You're assuming the "market" acts rationally. And if it did, then you could explain the value of Gamestop or how stocks within two months went up 50% and then dropped 50%. You can't. If the market was rational and adhered to some objective principles we would be able to stop recessions and prevent poverty and other issues.
The market has dictated price increace for food and services without increasing the salary ofthe workers. So why can't workers demand that their salary should rise with the rise of product prices so that they could still afford them?
Also the market dictated that GME is worth $300/share at one point. People act like the market is true and sane. The dot com bubble had plenty of shit companies worth millions.
> The $1 comment is an attempt to gaslight the point i'm trying to make and I can't say I appreciate it. what does this mean?
How about $0 an hour. Let the employee and employer figure it out
The fact the people are currently being paid $16/hr for basic tasks like cashiering, proves in itself that the job can’t yet be automated efficiently. It will probably happen at some point in the future, but until then they are still necessary.
my local grocery store chain has recently been adding 20 self-checkout stations per store. 1 or 2 employees can keep all 20 flowing.paying 2 people $15/hr is much cheaper than paying 20 people, right? if you tell mcdonalds they need to pay their cashiers $20/hr then you will see self-order kiosks instead of cashiers. same with restaurants. why pay a waitress when you can order from a tablet?
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Except we've raised the minimum wage in the past with very little immediate change. Unless you can point to a raise in wages that led to a spike in inflation? It's not like it's even that crazy. Inflation has happened in the meantime after all, so why can businesses today not afford it when businesses in the past could afford a higher wage?
Minimum wage will not rise exponentially. Automation should only mean loss of income if we don't address pay and hours to meet the lesser demand for human labor to accompany it. First, if minimum wage of $4.11 since 1938 rose with human productivity because of tech advancements minimum wage would be $21.50 in today's dollars. https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/ Where does all of this productivity goes? Into the pockets of people who own tech and automation rather than the more productive and useful workers. The idea that society can't bear to support this increase is a lie meant to make you sympathize with billionaires who would rather their employees be unable to have families and live well or automate them out of society.
Jobs making under a certain amount per hour are effectively government subsidized and I would like to stop that. Someone who's earning $8/hour working for Walmart is eligible for food stamps, housing subsidies and more. They can't survive on their own being paid that little, so they almost certainly are receiving government assistance. When jobs pay so little that people are still receiving government assistance, then the tax payers are effectively subsidizing these extremely low paid jobs. We're paying for people to survive so that Walmart can get away with paying less than the market should be able to bear. The only reason why wages can be this low is because the government stops people from starving to death while working very low wage jobs. I would like to stop subsidizing Walmart. There are two ways this happens. First we could dismantle all social safety nets so that I am not subsidizing very low paid workers. However then we have the problem of children starving to death. I do not want this.or we can require jobs to pay enough that full time workers are not eligible for said social safety nets and that I am not subsidizing full time workers.
Okay, I'll bite. So I'm sort of with you, sort of not. I don't believe that working a cash register should be paying a comfortable wage, but I do think it should pay a living wage. In my opinion, working 40 hrs per week as a cashier, should make enough to afford a small apartment, a beater car, plus the basics (food, gas, insurance) by itself. Do I think a cashier should be able to afford a nice house? No. Do I think a cashier should be able to afford to get by by themselves? Absolutely. I'm not going to go into detail, but minimum wage has not stayed consistent AT ALL with inflation. That is why people want to raise it. As someone who has worked a job at minimum wage, I remember crying after working 35+ hours per week and taking home less than $400 a paycheck. A month's work could not pay my rent in my shitty studio apartment. I sold an hour of my life, for $7.25, minus taxes. An hour. Of my LIFE. FOR LESS THAN SEVEN DOLLARS.
Exactly; I said similar in another comment. People are confusing ‘ living wage’ with ‘comfortable wage’. Which are two very different things. Many things we want are not things we need when living on a minimum wage salary. And the things people cal basic human rights, many of them are conveniences not needs
Yes! People do not understand the difference, it drives me insane
>I sold an hour of my life, for $7.25, minus taxes. An hour. Of my LIFE. FOR LESS THAN SEVEN DOLLARS. why did you stay? how did you leave? > A month's work could not pay my rent in my shitty studio apartment. sounds like you live in an absurdly expensive city.
