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Do you think a lot would change if jobs paid a living wage?


Ottakee
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So who does those low skill jobs and how do they survive??? Someone has to mop the floors and stock shelves. They deserve to eat and have a roof over their heads and their employers should pay for that, not welfare. We shouldn't have to pay welfare to people working full time.

And if we are going to pay welfare for them, then it should be done with dignity and a UBI is an effective way to do that. And we should stop calling it welfare to those people when the reality is that it’s corporate welfare. It’s a welfare that allows companies to pay a less than living wage.

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Of those living in poverty, only 9% are working full-time, year round; 67% did not work at all.  (http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents )

 

If the intent is to help people who are in poverty, increasing the minimum wage will probably have little positive effect.  In fact, it may make the situation worse.  If there is any reduction in jobs and hours worked, the workers who were the intended beneficiaries are the ones who are most likely to lose their jobs.  

 

About 1/2 of those who are working at minimum wage jobs are young people (high school and college students) who are working part-time and live in families with household income exceeding $50,000 per year.  Distorting this market will probably not do too much to help alleviate the poverty problem  A UBI or a negative income tax would probably be a more efficient way of addressing the problem of poverty.

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How do I verify whether an employee is in school or not? What counts as college? Does this apply only during the semester? What about summer? Christmas holidays? Spring break? What aboud college students who work more than 30 hours? What about part-time college students working less than 30 hours? Does this apply only to undergraduate students? What about graduate? What happens if a worker drops all of his classes while working for an employer?

 

What about college students with dependents?

 

Unemployment among 19-23 year olds who are not attending college would increase. If I am an accounting firm, why would I pay a 19 year old with no experience and no college classes more than I would pay a college student with 3 1/2 years of college and three years working in my firm during tax season?

Good questions. I would say the 30 hour threshold holds for included groups. Like paying hourly workers time and a half once a 40 hour threshold has been breeched. That would prevent employers taking advantage of younger workers (even high schoolers) during the summer months. Once a young workers crosses a 30 hour threshold they are automatically paid at the higher tier.

 

How do you verify the employee is in school? Hmm...good question. Maybe that isn't a good idea. Maybe anyone with a diploma or equivalent and is 18 or emancipated qualifies for the higher tier. That helps offset college costs and still encourages employers to hire teens, which they largely aren't doing right now in many areas.

Edited by Barb_
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Of those living in poverty, only 9% are working full-time, year round; 67% did not work at all. (http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents )

 

If the intent is to help people who are in poverty, increasing the minimum wage will probably have little positive effect. In fact, it may make the situation worse. If there is any reduction in jobs and hours worked, the workers who were the intended beneficiaries are the ones who are most likely to lose their jobs.

 

About 1/2 of those who are working at minimum wage jobs are young people (high school and college students) who are working part-time and live in families with household income exceeding $50,000 per year. Distorting this market will probably not do too much to help alleviate the poverty problem A UBI or a negative income tax would probably be a more efficient way of addressing the problem of poverty.

People in poverty are more often than not single moms. Childcare costs eat away at a minimum wage salary enough that it makes no sense to work just to pay for childcare. A living wage could potentially help to offset that. Childcare subsidies also need to happen.

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You need to sell your widget for more, or figure something out. I shouldn't be paying your employees salary, which I am by paying them food stamps. 

Thanks to rampant globalization, that small business has to compete with widgets made in countries that pay a fraction of that $10 widget. People will simply buy the cheap, foreign widget, and my business closes.

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People in poverty are more often than not single moms. Childcare costs eat away at a minimum wage salary enough that it makes no sense to work just to pay for childcare. A living wage could potentially help to offset that. Childcare subsidies also need to happen.

But a problem is that higher wages will reduce the number of available jobs, so while these single moms may find it more advantageous for them to work, chances are there will not be available jobs for them.

