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Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

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Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#231

Post by ben_w »

Den_VR wrote: post #103
hvb2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every job can be automated. Picking crops for example or cleaning hotel rooms. The US will find out the hard way how much of their undesirable work is done by people that "steal their jobs". Jobs that no American wants to do. The UK already has seen this with Brexit https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44230865

Picking crops or cleaning hotels rooms cannot be automated… for less than it costs to hire seasonal/migrant workers, today. Both farms and hotels have an increasing number of jobs being automated where it makes economic sense, or for pure novelty’s sake. https://www.farmprogress.com/technology/tethered-drones-can-...

Right now, cleaning rooms cannot be fully automated at any price. The AI to control the robots just isn't good enough for how broad a term "unclean" can be.

I don't want to comment about picking crops, that's rapidly changing and I don't expect to be up-to-date with this. I've seen people being confidently wrong about "cows won't milk themselves" decades after there were machines cows could operate by themselves to get milked.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#232

Post by refurb »

viraptor wrote: post #214
refurb wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it’s not. The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time. They don’t. A great example were the people in the 0.1% percentile of income. Evil rich people! Turns out people who end up in that group, only do so for a single year in their entire life . Things like selling a company or getting a large windfall propels them into the 0.1%, then af…

> The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time. I believe people actually involved in being active against top percentiles understand the difference between ongoing millions of annual income and one off inheritance. Have you got a some reason to think otherwise? I mean it was "occupy wall street", not "occupy people visiting retirement homes"…

That’s my point - the tax data says that people making millions each year are incredibly rare. Most people earning that kind of income get it in a once in a lifetime.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#233

Post by nosianu »

refurb wrote: post #202
einrealist wrote: post #135

That's the myth of Trickle-down economics in action.

But it’s not. The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time. They don’t. A great example were the people in the 0.1% percentile of income. Evil rich people! Turns out people who end up in that group, only do so for a single year in their entire life . Things like selling a company or getting a large windfall propels them into the 0.1%, then af…

> The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time.

Here is something I posted only a few days ago. It is Germany, but that point is certainly not much different from Anglo-Saxon countries.

It is a podcast, and in German too, but it is high quality and on one of the best stations in Germany (Deutschlandfunk's culture channel -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandfunk)

https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/eliten-seit-dem-kaiserr...

> Despite political upheavals over the past 150 years, Germany's elites have remained the same. Sociologist Michael Hartmann criticizes the fact that only four percent of the population shapes the country. He calls for a quota of working-class children for executive boards.

Yes individuals can rise and fall. For example, near the big turning points in German history the people in politics were renewed, after WWII people from the working class made it to the top posts. However, with increasing stability, over the last two decades even that group has become more and more of an insider club, and people from "lower classes" have a very low chance of rising to the tops. In the economy and when it comes to real wealth it is even worse. Connections and pre-existing wealth are a good predictor of where you will end up. You may have better luck with high-paying jobs, but they rarely lead to the top of the wealth pyramid and influence.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#234

Post by redwood »

refurb wrote: post #202
einrealist wrote: post #135

That's the myth of Trickle-down economics in action.

But it’s not. The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time. They don’t. A great example were the people in the 0.1% percentile of income. Evil rich people! Turns out people who end up in that group, only do so for a single year in their entire life . Things like selling a company or getting a large windfall propels them into the 0.1%, then af…

Income sure but wealth is what matters and the wealthiest make their money from capital gains, not income

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#235

Post by Joeri »

westmeal wrote: post #221
chiefalchemist wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive Yes. But that cost can be absorbed across the board. The manufacturer can lower their margins. The importer / distributor / wholesaler can do the same. The B2B / B2C seller can do the same. It doesn’t all necessarily get directly passed to the buyer. Another question that few…

But why would the manufacturer or distributor lower their margins? Charity?

In the short term: fear of reprisals from Trump, as he clearly warned them not to raise prices. In the long term markets find a new equilibrium, as they always do when a new tax is imposed, and that is probably going to be a combination of lower margins, higher prices for the consumer and lower prices for foreign suppliers.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#236

Post by nickpp »

9rx wrote: post #175
nickpp wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens when competition with deeper pockets price dumps you into oblivion? Funny you should ask. There was a famous case from the beginning of the last century where German bromide producers price-dumped it the U.S. in an effort to undermine Dow's efforts in the same direction. The result? They failed miserably. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Chemical_Company > your apologism of capitalists is disgusting F…

> Free market capitalism is the only system proven to work, over and over again. How come nobody practices it, then? In fact, right now the world's biggest economy is doubling down on trade restrictions.

It's not an on/off switch, of course, but rather a sliding scale. The free-er your markets are, the better the results. Till recently, USA was in top with both, in sharp contrast to, say, the EU who pro-regulation and anti-business.

But the tariffs are an interesting experiment, with some non-economical geopolitical goals thrown in, so we'll see how it goes.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#237

Post by dasloop »

Gareth321 wrote: post #227
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive. You could set up a deduction system... But that's retroactive (poor people still don't have that money for a whole year) and dramatically complicates their tax filing burden and financial record keeping requirements. The rich can afford lawyers and accountants, so the IRS ha…

> And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive. This is not correct. The cost of tariffs are shared by the distributor and customer. The proportion is determined by the elasticity of demand. By this I mean that for goods and services which people rely on, like gas, they will pay almost all of the cost of the tariff beca…

Why the poor and working class? Increasing benefits on local products maybe will, maybe not, move to salaries. But first necessity goods are not very elastic making that products more expensive.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#238

Post by xienze »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #220
xienze wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is anyone _actually_ getting paid the minimum wage these days? Might want to check what the grocery store you worked at in 2010 is really paying these days. I’d bet good money it’s significantly more than $7.25/hour.

https://usafacts.org/articles/minimum-wage-america-how-many-... 869k workers. The size of a country larger than Luxembourg.

Doesn't the fact that 98.9% of all workers earn more than the minimum wage kinda highlight that it's really not necessary for the federal government to increase it? Clearly it's nearly impossible except in limited circumstance to actually _find_ workers who'll accept the minimum wage, hence the fact that hardly anyone is paying it.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#239

Post by potato3732842 »

The prevailing HN wisdom from, IDK 2010 or before, to 2020something was that inflation was good for the poors because their debt went away (laughable when considering interest rates on a lot of that debt but still).

Where are those people now? Why are they not all over these comments posting links rebutting the article?

Or if they no longer exist what made them change their minds?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#240

Post by NekkoDroid »

Joeri wrote: post #235
westmeal wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would the manufacturer or distributor lower their margins? Charity?

In the short term: fear of reprisals from Trump, as he clearly warned them not to raise prices. In the long term markets find a new equilibrium, as they always do when a new tax is imposed, and that is probably going to be a combination of lower margins, higher prices for the consumer and lower prices for foreign suppliers.

> fear of reprisals from Trump

Realistically, what's he gonna do? Shut down the company, which he oh so desperatly wants in the US? Tax them more, driving their cost up more?

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