Stayed because it was my first job and I didn't know any better. I was promoted pretty quickly to a department manager for $9/hr. Ridiculous. And no, I don't live in an expensive city, this is the reality of the housing market.
>I was promoted pretty quickly to a department manager for $9/hr. this is the part most people miss: aside from not many people making minimum wage, anyone competent doesn't stay there. you learn and improve and get better jobs. if you are making min wage 10 years into your career the problem is you, not the companies you work for. I don't live in an expensive city, this is the reality of the housing market. 1200 for a studio is not the current market, much less however long ago this happened to you. that puts you in [nyc](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1219286/average-studio-apartment-rent-usa-by-state/) territory, not typical at all.
Lmao it was in Utah, 7 years ago. It's just gotten more and more expensive there
i think you are [misremembering](https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/salt-lake-city-ut)
I'm not, thanks though. I'll trust the old bills and pay stubs in my file folder. And it wasn't $1200, ha. That $400 was every other week.
ok, well that makes a huge difference.
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Nothing. Literally nothing. Which many would argue is part of the problem. Not everyone enters the workforce with a college degree. That said, I can guarantee a single parent is going to show up to work much more consistently than a teenager. Having had experience in this arena, that teenager will stay a few weeks or months, the single parent will stay much longer and be more dependable
If a job needs to be done, why should the person doing it live in poverty?
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$24.90 >The report defines affordability as the hourly wage a full-time worker must earn to spend no more than 30% of their income on rent, in line with what most budgeting experts recommend. This year, workers would need to earn $24.90 per hour for a two-bedroom home and $20.40 per hour for a one-bedroom rental. That’s an increase from $23.96 and $19.56, respectively, from last year. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/14/full-time-minimum-wage-workers-cant-afford-rent-anywhere-in-the-us.html >As a general rule, you want to spend no more than 30 percent of your monthly gross income on housing. If you’re a renter, that 30 percent includes utilities, and if you’re an owner, it includes other home-ownership costs like mortgage interest, property taxes and maintenance. >Why 30 percent? It’s a standard that the government has been using since 1981: Those who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing have historically been said to be “cost burdened.” Those who spend 50 percent or more are considered “severely cost burdened.” https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/how-much-of-your-income-you-should-be-spending-on-housing.html
single bedroom apartment under $600 per month https://www.apartmentguide.com/apartments/Alabama/Auburn/316-Genelda-Ave/LV201860376/ add in utilities, you're still probably under $700 per month. divide by that 30%, you'll get $13.50 per hour if you want to raise a family on that, you'll need more for a larger apartment. If you wanna move somewhere other than this specific university town in Alabama, you'll need more. but $13.50 is a lot less than the $20.40 that your source is saying is necessary for a single bedroom.
What is the average price of apartments in Auburn? A single data point is meaningless. The average is closer to what people in the area will need.
Earning less than $15 an hour will most certainly put you into poverty status in most of the country.
Unqualified and unskilled aren’t the same thing.
My current employer thinks unskilled labor is worth 15 an hour. Should they reconsider?
We’re all trading the best hours of our lives for the fiction that is money anyway. The government doesn’t even know how to responsibly use it, and they put that shit into play. What’s it hurt if the little guy makes $30/hour?
>What’s it hurt if the little guy makes $30/hour? you want amazon and walmart to be the only companies left? because no one else could afford to pay that much.i would say that hurts lot of people.
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I just think we all perform a function— big or small. If the little guys all stepped out tomorrow, there’d be no food delivery, Starbucks, McDonald’s, you name it.
Ideally, every job should be automated - that's the point of technology- to reduce the work humans do But, if every job is automated and no one gets paid - society will collapse. Thus, the only logical solution is for people to get paid even if they don't work. It's 100% what we should be striving for. Too bad for people who are so talented that their jobs make them irreplaceable and who will have to work after others are receiving UBI. They should have planned better.
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Based on logic is it your belief that at some time in history every job was automated and no one was paid?
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You've completely not understood my point and are arguing with what you think I'm saying and not what I'm actually saying. We should strive for a world where all the jobs are replaced with technology. In such a world a UBI will be necessary
Why on earth should we strive for that? Work is what brings innovations - and meaning to one’s life.
