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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

#591

Post by DubiousPusher »

bigcohoneypot wrote: post #418
DubiousPusher wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very good example of this is how long it took scientists to be comfortable with positively saying that tobacco use caused lung cancer in people. (A fact tobacco companies greatly leveraged in their defense.) Huge surveys long showed a correlation between smokers and increased incidence of cancer. But it took decades of research to rule out confounding factors. For example, it may have been the case that industrial…

You don't think this is an example where industry threw shade and we could have concluded this much earlier?

Genuinely no. Mostly I think the industry failed to corrupt the scientific process. Their attempts to do so were nakedly transparent. And they absolutely preyed upon the fact that real quality scientists were reluctant to definitively say the link was causal because they were being diligent about the fact that there was a preponderance of evidence that was correlative.

They succeeded in corrupting the political process though. I don't think you should need 100% scientific certainty to begin regulatory action. Maybe 80% or 90% of the way is good enough. The industry succeeded in requiring 150% certainty before a public health response could begin.

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

#593

Post by Aloha »

alchemism wrote: post #587
scaryclam wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also do a lot of hiring, and can say that it's also NOT correct. We'll query it, but it's rarely a problem. Different companies have different process and expectations, so let's steer clear of absolute statements like "this is correct" and "this is not true" as it's unhelpful to folks in the situation. Generally speaking, if you have a gap, make sure to explain in a cover letter. These are important and can make th…

I must disagree, anecdotally. I walked off one job, and went traveling for six months. Another job I was on the losing end of a political maneuver, and used my severance to take another six month sabbatical. Each time I returned to the market I received 20%+ compensation over what I had before. The second time I was promoted into management with hiring authority. Let me know who you turn away for gaps in their resume…

I too have found I get a significant salary bump with each job departure. But I have usually had either economic factors or 'sabatical' as a reasonable explanation.

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

#594

Post by foogazi »

bb88 wrote: post #584
foogazi wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we’ve actually under priced some of the most important labor in our society (caregivers, teachers, social workers, etc), Who is we? Who sets the price? People obviously don’t see more value in teachers or caregivers, price should not be mandated by law

Prisons are arguably less important to society than education (since it represents the failing of citizens being productive members of society). However, prison expenditures were increasing three times faster than education from 1990 to 2016 [1]. Much of it going to corporately run prisons. And given the marijuana legalization trend as of late, I really don't believe that people see the value of locking people up we…

I’d say it is important to lock up those that hurt society

But I agree that in most countries prisons are true hellholes

In the US laws mandate certain level of care, and government prefer to pay someone else than handle the costs: unions, pensions for those prison staff

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

#595

Post by Aloha »

scaryclam wrote: post #392
300bps wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

often you won't get hired if you've had more then 8-10 months of unemployment without reasonable explanation. I do a lot of hiring. You are correct and further - literally any gap at all is viewed as suspicious. And there aren't many reasonable explanations that help the situation.

I also do a lot of hiring, and can say that it's also NOT correct. We'll query it, but it's rarely a problem. Different companies have different process and expectations, so let's steer clear of absolute statements like "this is correct" and "this is not true" as it's unhelpful to folks in the situation. Generally speaking, if you have a gap, make sure to explain in a cover letter. These are important and can make th…

Unrelated, but the cover letter is my least favorite part of job hunting, because I'm often hard pressed to explain why I want to work there beyond "you're hiring, I'm looking, and this job looks suitable for me, and at least mildly interesting".

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

#596

Post by rfmw19 »

majos wrote: post #347
nitrogen wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t even have the technology to replace the guy taking drive through orders Yeah we do, touchscreen menus (or ATM style pushbutton menus in places with bad weather). There are factories that assemble frozen mini burgers for supermarkets. There are pizza vending machines out there. So an entire fast food restaurant could be turned into a vending machine with current technology.

If you think the technology is there, what explains its lack of adoption? I don’t think McDonalds et al. are in the business of leaving easy optimization on the table. (My own guess is that touch screens are still more expensive and buggy than humans, and machine-made food still trades off novelty to be profitable. But I don’t know.)

