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Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

jasonstanford.substack.com

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Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#241

Post by germinalphrase »

giantg2 wrote: post #105

"The myth that Americans, and especially younger Americans, aren’t willing to work is flat wrong." It's not really a myth, but also can't be universally applied. When a very large percentage of jobs are like this, there's not much alternative. It's you want to work and deal with it, or you don't want to work. Option 3 would be that you want to work a "good" job, but good luck finding one! People don't want to work sh…

Then you should drastically cut your expenses, probably move, and retire as soon as possible.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#242

Post by alistairSH »

Cd00d wrote: post #175
alistairSH wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...a family bought over $100 worth of tickets and food... I'm not sure how this theater is arranged. My local theater serves beer/wine and some heavy snacks. But, it doesn't have table service. Just the typical counter service. I've never tipped and always assumed the counter staff is earning at least minimum wage (no different than buying a latte at Starbucks). The few times I've gone to a movie theater with table s…

I was a Starbucks barista for a year (2000), and customer tips were an important part of my take home. I think most people think like you, because at the time I calculated my average tip was 5 cents per customer, but that still raise my hourly to something I could almost afford to live on (I think it took me from $6-something to about $9/hr). I wouldn't consider getting a latte and not tipping after that experience.

Ugh, not sure why you're getting downvotes for relating a personal anecdote that's relevant to the topic. This forum is weird.

I hate that minimum wage is so far below living-wage in many places. But, I'm also loathe to tip everybody in a customer-facing job. Where do I draw the line? I'd much prefer (and would happily vote for) a $15 or $20 minimum in my region (DC metro).

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#243

Post by UIUC_06 »

Let's see: a pandemic hits, and suddenly we see a rush of stories like this. Is there a connection, and a solution? Or is everyone ignoring the elephant in the room?

How about eliminating mask mandates & social distancing? Focus on protecting the vulnerable folks, and let everyone else lead a normal life. Let doctors provide meds for early-stage COVID patients that they believe work, and keep them out of the hospital. COVID is never going away.

Going out to eat or shop nowadays sucks, and maybe that's why customers are so nasty.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#244

Post by mschuster91 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #191
acdha wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew multiple classmates who were working substantial hours because their families needed the extra income, and that was when wages were better than they are now. Anything close to real work should pay real wages because otherwise you’re screwing the most desperate at the expense of the more affluent kids who can afford to walk away.

> Anything close to real work should pay real wages because otherwise you’re screwing the most desperate at the expense of the more affluent kids who can afford to walk away. That isn't how wages work. If someone can do the same job for less, they will and you will not get paid. You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive (the people who build the tractors get more, the guy driving the tract…

> You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive

Alternatively, the owner capitalist class could - gasp - take a cut in their already excessive profits. Shareholder, CEO, director and other executive pay has ballooned over the last decades, whereas worker wages (the ones that actually create the wealth with their labor) have at best stagnated.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#245

Post by AlexandrB »

bena wrote: post #232
bradleyjg wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not twice as much work to sell a $2 million house as a $1 million house. Why does it cost twice as much in real estate agent fees?

In this case, so? Like I said, you're not being charged anything there. It comes out of the purchase price. It's the agent who is listing the house at a price and sourcing the various inspectors and appraisers. They're putting in the work to sell your house at a price point. So, if the agent can manage to move your house for $2 million rather than $1 million, why shouldn't they get a larger reward? It's a different s…

> So, if the agent can manage to move your house for $2 million rather than $1 million, why shouldn't they get a larger reward?

Indeed, for the seller this makes sense and the agent's and seller's incentives are aligned. But there's a nasty externality created where real estate agents contribute to a constant upward pressure on housing prices. This eventually helps make housing unaffordable.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#246

Post by jmcgough »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #243

Let's see: a pandemic hits, and suddenly we see a rush of stories like this. Is there a connection, and a solution? Or is everyone ignoring the elephant in the room? How about eliminating mask mandates & social distancing? Focus on protecting the vulnerable folks, and let everyone else lead a normal life. Let doctors provide meds for early-stage COVID patients that they believe work, and keep them out of the hospital…

You do realize that healthy, young people who get sick can spread it to more vulnerable people, right?

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#247

Post by carapace »

ajmurmann wrote: post #159
DarylZero wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I naively thought the whole point of the market was to effectively route resources to where they are most in demand and allow innovation from the ground up where it's needed without central planning

That happens, but it's orthogonal to the point you're replying to. In other words, Efficient markets and social safety nets are not intrinsically antagonistic or incompatible, we can have both.

- - - -

To me, the unspoken and often unconscious nature of the "stick" of vagrancy and homelessness is revealed clearly when people ask, "But who will pick up the garbage?" when you're talking about things like a "post-scarcity" or "abundance-based" society. The clear implication is that without the hell of homelessness there are needful jobs that we couldn't otherwise force people to do.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#248

Post by alistairSH »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #158
ipython wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not in the position to do that though. He’s a bartender. It’s clear he is advocating for higher wages and better conditions and even notes that the management of the theater tried to do so but the national chain leadership shot them down.

I know quite a few businesses that leveraged themselves with CMBS to refinance during the mid to late 2010s whose debt service coverage ratio are about to go below the agreed upon threshold because of rising labor costs. They borrowed money and gave up the business and land as collateral in exchange for some frothy valuations and limiting personal liability, but the terms are that if they exceed their DSCR, they ente…

The correct solution to that problem is allowing those businesses to default. Not attempt to universally prevent wage increases.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#249

Post by carapace »

tcmart14 wrote: post #233
ajmurmann wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I naively thought the whole point of the market was to effectively route resources to where they are most in demand and allow innovation from the ground up where it's needed without central planning

I think that is the idea, but it doesn't work in practice because, well people. Really useful electronics are harder to get or have been hard to get, but yet if I wanted to buy my daughter a twerking llama toy, I'd have no issue with acquiring one of those. A little more meaningful example, we grow pistachios (a water intensive crop), in a place with limited access to water (desert areas of California) and have been…

> Seems like if the market just naturally achieved efficiency, you'd grow water intensive crops in places that were not constrained on the resource.

In this case the market is up against (arguably irrational) water rights and such, the market is far from free.

> The planning and management of water in California is subject to a vast number of laws, regulations, management plans, and historic water rights. The state agency responsible for water planning is the California Department of Water Resources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Planning_a...

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#250

Post by thrill »

ajmurmann wrote: post #137
nepeckman wrote: post #87

It's a shame that the comments here are laser focused on the tipping parts of the article, and not the bigger picture items. The author outlines the struggles of getting service jobs filled in high CoL areas, the vicious cycle of turnover in these jobs, and all the commenters here want to discuss is the 2 paragraphs on tipping.

What's always disappointing to me is how for many the first instinct is "lazy young people" while often times the exact same people espouse "the free market". It seems to me that often times the same people really only care about low taxes for themselves and making away with regulations that annoy them, rather than truly embracing the mechanism and tradeoffs that come with a free market and for sure don't understand…

Not as disappointing as those who denigrate free markets when there isn't one.
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