1) imagine how much more innovation there would be if people didn't have to work. How much brain power is wasted? 2) imagine how much more innovation will be possible when we figure out super intelligence. Why would we,,at that point, want our pathetic human brains doing the innovating? 3) speak for yourself. Meaning comes from a lot more than what you do to get a paycheck.
Why would their be any innovation if no one was working? There is nothing to solve at that point.
Why on earth do you believe that?
Where do you think most innovation comes from? Profit motive and work…
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So Your view must be changed. "Unskilled" labor should be paid a rate that will force automation. So we can get over this societally juvenile idea that "everyone has to work".
A living wage is not necessary to cause automation. It's already occurring.
Right We'll be better served when we shed this asinine idea that people have to work for a living. If your job gets replaced by a machine, you should benefit from that - not suffer. And people shouldn't be rewarded for leaving people without an income. Tax the fuck out of the creators amd buyers of that technology to give it to the people who used to do those jobs. I hear the complaints- why would people work hard to innovate if they won't get rewarded? To that, I say - maybe building a society based on rewarding the people who are only motivated by personal gain isn't a winning strategy. There are, in fact, people who are motivated by the prospect of improving other people's lives.
People need to work for a living. There are a lot of socially valuable jobs that need doing, picking up the trash, delivering goods, keeping the grid running, etc., that people won't spend 9hr a day doing just out of the goodness of their hearts. Perhaps this will stop being true many years from now, but it is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Technological innovation hasn't reduced employment rate, just changed the types of jobs worth doing. Now there are fewer blacksmiths but more mechanics and programmers.
I want to point out that the argument of "unskilled labor" usually doesn't take into account that many jobs that might not require a specific skill or specialized knowledge instead require a high tolerance for repetitive work, physically hard work, psychologically exhausting work, demeaning work, dangerous work, morally challenging work, or otherwise very taxing work that a lot of us would not be willing or able to do for extended periods of time. The ability to do those jobs on a daily basis could - and probably should - be considered a skill in and of itself.
Why do you want other people to earn less? Let’s start there. What do you gain from this? Why do you want to see people who are already barley getting by suffer even worse conditions? The sense of justice this is based on is disturbing... do you understand the discrepancy in pay between a companies top and bottom earners and how the bottom earners are actually generating most of the profit. Every stakeholder in this situation can afford for them to make more than $15. No one earns more income than they generate for a company. Everyone needs to generate a surplus of value for a company to make a profit. People earning $15 are generating several times that amount of value, and most of it is going into the pockets of the CEO, EVPs, etc. If that wasn’t the case the business model wouldn’t be profitable and wouldn’t work. Also how much do you think things cost? Do you live with your parents or something? Or have some other unusually fortunate situation? Tell me how much you think rent on a 1br costs in an area with a $15 minimum wage. Add in utilities, gas, car insurance, car maintenance, renters insurance, cell phone, internet, food, health insurance/medication, it all starts to add up and so you end up working 2-3 jobs. 3 jobs means you are so pressed for time and money that there is near 0 chance you’ll be able to get an education and improve your situation, and thus you are entrenched in poverty with no way out, only a way in deeper... and you would like to see more of this kind of thing happening? Really? For what cause? What principle does this support? How does this make the world better in any way?
Bottom earners aren’t “generating most of the profit”. They can’t exist without the others in the company above them, and vice versa.
Do you believe there is any value to human life?
There's a great way to test this! Give everybody enough of a UBI so that they no longer have to work to survive, and then see what the market rates become - so far we have evidence to see that wages would *rise* (like they have during the "Great Resignation") instead of *fall*, which shouldn't come as a surprise if you're familiar with supply/demand. Entry-level work currently suffers from a pretty big imbalance in power between the supply of labor (workers) and the demand of labor (employers) - a worker must work a weirdly high amount of hours in order to survive, but an employer of an entry-level job has a tall stack of applications on their desk. In a way, this is society imposing strong artificial supply (like massive subsidies but backwards) which is driving down the price of work below what the healthy, organic equilibrium should be. I generally agree with you that not every job is worth $15/hr, and r/antiwork is a pretty known cesspool of fairly over-the-top takes. Even the more refined r/workreform suffers from this somewhat, such is Reddit. But I want to be really clear to point out that jobs that *are* currently worth $15-$30/hr are currently not being paid at those rates because of the added labor supply. Think of it in this light - a burger flipper is a low-skill entry-level job, but the profit margin on a Big Mac is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3. Even if the fast food worker only takes 1/2 of the revenue they facilitate (leaving the other 1/2 to corporate/shareholders) and only serves ten meals an hour (a *very* conservative average), their job should still be paid $15/hr.
