It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#201

Post by zozbot234 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

angelzen wrote: post #187

Daishiman wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dirty open secret about development is that in highly developed countries with low inequality, human labor is just horrendously expensive, and since dining out has costs dominated by human labor, even relatively wealthy people dine out rarely. Ask the Swiss or Danes. Cooks can have a living wage, but fancy meals are comparatively much more expensive than their equivalents in the US, given their lack access to und…

Speaking of dirty secrets. There was a time not so long ago when there was not so much demand for dining out. Healthy food was generally prepared at home from fresh raw ingredients. Perhaps there was a small veggie garden in the back yard. There was plenty of time for shopping and cooking, and people didn't have to somehow squeeze these activities between the long commute back home from the second job and sleep time,…

> Healthy food was generally prepared at home from fresh raw ingredients. Perhaps there was a small veggie garden in the back yard.

Yup, that's called a subsistence economy. It's a very good thing that we can spend our time doing something better than back-breaking agricultural work and general housekeeping. That's what progress is all about.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#202

Post by notanzaiiswear » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

angelzen wrote: post #6

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #2

It's amazing how business seems to understand the free market when it's selling to customers, but can't seem figure out the free market when it comes to hiring labor.

Business does understand the free market. It is also strongly incentivised to exhibit perpetual exponential growth. Perpetual exponential growth is impossible even on relatively short duration spans (decades), see the parable of the rice and chessboard. Business tries to maintain the illusion of perpetual exponential growth by making cuts everywhere it can: worker compensation and product quality. https://purposefocu…

Why would mom and pop stores depend on perpetual exponential growth? I don't think that reflects reality at all.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#203

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #193

Ericson2314 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trimmers replaced scissors for simple cuts. Horses and barns still exist as a luxury, and that could be the fate of fancy cuts too.

There will always be a demand for grooming by experienced third-party groomers. All we're seeing is a population struggling to accept their dollar is rather suddenly worth much less, there's a significant latency to such things sinking in. It can even be generational, some people never learn. Case in point: When I bought some land in 2018 I paid the asking price, which I thought was perfectly reasonable vs. FMV. When…

> There will always be a demand for grooming by experienced third-party groomers.

Sure, just as is their demand for horses.

> All we're seeing is a population struggling to accept their dollar is rather suddenly worth much less, there's a significant latency to such things sinking in. It can even be generational, some people never learn.

https://twitter.com/JWMason1/status/1426245765437952010 it's far from universal across prices. The fact we where so much about prices and not about wages indicates a big bias in which these yeomen-presenting small businesses control the narrative.

I don't own a car, I don't pay for gas. I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary, even with haircuts. If my haircut price did go up, and the barber's wage did too. I do not resent it.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#204

Post by kodah » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #198

kodah wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why a UBI is good for businesses -- customers have more money in their pockets. I'm a proponent of UBI and I think this claim needs a citation for the level of certainty that you expressed. I have always viewed that UBI will likely be bad for small businesses, but that by the time that we need UBI there won't be many small businesses left. There are two pilots of UBI worth paying attention to: Finland and O…

> Finland proposes paying the unemployed (this differs slightly from unemployment benefits in the US) while Ontario proposes paying anyone below the poverty line. Neither of these is a UBI. Paying only people who are unemployed is in particular quite the opposite of what you want, because it discourages people from taking a job since they'll lose the money. Moreover, you need more of the middle class to be receiving…

> Neither of these is a UBI.

They're considered quasi-UBI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income#Quasi-U...

I do agree there are better implementations to be had, and that the implementation probably makes all the difference in outcomes. That said, I wouldn't say they're expressly not UBI.

I also just learned about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income#Alaska_...

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#205

Post by belltaco » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #52

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

You're presenting it as he has an infinite money supply and just of pure stupidity and greed doesn't want to pay $20 or $50 per hour. Maybe his supply is not unlimited, and maybe nobody would buy a taco for $50 and he knows it, and he made the calculation and decided there's no way to pay all his costs, charge the price that people would be willing to pay, and make a profit. Now, if you know how to do it, there's a b…

>Maybe his supply is not unlimited, and maybe nobody would buy a taco for $50 and he knows it

Not true.

>While Chipotle raised wages from $13 to $15 an hour, or 15.4%, menu prices, on the other hand, were hiked between 3.5% and 4%. Price increases are generally quite small relative to the increase in workers' wages.

