Labor shortage or terrible jobs? • Hacker News Board

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#191

Post by gruez » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #184

gruez wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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

That's not how accounting works. If you got a FAANG job that paid $300k/year, then proceeded to blow $60k on a tesla, your net pay for the job isn't $240k.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#192

Post by jpindar » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #77

mc32 wrote: 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.

I'm a brit so I'm far from an expert but I though you kept the US covid payouts whether you worked or not? (unless you earn something like 400k a year)? Sorry if I'm missing your point...

The three individual "stimulus checks" went to everyone whether they worked or not.

But in addition, unemployed people have been getting unprecedented amounts of weekly Unemployment Insurance payments. In normal times, you can only get these for a few months while proving that you are actively looking for work. During the pandemic, these have been extended and greatly increased, and the government has mostly stopped checking whether people were really looking for work. The normal rules are going to go back into effect soon, though.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#193

Post by gruez » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #186

gruez wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Are you talking about how profits shouldn't exist because of competition?

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#194

Post by danaris » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

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.

They're not "sunk costs", they're "basic necessities". They have to be paid for every month (or whatever period), so if a job doesn't provide enough money to pay for them, it is not paying a living wage.

You can't just say "they need those to live" as if that absolves you of explaining how to pay for the things they need to live.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#195

Post by intergalplan » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #151

intergalplan wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Ah, OK—if so then the total share of all household income from all government sources must be well over 50% right now, no? Wages, pensions, (including military, in both cases, and state and local government) Social Security, et c.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#196

Post by inetknght » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #191

inetknght wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>...unless you're not paying for those because you literally don't have any money. That's not how accounting works. If you got a FAANG job that paid $300k/year, then proceeded to blow $60k on a tesla, your net pay for the job isn't $240k.

Right, but at that minimum wage job you're not going to blow that $60k on a Tesla. You're not even going to blow $10 to go look at a Tesla. You're going to blow $2k on a root canal because your food is crap and your medical coverage is worse.

Also, that $60k on a Tesla for the FAANG worker amounts to a small percent of the worker's disposable income. But that $2k amounts to over 100% of the minimum wage worker's disposable income.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#197

Post by gruez » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #190

gruez wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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

Food isn't optional. Getting a job that pays you money which you spend on food doesn't magically make the cost of food a cost of getting the job.

>You're saying that minimum wage is a livable wage which is a demonstrably false statement

I made no such statement. Please point out where you think I made that statement.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#198

Post by majoram » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #189

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 E…

Thanks man, you really understand. Good post.

It's sad to say, but the pandemic was lifechanging for me. With the unemployment benefits I received, I was able to save up some money and had time for myself to start thinking about what I needed to do before the money disappeared into rent. I applied for the local community college and trying to get financial aid here in California, and if it works out, I'll "only" pay like $3.5k for each of the two years. If they don't give me financial aid, it's time to give up lol. I wouldn't have been able to afford even entertaining this idea before, because all the money disappears into living expenses. The pandemic saved me...the only way for someone like me to get a higher education, is for a global pandemic to happen at 24 years old haha.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#199

Post by minimuffins » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #63

claudiulodro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it because the high-schoolers who would normally do that aren't looking for jobs due to pandemic? The concept that entry-level food service is mostly staffed by high-schoolers who don't really "need" the money is the weirdest trope. Basically every restaurant is open during school hours. Who is handling the lunch rush?

Almost as if the trope were a pretext for why it's ok to pay shit wages.

When an objectively flimsy discourse like that circulates widely you have to ask yourself what its actual function is. Its apparent function of describing the world accurately is not being fulfilled, but the discourse persists, so what is its less apparent function (and you got it: it's to naturalize exploitation)?

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#200

Post by jfengel » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #107

jolux wrote: 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.

Remarkably, since the tail end of the Bush administration, it's the opposite: the Fed has desperately tried to get inflation up to its 2% target level, and mostly missing.

The reasons are debatable, but I'd argue that it's mostly because the mechanisms they're using end up inflating the stock market instead of consumer goods.

There are economists terrified of any inflation, but it's an attitude that's more popular with some ideologues than with mainstream economists. You hear a lot about them on TV and the Internet, but not nearly as much in real economics talks. Those ideologues punch above their weight in Congress, but not at the Fed.

The Fed governors aim for a small, controlled level of inflation. Mostly that's to prevent people from just sitting on their money: money stuffed into a mattress doesn't grow the economy. Money in bank accounts isn't much better, since they can be withdrawn at any time. So a little inflation nudges people to either spend their money or invest it. Such is the theory.