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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#181

Post by AlexandrB »

throwaway292893 wrote: post #159
scollet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wish this logic was more frequently applied to large corporations and their externalities or to the military. How much money was flushed down the drain to develop dubious weapon systems like the F-35 or to clean up messes like Deepwater Horizon. Yet when we give ordinary people some money suddenly it's a moral failing on their part and we're "picking up the slack".

Here's an idea: next time there's an oil spill, lets take the money for cleanup out of the executives' bank accounts (and investments, and properties) before we dig into the public coffers. Then we can talk about freeloaders at the bottom.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#182

Post by toast0 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #43

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…

Tying healthcare insurance to employment isn't really the direction we want to be going.

When the individual market was terrible, it made sense to push employers to buy it for their workers, because you got better coverage for less money that way.

Now the state marketplaces are at least mediocre; coverage and costs are similar to what you might get as a small or mid sized employer. We should be pushing people towards marketplace plans, and not trying to continue the employer plan model.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#183

Post by metalforever »

lacker wrote: post #32

Personally, the pandemic has taught me how little I really need physical stores. Only a few items, like bicycles, shoes, and backpacking backpacks, do I really prefer buying them in a physical store. So for me at least, it would be okay if all these retail jobs went away, and all these retail stores just went out of business, and you just bought everything online. It seems like it could really be a disaster for peopl…

I feel the opposite, that people try to rip me off online with nice-looking but ultimately non-durable or non-functional products.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#184

Post by inetknght »

gruez wrote: post #179
colpabar wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, it's not $50 per day, because you're probably paying income tax. But let's assume it is. Second, it's not really "per day", that's an average. Most bills recur monthly. Assuming a month of four weeks, and working 5 days per week, that's 20 * $50 = $1000 per month. Doesn't that seem like an extremely low number to pay for rent, transportation, food, health care, kids, utilities, etc? I pay more for that in…

>seem like an extremely low number to pay for rent, transportation, food, health care, kids, utilities, etc? everything in that list except for transportation are sunk costs. In other words, you're paying for those regardless of whether you have the job or not.

> you're paying for those regardless of whether you have the job or not.

...unless you're not paying for those because you literally don't have any money.

So yeah, food is a sunk cost, sure. But that sinking will kill you without a job.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#185

Post by gruez »

inetknght wrote: post #164
gruez wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've long felt that many jobs paid unsustainably low wages. Can you elaborate on this? $7.25 * 8 hours = $58. It's hard to imagine expenses adding up anywhere close to $58/day, especially if you factor in that in high cost of living areas the minimum wage is also higher than $7.25.

> Can you elaborate on this? $7.25 8 hours = $58. It's hard to imagine expenses adding up anywhere close to $58/day, especially if you factor in that in high cost of living areas the minimum wage is also higher than $7.25.* Wow can you be any more out of touch? Your comment is offensively innaccurate. $58/day = $1740 for 30 days Unhealthy cheap carbs for a single person... $200/month (chicken, beans, rice, milk, chee…

>Unhealthy cheap carbs for a single person... $200/month (chicken, beans, rice, milk, cheese, bread)

>Shitphone with basically no internet for a single person... $40/month (who needs internet anyway)

>Health insurance because you have two or three shit part-time jobs: $400/mo

>Rent for a single person... $1400/month far (+fuel)

These are all sunk costs. You need them regardless of whether you have a job or not. You seem to be talking about your general finances (ie. your expenses > your income), whereas I interpreted mywittyname's comment as saying that the job itself is a net loss (ie. your cost of getting the job > your income from job).

>Wow can you be any more out of touch? Your comment is offensively innaccurate.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#186

Post by pydry »

gruez wrote: post #174
pydry wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

In the short term or long term? I skimmed the study and it looks like they only looked at two years? In the short term I can see it happening due to psychological effects like price stickiness, but I'm skeptical that in the long term the trend would hold. As evidence to the contrary: >Ashenfelter says the evidence from increased food prices suggests that basically all of the "increase of labor costs gets passed right…

>In the short term or long term?

Wasnt transfer from profits supposed to be impossible in both cases because of competition?

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#187

Post by luckylion »

petre wrote: post #60
gonational wrote: post #22

Timeline of Stupidity A: "we should give everyone free money!" B: "no, that'll make everyone lazy..." A: "no, people will work on things they love instead!" [everyone gets free money] [nobody works, everyone plays video games all day] A: "see, this proves that everyone was being exploited!" B: [smh] Plato's Five Regimes. We're entering the fourth regime.

Video games are considered e-sports in South Korea and some people do get paid to play them. Imagine a full stadium with a few guys playing games and the audience watching them on big screens.

They don't "play games" in any common meaning of the term though. It's not entertainment, it's work. It's not intended to pass the time, they train long hours to get better. Very, very, very few people do that, because it's not fun, it's work.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#189

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Occasionally, Twitter provides some nice insights in digestible forms (of course, nuance gets stripped). I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%." Paraphrased. I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering…

To me, no education, no experience jobs are the norm.

Does that restaurant pay incoming career food service staff a wage sufficient to raise a family on?

A solid third of the households in the US take in under 50k/yr. More than half that are under 25k. I don't know about you, but 37k doesn't go far.

Assuming 30% effective tax rate that's 2158/mo.

1 bed flat in my city $1400

Cell phone bill: $100

Home internet: $100

Electricity: $50

Heating: $50

Healthcare: $230* assuming 50% sponsored

Car payment: $400

Insurance: $130

Without including food, dental insurance, deductible, OOP limits, retirement contributions, emergency savings, and anything at all for pleasure I've exceeded my budget. So, please, tell me more about how that's a good wage. How can someone go about improving ones position in life if they're kicked into a world that they'll never be able to afford? Should I go to college as an adult and get into eye watering levels of debt that'll follow me out of bankruptcy to keep bussing tables, like all the people that do just that? How can I juggle my full time job, side hustles at uber and lift (to keep the lights on), and a full course load? There are structural problems in society that no amount of blaming poor peoples bad decisions can wave away. Simple fact is some people with very large waists are going to have to tighten their belts so the millions of Americans whose only mistake was being born poor can have half of a fair chance at success and lead a modest yet dignified existence. There's no incentive for any halfway intelligent poor person to go to college unless they're a glutton for punishment, have a strong $upport network, and massive appetite for risk.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#190

Post by inetknght »

gruez wrote: post #185
inetknght wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you elaborate on this? $7.25 8 hours = $58. It's hard to imagine expenses adding up anywhere close to $58/day, especially if you factor in that in high cost of living areas the minimum wage is also higher than $7.25.* Wow can you be any more out of touch? Your comment is offensively innaccurate. $58/day = $1740 for 30 days Unhealthy cheap carbs for a single person... $200/month (chicken, beans, rice, milk, chee…

>Unhealthy cheap carbs for a single person... $200/month (chicken, beans, rice, milk, cheese, bread) >Shitphone with basically no internet for a single person... $40/month (who needs internet anyway) >Health insurance because you have two or three shit part-time jobs: $400/mo >Rent for a single person... $1400/month far (+fuel) These are all sunk costs. You need them regardless of whether you have a job or not. You s…

> These are all sunk costs. You need them regardless of whether you have a job or not

They're not sunk costs if you literally don't have money to pay for them.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Your argument wasn't in good faith. You're saying that minimum wage is a livable wage which is a demonstrably false statement. Then you're also claiming that the cost of living is a sunk cost.

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