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The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

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Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#241

Post by runevault »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #231
Sevii wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage gains aren't actually that good. A lot of people are going to be surprised they moved up in tax bracket while their standard of living went down.

What is the relevance of tax brackets? Earning more nominally while standard of living going down is the same as earning less in real terms. “Moving up” in a tax bracket never means earning less in nominal or in real terms. It just means you get less in your pocket of the extra you earned, not of the total you earned.

I feel like all the stupid comedy shows, especially in the 80s and 90s, making those episodes about getting a raise and earning less money, did a lot of damage to people's understanding of how taxes ACTUALLY work, and continues to ripple to this day, leading to comments like the one you are replying to.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#242

Post by madengr »

bduerst wrote: post #200
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All while the world's elites have doubled or tripled their fortunes Who and how?

It's no small secret that the world's billionaires saw >50% increase in wealth during the pandemic. https://www.reuters.com/business/pandemic-boosts-super-rich-...

No post body was provided.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#243

Post by scatters »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #231
Sevii wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage gains aren't actually that good. A lot of people are going to be surprised they moved up in tax bracket while their standard of living went down.

What is the relevance of tax brackets? Earning more nominally while standard of living going down is the same as earning less in real terms. “Moving up” in a tax bracket never means earning less in nominal or in real terms. It just means you get less in your pocket of the extra you earned, not of the total you earned.

If inflation is 5% and you get a 5% raise, you're level in real terms, right? No, because that 5% is taxed at your higher tax rate, which is (usually) higher than your average tax rate. This is called bracket creep.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#244

Post by jonnycomputer »

altcognito wrote: post #203
jonnycomputer wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the bottom of the wage scale have seen the biggest gains, in real terms ( https://fortune.com/2021/12/10/inflation-wages-low-income-wo... ). Its the middle and upper middle class that are being made (a little) poorer by inflation. A fine trade-off imo. And given the asymmetry of the risks policy makers faced (great depression vs higher than average inflation), they wisely went with the risk o…

Wage gains are not being treated the same as investment gains. It's not like Bezos is taking home an hourly rate. Everybody at the real top is doing quite, quite well. That's why the concentration of wealth into a very few hands at the top marches on, not because of "wages".

There are the rich and then there are the really rich, and then there are the unbelievably rich. I'll happily call a family earning 500k/y on two salaries in a small town where a million dollar home is literally a mansion on a hill "rich". Because they are. They just aren't as rich as the Trumps or Bezoss of the world.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#245

Post by lotsofpulp »

airstrike wrote: post #232
lotsofpulp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole concept of value in terms of business transactions seems weird to me. It is ill defined and unactionable. Either you agree to buy or sell at a certain price, or not. “Value” plays no role in the determination of prices.

Whether you agree to buy or sell at a certain price is entirely dependent on whether such price is higher or lower than the value of the trade, in your own subjective assessment. There are other meanings of the word "value" in business transactions, but that is probably the most common and fundamental one.

>Whether you agree to buy or sell at a certain price is entirely dependent on whether such price is higher or lower than the value of the trade, in your own subjective assessment.

The subjective assessment of the "value of the trade" is then a function of the subject's alternatives, which is usually how much someone else will pay or accept from them.

I find the term utility to be more beneficial than value, due to it being less likely to be confused. As a boss, I would say I value all the employees equally, in human terms. But the employees provide different amounts of utility/$. Although I can see how people use value and utility interchangeably.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#246

Post by sxyuan »

Sevii wrote: post #221
jonnycomputer wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the bottom of the wage scale have seen the biggest gains, in real terms ( https://fortune.com/2021/12/10/inflation-wages-low-income-wo... ). Its the middle and upper middle class that are being made (a little) poorer by inflation. A fine trade-off imo. And given the asymmetry of the risks policy makers faced (great depression vs higher than average inflation), they wisely went with the risk o…

Wage gains aren't actually that good. A lot of people are going to be surprised they moved up in tax bracket while their standard of living went down.

As others have already noted, that's not how tax brackets work. The real problem might be government programs like Medicaid - it's hard to tell if eligibility requirements are inflation-indexed, and since it seems to be determined at the state level, I'm almost certain it won't be in every state. So it's possible that increased wages, while it still increases post-tax income, actually reduces net disposable income after taking Medicaid, CHIP, etc. into account.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#247

Post by cwkoss »

georgyo wrote: post #236
altcognito wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage gains are not being treated the same as investment gains. It's not like Bezos is taking home an hourly rate. Everybody at the real top is doing quite, quite well. That's why the concentration of wealth into a very few hands at the top marches on, not because of "wages".

Your touching on a much more complicated subject about reporting. If someone one owns a billion dollars of stock foobar, and foobar grows 10x, then that person is now worth 10B and "made" 9B. However they have not sold anything so while they can be reported as making 9B, they are none of it was directly cash and not taxed; at least not yet. However, while Bezos "only" has a salary/bonus of 1.5 million a year, it is v…

The billionaire stock owner in your example's economic power has increased by 10x regardless though. They can borrow against that money and those funds aren't taxed - so they can effectively spend it without taxation.

They can cycle debt to avoid ever having to sell a single share for their entire life, at rates more favorable than any middle class person has access to.

We can fix our tax code with legislation to address this loophole, our politicians just don't have the will to do this currently (largely because many of them amass fortunes through stocks and insider tips, IMO).

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#248

Post by wonderwonder »

MattGaiser wrote: post #125
bjourne wrote: post #104

"Yet, despite all the quitting and renegotiating, the real wage for the average American worker — meaning the true value of their paycheck after taking into account inflation — fell by 2.4% in 2021." All while the world's elites have doubled or tripled their fortunes. Great Robbery would be a more apt name than Great Resignation.

I would be interested to see the difference between those who did switch and those who didn't. It could easily be 20% raises for those moving and 1% for those who are not.

It seems like companies are really having a hard time understanding that people are not going to just take financial hits out of loyalty to a company anymore. Companies still appear to be of the mindset that they can give small cost of living increases and people will stick around for years in hopes of getting promoted. With inflation at 9%, getting a 20% raise after 2 years with a promotion essentially just sets you back at your starting salary with more work and responsibility. Why would anyone stick around for that? Plus there are only so many positions available to be promoted into, statistically the odds are not good for most. Coupled with the fact that companies are very open that they have zero loyalty to any employee below c-suite, its not really surprising people are only keeping jobs for a couple years before being forced to look somewhere else.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#249

Post by subsubzero »

Sevii wrote: post #221
jonnycomputer wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the bottom of the wage scale have seen the biggest gains, in real terms ( https://fortune.com/2021/12/10/inflation-wages-low-income-wo... ). Its the middle and upper middle class that are being made (a little) poorer by inflation. A fine trade-off imo. And given the asymmetry of the risks policy makers faced (great depression vs higher than average inflation), they wisely went with the risk o…

Wage gains aren't actually that good. A lot of people are going to be surprised they moved up in tax bracket while their standard of living went down.

Tax laws are confusing, alot of people think that since they made more they are in a new tax bracket and every dollar they made is subject to the new higher tax bracket rate. This is incorrect, every dollar made at and above that high tax bracket is subject to that higher tax rate, every dollar made below is subject to the previous tax bracket.(and this is after 401k and other tax writeoffs).

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#250

Post by [deleted] »

bjourne wrote: post #104

"Yet, despite all the quitting and renegotiating, the real wage for the average American worker — meaning the true value of their paycheck after taking into account inflation — fell by 2.4% in 2021." All while the world's elites have doubled or tripled their fortunes. Great Robbery would be a more apt name than Great Resignation.

[deleted]
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