Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay • Hacker News Board

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#101

Post by anderber » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

rexreed wrote: post #47

I would like to advance a different opinion. There are many that are proponents of Universal Basic Income (UBI). However, many state that one problem with UBI is that it comes at the expense of personal gratification and economic productivity. I am of the opinion that low wage jobs are a form of UBI. In this manner, individuals are paid a basic income in exchange for their productivity. However, these jobs are not me…

> one problem with UBI is that it comes at the expense of personal gratification and economic productivity

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. UBI allows people to pursue what they are passionate about, work where they truly want to, and help start a new business. The data backs that people will not work less, but be able to have more freedom in what job they do work in. I highly recommend Yang's book about this: https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/andrew-yang/the-war-on-...

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#102

Post by pytester » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #64

I tend to think work gives some sense of purpose to a person’s life. That’s incalculably valuable.

This was why when Argentina swapped out a job guarantee (plan jefes) with a UBI-type program, many of the women who did the job guarantee jobs of caring for the elderly, etc. kept doing the work in spite of the government telling them it wasn't "necessary" any more.

While it's theoretically possible that they might have spontaneously started doing these jobs if a UBI program had been initiated I'm not aware of any example where this has happened.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#103

Post by Rerarom » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #89

ikeboy wrote: post #23

>In a recent analysis, we found that 53 million workers ages 18 to 64—or 44% of all workers—earn barely enough to live on. Their median earnings are $10.22 per hour, and about $18,000 per year. Right away, they're presenting some large number that's actually double the real number of people below that threshold. If the median is $10.22, that means only half of them make less than that. They then make a bunch of broad…

> then productivity would be higher in other jobs, which would increase pay for their example jobs due to the Baumol effect. Laughing hard here. You just invented “trickle-down pay raises”! If everybody has a degree, the degree doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Being a bachelor of economics will not make you a better burger deliverer. Plus the effect only hold due to a few sectors like IT paying disproportionately - o…

Of course degrees matter. Knowledge creates productivity, which creates wealth.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#104

Post by throw0x1away » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

dfilppi wrote: post #82

throw0x1away wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

minimum wage isn’t worth much. period. These regulations upon regulations, shitty policies and "governing" from socialists are killing the market and gotta stop. It's dumb to interfere with the market and dictate how much your skills are worth. USSR as a reference? We know what financial top-down planning and dictatorship does to countries. Minimum wage should be abolished.

The minimum wage merely sets the welfare level.

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Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#105

Post by dcolkitt » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #70

dcolkitt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hypothesis does not hold up to the data. The unemployed in Canada experience the same penalty in life satisfaction as the unemployed in the United States: > On average, the unemployed experience lower life satisfaction than the employed by about 0.3 standard deviations in Canada and the United States, by 0.32 standard deviations in the United Kingdom and by 0.47 standard deviations in Germany.[1] Your claims rel…

You care completely mis-citing / mis-reading that study. It specifically is an attempt to measure the non-material effects of unemployment on persona well-being and happiness. "Emotionally tolerable" is a very different thing from "financially risky". Indeed, people should be willing to tolerate temporary dissatisfaction to achieve a better long term outcome in ways that they are not willing to tolerate complete fina…

Financial stress explains upwards of 30% of the cross-sectional variance of life satisfaction.[1] If the hypothesis is that the US unemployed are significantly more financially stressed than the Canadian unemployed, then that would almost assuredly be reflected in differing life satisfaction scores.

[1] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.536...

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#106

Post by dfilppi » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

pytester wrote: post #88

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #37

Great article, but I find it only takes the "wage" side of the equation and not the "cost" side. I'm not an economic expert but the biggest line items for most people seem to be housing (high and regular), healthcare (high and irregular), education, and childcare. If we fix these I'm sure the equation changes a lot for many, many, people. If the market is broken for pricing these main things, then even if everyone su…

It would still make these things more affordable. And, save perhaps childcare, increasing the cost of low waged labor would not have an outsized inflationary effect on them. Certainly not on housing. The cost of housing/rent is predicated on a shortage of hoarded, largely untaxed land.

Untaxed? Where? Got the car gassed up.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#107

Post by harimau777 » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

rexreed wrote: post #47

I would like to advance a different opinion. There are many that are proponents of Universal Basic Income (UBI). However, many state that one problem with UBI is that it comes at the expense of personal gratification and economic productivity. I am of the opinion that low wage jobs are a form of UBI. In this manner, individuals are paid a basic income in exchange for their productivity. However, these jobs are not me…

It seems to me that the difference is that with UBI you can use the time that you would otherwise be working to prepare for a new job, look for a new job, or to do work that doesn't pay (e.g. art).

On the other hand, a low wage job takes up the same amount of time as a regular job but doesn't provide many of the benefits (e.g. financial security, sufficient discretionary money to pursue your goals, the ability to purchase a house, etc.).

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#108

Post by k33n » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #92

k33n wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's terribly strange to view lower unemployment numbers as something to strive for. The idea that I might not need a job (when I haven't accumulated the resources to support myself without one) is totally foreign to me, and not attractive at all. I grew tremendously as a person working jobs I didn't enjoy. I only work on what I want to now, and I couldn't imagine I'd be very satisfied with my life I di…

There are jobs that you don't enjoy but that will help you achieve a better future. Then there are jobs that do nothing but provide a temporary stop gap from financial ruin. The idea isn't that you don't need a job, the idea is that you are less dependent on finding a job right away so that you can find a good fit between your skills and your goals and your job. This not only will lead to a better life for you, but m…

If working a job will prevent financial ruin, then it's a good job. No job has to be permanent.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#109

Post by syshum » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #81

rexreed wrote: post #47

I would like to advance a different opinion. There are many that are proponents of Universal Basic Income (UBI). However, many state that one problem with UBI is that it comes at the expense of personal gratification and economic productivity. I am of the opinion that low wage jobs are a form of UBI. In this manner, individuals are paid a basic income in exchange for their productivity. However, these jobs are not me…

The "goal" of a low wage job is for an employer to make a profit from someone else's labor, and to only allow them to subsist. UBI promotes subsistence but crucially allows someone enough time to find more substantial opportunities. And UBI won't necessarily kill low-wage work – in some ways, it makes space for it. I'm an EMT, and I make minimum wage, and I work 48-72 hours a week on the ambulance. UBI would make it…

>>The "goal" of a low wage job is for an employer to make a profit from someone else's labor

That is the goal of all jobs, high, low, middle

Employers are not charity, they do not employ people so they can have a good income.

Employers employ people because they need work done to make money off that work, the second you cost your employer more than they make off your work you are out of a job.

Sometimes that cut off is more direct (i.e if you make widgets your per hour the rate of manufacture can easily be factored into the cost of making the widget) but if you some do something more nebulous like cleaning the floors, or filing papers, that can be harder to calculate but every business does.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#110

Post by jiofih » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

Rerarom wrote: post #103

jiofih wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then productivity would be higher in other jobs, which would increase pay for their example jobs due to the Baumol effect. Laughing hard here. You just invented “trickle-down pay raises”! If everybody has a degree, the degree doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Being a bachelor of economics will not make you a better burger deliverer. Plus the effect only hold due to a few sectors like IT paying disproportionately - o…

Of course degrees matter. Knowledge creates productivity, which creates wealth.

You’re taking that sentence as an absolute, not in the context of low-wage jobs. And it it is a liberal fantasy, right next to meritocracy. That wealth stays put exactly where it is, at the top of the chain. All studies on labor show productivity gains far outpacing salaries in the past century. A well-paid knowledge worker today can barely meet the lifestyle of his factory worker grandparents.