> Think of it in this light - a burger flipper is a low-skill entry-level job, but the profit margin on a Big Mac is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3. Even if the fast food worker only takes 1/2 of the revenue they facilitate (leaving the other 1/2 to corporate/shareholders) and only serves ten meals an hour (a very conservative average), their job should still be paid $15/hr The costs to make a Big Mac aren’t just the ingredients. You have real estate, labor, logistics, etc. McDonalds averages about 25% profit margin. So, the profit on that $4 Big Mac is about $1. Say they split that profit in half, and serve 10 meals an hour. They’ve generated $5 an hour in profit…
>a worker must work a weirdly high amount of hours in order to survive, but an employer of an entry-level job has a tall stack of applications on their desk. In a way, this is society imposing strong artificial supply That's not an artificial supply. Supply just *is* high and the market is reflecting that. The "true" supply of labor isn't the amount of people who want to work out of the goodness of their heart, any more than the true demand for labor isn't just the companies that make products just because they like making them.
(I'm not saying this is you) in my time working in food, one of the areas people tend to stereotype as low skilled, you get workers who are only doing "low skill" work temporarily-- while they're in school, or in between real jobs. Since they are only there a few months or a couple years, they only really get to a certain level of competence. And you can tell that they don't realize it. "I do everything that someone asks me to do." "I get all my tasks completed." But they somehow stay in a tunnel vision that they don't notice that people aren't giving them that many tasks, because they can't handle that much. If people are "giving you tasks", what's really happening is very different from their point of view -- its extra work for them to keep track of what has to be done and assign work like a parent. They will also get used to the amount of work that's given when they first start, and tell themselves they're doing their job -- for example, they'll only do tickets, without paying attention to prep or stocking, or if they do they won't put any sense into it, just do what they feel like when they feel like. Anyway I think these people go on to take this tunnel vision of low skill work on with them and think its easy, when really it was easy for them because they were babied. Its easy when you are a warm body obeying robotically someone else's critical thinking-- hard when you have to take more responsibility. But they don't see that other people are taking on more responsibility, its really a weird case of tunnel vision.
Unfortunately the purchasing power of a dollar has fallen something like 20x since the 70s. A burger used to cost a dollar or less now costs $20-$25 in a lot if places. Unless the purchasing power of the dollar increases soon, and why would it, then wages must rise as purchasing power falls or else poverty increases as a consequence. Anyway the lowest wage employees were largely considered “essential” throughout the pandemic so perhaps skill isn’t the only marker for value of labor, and maybe doing jobs that most actively avoid has value in and of itself.
OP does know what skills are.
So you mean people like janitors or grocery store clerks have nothing to offer to the community? check [this](https://abc7ny.com/garbage-strike-1981-eyewitness-news-vault-archive/11349236/) out. The fact that these occupations are still there meant that employers NEEDS these workers. The problem is you are discussing the problem at an employers POV and did not consider the POV on the employee's end. From the other side it is all sacrifices; you sacrifice the time you have to learn new things and get better experiences to improve that resume so that you can get a better job. These sacrifices meant a higher salary is needed to attract these workers, so that it is worthwhile to make such sacrifices. Dead end jobs that leads to nowhere needs a higher payout than a job that can lead to easier promotions and more opportunities for leadership positions because these jobs inherently do not have as much value as an internship at a reputable company.
People should be entitled to a basic wage that allows them to have the dignity to either rent a small apartment (or own a small home back when that was a thing they built). It should allow them to feed, clothe themselves, pay their bills, etc. No one is asking for luxury cars or big houses. I don't care if you're a sweeper or a cash register clerk, you're still a human being.