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I am talking about part time.  The vast majority of McDonalds workers (and janitors and Menards cashiers and bank tellers etc etc etc) already ARE part time.  Hence why I said "quick and easy 20 hr per week"

 

There is actually a very large segment of the "workforce" that ARE just what I describe.  They are my 21 yr old working as a cashier at Menards for 20ish hours a week beeping 2X4s, gummy bears and tide.  They are myself, working 20 hrs at CVS beeping asprin and vodka.  They are my grandmother, delivering flowers at 85 because she is too bored sitting at home doing nothing.  They are my nephew who turns 18 in 32 days, graduates high school in like 90 days and takes orders for steakburgers to pay gas.  They are the people who worked at Amazon with me who had created a countdown for the number of hours worked required to pay off their student loans (this was really spectactular actually.  This guy had it calculated down to the half hour.  And when he hit the mark....he walked out.  I was in awe.  lol)

 

Sure teens are in school all day....but college students aren't necessarily.  My oldest has Tuesdays and Thursdays completely off.  Guess what days she works the most hours.  Retired folks can't dig ditches its true.  They can beep 2X4s, or asprin, or milk.  They can sweep the floor (see my previous post about the lady sweeping the floor at McDs who offered to show me how to use the order kiosk)  Or they can drive to deliver flowers, like my grandma.  Or maybe a single person with no kids in the midwest who only needs $400 for his rent and walks to work needs a very small amount of income to pay his bills can be the one digging the ditches. 

 

I don't think you have looked into the number of workers that earn at or near the minimum wage. 

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/05/making-more-than-minimum-wage-but-less-than-10-10-an-hour/

 

"After analyzing public-use microdata for 2013 from the Current Population Survey (the same monthly survey that underpins the BLS’s wage and employment reports), we estimate that last year about 20.6 million people — 30% of all hourly, non-self-employed workers 18 and older — are in that “near-minimum-wage†category. That includes 8.8 million people in states with minimums above $7.25, and 11.8 million in states where the federal rate applies."

 

If you think the majority of the people in those jobs are just doing them for poops and grins when something else that pays more is available I am not sure what to say.

 

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If you think the majority of the people in those jobs are just doing them for poops and grins when something else that pays more is available I am not sure what to say.

Perhaps you could say 'thanks'. Many of these are the people who work part time because they want the rest of the time for family responsibilities or their own health care needs. Or do you consider them theives because they aren't charging for elder and chuld care or buying takeout?

 

The bigger problem is the social promotion in public school. Very hard to get votech skills or college prep when every class is core basic with the goal of just barely covering the material so the student can begin community college by taking remedial courses.

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There are a lot of smart businesspeople out there--if it were possible to pay their workers more and then have the people pay more, and then the business make more money they would do that.

 

Not if dong so means less profit in their own pocket. Compare companies like Costco vs Walmart. (obviously there are many many differences there, but yes, wages/benefits/etc are a big one)

 

And again, the theory is that more people could afford to buy higher priced products IF wagers were higher across the board. They are not yet. 

 

 

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And if we are going to pay welfare for them, then it should be done with dignity and a UBI is an effective way to do that. And we should stop calling it welfare to those people when the reality is that it’s corporate welfare. It’s a welfare that allows companies to pay a less than living wage.

 Exactly. We are all subsidizing those wages. 

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But a problem is that higher wages will reduce the number of available jobs, so while these single moms may find it more advantageous for them to work, chances are there will not be available jobs for them.

 

It is my understanding that previous minimum wage increases were predicted to have a dire effect on the number of jobs available, but didn't. 

 

Also, if someone is currently working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet, but then gets a living wage they can cut back to one job, which is a good thing. And thus we would need fewer jobs, so even if there are less jobs that may work just fine. 

Edited by ktgrok
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Part of the problem, at least in our area, is that most full time, hard working, low benefit jobs start out at $10/hour. These are foundry workers, factory workers, nurses aides, and other full time jobs. These are the jobs available for people who need to work full time and are trying to support a family.

 

We were hit very hard with the collapse of the auto industry in out state and still have not recovered. The wage today is LOWER per hour (NOT adjusted for Inflation) for the exact same job my his band had 25 years ago when he made more per hour, had great benefits, and a yearly bonus. Today the worker gets less per hour, poor to no benefits, and no bonus.

