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

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

#301

Post by baddox »

orangecat wrote: post #290
kaitai wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is there are a lot of people in this position. I personally know many people 65-75 working/trying to find work because of financial instability. Edited to add that there's a further problem: it's hard to find work when you're 70, and it's even harder to find 'knowledge work' for most 70-yr-olds. So the 70-yr-olds I know looking for work are working freelance or contingent sorts of things, or working retail/…

The point is there are a lot of people in this position. Even if there are, that's not going to lower the unemployment rate significantly; it's more likely to raise it. Say there are 100 million people in the labor force, of which 4 million don't have jobs. The unemployment rate is 4% (4/100). Now 10 million previously retired people suddenly realize that they need to go back to work, and they all get hired instantly…

What is the mechanism to identify and count people who were voluntarily retired but now wish they could find a job but can’t?

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

#302

Post by aleph_naught »

supernova87a wrote: post #36

I don't think low unemployment is the unequivocal positive sign that politicians/ think it is ("We're putting millions of Americans back to work!"). Maybe it's not something to be so proud of. If people are having to come out of the woodwork to take jobs that aren't moving the average wage up, maybe they're doing it because they have to, in order to get by. Is it a good thing that a 60+ year old goes back to work at…

Up until the 80's wages and productivity moved in lock step, and since then wages have flatlined due to a various factors (weakening of unions / globalization).

Furthermore, we are reaching the limits of what monetary stimulus is able to achieve in driving the economic wellbeing of everyday Americans; history has shown that fiscal stimulus is better at that. A decade of easy monetary policy and balance sheet expansion has yielded a large divide in inequality and asset inflation. The non-asset owning working class have effectively been left behind, with now a larger wall to climb in order build relative wealth.

I personally don't think unions and collective bargaining are the best solution, as it can in some cases be overbearing on industry---and the burden can be non-uniformly applied across industries. Also, due to globalization, there is effectively a fixed marginal cost for labor: any inefficiencies will be arbitraged abroad. Even if unions and collective bargaining were the solution, there is no inherent law that labor demand and labor supply will always be near parity---especially with increased automation.

I think the best solution to resolve this, both uniformly and with minimal aggregate complexity, would be expand the Federal's reserves responsibilities into the fiscal space.

The Fed currently has two mandates: low unemployment, and stable currency. I propose a third mandate: wage and productivity parity. This would be facilitated by direct fiscal policy in the form of a floating universal basic income. This would enshrine the fed with ability to affect fiscal policy without politics. The stimulus could be progressive, but would be much more uniform---unlike today's pork projects that have a smaller share of winners.

This coupled with universal health, easing the burden of hiring and firing, consolidation of existing entitlement/social programs, could really open up the economic landscape.

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

#303

Post by esotericn »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #87

Labor market conditions are not acts of God, nor inevitable. They are shaped by policies, investments, and institutions. This is a point I keep trying to make about UBI and seemingly utterly failing. It isn't "inevitable" that automation will lead to high rates of chronic unemployment. I've been quiet of late on HN. I often am around Christmas time, but I also wonder if I'm just fed up with feeling like it's complete…

A lot of what you're saying rings true to me.

There are basically two 'tracks' of things that people use in life.

Material goods like food, water, entertainment, etc are getting cheaper and cheaper all the time. On long enough time scales this is true compared to wages. For the most part even the worst of jobs is sufficient to pay for that sort of thing.

I can't speak about healthcare as that's a particularly American problem.

But housing - that's literally an issue across the spectrum. It feels like every 'class' of person has basically taken a step down or two if you compare generation to generation. The upper-middle are looking at just about being able to afford starter properties in major cities. The middle class who would 30 years ago be settling down in suburban detached homes with kids are in pokey flats or sharing houses with other professionals.

Below that you have stuff like crappy flat shares, unofficial bunking up, or homelessness - to be honest looking at what graduates are doing I can't even imagine what say, a supermarket worker does if they don't have family.

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

#304

Post by simple_phrases »

wufufufu wrote: post #136

I hear agreement that the economy is good, but also that jobs are paying less for more work and that income inequality is larger than ever. At the same time, the housing market where I live is absolutely exploding. I feel like I'm missing something about the real condition of the economy...

> At the same time, the housing market where I live is absolutely exploding

That's because the US housing market is open to the richest people around the world who are looking for a place to store value. US property rights protect value better than property rights in China.

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

#305

Post by chiefalchemist »

supernova87a wrote: post #36

I don't think low unemployment is the unequivocal positive sign that politicians/ think it is ("We're putting millions of Americans back to work!"). Maybe it's not something to be so proud of. If people are having to come out of the woodwork to take jobs that aren't moving the average wage up, maybe they're doing it because they have to, in order to get by. Is it a good thing that a 60+ year old goes back to work at…

I don't think politicians actually believe it's a positive. They can't possibly be that naive. They must have basic economic awareness of how $30 p/h FT job in their district has different implications than a couple $15 p/h PT jobs.

