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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

#271

Post by throw0101d »

jalapenos wrote: post #265
thenthenthen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And climate change…

True, since they own all the beachfront property

> True, since they own all the beachfront property

Climate change does not mean just rising sea levels, but more extreme weather as well, which can include more flooding: warmer air holds more moisture, so when it eventually gets released it can be in downpours. See recent flooding in Texas.

Poor people tend to live in the highest risk areas because the safer areas are desired most and so the people with money bid up prices there.

When you hear headlines like "Trailer Park Destroyed by Tornado", and people ask "Who would live in 'Tornado Alley'?", the answer is "Poor people.".

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#272

Post by Den_VR »

ben_w wrote: post #231
Den_VR wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

When you get into the “ at any price ” range, then you should be up for engineering the room to support fully automated cleaning, and so I’d contend this is possible today. For certain situations. For example, automatic cleaning of a capsule hotel. I’ve just checked into one myself, nearly everything is self-service with an rfid band for access. How about automatic cleaning of a clean room?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#273

Post by throw0101d »

nosianu wrote: post #233
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. 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.wikipedi…

> Yes individuals can rise and fall.

One of the critiques of meritocracy:

> […] It’s wild that everyone is using “merit” and “meritocracy” as though it somehow avoids elitism, when in reality it’s a sneaky way to cement biases without the appearance of bias. Of course people should be judged on their skills and not their wealth. But, how’d they acquire those skills, and why would anyone assume the money didn’t help? Of course it’s a self-reinforcing system. […]

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44571491

From the Wikipedia § Criticisms page:

> In his 2019 book The Meritocracy Trap, Daniel Markovits poses that meritocracy is responsible for the exacerbation of social stratification, to the detriment of much of the general population. He introduces the idea of "snowball inequality", a perpetually widening gap between elite workers and members of the middle class. While the elite obtain exclusive positions thanks to their wealth of demonstrated merit, they occupy jobs and oust middle class workers from the core of economic events. The elites use their high earnings to secure the best education for their own children, so that they may enter the world of work with a competitive advantage over those who did not have the same opportunities. Thus, the cycle continues with each generation.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Books

> In his book The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?, the American political philosopher Michael Sandel argues that the meritocratic ideal has become a moral and political problem for contemporary Western societies. He contends that the meritocratic belief that personal success is solely based on individual merit and effort has led to a neglection of the common good, the erosion of solidarity, and the rise of inequality. Sandel's criticism concerns the widespread notion that those who achieve success deserve it because of their intelligence, talent and effort. Instead, he argues that this belief is flawed since it ignores the role of luck and external circumstances, such as social and external factors, which are beyond an individual's control.[91]

* Ibid

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#274

Post by mahogany »

refurb wrote: post #230
rester324 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but I don't understand your comment. Are you sure you are responding to the right message? The OP specifically called out trickle-down economics. Which is a myth, a false belief that somehow not taxing rich companies and not redistributing a country's wealth through taxes and other means, companies will do the right thing eventually, and they will raise the wages instead by their own incentives. Which they neve…

That’s not what “trickle down economics” is. It’s basically the Laffer curve which argues that tax receipts can actually go down with higher taxes rates as tax’s can discourage growth if high enough. Thus if you lower taxes, economics growth increases (overall tax receipts go up, not down).

> It’s basically the Laffer curve which argues that tax receipts can actually go down with higher taxes rates as tax’s can discourage growth if high enough.

What you are describing is if we are on the right side of the curve. But is there any evidence that this is true?

When I read Sowell, someone who I imagine would be a champion for this cause, he cites the 1920s as his evidence that trickle-down works which doesn’t inspire confidence. If there is no modern evidence, why are we even entertaining this theory today?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#275

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

jalapenos wrote: post #267
thuridas wrote: post #247

The tax cuts for the rich will also probably mean that a lot of this money is going to buy real state as an investment rising the house prices.

The immigration crackdown and the tariffs will also mean effective reduced supply of foreign labor, and since their labor is what poor people sell, it will cause upward pressure on their earnings.