 

My husband made significantly more per hour with full paid benefits 10 years ago than he does now in a skilled trades.

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With globalization, unless we somehow find a way to end outsourcing of service jobs or factories, I can't see any way long-term of avoiding our wages decreasing to be more in line with other countries. I've already heard about factories leaving China as wages rise. They set up shop Vietnam or somewhere cheaper. On The Housing Bubble Blog they call it "the race to the bottom," referring to wages.

 

The best I can figure is for everyone here to counsel their kids to avoid debt so if wages remain stagnant or drop for thirty years, they won't be stuck with loans they can't pay. If we didn't have so much housing, student loan, car, and government debt then maybe we could let all our wages and prices fall to be more in line with the rest of the world and it wouldn't be so profitable for companies to move overseas.

 

Maybe I am way off here. I just wonder about the long term picture. There is a reason much of the country likes the idea of ending the ability of US factories to keep moving abroad.

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Part of the problem, at least in our area, is that most full time, hard working, low benefit jobs start out at $10/hour. These are foundry workers, factory workers, nurses aides, and other full time jobs. These are the jobs available for people who need to work full time and are trying to support a family.

 

We were hit very hard with the collapse of the auto industry in out state and still have not recovered. The wage today is LOWER per hour (NOT adjusted for Inflation) for the exact same job my his band had 25 years ago when he made more per hour, had great benefits, and a yearly bonus. Today the worker gets less per hour, poor to no benefits, and no bonus.

 

My husband made significantly more per hour with full paid benefits 10 years ago than he does now in a skilled trades.

The cost of his benefits has increased tremendously. How does his total compensation compare?

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Why do we want wages to rise? It sounds like the big reasons are to deal with housing costs, college costs, and healthcare costs. Maybe it would be easier as a country to focus on lowering prices on those than raising wages?

 

Housing

-Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction since it encourages people to spend more

-Raise down payment requirements (perhaps over a period of years to not shock the system) to discourage borrowing large amounts which just drives up house prices

-Require lenders to have skin in the game for mortgage loans so they don't loan money to people who can't pay it back (not having the government back buy most loans like it has since the 80s or 90s)

-Maybe the above will reduce the demand for such large, expensive houses and encourage builders to offer more starter homes

-Find some way to encourage builders to not make all new apartments and condos "luxury"

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Part of the problem, at least in our area, is that most full time, hard working, low benefit jobs start out at $10/hour. These are foundry workers, factory workers, nurses aides, and other full time jobs. These are the jobs available for people who need to work full time and are trying to support a family.

 

We were hit very hard with the collapse of the auto industry in out state and still have not recovered. The wage today is LOWER per hour (NOT adjusted for Inflation) for the exact same job my his band had 25 years ago when he made more per hour, had great benefits, and a yearly bonus. Today the worker gets less per hour, poor to no benefits, and no bonus.

 

My husband made significantly more per hour with full paid benefits 10 years ago than he does now in a skilled trades.

 

And it isn't like he became less productive!

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Perhaps you could say 'thanks'. Many of these are the people who work part time because they want the rest of the time for family responsibilities or their own health care needs. Or do you consider them theives because they aren't charging for elder and chuld care or buying takeout?

 

The bigger problem is the social promotion in public school. Very hard to get votech skills or college prep when every class is core basic with the goal of just barely covering the material so the student can begin community college by taking remedial courses.

 

Huh?  I honestly have no idea how your reply relates to what I posted.

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Not if dong so means less profit in their own pocket. Compare companies like Costco vs Walmart. (obviously there are many many differences there, but yes, wages/benefits/etc are a big one)

 

And again, the theory is that more people could afford to buy higher priced products IF wagers were higher across the board. They are not yet. 

What comparison do you want to make between Costco and Walmart?  

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Good questions. I would say the 30 hour threshold holds for included groups. Like paying hourly workers time and a half once a 40 hour threshold has been breeched. That would prevent employers taking advantage of younger workers (even high schoolers) during the summer months. Once a young workers crosses a 30 hour threshold they are automatically paid at the higher tier.

