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

#211

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #200

Ericson2314 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. And slave overseers are not plantation owners. We have this bipartisan love affair with small business, and the fact is many of them are unproductive institutions abusing tons of poor immigrants to stay afloat. They also provide ideological cover for the more labor-intensive actual big corps. It's about time the rose-collard glasses came off.

> " rose-collard glasses " glasses made of red cabbage? :) (Rose-coloured, looking through them makes everything look rosy (cheerful, promising, pleasant))

Ooops, I guess my stomach was typing. Better go eat some veggies.

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

#212

Post by MattGaiser » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

docflabby wrote: post #124

The real problem is inflation and excessive rent seeking. Rents are currently at the highest level on record in the US. Hard to get someone to take a job that won't even pay the rent. The wealth trickle up has changed into a torrent since covid, something is going to break.

Rents are that high as people are willing to pay extra for residential space. I had colleagues go from studio apartments to single family homes during the pandemic.

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

#213

Post by neltnerb » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

jzb wrote: post #155

gruez wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you also need to factor in the demand curve. Raising the price by 25% also means there will be less customers, which means your fixed costs (eg. rent, equipment) go up for each unit of good sold.

Maybe? Maybe not. I'm not certain that restaurant owners know to the penny what people will or won't pay for this or that on a menu. It depends a lot on how cost conscious the customers are and other factors. Try bumping up the wages and advertising the fact that you do pay a living wage, that might have some impact. My fiance and I try to choose restaurants that are locally owned and are known to treat staff well. (…

I think that most small restaurants tend to undervalue their food and service. Part of it is people's expectations, but even beyond that I believe they are so worried about going out of business that they try to run on the thinnest margins possible rather than raising prices by 50 cents and having some room for error.

There's also a lot of... this is how much it costs for me to make, so I should charge a little bit more. Where I think it should be... this is how much it would cost my customers to make in groceries and time.

When I eat out I almost only get food that is too inconvenient to make at home. I don't get spaghetti at the Italian restaurant, I get lasagna or stuffed shells or something that would take me hours of work at home. Yet, for a restaurant these are fairly easy items to cook because the time is less of a problem and are in many ways simpler for them to prepare because they are cooked ahead of time and reheated when ordered.

So for the restaurant, it makes sense to price a big plate of lasagna the same or lower than a plate of pasta they have to do more work on to serve. But to me the lasagna is worth more because it would take me at least 2-3 hours to make. So the restaurant sees it as a cheap thing while I see it as a valuable thing.

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

#214

Post by tchaffee » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

b3morales wrote: post #130

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…

> Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary) Tips are income already, and are taxed as such. You can get away with not reporting it if it's a few extra bucks from a jar on a counter. But if you're a "tipped employee" (and thus eligible to be paid sub-minimum wage) you report them to your employer, who then reports them to the IRS, and does tax withholding same as for…

That's a naive understanding of what's really happening at most restaurants. Cash tips are almost always significantly under-reported. It's nowhere near as low as "tip jar on the counter" amounts.

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

#215

Post by missedthecue » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

docflabby wrote: post #124

The real problem is inflation and excessive rent seeking. Rents are currently at the highest level on record in the US. Hard to get someone to take a job that won't even pay the rent. The wealth trickle up has changed into a torrent since covid, something is going to break.

What are you saying? That someone would rather earn $0 to pay their rent than earn $15/hr to pay their rent?

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

#216

Post by MattGaiser » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

notanzaiiswear wrote: post #196

I am so tired of this attitude. If you don't like the conditions of a job, don't take it. But don't accuse the person offering the job of greed or whatever. A simple example: suppose you are an old person who has trouble keeping their apartment clean as of late. Say you could offer somebody else 5$ to clean your room, because your pension is so low. By the standards of modern activists, you have now become an evil ex…

The problem is when said person whines that people are too lazy to work for them for that wage.

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

#217

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

belltaco wrote: post #205

smsm42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We're not talking about a multinational chain spanning continents with billions of dollars in revenue, tens of thosands of employees and a NYSE stock ticker - and not just any ticker but a part of S&P 500! Such a corporation has a lot of means to raise salaries a little without going under, they could borrow millions, they could issue stock, they could sell assets (which they have in millions), could restructure business, etc. etc.

We were talking about a single shop owner which usually doesn't measure revenues in billions and runs everything out of his own pocket and bank loans usually backed by the same pocket. If you don't understand the difference, maybe giving advice to businesses shouldn't be your primary pastime.

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

Sure, such a thought would never come to his mind without your help. And surely, a business owner would never know a thing about his own business and his own pricing without you instructing him on it with such a sage advice as "just try it!". Maybe tons of people would line up for $50 tacos and only the stupidity of business owners - which, as one, for some reason, choose to ignore your advice to just try it, which would make them billionaires - prevent it from happening. Seriously. How much disdain one must have for people actually living the thing...

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

#218

Post by bsagdiyev » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:31 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…

Christ, people here and their taller than standard horses. My girlfriends dad owns a pizza place and walked away with $5k last year, after paying rent, supply and wages. Where do they magically pull this money from? They aren’t evil banker types with bags marked “$$$” full of money like people here seem to think and it is disgusting they’re considered cheap instead of just “people will absolutely not pay the increase in price” to pay for these wage increases. This man is one of the most hardworking and honest people I’ve met, as opposed to the people I meet working in tech.

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

#219

Post by notanzaiiswear » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #216

notanzaiiswear wrote: post #196

I am so tired of this attitude. If you don't like the conditions of a job, don't take it. But don't accuse the person offering the job of greed or whatever. A simple example: suppose you are an old person who has trouble keeping their apartment clean as of late. Say you could offer somebody else 5$ to clean your room, because your pension is so low. By the standards of modern activists, you have now become an evil ex…

The problem is when said person whines that people are too lazy to work for them for that wage.

Obviously for that kind of person it would be a problem if nobody wants to work for that wage. He has to live with his unclean apartment.

In any case, here we have an article whining about unfair employers. Are there really that many articles whining about lazy workers?

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

#220

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

gpsx wrote: post #206

smsm42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Equilibrium is a theoretical construct. Life is dynamic, there's never anything fixed, there's always disruption and change. The theory needs artificial constructs to be workable - and some models get close enough to reality to be usable and give useful predictions and tools - but the life would always be more complex.