The tariff will cause, is causing in fact, increased prices. This will have a negative effect on their earnings.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#276

Post by rester324 »

refurb wrote: post #230
rester324 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but I don't understand your comment. Are you sure you are responding to the right message? The OP specifically called out trickle-down economics. Which is a myth, a false belief that somehow not taxing rich companies and not redistributing a country's wealth through taxes and other means, companies will do the right thing eventually, and they will raise the wages instead by their own incentives. Which they neve…

That’s not what “trickle down economics” is. It’s basically the Laffer curve which argues that tax receipts can actually go down with higher taxes rates as tax’s can discourage growth if high enough. Thus if you lower taxes, economics growth increases (overall tax receipts go up, not down).

I don't understand. Can you elaborate?

The Laffer curve simply shows the relationship between taxation and government revenue. It has nothing to do with the policies and the economic theories. In fact, there are two points on both sides of the Laffer curve's maxima where tax revenues are the same in theory. That's just a simple didactical tool, nothing more.

Saying that the Laffer curve is the trickle down economics is as bad as saying that visualizations of a binary tree are what we call algorithms and data structures.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#277

Post by notahacker »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #252
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't rocket science. If you want somebody to spend a lot of money and time setting up production in the US, tariffs have to be stable and predictable. If that doesn't make sense to you, I didn't know what to say.

And they are after the deals are signed, no?

A lot of deals got ripped up on "Liberation Day", including some Trump was extremely proud of when he announced them in his last term. He's changed his mind several times in six months already, dropping deadlines and tariffs when the market gets itchy feet, imposing higher tariffs due to disputes with governments completely unrelated to trade. He loves to make grand gestures to distract from domestic issues, and his administration showed so little basic competency they actually publicly announced tariffs on uninhabited territories full of penguins. Why would anybody assume stability?

To echo a comment made in a parallel thread, decisions made to invest in US manufacturing don't get made by people dumb enough to take Trump at his word.

And even if he wasn't tariffs are unlikely to persist at those levels under the next President, regardless of who that is, and that's the sort of timeline you pay back your investment in US manufacturing over...

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#278

Post by margalabargala »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #109
margalabargala wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, none of that outweighs the inflationary pressure. Increasing automation and therefore productivity means an increase in profits to the owners, not a drop in prices, except in the most competitive industries. Unemployment is already extremely low. There aren't tons of Americans waiting to step into these jobs. If unemployment were 10% that would be a different story, but we're close to full employment. So inste…

High unemployment would mean companies would have to offer more money to attract people They want unemployment to be low so they can keep wages and salaries suppressed

What? That makes no sense, did you mix up your high/low words? Or could you elaborate on your opinion that is perfectly opposite all accepted economic understanding?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#279

Post by Marazan »

hellgas00 wrote: post #9

"people earning roughly less than $806 a week — slowed to an annual rate of 3.7 per cent in June, down from a peak of 7.5 per cent in late 2022" With inflation dropping from 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.7% in June 2025, real wages for these low earners are now growing for the first time in years. The Financial Times failure to mention this context makes me question their motives.

> now growing for the first time in years

This is a lie. Low earners had strong real term wage growth under the previous administration.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#280

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

Gareth321 wrote: post #270
dasloop wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Why the poor and working class? Because by and large, most of the jobs offshored by the U.S. have been lower skilled. As these jobs return, it is the lower skilled workers who will primarily benefit. I agree that there are likely examples of necessities which cannot be produced cost effectively locally which will become more expensive.

These jobs are not going to return. 'The system' is too profitable in its current form. What will happen is tariffs will cause prices to rise as companies pass on this tax to consumers (which is inflationary). In fact, they may go up more than that, same way as they did during covid. Even if say two years from now a new congress and senate remove these tariffs. The prices will not go down. Companies will not build new factories here because it is easier, after they get the new higher prices locked in, to just lobby to get the tariffs removed and then keep the difference as sweet sweet margin.
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