 

How do you verify the employee is in school? Hmm...good question. Maybe that isn't a good idea. Maybe anyone with a diploma or equivalent and is 18 or emancipated qualifies for the higher tier. That helps offset college costs and still encourages employers to hire teens, which they largely aren't doing right now in many areas.

Yes, allowing employers to pay teens less than other workers would encourage them to hire teens.  But, it would discourage them from hiring college students and other low-skilled workers.   

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It is my understanding that previous minimum wage increases were predicted to have a dire effect on the number of jobs available, but didn't. 

 

Also, if someone is currently working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet, but then gets a living wage they can cut back to one job, which is a good thing. And thus we would need fewer jobs, so even if there are less

 

It is estimated that minimum wage increases reduced employment in Puerto Rico by 8-10%.  In addition, it created a large migration of workers out of Puerto Rico to other parts of the U.S. as the workers looked for jobs.  http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6909.pdf  

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Yes, allowing employers to pay teens less than other workers would encourage them to hire teens.  But, it would discourage them from hiring college students and other low-skilled workers.   

 

Yes. Then when the teens hit the magic age where they should get adult wages, they get their shifts cut. Sucks to be them, because they still aren't old enough to have finished a qualification for a "proper" job.

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Wages are extremely flat here, and productivity is already high.

 

Customers won't pay more, because wages are extremely flat here.

 

I have no idea how we get out of that cycle.

Some economist the other day noted that the lack of wage growth correlated with the labour laws that reduced unions bargaining power.

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 And again, the theory is that more people could afford to buy higher priced products IF wagers were higher across the board. They are not yet. 

 

Or people could afford to live on the current minimum wage if we figured out a way to bring down the cost of living. That would be a better plan IMHO because it addresses the issue of "the rent is too dang high relative to wages" without pricing low-skilled workers out of the labor force.

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Was going with how they compensate their workers.

Although the average hourly wage for Costco workers exceeds that of Walmart workers, one has to be very careful about what conclusions are drawn.  First, Costcos are concentrated in different parts of the country than are Walmarts.  Costcos are my likely to be located in high cost of living areas and Walmarts are more likely located in low COL areas.  If you compare a worker in Seattle making $16 dollars an hour with a worker making $10 an hour in Small Town, Arkansas you are not comparing apples to oranges. Second, Walmart hires MORE workers per square foot than does Costco.   This is in line with the idea that if you increase the minimum wage, some people will make more money but some people will now make no money because they lose their job (as a society we may or may not prefer this, but that is a separate issue from the economic reality that it happens).  Third, the structure of the jobs at Walmart and Costco are different because of their size and range of business activities.

 

The last point is important because businesses can hide their low paid workers by not directly hiring them.  I know of a number of businesses that have decided to fire all of their janitors and use a janitorial service.  Immediately, the average wages the business is reporting are higher.  I know of a grocery chain that brags of its high average wages; but, if you go to purchase their store brand, pre-cut vegetables, they are not cut by the chains high-wage workers.  There is a separate company that chops those vegetables (often with undocumented workers paid below minimum wage) and then the chain purchases the vegetables.  Almost the entire amount of the separate company's revenue comes from this one customer.  If those workers were on the grocery chain's payroll, their average salaries would be lower.  

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Or people could afford to live on the current minimum wage if we figured out a way to bring down the cost of living. That would be a better plan IMHO because it addresses the issue of "the rent is too dang high relative to wages" without pricing low-skilled workers out of the labor force.