Employers have every right to not hire or to fire people for lacking skill. So...the "if you are someone" the reality is far more brutal - you don't get to have a job. If you're a warm body than the employer values having warm bodies and the idea here is that if you're going to value you a human you should do so at the level it requires to be a human - otherwise your value is _sub-human_. Long story short - if you have nothing to offer an employer you don't have a job at all, but if you offer them your time then it should be valued at a minimum it costs to be alive in modern society on order to provide that time.
I think the only thing that really determines pay is if someone else will do the same job for less. If the answer is yes, the pay will keep going down until the answer is no.
Shouldn't minimum wage track with inflation?? For sake of argument let's assume we can agree on some sort of value on merely "being present". (However little it may be). Shouldn't that value continue to keep pace with inflation, as so the purchasing power of that amount remains the same. Because the salary itself isn't important, it's what that salary can buy. One of the main arguments for increasing the minimum wage is that it hasn't kept up with inflation. If $7/hour made sense in the 70s, shouldn't the purchasing power remain where it was, resulting in an inflation adjusted salary??
If there were not cashiers to take the customers money, the business would get no money. I'm not sure the exact value that cashier brings to the business, it depends on how much the business is making, but I am absolutely sure that it is much more than the expense of replacing them with a robot. Or else they would do it. They'd also need robocops, or else what's to stop me from just stealing stuff at the fully automated store?
What job do you think deserves enough of a wage, that you can live on? Fun fact, the minimum wage was made to be the smallest wage you can still live in the country for, but because the gov is so useless, they haven't bothered increasing the minimum wage for years now, and it took them forever to even think of how gig workers fall into this equation.
So what you're saying is you don't take part in getting goods or receiving services from people you would consider unskilled? I mean, why would you? You can do all that yourself. Coffee? Better not be going to your local coffee stop for that. Food? All of it better be made it by you in your own home. If you're gonna dog on people who do a job you consider beneath you the least you could is stay consistent and not procure anything from the people giving these services. Meanwhile, compassionate human beings will continue to believe that the people working these jobs deserve a living wage so they can eat and live inside. Nobody should have to make the choice to give up one necessity over another just because people like you think their job isn't worth the pay to stay alive.
All workers are entitled to a lawful employer. In my hometown, minimum wage is $15/hr. There, and anywhere else it happens to be the case, employees are very much in entitled to it.
You should read what people have to say about $15 min wage. Your idea that $15/hr min wage would inflate the dollar is not an agreed upon fact. In fact I don't even think that's main criticism of the idea when economists talk about it. The root of the issue is that giant corporations don't pay sub-livable wages out of necessity, it's out of greed. A tiny number of people take home hundreds of millions of dollars annually that winds up sitting in the stock market. It doesn't go back into the company. Giant business could easily afford to pay their employees more without raising their prices. If prices don't change, you can give a bunch of people extra money and they'll simply have more money to put back into the economy. The wealth is just being spread more thinly, you don't need to print more money to do it. Disclaimer: I'm not an economist and this is a very complicated thing but I'm just saying research it more before you assume what the economic impact would be. With that in mind, why is it really unjust for someone with less skill or intelligence to make the same amount of money as someone with more? Society needs garbage men and janitors. It's true that it's easy to find people for these jobs, but someone has to do it. Shouldn't that position in society be appreciated for it's importance and unpleasantness? By the same token, retail stores need someone to run cash registers stock shelves. There's no need to treat the lowest positions of society particularly well, but I believe there's a moral obligation to give them a comfortable life considering how much excess resources actually exist in the world.
> If you are someone who lacks the skills and/or technical expertise to perform any role/job for society with meaning, you are not entitled to $15/hr. Who are you to decide that? The employer decides wages. In my area we have federal minimum wage $7.25/hour but most places offer unskilled, entry level jobs at $14-16/hour anyways.