McDonalds seems to be rolling them out slowly, but are actually cutting staff while simultaneously increasing their fleet of touchscreens. I see a lot more employees alternating between doing work in the kitchen vs. taking orders at the cashier. This is even during relatively high demand times with long customer wait lines. This is just an anecdote though, the data may disagree.

I'd also be curious to see any user interface studies on these touchscreens. In my limited experiences, they are completely slow and thus an awful experience. They clearly are trying to sell more at every step instead of being useful and efficient for the end user.

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

#597

Post by IkmoIkmo »

Double_Cast wrote: post #568
hacknat wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages for public sector workers are legally defined and, at least, in this case, have very little to do with any measure of utility. Our society is horrendous at measuring utility in almost all long term cases.

I'm not complaining that teacher salaries are too high or too low. I'm complaining that: A) you're reinventing the Paradox of Value; and B) you're challenging the norm without proposing an alternative economic model. "Just pay teachers according to the intrinsic value of their profession." But it's not immediately obvious what this means in practice. Suppose wages were set not by congress and not by the market. Accor…

Indeed. Oxygen is very valuable too, but it should not be expensive for this reason alone. It's abundant, and therefore cheap, and that's a good thing.

Similarly, hypothetically speaking, perhaps teachers are the most valuable profession to society, but if there's plenty of people willing to become a teacher, and plenty capable, there's no reason to reward these people with vast extra sums of money for the sake of their value.

Such a system would lead to extreme inefficient allocations of resources, an oversupply of teachers.

Yes, if teachers are valuable and you can't find people willing or capable to do the job, then by all means, raise their pay. That's the reason I think many teachers deserve more pay. Not because they're intrinsically valuable.

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

#598

Post by rolltiide »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #345
rolltiide wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Take a look at all of the open source projects listed here: https://paragonie.com/software Especially random_compat (145 million installs) and sodium_compat (6.5 million installs + WordPress 5.2). My revenue for all of this OSS work was precisely $0.00. When was the last time any of us looked something up in Encyclopedia Brittanica instead of Wikipedia? The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self…

> The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self-actualized adults.

But for those who could be fully self actualized but arent yet and have to exchange time for food and shelter?

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

#599

Post by celdon25 »

mindslight wrote: post #273
celdon25 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it varies by region and time period, but for 2000-2019 in california, the cumulative inflation was 49%, while the minimum wage rose 108%. And in the most recent years, wages are going up across the board at the low pay tier: https://www.wsj.com/articles/rank-and-file-workers-get-bigge...

Continuing to talk about "average" inflation, rather than housing / asset inflation, is borderline disingenuous. Of course the price of consumer products has fallen - that was the primary gain of technological progress and outsourcing it all to China. The price of housing (and healthcare, education) is what has everyone over a barrel, and that's a direct result of the policy to make that average continue to go up in…

Was this comment meant for me? I think the parent commenter used the word "overall" and not "average". I was simply providing a source and not making any sort of argument from it.

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

#600

Post by t-writescode »

brightball wrote: post #38
totalthrowaway wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to take a bus for an hour to get to your four-hour shift at a stressful minimum wage job, where your manager is abusive and the workplace is unsafe, your mental health may suffer. Meaningful work, or contributing to the wellbeing of those around you -- that would be a worthwhile goal. Suffering just so your family isn't hungry is a harder sell. Inevitably, someone will say they should just learn skills fr…

Nobody should be taking a bus for an hour to a minimum wage job. One of the reasons a job is MW is that they are everywhere. You don’t commute that far for minimum wage.

You're right, we probably should have said longer, maybe an hour and a half. I definitely know people that commute a long time for low wages. Or did. They're in better places, now.

One of them used to stay really late at night at a Denny's because the buses didn't run when he needed to get to work, so he would spend the night (basically) at a Denny's so he was at work on time.

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