 

Roommates or parental help.  There is no other way until taxes are re-structured or laws are changed to allow apts in single family homes or dense housing in areas where there is little.  The senior 50% property tax exemption in this area was voted in so they could age in place.  So we have 2000+ sq ft homes with one or two seniors, house rotting away bc they won't do the maintenance, while the kids are crowded in starter homes, one family to a bedroom or garage if they are past the roommate stage.  Subdized housing is going to seniors. There is little for new workers.  Its nothing new.  My neighbors who retired at 55 and are now 75+ faced the same thing when they were younger. They aren't going to change things so younger workers can afford housing, they see it as a rite of passage etc.  Only difference is we aren't going to be retiring at 55 w/pension plus medical. Younger groups aren't large enough to vote in subsidized bus routes for their needs, to get to work...those routes will continue to be for the large groups to get to their shopping or medical.   The religious groups in the area are helping to finance and vote in dense housing permits for their younger members, as well as provide vanpools and bussing so individual vehicles don't need to be owned. 

Edited by Heigh Ho
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Some economist the other day noted that the lack of wage growth correlated with the labour laws that reduced unions bargaining power.

I actually agree with you but I am just playing devils advocate here with what can happen. I know someone who is a supervisor at UPS in the factory that processes all of the boxes. He runs a line in his one little department that requires about 11 workers a night to get it done. Workers are union and supervisors are not. The workers cannot literally not be fired without a HUGE issue that has been documented numerous times. One guy has sexual harassment on his file and he is still there for example. Anyway, they don't show up, when they do show up they do minimal work. The supervisor gets chewed out if there are "hots", ie packages that are time sensitive, that don't make it out. Supervisors cannot help load or if a union workers sees them they file a grievance on them for stealing their work and for every grievance the union worker gets paid a small amount that adds up. So supervisor is usually working with only 6 of the crew at anyone one night and only 3 of those work hard due to their work ethic and the rest work slow and know they can. The upper management screams at supervisors to make their workers work. All of the work ends up falling on the ones willing to do their job and supervisors also help and just get grieved for it.

 

So fast forward to this past week. Due to union workers never showing up for their shifts, they gave all of them a huge raise and get this, 150 dollar per week incentive to just show up all week and work. They are literally getting bribed to do the job they should already be doing.

 

Now between the raise and the incentive the union workers are making 45 cents less on average than supervisors who have no incentive now to be supervisors. My friend is planning to quit, wait 2 weeks and come back as a loader. He calculated and figured out he will make more. He doesn't want the stress of the responsibility when there is no benefit. Now the upper management doesn't know what to do because supervisors are quitting and they already had a shortage of them.

 

So it gets complicated.

Edited by nixpix5
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Why do we want wages to rise? It sounds like the big reasons are to deal with housing costs, college costs, and healthcare costs. Maybe it would be easier as a country to focus on lowering prices on those than raising wages?

 

Housing

-Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction since it encourages people to spend more

-Raise down payment requirements (perhaps over a period of years to not shock the system) to discourage borrowing large amounts which just drives up house prices

-Require lenders to have skin in the game for mortgage loans so they don't loan money to people who can't pay it back (not having the government back buy most loans like it has since the 80s or 90s)

-Maybe the above will reduce the demand for such large, expensive houses and encourage builders to offer more starter homes

-Find some way to encourage builders to not make all new apartments and condos "luxury"

 

ironically, the two bolded items are government policies which were intended to reduce the cost of home ownership in the U.S. 

 

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No, the rent will just increase with the wages.  The landlord always charges what the market will bear.

 

 

Target announced its going to $15 an hour by 2020.  No one is planning to raise wages for skilled workers that currently start at $20/hr.  I see the value of training for skilled work going down, especially for women.

 

Which is sad because not all skilled labor jobs will be replaced by robots entirely, at least not any time soon. So what happens when there are no people left trained in skilled labor? 

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I don't have any answers but I do have some observations as I've been working since minimum wage was $3.35 an hour

 

When it was 3.35, I was a senior in high school who could buy a tank of gas, go to the movies and eat at Mcdonald's with change to spare out of a 20 bill every Friday night.  And I still paid my car insurance each month.  I worked 20ish hours a week at a retail store.  (before walmart was on every corner or even in majority of towns) 

 

When I first got married , my "grown up" job paid 8 an hour.   My husband was similar.  Nice apartment ran us 400 a month with utilities, we had two cars, insurance on both, renter's insurance.  Bread was like 75 cents a loaf, milk was 2 something a gallon, eggs around a dollar a dozen.  We couldn't still go out on 20 dollars and buy gas but we could go to the grocery store for a week on less than 50.00.

