It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#121

Post by arcbyte » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #115

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. This is the default state of businesses in competitive markets. If you could do with less then you could charge less, and one of your competitors will start doing that to take your customers, so you have to do the same. Of course, the alternative is to pay more and then raise prices. Which you might not be…

This is a purely economic argument which if fine, but misses the vital non-economic side-effects. More money could lower the stress of the employees (given they now no longer have to worry about paying their bills) which may lead to higher quality products. Increased wages may attracts better talent or more exploitation conscious consumers. Hell, it may even more the owner more likely to listen to his staff, given th…

Cost reduction is not a "state", it's a process. And it is a natural process that will always occur. In any endeavor, humans will find ways to reduce the amount of inputs needed for outputs.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#122

Post by mananaysiempre » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

jzb wrote: post #110

rvense wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “That’s too much for cosmetology work.” So it's not even an economic argument, "If I pay that I'll go out of business"? It's just a moral one, "They don't deserve that amount of money"? I can't say I'm surprised, TBH.

That's the crux of it in a lot of cases. People have come to view a certain class of work as "not worth" paying a living wage. What's worse, the jobs they view as "not worth" a living wage are the ones that do the work we need (or at least really really want) done. If all the cooks, servers, cosmetologists, janitors, lawn care / landscaping, delivery drivers, warehouse workers and so forth stopped doing their jobs...…

> If all the cooks, servers, cosmetologists, janitors, lawn care / landscaping, delivery drivers, warehouse workers and so forth stopped doing their jobs... everything would suck real quickly.

That’s the idea behind a general strike I believe, but coordination is hard (and figuring out a set of demands that is effective long term may be harder).

/me once stayed in Athens during a garbage collectors’ strike; didn’t suck as much as you’d think, but was undeniably spectacular

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#123

Post by zthrowaway » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

Yeah because you clearly understand his entire financial situation and profit margin to justify that cost right? How are you so sure customers pay the higher food prices? People think small business owners are swimming in money, and that’s just not true.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#124

Post by docflabby » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

The real problem is inflation and excessive rent seeking. Rents are currently at the highest level on record in the US. Hard to get someone to take a job that won't even pay the rent.

The wealth trickle up has changed into a torrent since covid, something is going to break.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#125

Post by Aerroon » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #78

This is also about healthcare, which is trickle-up economics. If workers and employers alike are not concerned about paying thousands a year for premiums, that would be a double benefit that would appear as jobs. If the US can spend billions on fossil subsidies and trillions on military and foreign wars, it should be a no brainer to stimulate domestic the economy with universal healthcare.

>If the US can spend billions on fossil subsidies and trillions on military and foreign wars, it should be a no brainer to stimulate domestic the economy with universal healthcare.

The numbers you're looking at are too small. The war on terror cost $8 trillion in 20 years.[0] That's $500 billion a year. Divide this by US population (330M) and you get $1,515. How much healthcare could you buy for that per year?

And don't forget that even without the wars a lot of this money would've been spent on modernizing the military anyway.

[0] https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#126

Post by ineedasername » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #63

holler wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barber shop I went to for years used to charge $35 for a haircut pre-pandemic, which with a ~$10 tip ($45) already felt real high. Now a haircut is $50 and I no longer go, opting instead to cut my own hair w help from my girlfriend. Maybe people don’t want $50 haircuts.

That's fine, then. We shouldn't assume a certain service or job is productive enough to exist because it used to be in the past. If barbershops need to go the way of horse liveries, that's OK.

Somehow people are going to need to get their hair cut, so this isn't going to be a horse liveries situation. More people may sacrifice quality or preference for a specific style & do it themselves. Some people might get shorter haircuts so they don't need one as often, maybe trim thing around the edges in between paid haircuts. Some people will be price elastic and pay higher prices.

The economics and behaviors may change, but the need won't go away.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#127

Post by jdavis703 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #83

jdavis703 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of businesses on the brink. My regular Italian spot went out of business in the depths of the pandemic. They re-capitalized and opened again but with higher prices. Their clientele is upper middle class (i.e. relatively price insensitive). But they still wrote a long letter explaining why prices increased (more benefits, more salary) and asking that people support their increased overhead by becoming…

Is it working for them? I get the feeling that it might, depending on the price level they were at previously. Perhaps the thing to do would have been to rebrand completely, make the place look a bit more fancy.

The place doesn’t seem quite as busy as before. But I’m not sure if that’s because of price changes or some general post-pandemic change (e.g. they also added outdoor dining, which might make the place feel less busy.)

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#128

Post by crazy_horse » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

> b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. This is the default state of businesses in competitive markets. If you could do with less then you could charge less, and one of your competitors will start doing that to take your customers, so you have to do the same. Of course, the alternative is to pay more and then raise prices. Which you might not be…

Claims like this about UBI are simply unknown. You can't say it with any certainty, not even close. To begin to have UBI you'd have to increase taxes substantially, and you'd have to prove that doing that would actually lead to better results for businesses and the people.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#129

Post by lordnacho » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

That rock-and-a-hard-place choice is often what happens when a business dies, right? You live between your costs and your income. This may just be the business version of the 9/11 falling man.

It may well be that the market for food places in your area cannot support the current set of outlets, and some of them will have to die, and this is how they die.

The way I think about it is there's a metastability in the economy that's not often discussed. Basically, unviable business models can survive small disturbances. One chef gets fed up, no problem. One customer think it's too expensive for what he gets, no problem. When there's a big shakeup, it all comes crashing down.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#130

Post by b3morales » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

dudul wrote: post #94

tayo42 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States really needs to kill tipping culture off

Why? What would be different for the customer? The tip would just be rolled into the price of the service to amount to the same number, and quality of service would probably go down. Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary). So what would really be the benefit? And I'm not trying to be dismissive at all. Coming from Europe I also thought initially that tipping was…

> Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary)

Tips are income already, and are taxed as such. You can get away with not reporting it if it's a few extra bucks from a jar on a counter. But if you're a "tipped employee" (and thus eligible to be paid sub-minimum wage) you report them to your employer, who then reports them to the IRS, and does tax withholding same as for wages.