Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 199 posts

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#71

Post by orangeoxidation »

lostapathy wrote: post #46
jrsj wrote: post #39

This might be the case but many jobs I feel like would no longer be worth paying anyone to do at that rate. That would suggest to me that the productivity of minimum/low wage workers has not increased at the same rate as productivity generally. Which would make sense given most of that increase is attributable to technology which isn’t distributed evenly through different sectors of the economy etc.

Right, this is where this sort of blanket extrapolation breaks down. Has the average productivity grown that much? Sure, I can believe that. Has the productivity at the lower margin grown that much? I seriously doubt that. The value created by stocking shelves at wal-mart just doesn't really change over time. There's a lot of labor on the lower end that is a solved problem with all the productivity wrung out of it de…

> Has the productivity at the lower margin grown that much? I seriously doubt that.

That's the problem. The minimum wage is a legal instrument, not just an economic process. It is designed for the lower margin to be "overpaid" over what they could get from the market otherwise.

It basically says "everyone working should get at least this much of our collective production". This is what we have decided our society should work like.

Our collective productivity increased much faster than minimal wage, making the minimal wage worker much poorer by comparison.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#72

Post by thatcat »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #63
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1930s, a store clerk in a large city could afford to support a family in a home they would eventually own on their single income. Today, a couple with that same job would likely be in public housing and would be scraping by.

In the 1930s many homes only had icebox "refrigerators" that worked by putting Ice in the top to cool whatever was below. IMO productivity has been absorbed by getting more for your money in hidden inflation . Eg: today when you buy a phone (and internet access) you get a free encyclopedia (wikipedia), movie theater (youtube), camera, Video recorder, note pad and pen (app), alarm clock, calendar, ... get my drift? Sa…

Those aren't economically relevant productivity gains. You're basically required to have a phone to participate in society, that's more of a monthly tax unless you use it to generate income. Same with housing, it costs much more than the minor changes that have been made in design saves per month.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#73

Post by tuatoru »

jrsj wrote: post #39

This might be the case but many jobs I feel like would no longer be worth paying anyone to do at that rate. That would suggest to me that the productivity of minimum/low wage workers has not increased at the same rate as productivity generally. Which would make sense given most of that increase is attributable to technology which isn’t distributed evenly through different sectors of the economy etc.

This is the lump of labour fallacy. Edit: in the form, the set of jobs we have right now is fixed and will be the same for all time.

The flow of money is circular.

If lower-paid people had more disposable income, they would spend more on things that employ other people. Services like restaurants or haircuts or yoga classes or personal trainers or personal shoppers or life coaches, the last three of which are pretty niche right now.

The people providing those services would, in turn, consume other services and products.

I'm sure a lot of new services and products would appear too.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#76

Post by Dylan16807 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #63
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1930s, a store clerk in a large city could afford to support a family in a home they would eventually own on their single income. Today, a couple with that same job would likely be in public housing and would be scraping by.

In the 1930s many homes only had icebox "refrigerators" that worked by putting Ice in the top to cool whatever was below. IMO productivity has been absorbed by getting more for your money in hidden inflation . Eg: today when you buy a phone (and internet access) you get a free encyclopedia (wikipedia), movie theater (youtube), camera, Video recorder, note pad and pen (app), alarm clock, calendar, ... get my drift? Sa…

The fridge of today is cheaper than ice deliveries.

A phone is amazing for what it is, but you can't just pile on more features and use that as an excuse for lower pay. Phones don't cost a budget-breaking amount.

Home size makes sense as an increased cost, but most of the reasons that make it hard to afford living space are really bad reasons.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#77

Post by pydry »

VRay wrote: post #47
pydry wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you think there are workers out there whose productivity is $26/hour, but who can't find work at more than $15/hour, then you can truly disrupt the market and hire all these workers for $20/hour and become rich. How? If their productivity is $26 / hour but their market rate is $15 / hour, by paying them $20 / hour you'll just post lower profits than companies that pay them market rate.

The workers will leave all the other companies and work for you, so those other companies will be dead in the water and/or stuck raising their own workers' pay to compete At least, that's how it was supposed to work in theory.. Now that we see people out there going for improved wages/jobs in line with good capitalist doctrine, the business owners are all screaming in rage about a "labor shortage"

I'm pretty sure Walmart would prefer to post higher profits than to drive the local hairdressers out of business and have more job applicants than they know what to do with.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#78

Post by yupper32 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11
standardUser wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"employers would simply be glad to pay them based on their productivity." I honestly mean no offense, but that sentiment indicates a spectacular misunderstanding of capitalism.

It indicates the major flaw of capitalism: It has no moral compass whatsoever. Its a vicious meat grinder. I think the comment is quite insightful, in the employers might think one thing while the realities of capitalism dictate another.

Capitalism is the only system that seems to work at all under the realization that society itself will never have a moral compass.

Outside of small communes, any society that heavily relies on trust doesn't work.

That's not to say that capitalism works well, or that we can't reign in some stuff (public works, monopoly regulation, etc). But a capitalistic base is the only system we've figured out that works at all.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#79

Post by celtain »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #62
lostapathy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this is where this sort of blanket extrapolation breaks down. Has the average productivity grown that much? Sure, I can believe that. Has the productivity at the lower margin grown that much? I seriously doubt that. The value created by stocking shelves at wal-mart just doesn't really change over time. There's a lot of labor on the lower end that is a solved problem with all the productivity wrung out of it de…

It absolutely does! If Wal-Mart can pay more money for something, they would be /willing/ to pay it. The same stocking of shelves, they are able to capture more value from. Unskilled laborers are just not able to capture that value from Wal-Mart because there is an abundance of unskilled labor and the average person (the laborer) has to derive income from work. They can't just say, "Puh, this isn't worth it any more!…

>there is an abundance of unskilled labor and the average person (the laborer) has to derive income from work. They can't just say, "Puh, this isn't worth it any more!"

This was true throughout the 2010s, but under full employment even a low-wage/"unskilled" worker can realistically go get a different job if they don't like the one they have. There's probably an Amazon warehouse nearby that would hire them at a higher wage, or a restaurant if they're willing to do a different kind of work.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#80

Post by ayngg »

jrsj wrote: post #39

This might be the case but many jobs I feel like would no longer be worth paying anyone to do at that rate. That would suggest to me that the productivity of minimum/low wage workers has not increased at the same rate as productivity generally. Which would make sense given most of that increase is attributable to technology which isn’t distributed evenly through different sectors of the economy etc.

The value of unskilled labor is probably much lower than everyone wants to think it is in a global economy. There is no incentive to pay workers in developed countries "fair" wages when that labor can be done at a fraction of the cost in the developing world. Service sector jobs are probably hit by this because while they cant be outsourced, all the other employment going elsewhere just means they have leverage. Some places like Canada even import developing world labor to work these jobs because they cant find local employers for the wages they offer.

Most of the productivity gains have probably come from finance and technology, which would explain why those are some of the most lucrative career options now.

Post reply on HN