 

30 something years later, minimum wage is now what 7.00, 7.25 an hour.  Walk into a grocery store (not walmart or aldis to keep this comparison to stores I shopped in the 80s.) and eggs are like 2-3 dollars a dozen, bread is around $2-3, milk is 3.50.   Not to bad given the span of years.

 

But take a look at the big stuff,

 

My teen sons are running 1000 or so every 6 months compared to my husband as a teen who's rate was like 250.00 every 6 months.   Starter cars have gone from 500.00 would get you a decent working car to now around 5,000 to get a reliable car.  My son's starter apartment in a less than stellar neighborhood/part of town is 1200 a month without all utilities paid in that amount.

 

Now I can't even begin to imagine trying to live off of 8.00 an hour times 2 people.    it is not doable.  Question is has increasing minimum wage or providing a living wage actually provide support or will it just cause yet another increase in the basic cost of living?

 

Another thought is I'm a nurse.  Board certified, BSN,ACLS, experienced. Yearly required education in addition to the required schooling to get the license.  License Fees and professional development required as well.  Liability insurance.    I save lives, restart hearts, collaborate  with even higher educated professionals on proper care and monitoring and treatment for pts.    So what happens to my pay???   I just clap with delight that my untrained, highschool diploma kids can walk into an entry level job and make 15 an hour when an educated and licensed nurse starts at 22.00 an hour in my area?  Salaries are capped as well.  I know that in another couple of years I will be at top of my pay range.  And other than inflation, i won't ever receive another raise if I stay in the same position with same education level. So what will be the balance?  Or is this another selfish person that excepts a proper compensation for the amount of work ?  

 

I don't know the answer but I'm not too positive that living wage is the right focus.  Maybe the gov should do cost analysis on companies and how many of their workers get welfare/gov assistance/student loans etc and make those companies pay better if the percentage is out of whack.  

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I don't know if Walmart and Costco are fair comparisons. I've heard Costco's customers are much higher income than average. That's not the same customer pool as Walmart's which probably affects their ability to pay workers.

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that the Walmarts are in a position from which they're in danger of not being able to pay their workforce a livable wage? The company set to be grossing almost 125,000,000,000 this year?

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I actually agree with you but I am just playing devils advocate here with what can happen. I know someone who is a supervisor at UPS in the factory that processes all of the boxes. He runs a line in his one little department that requires about 11 workers a night to get it done. Workers are union and supervisors are not. The workers cannot literally not be fired without a HUGE issue that has been documented numerous times. One guy has sexual harassment on his file and he is still there for example. Anyway, they don't show up, when they do show up they do minimal work. The supervisor gets chewed out if there are "hots", ie packages that are time sensitive, that don't make it out. Supervisors cannot help load or if a union workers sees them they file a grievance on them for stealing their work and for every grievance the union worker gets paid a small amount that adds up. So supervisor is usually working with only 6 of the crew at anyone one night and only 3 of those work hard due to their work ethic and the rest work slow and know they can. The upper management screams at supervisors to make their workers work. All of the work ends up falling on the ones willing to do their job and supervisors also help and just get grieved for it.

 

So fast forward to this past week. Due to union workers never showing up for their shifts, they gave all of them a huge raise and get this, 150 dollar per week incentive to just show up all week and work. They are literally getting bribed to do the job they should already be doing.

 

Now between the raise and the incentive the union workers are making 45 cents less on average than supervisors who have no incentive now to be supervisors. My friend is planning to quit, wait 2 weeks and come back as a loader. He calculated and figured out he will make more. He doesn't want the stress of the responsibility when there is no benefit. Now the upper management doesn't know what to do because supervisors are quitting and they already had a shortage of them.

 

So it gets complicated.

 

And that reminds me SO much of how things worked in the communist economy I grew up in. Almost exactly like this (except for the bribe). 