>he knows it, and he made the calculation and decided there's no way to pay all his costs, charge the price that people would be willing to pay, and make a profit.

How does he know for certain? He never even tried raising prices.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#206

Post by gpsx » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #52

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

You're presenting it as he has an infinite money supply and just of pure stupidity and greed doesn't want to pay $20 or $50 per hour. Maybe his supply is not unlimited, and maybe nobody would buy a taco for $50 and he knows it, and he made the calculation and decided there's no way to pay all his costs, charge the price that people would be willing to pay, and make a profit. Now, if you know how to do it, there's a b…

This is market forces at work. There is not necessarily someone to blame, generally speaking. I expect we'll see prices going up, wages going up and margins going down. I think that is good since I think we have gone too far in the other direction.

What frustrates me about economics (with my one intro class level experience) is that they could only talk about equilibrium. The dynamics of things changing like this is what would be really interesting.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#207

Post by readflaggedcomm » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #201

angelzen wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of dirty secrets. There was a time not so long ago when there was not so much demand for dining out. Healthy food was generally prepared at home from fresh raw ingredients. Perhaps there was a small veggie garden in the back yard. There was plenty of time for shopping and cooking, and people didn't have to somehow squeeze these activities between the long commute back home from the second job and sleep time,…

> Healthy food was generally prepared at home from fresh raw ingredients. Perhaps there was a small veggie garden in the back yard. Yup, that's called a subsistence economy. It's a very good thing that we can spend our time doing something better than back-breaking agricultural work and general housekeeping. That's what progress is all about.

False dilemma. There is a state of being between subsistence farming and outsourced meals, and it's characterized by frugality and patience.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#208

Post by zozbot234 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:22 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #198

kodah wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why a UBI is good for businesses -- customers have more money in their pockets. I'm a proponent of UBI and I think this claim needs a citation for the level of certainty that you expressed. I have always viewed that UBI will likely be bad for small businesses, but that by the time that we need UBI there won't be many small businesses left. There are two pilots of UBI worth paying attention to: Finland and O…

> Finland proposes paying the unemployed (this differs slightly from unemployment benefits in the US) while Ontario proposes paying anyone below the poverty line. Neither of these is a UBI. Paying only people who are unemployed is in particular quite the opposite of what you want, because it discourages people from taking a job since they'll lose the money. Moreover, you need more of the middle class to be receiving…

It's a lot closer to UBI than existing systems. The Finnish case is an experiment where a random sample of unemployed folks can be paid for some time even after taking a job. It explores the impact of the very incentives you're talking anout.

(And yes, the lower-middle class will probably still be net UBI recipients if only barely, because this helps with smoothing out incentives at the lower end. You don't want to have a sudden benefit cliff, or else a breakeven point that's infeasibly high.)

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#209

Post by gregmac » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

jzb wrote: post #131

dudul wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What would be different for the customer? The tip would just be rolled into the price of the service to amount to the same number, and quality of service would probably go down. Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary). So what would really be the benefit? And I'm not trying to be dismissive at all. Coming from Europe I also thought initially that tipping was…

Have you ever worked a job that depends on tips? Try serving a table of 20 and working your butt off and then getting no tip from the table because they "don't believe in tipping." The correlation between "great service" and getting a good tip is nowhere near a 1:1. It sucks to go to work and not know whether you're going to come home with enough money to pay your bills this week, because you might get lucky or you m…

> Now it's crept up to 15-20% and spread to a lot of jobs that you didn't think of for tips (e.g., somebody handing you a coffee) because wages suck.

A couple days ago I had my oil changed at once of those drive-through places and the payment terminal had a prompt for a tip.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#210

Post by missedthecue » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #55

prepend wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to understand. If your customers won’t buy Mexican food at a high enough price to pay $20/hour, it’s better to close than to stay open and lose money. Labor is the highest cost for a restaurant (higher than rent) so bumping wages from $15 to $20 may not be possible if you can’t also raise prices by 30%. This may be hard to understand for us rich programmers. But it’s quite simple for companies that have rea…

McDonald's pays about 20% in labor costs, and from what I can see other restaurants also average 20-30%. Where are you getting that labor is the highest cost?

Pretty sure he means highest of all fixed costs, not variable costs (COGS).