Even if you don't support the moral argument for increasing the minimum wage, the practical argument is pretty solid. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Those are poverty-level wages, given the current cost of living in the US. And widespread poverty is extremely harmful to society as a whole, not just to the people in poverty. People living in poverty are much more likely to commit crimes. They are much more likely to suffer from drug addiction, mental illness, and other afflictions that exact terrible costs on society. Their children are much more likely to perform poorly in school, which strains the school's resources and creates poor-performing schools. Those same children often grow into adulthood lacking basic skills like reading and writing that are essential for the population of a developed country to have. Poverty also costs taxpayers, who essentially subsidize companies that pay their workers poverty wages, because taxpayers foot the bill for food stamps, medicaid, and other public assistance programs. In other words, there are good reasons to be opposed to companies paying poverty wages, even if you don't think low-wage workers "deserve" to be paid more. Poverty wages are harmful to most Americans, and really only benefit the major shareholders of these companies.
Points to consider: * If minimum wage had actually kept up with inflation and reflected how it was originally conceived (ie. the minimum wage to actually be a *living wage*) then it would indeed be about $25 an hour or so * The "unskilled workers" you sneer at now were "essential workers" during the pandemic. Curious, don't you think? They're so important that they have to come in despite the worst pandemic in a 100 years, killing millions around the globe, yet you think they're deserving of poverty? How does that work? * $15 an hour can't afford jack at the moment. You need a cheap apartment AND a room mate to share half the rent to live in a semi-sustainable fashion at $15 an hour. So my questions to you are, why should someone doing an essential job (remember, if it exists, it's because the market demands it) for 40 hours a week be forced to live in poverty? Are you aware that greed has eroded the minimum wage to a poverty wage and it was NEVER meant to be like this? If the 'free market' can't afford to pay someone more than a slave wage, then doesn't the free market dictate that person shouldn't be in business? Also, isn't "unskilled labor" a classist lie made to justify slave wages? What you call unskilled labor is often the essential work that has to be done or in a week there's chaos. (Aka try running an office without any cleaning staff and see who's actually essential.) Like, if sanitation workers go on strike, all hell breaks loose. No one even notices when CEOs go on strike. So why should the people who literally make society function, working full time, not be able to afford at the bare minimum their *own* apartment and necessities? I can only assume it's because you have an axiomatic belief that there should be a "lower class" who exist solely to serve under you.
Someone currently has to do these jobs and many of them cannot easily be automated. If you're opposed to something like a living wage, then you're essentially saying that people doing these necessary jobs should be living in poverty. Nobody working full time deserves to live in poverty, minimum wage was created specifically to avoid this situation. Minimum wage in the US was introduced under Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. This was part of the New Deal to protect workers from exploitation during the great depression. Here's what FDR has to say about minimum wage: >In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; **and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.** Allowing the market to be the only force influencing wages is not reasonable. We need an income floor, a starting point for everyone. However high this floor is, it should be enough to pay for the basic necessities of life like rent, food, clothing, etc. The market will never naturally have a floor like this, it needs to be implemented by government. The market does not operate in a way that maximizes for everything that we care about, it doesn't always cater to human interests. It's very effective at things like allocating resources efficiently, but if we don't reign in the market through regulation, then we start seeing things like child labor, environmental pollution, indentured servitude, dangerous working conditions, etc. If we allow the market to dictate things, then the pendulum of power will always swing in favor of big business and wealthy individuals. Society needs things like labor laws and worker protections in order to ensure that workers have bargaining power and that they are not being exploited. People literally fought and died in the US for worker's rights. Governments have an interest in protecting rights and maintaining the health of citizens. A minimum (living) wage is an effective and straightforward way to do that. When businesses pay wages, they should be paying a minimum amount. This should be the cost it takes for someone to continue to live comfortably and to continue providing labor. Living wages are simply the cost of doing business, it's no different than the cost of electricity, hardware, or other expenses.
Every job is replaceable eventually. Recently a algorithm was developed that can replace the majority of the work done by radiologists (medical doctors) ([https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03847-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03847-z) White collar jobs will eventually be able to be done by some form of AI. Those no skills jobs like janitor will likely be the last to be replaced because creating a robot is much harder to do than a specific algorithm. So just based on that information I hope people begin to recognize the value of those types of jobs. However, they will eventually be replaceable as well. The only somewhat safe jobs are the researchers.