They don't discuss the important details because it doesn't drive votes. They also as a challenger during the election want to hold the incumbent to a standard they might not be able to maintain. Politicians, as a breed, are adverse to "live by the sword, did by the sword." As a result we get politician-speak as the normalized standard.

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

#306

Post by GarrisonPrime »

opportune wrote: post #269
rayiner wrote: post #76

> Market failures abound: Education and health care are out of reach for many, child care is often prohibitively expensive (even as child care workers are woefully underpaid), and decent, affordable housing is scarce in many regions. It’s utterly ridiculous to call these things “market failures.” Every single one of those areas is not a market but is heavily regulated in a way that limits supply. Education mostly a g…

If the market were able to solve the problem better, private schools could just provide better service at lower costs (compared to public school cost + state subsidy) and few would still go to public schools right? State subsidies for public schools are not that large anymore (34% of budget for UC Berkeley comes from tuition+fees while 13% comes from state of California). These are actually IMO all examples of Baumol…

How are private schools supposed to offer better service at a lower cost, when public schools are effectively free?

This is hardly a market. Even if people wish to move their children out of public schools en masse, it's not like governments are going to reduce property taxes accordingly.

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

#307

Post by rolltiide »

contingencies wrote: post #274

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because,…

Although I also perceive the same things I wonder if there is adequate incentive for the one to create something that provides for others

Simply taking their economic output is not incentive

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

#308

Post by rayiner »

tempsy wrote: post #283
rayiner wrote: post #279

The low unemployment rate is proof that this techno optimism isn’t true.

Huh? No it’s not. He is exactly right that we’ve invented a lot of “bullshit jobs” that don’t add anything of value to society and would not change anything if they were gone tomorrow e.g. How many jobs out there just prop up rent seeking?

The whole idea of “bullshit jobs” is ignorant. You’ve got armies of managers and bean counters trying to squeeze nickels out of processes, and yet we are supposed to believe that we’re keeping all of these people employed for no reason?

It’s the same sort of juvenile thinking that causes someone to look at a vast legacy codebase and decide “oh we could easily rewrite that.” The reality is that automation is progressing as fast as technology allows, but technology just doesn’t work that well. In fast food, for example, self-order touch screens are vastly inferior to a trained order taker. There are no machines to roll a burrito. There’s no machines to wipe tables, clean bathrooms, clean the kitchen, or even take drive through orders. We don’t, get, have automated ubers, taxis, freight trucks, etc. Grocery checkout automation is atrocious, which is why higher end chains like Whole Foods don’t have them, even though they’re better able to afford automation.

There’s not a single job I can think of that qualifies as a “bullshit job.”

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

#309

Post by JDiculous »

supernova87a wrote: post #36

I don't think low unemployment is the unequivocal positive sign that politicians/ think it is ("We're putting millions of Americans back to work!"). Maybe it's not something to be so proud of. If people are having to come out of the woodwork to take jobs that aren't moving the average wage up, maybe they're doing it because they have to, in order to get by. Is it a good thing that a 60+ year old goes back to work at…

Yes it's a ludicrous notion that working for work's sake is a good thing.

I just watched the documentary "American Factory" (highly recommended), and it's pretty clear to me that doing repetitive manual labor work in a factory is grueling, mind-numbingly boring, dangerous, and not something we should be doing if we can automate it - not to mention low status and low pay. I'd bet that most of the politicians idealizing manufacturing jobs have never worked a manufacturing job before. It's absolutely nothing like any cushy office job. At the end of the movie when they talked about how they were replacing the humans with robots, that should be something to celebrate (but it's not because our society forces people into employment to make a living).

Those workers were making $12/hour at the Chinese owned company despite having made $29/hour in their unionized jobs at GM before it closed. It's not as if the $29/hour jobs were some utopia, but it's a massive difference in pay that affords one a middle class lifestyle. And as a worker, feeling like you have no representation and no say can make any job soul crushing.

Yet politicians talk about "jobs" as some unequivocally good thing as if we're all partners at law firms with corner offices making six figures or whatever they're used to (not that I'd ever want to be a lawyer). They're so clearly out of touch.

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

#310

Post by tempsy »

rayiner wrote: post #308
tempsy wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? No it’s not. He is exactly right that we’ve invented a lot of “bullshit jobs” that don’t add anything of value to society and would not change anything if they were gone tomorrow e.g. How many jobs out there just prop up rent seeking?

The whole idea of “bullshit jobs” is ignorant. You’ve got armies of managers and bean counters trying to squeeze nickels out of processes, and yet we are supposed to believe that we’re keeping all of these people employed for no reason? It’s the same sort of juvenile thinking that causes someone to look at a vast legacy codebase and decide “oh we could easily rewrite that.” The reality is that automation is progressi…

I’m not talking about service jobs. I wouldn’t consider service workers to be rent seekers at all. I’m actually referring to mostly white collar ones, a lot of administration jobs, finance, government, etc
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