Edited by regentrude
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A Russian friend of mine recently told me that there is a saying going around Russia: "What Marx said about socialism didn't turn out to be true, but what he said about capitalism did." Having read Marx, I find that statement far more believable than not. In general, when workers are considered "expenses", it makes sense to limit and reduce those expenses. Machines/automation do far more displacing workers now (even in so-called developing countries) yet they are largely still considered a great investment by shareholders (stock prices go up) because the machines mean fewer workers and, eventually, increased profits. 

 

And when your economic model is solely based on maximizing profits for owners and externalizing certain costs (includes things like pollution, gov't support for unemployed workers, and increasingly health care coverage, etc.) to the public and taxpayers, it is hard to come up with a rationale for doing something just because it improves quality of life for the populace, like keeping people employed in your own country and own workplace when someone or something else could do it cheaper. So "we" rely on antidepressants and alcohol and entertainment to take us away from what is really becoming a low quality of life - e.g. even if you have money, you still are surrounded by social decay and an angry society. I don't know what should replace capitalism, but I'm guessing it isn't another "ism", so don't take this that I am arguing for socialism or communism (both of which have shown they don't work long-term, either).

 

It would be lovely if everyone in the U.S. was willing to own less and pay more to have strong local communities and strong local workforces (think a local pet store owner, building store owner, butcher,etc.), but we don't seem to be cut from that cloth, meaning there are too few people with the self-discipline to pursue that model. Everyone's shopping for the lowest-cost products, even if made by slave labor or by machines that displaced thousands of workers from their sole source of employment.

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A Russian friend of mine recently told me that there is a saying going around Russia: "What Marx said about socialism didn't turn out to be true, but what he said about capitalism did." Having read Marx, I find that statement far more believable than not. In general, when workers are considered "expenses", it makes sense to limit and reduce those expenses. Machines/automation do far more displacing workers now (even in so-called developing countries) yet they are largely still considered a great investment by shareholders (stock prices go up) because the machines mean fewer workers and, eventually, increased profits.

 

And when your economic model is solely based on maximizing profits for owners and externalizing certain costs (includes things like pollution, gov't support for unemployed workers, and increasingly health care coverage, etc.) to the public and taxpayers, it is hard to come up with a rationale for doing something just because it improves quality of life for the populace, like keeping people employed in your own country and own workplace when someone or something else could do it cheaper. So "we" rely on antidepressants and alcohol and entertainment to take us away from what is really becoming a low quality of life - e.g. even if you have money, you still are surrounded by social decay and an angry society. I don't know what should replace capitalism, but I'm guessing it isn't another "ism", so don't take this that I am arguing for socialism or communism (both of which have shown they don't work long-term, either).

 

It would be lovely if everyone in the U.S. was willing to own less and pay more to have strong local communities and strong local workforces (think a local pet store owner, building store owner, butcher,etc.), but we don't seem to be cut from that cloth, meaning there are too few people with the self-discipline to pursue that model. Everyone's shopping for the lowest-cost products, even if made by slave labor or by machines that displaced thousands of workers from their sole source of employment.

On fracking point.

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It would be lovely if everyone in the U.S. was willing to own less and pay more to have strong local communities and strong local workforces (think a local pet store owner, building store owner, butcher,etc.), but we don't seem to be cut from that cloth, meaning there are too few people with the self-discipline to pursue that model. 

 

That is precisely why socialism did not work: human nature.

The communists tried to "educate" and mold humans to create the "communist human" who is altruistic, devoid of greed and envy, voluntarily hard working for the greater good, without a direct personal incentive. It failed spectacularly, because they did not take into account human nature.

Edited by regentrude
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If it didn't pay much more to go into a field that required a lot of education (and subsequently debt), would people go into that field at all?

 

Yes, I think they would. Why? Think about the reason they went into the field in the first place. Did they pursue the education and accrue the debt in order to make a certain amount of money *more than others* OR in order to make a certain amount of money or because of interest/passion?

 

If the field still makes a fair wage based on what the workers put into it, then the fact that other groups of people make more than they did before doesn't change what your dh, for example, is making. He is not making less. He is still being fairly compensated.