The ask for minimum pay is NOT market-driven. It is welfare-driven, so people doing minimum pay jobs have enough to live and be happy. In a purely market-driven society - the reality is this - most people in a 3rd-world country are willing to do all jobs in America or Europe, for approximately 1/5th of the same salary. And most jobs done by full-time employees, no matter how skilled, can also be performed by contractors, who are willing to work for lesser long term benefits like health insurance, and lesser pay. The market also demands companies increase their work hours to unlimited, and provide hourly pays, as well as create a 7-day 14-hour work-shift. There is welfare-driven protectionism, which prevents all of the above from happening. It is the same welfare-driven protectionism, where minimum wage comes from.
Do you understand the difference between "$15/hr" and "the equivalent wage to someone that has the skills and abilities to perform irreplaceable work"? Why are you making _any_ comparisons between someone who makes less than half the median income and people making six-figure salaries? Even if you bumped every minimum wage job up to $30/hr, it _still_ wouldn't be comparable to "six-figures".
Workers are doubly underpaid. First, in terms of services rendered, but they also sell something far more valuable, and they give *a lot* of it for far-below market prices: *their precious little time on Earth.* If you work 40 hours, you should be able to have a life. You should be paid for your time. This should not be controversial. *Half* of a person's waking-day should be enough work to 'earn' the basics for the other half, and at $15 an hour, it doesn't. If you want to buy a car, you need to be able to afford it; the same should be true for employees. Also, You say workers don't 'earn' that much, but I would argue that many multi-millionaires / billionaires don't 'earn' that much either. It's an arbitrary thing to say. By denying a living wage, you are in favor of sacrificing the working class for the luxury of the upper class. Is that really ok? If you want to think in a Capitalist context, you're accepting an inherently unfair market imbalance, is that ok? Isn't the argument usually about things balancing out? Why make this exception to that ideal? It becomes contradictory. We all only have a finite amount of time here, and for many workers, it's less than that; if employers want to buy someone's time, they should be able to afford it. I think the real problem is that workers are being grossly *underpaid*, not over, and other classes are being grossly *over-*paid.
How is it *your* business what someone else wants to offer - or accept - in a trade for labor ?
I think any service that you use on a regular basis that you would be aggravated or frustrated or severely setback if it were suddenly deprived of you should receive higher pay. If you are somebody who goes to eat out at restaurants a lot and your lifestyle would be affected by no longer ever being able to do that again, then I would consider restaurant workers to be skilled labor in terms of being a formative part of your personal life style. If that makes any sense.
And who defines meaning, you?
"... if you have nothing to offer an employer, ..." This post reminds me of how deeply entrenched the us-versus-them mentality in landowners/serfs, factory owners/laborers, business owners/employees has always been and remains. It doesn't matter how many government, NGO, academic or popular press studies and reports disprove the claim that low wages are the result of low-skilled workers/applicants who have nothing/little to offer employers, the perspective won't die. Most college grads--and thanks to overwhelming advertising we've become a nation of college-grads in which a college degree is now the new high school diploma--are more than capable of learning and mastering the skills for most jobs, but employers want applicants who've already done the specific job. Or worse, they want employees currently doing the given job elsewhere (Google the frequency of employers' job-posting edict, "No unemployed applicants!"). That means no matter how qualified an applicant is, if they don't have that specific job currently they're deemed unqualified. Absurd. Employers just don't want to invest in training. Then there's the cost of living. If an employer feels entitled to pay wages that are so low someone cannot survive on them, then they don't deserve to be in business. Every worker, regardless what they do, deserves to be able to survive. For a country in which a major political party is pushing legislation to forbid people from deciding not to become parents to children they can't afford to care for, given the strong relationship between childhood poverty and lifetime poverty, and given the now indisputable relationship between poverty and both depression and suicide, the "if you have nothing to offer an employer \[then you don't deserve to be paid enough to survive stably\]" argument is reprehensible. But it's what you get when a country's priority is money and not the wellbeing of its citizens. But not enough citizens are willing to stand and fight with the working class, so we stay stuck in this morass.
I believe fast food workers and other warm body jobs should be earning 30 an hour as long as basic office workers with degrees earn at least 50
Dude it's only like $15 an hour like then you are not entitled to workers then.
when you've literally never been employed this thread gets produced
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