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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#151
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently close to 30% of household income right now is from government payments. I think on average people are getting the equiv of $15/hr from gov checks. So for people to want to work it’s going to have to exceed that by some non trivial amount.

> Apparently close to 30% of household income right now is from government payments How much is it normally? Definitely not 0%. Also, what's "government payments"? Does it include wages to government employees, for instance? (I expect the figure is higher than normal, I'm just not sure from this how much higher )

It does not include wages. These are “welfare/unemployment benefits” These are spikes. During the last recession it spiked into the teens. Before that it was lower. So, yeah, it’s a lot of money.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#152

There are no such things as “jobs americans won’t do”. It’s just you have to compensate people accordingly. With this failing stealth UBI experiment that we are currently engaged in, people aren’t willing to work when many of them are getting near 100% the same income not to work. The rest of us are being crushed by inflation.

But inflaiton is very low. yeah, CPI excludes stuff, but we're a long way from the 70s and 80s.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#153
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay my fair share of taxes and I'm happy to support 'freeloaders' when they're unemployed and need support. Especially if it leads to a universal living wage from employers. Don't speak for me please.

I'm speaking for me and those I know. My response was to GP saying everyone is happy. I am not. Also, I'm not talking about the people who need support, I'm talking about the people taking advantage and staying on unemployment because they don't want to work.

I may be missing what you mean by "taking advantage" but isn't that the point? Like taking advantage of a life raft after going overboard.

If someone chooses to not be employed and it brings them basic needs and recuperation, then I see the system working well.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#154
There are obviously a lot of factors that go into the decision making process of whether you should take a particular job at a particular wage. But at least two are 1) how much you're getting otherwise from other sources, and 2) competition from other sources of labor.

For 2, consider this: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/special-reports/l...

New entries in Q4 2020 down 78% from the year before, and that's on top of a general downward trend in net immigration to the US that's been happening for a decade. Is this temporary because of Covid? Probably. But immigration at the low end of the wage scale is a factor that drives down the wages. Anyone who has ever lived in an apartment complex in Santa Ana and seen neighbors with 14 people packed into a 3 bedroom apartment understands why. Native born Americans simply aren't willing to live like that. The expectation for what constitutes a baseline reasonable lifestyle isn't the same.

For 1, these comments about "experimenting with UBI" or freeloaders living off the government seem to miss the point that augmented benefits are a temporary pandemic relief measure. Of course the low end of the labor market is abnormally depressed right now. That is on purpose as part of a calculated, intentional public health response making it easier for people to decide not to work. Lo and behold, many are now actually making that decision.

For some reason, there seems to be this widespread notion that this is a permanent change, but it isn't. You're still not technically allowed to just quit or refuse to work because you want unemployment, but go ahead and look at the actual description of what constitutes a Covid-related reason to apply for relief: https://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/attach/UIPL/UIPL_16-20.pdf

If your place of employment was closed, if your kid's school was closed, if you were ever diagnosed, had symptoms, were quarantined, or anyone in your family was, your head of household died, you need to care for some who was diagnosed. None of those are usually reasons you're allowed to claim unemployment benefits. Now they are.

How long will this go on? Who knows, but definitely not forever. This is also the answer to why businesses don't just offer more. Prices are subject to a ratchet effect. Offer more now to overcome the inertia of people choosing to stay unemployed during an abnormally favorable time to be unemployed and you're very likely to have to permanently pay higher wages even when the enhanced benefits are gone. Businesses are getting relief, too, and are willing to gamble that they can wait long enough for wages to come back down.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#155
post #57

Well, there's a straightforward (I don't say easy) way to fix this: you require a high enough minimum wage (and healthcare, and sick leave, and etc.). It's not like the restaurant owner has the option of just deciding to pay twice or three times the labor costs, and trust that their customers will be happy to cover the difference, if their competitors don't have to do the same. Because, those restaurant (and retail a…

"According to "Papa" John Schnatter, the cost of providing health insurance for all of his pizza chain's uninsured, full-time employees comes out to about 14 cents on a large pizza." And this is the reason he gave for not supporting ACA. $0.14 a pizza. To this day, I struggle to understand the psychology behind it.

but that is not a fixed cost though, although it is small relative to the price of a pizza

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#156

I've long felt that many jobs paid unsustainably low wages. There are a lot of jobs where your net pay is below zero, long term, when you factor in the external costs associated with working, such as needing transportation. These jobs have been propped up by debt. It looks like the pandemic has put and end to this. Transportation costs have skyrocketed to such a degree that it's basically impossible for a poor person…

There’s another aspect: there’s a horrible lack of common decency and respect by supervisors and managers of low-wage workers. Having worked menial data entry, warehouse, grocery store, fast food jobs, I’ve interacted with far too many stressed-out and abusive/abused bosses who cannot cope with the razor-thin timelines with minimal workforce (which seems to be the norm) and ultimately exhaust this irritating heat onto their subordinates and fail to show a minimal amount of respect to their employees to the degree of hostility and abuse.

This isn’t so much of an “all bosses suck” trope (I am happy and lucky to be at a healthier work environment at the moment). The sense I have is demands from the top continue to be more and more unrealistic as decisions are made to cut costs without truly thinking about it may start to rot the foundation beneath.

In my case, $18 sounds like a lot of money, but I wonder if this just means the work will be exponentially more stressful and unhealthy.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#157
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not like the restaurant owner has the option of just deciding to pay twice or three times the labor costs, and trust that their customers will be happy to cover the difference, if their competitors don't have to do the same. This feels a bit backwards. We don’t know that their competitors aren’t already paying more, we only know that some people can’t seem to get labor at the price they were paying before. I th…

> I think America has been too scared of inflation for too long This is true! The Federal Reserve, since the Carter administration, has acted like even the slightest bit of inflation is impending doom.

Feds tried to induce inflation for the last 20 years, it’s good for them since they can just print more money. They largely failed to do so since dollar is so well propped by international demand.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#158
post #136
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you think the employers get the money from?

Customers?

That's the point. Absent any competition (which there won't be, because everyone is subject to the same minimum wage), the cost is fully passed on to the customers (ie. "everyone else"). Therefore your conclusion is incorrect.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm speaking for me and those I know. My response was to GP saying everyone is happy. I am not. Also, I'm not talking about the people who need support, I'm talking about the people taking advantage and staying on unemployment because they don't want to work.

I may be missing what you mean by "taking advantage" but isn't that the point? Like taking advantage of a life raft after going overboard. If someone chooses to not be employed and it brings them basic needs and recuperation, then I see the system working well.

You shouldn't be able to "choose to not be employed", someone else is picking up the slack for you and you are taking away benefits that could be used on someone that NEEDS it (disability, elderly, etc.)

When others see that you can just give up and get paid, they will also become burnouts.

Eventually you will run out of other people's money.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#160
post #158
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers?

That's the point. Absent any competition (which there won't be, because everyone is subject to the same minimum wage), the cost is fully passed on to the customers (ie. "everyone else"). Therefore your conclusion is incorrect.

How is that the point? The studies I've seen tend to say that minimum wage hikes tend to come from profits.

E.g.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/203233/1/1667730924....

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