 

I don't think most of us choose our profession based on how much we make in comparison to others. We may choose it based on how much we make, but whether or not others make a fair wage usually doesn't factor into our decision. IMO of course.

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That is precisely why socialism did not work: human nature.

The communists tried to "educate" and mold humans to create the "communist human" who is altruistic, devoid of greed and envy, voluntarily hard working for the greater good, without a direct personal incentive. It failed spectacularly, because they did not take into account human nature.

This! It is also what the US has been slowly trying to do for some time whether aware of it or not. The millenial generation embraces the ideal but due to human nature it just isn't going to work. Human behavior follows the exact same rules of the universe as everything else. Physics is the best place to figure out what happens under different systems.

 

What is the old saying....doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result is...?

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If people can live off one salary it's ok if there are not as many jobs.

 

Heck no!

A job provides more than just money.

A job provides independence and agency and empowerment. The ability to leave an abusive breadwinner, the feeling to be capable of supporting oneself, the freedom to make one's own decisions. 

 

 

Edited by regentrude
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Heck no!

A job provides more than just money.

A job provides independence and agency and empowerment. The ability to leave an abusive breadwinner, the feeling to be capable of supporting oneself, the freedom to make one's own decisions.

 

 

.

Yes but there are tonnes of people who would like to stay at home as a mother but can't because of finances.

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I actually agree with you but I am just playing devils advocate here with what can happen. I know someone who is a supervisor at UPS in the factory that processes all of the boxes. He runs a line in his one little department that requires about 11 workers a night to get it done. Workers are union and supervisors are not. The workers cannot literally not be fired without a HUGE issue that has been documented numerous times. One guy has sexual harassment on his file and he is still there for example. Anyway, they don't show up, when they do show up they do minimal work. The supervisor gets chewed out if there are "hots", ie packages that are time sensitive, that don't make it out. Supervisors cannot help load or if a union workers sees them they file a grievance on them for stealing their work and for every grievance the union worker gets paid a small amount that adds up. So supervisor is usually working with only 6 of the crew at anyone one night and only 3 of those work hard due to their work ethic and the rest work slow and know they can. The upper management screams at supervisors to make their workers work. All of the work ends up falling on the ones willing to do their job and supervisors also help and just get grieved for it.

 

So fast forward to this past week. Due to union workers never showing up for their shifts, they gave all of them a huge raise and get this, 150 dollar per week incentive to just show up all week and work. They are literally getting bribed to do the job they should already be doing.

 

Now between the raise and the incentive the union workers are making 45 cents less on average than supervisors who have no incentive now to be supervisors. My friend is planning to quit, wait 2 weeks and come back as a loader. He calculated and figured out he will make more. He doesn't want the stress of the responsibility when there is no benefit. Now the upper management doesn't know what to do because supervisors are quitting and they already had a shortage of them.

 

So it gets complicated.

Yeah I know. My DH ended up quitting project management because the money was better on the ground.

 

That said in some jobs it should be. The workers often have higher risk jobs and their potential working life is shorter because of injury and the physical nature of the work. I don't have a problem with people earning more for working in unpleasant or undesirable jobs although it is often not the case. It's why a plumber can charge so much and cleaners get paid more than entry level office admin I guess.

 

I think unions should have free range on safety issues and possibly on pay wage disputes but not for protecting workers who simply aren't doing their jobs.

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Heck no!

A job provides more than just money.

A job provides independence and agency and empowerment. The ability to leave an abusive breadwinner, the feeling to be capable of supporting oneself, the freedom to make one's own decisions.

 

 

.

Lots of truth on that but the two income model relies on institutionalised child care and schooling for the most part. Which obviously many here in this forum are going to see as either inherently problematic or at least not a good fit for all situations. Maybe cultural change can eventually let care roles and productive work happen side by side. Or maybe not.

 

UBI is another way of dealing with financial security for carers that's not tied to relationships, I guess.

 

The other alternative is more roles with part time hours that allow both parents to work and share care. Or better social security for single parent families.

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