161–170 of 364 posts
Please people, step out of your USA bubble. I (Dutch guy) haven't had a more than 4 day workweek in the last 20 years. It is _your_ choice to "work" 5 days. The 40 hour workweek wasn't created for the worker's benefit, it was created because the owner of the factory saw that that was the most efficient. Paying people to work longer didn't give him benefit.
This is an article from the New York Times. New York is in the USA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand how people hold your view. Would you except a $1/hr job? No, then why do you think other people would. If you can make more money walking through a parking lot picking up change, why would you work. Plus companies wouldn't want to hire at $1/hr because what kind of employee are you getting? Your competitor down the street paying more money would then get the better employees and drive you out of bu…
> Your competitor down the street paying more money would then get the better employees and drive you out of business. No, they would cooperate and set an informal maximum wage to replace the minimum one (or more accurately, they would lower the already informally established maximum wage .) This would be a win-win for both businesses. It's not a coincidence that all low-wage jobs pay between 0% and 25% over the mini…
> and it has nothing to do with labor demand.
If not having an employee costs you $30/hour in revenue-- your desire to avoid a bidding war won't prevent you from making an offer at $22/hr if it's necessary to fill the slot.
It has everything to do with labor demand (and supply). Collusion (formal or informal) between loosely coupled, adversarial entities breaks down under pressure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A recent immigrant who was brought here from a foreign country by a "relative" and then told to work in their shop for $1/hr or be sent back home (or worse) would gladly take that $1/hr job. This actually happens in places that don't have labor protections. And not just immigrants. Anyone with an abusive parent or partner or any situation where one person holds power over another. Hence "this is how you get slavery".
It actually happens everywhere, even in places that have labor protections.
If there were no minimum wage, you could put the person on payroll and be completely legal in your actions, allowing the employer to exploit unknowledgeable employees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This happened to everything it could at least 10 years ago. It turns out that if you want software that works (at all), you need to pay people well, regardless of where they are in the world. Stop reenforcing this notion that leads to massive overwork and burnout in the US (+ Canada). Germany, the UK, Sweden, etc all have much, much better working conditions for software devs and their jobs aren't going away
This is not my experience. Overseas devs have only gotten better and more tightly aligned with the west in the past 10 years. The idea of throwing your work over then fence to the cheapest jurisidiction may have died but there are significant cost savings in going overseas, especially as westerners get more expensive and remote work grows
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In an ideal spherical cow world, having no minimum wage would work exactly as you describe. In the real world, that's you how get slavery. For many reasons, not everyone has a choice to turn down a $1/hr job.
I don't understand how people hold your view. Would you except a $1/hr job? No, then why do you think other people would. If you can make more money walking through a parking lot picking up change, why would you work. Plus companies wouldn't want to hire at $1/hr because what kind of employee are you getting? Your competitor down the street paying more money would then get the better employees and drive you out of bu…
All of this bullshit free market fundamentalism relies on many nice assumptions - one being that there is plenty of good, high-paying work to go around. The actual fact spelled out in a hundred different ways, from wages to market conditions to books like Bullshit Jobs, is that the economy doesn't need nearly as many workers as we have people particularly in low wage jobs that don't require much training. There is much more supply than demand. Its perfectly possible that if McDonalds paid $1/hr, their competitors would ALSO pay $1/hr. In that situation someone with little skills would have a choice of 1. making $1/hr 2. making $0 and starving. These are the conditions 50-60% of the world works in. We've already seen collusion to keep wages low in technology, not to mention other industries and times in the past, no doubt it happens and can happen again.
As is usual, every time someone points out a bad situation, you say its "not really a free market". So its not, most markets aren't ideal "free markets". Employers can collude, information asymmetries do exist, power imbalances are real. There are literally zero "free markets" in the world. They don't just arise naturally. Even with all the intervention we have, I have yet to see any market where there is no information asymmetry or imbalances. Its a fucking idealized model from Econ 101, not the state of reality.
This kind of thinking is fundamentally un-empirical. It starts with a theory and insists that the world conform to it rather than looking at the world and examining which theory really does explain it best. In this world I would simply refuse to acknowledge the existence of non-spherical objects as a non-spherical boulder rolled down a hill and killed me.
I work a 4 day week; just don’t tell my boss.
That's the tipping point: >50% of the week is now mine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. The government being involved is the most likely answer as to why a 40 hour work week is standard and why there are so many "minimum wage" jobs. A funny thing happens when you set floors or ceilings in markets, you hit them. There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set t…
> There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set the minimum wage because people act in their own self interest.' I'm very capitalistic and libertarian, but reality is all systems need to manage edge cases. Minimum wage is a part of that. To believe that the market can figure everything out requires serious tunnel vision.
It's not the only way though. We have no legally defined or mandated minimum wage here in Norway (nor elsewhere in the Nordic region I think). But the effective minimum is probably higher than the mandated minimum in any other country.
Broadly speaking the way it is done here is that the national association of employers and the principal unions negotiate a tariff for each industry and type of work each year. The state is involved to the extent that it provides an official who acts as referee in the negotiations and tries to chivvy the parties to an agreement.
Employers are free to ignore the rules but risk losing employees to companies that pay according to the tariff.
Of course the difference between here and the US is that solidarity is stronger here so the negotiations are less hostile here.
It's not perfect but it seems to work quite well
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Its because they want to attract the best talent. When we are talking about minimum wage, you need to consider the people with the worst talent. Think sweatshops in China, construction camps in Dubai, prostitutes in the US. Not Google or Facebook employees.
Yes but you want the best of your labor pool. As for sweatshops in China, these are the growing pains of a developing economy. The work conditions there suck but I bet they are better than being bent over in a rice field all day. You are also rapidly seeing this change as the economy becomes more developed there, even in the face of an oppressive government. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-working-its-way-up-fr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In an ideal spherical cow world, having no minimum wage would work exactly as you describe. In the real world, that's you how get slavery. For many reasons, not everyone has a choice to turn down a $1/hr job.
I don't understand how people hold your view. Would you except a $1/hr job? No, then why do you think other people would. If you can make more money walking through a parking lot picking up change, why would you work. Plus companies wouldn't want to hire at $1/hr because what kind of employee are you getting? Your competitor down the street paying more money would then get the better employees and drive you out of bu…
Several replies are addressing your wrong points but I had to bring this up: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/01/16/37...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you build your skills, if you're spending 40+ hours a week working to make ends meet and trying to care for a family? You're arguing from an ideal situation, without taking into account that reality's average is very much less than ideal.
You are building your skills while you are working. If you can find time outside of work, you are just accelerating things.
What skills would they be? Surely the only skill you build while flipping burgers is that of flipping burgers. Is it applicable to any other job?