Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation • Hacker News Board

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#241

Post by refurb » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

moksly wrote: post #113

onion2k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the other side, whenever a member of my team has come to me asking to match an offer I've always refused and wished them well in their new role. If someone is unhappy enough to start job hunting rather than talking to me then it's a clear sign that they'll leave soon regardless of any pay rise. Psychologically, every pay increase makes someone happy for a short time, and then they get used to it and they start t…

I’m not sure why this is getting so much negative attention. I’ve been both in and around high level management in the Danish public sector for decades and I’ve never matched or sparred with another manager who would these sort of things. No one, and I do mean no one, is irreplaceable. Maybe you’ll have to throw away an entire IT system because you’ve lost the know how to keep the business case for the system a net p…

I’m guessing Denmark and the public sector is very different than other countries and industries.

When a key contributor asks for a 20% raise (or say $50,000 more per year) and them leaving put millions of dollars of revenue at risk, or more importantly, reflects poorly on a manager and threatens their advancement (why can’t you keep your team happy?) then the math is actually quite simple.

But in a highly siloed and compartmentalized organization where blame for bad decisions never filters down to the ones making them I could see your point.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#242

Post by solmag » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

dukeofdoom wrote: post #214

natded wrote: post #69

It's time for the butcher's bill over the silly corona restrictions, and none will ever connect the two to together.

Most of the people here are from the professional class. Not real hurt as much by Covid restrictions. Some even benefitted by being able to work from home, they benefitted from election rule changes, from online censorship, and so on. So they don't really understand how much the restrictions are loathed by the working poor, who were already on the brink of bankruptcy pre covid restrictions.

It is very tiresome to witness this time and time again in the inflation discussion.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#243

Post by thow-58d4e8b » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:09 AM UTC

chalst wrote: post #170

snuxoll wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the Fed has no mandate to prop up stocks. Not true in the least anymore - retirement savings for a large percentage of our population are tied up in stocks thanks to the death of the pension. Asset and securities prices as a whole are a large concern for the fed when changing policy, as a result.

The Fed has a dual mandate: price stability and maximal sustainable employment. Nothing about supporting the value of investments. https://www.chicagofed.org/research/dual-mandate/dual-mandat...

FED actually has three mandates, one of them almost never mentioned:

* employment

* price level

* moderate long term interest rates

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#244

Post by erfgh » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

tjpnz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

> If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job. Note that this doesn't always even involve taking it. Go get a job offer that pays better and bring it to your boss. If they want to match it, great. If they don't, bye.

That won't work unless you're a soccer/basketball/whatever star and probably not even then.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#245

Post by systemvoltage » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

bsjks wrote: post #232

systemvoltage wrote: post #210

Just a few months ago you would be flagged on HN for mentioning inflation. Look up any threads on economy from March 2021 for example. I want to know why. Why was the HN diaspora not allowing dissent with the mainstream narrative? Mentioning inflation here was so harshly ridiculed, I was surprised the massive U-turn from the tech community. I saw the entire media changing the tune. That means no one here is thinking…

The only opinions allowed to be had in hn are mainstream opinions and then those that are to the left of the mainstream.

A community that doesn’t allow dissent is dead for me. Respectful dissent is key to functioning society and I think HN reflects larger societal trends.

Time to leave.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#246

Post by chii » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #6

MilnerRoute wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder if the word inflation has two meanings. There's what we typically mean by the word -- a lingering phenomenon which feeds on itself. And then there's the short-term "situational" thing which lasts X number of months. I think part of the problem is we're using the same word to describe two different things... "Russell Price, chief economist at Ameriprise, expects inflation to peak at 7.1% in December…

And then there’s the one where every single asset class is too expensive for workers - but official inflation is sub-2-percent

Asset "inflation" is not considered inflation. Asset prices going out of reach is inequality.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#247

Post by Leherenn » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #53

paxys wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says who? CPI does include housing.

CPI includes housing as "Owners' equivalent rent of primary residence (OER)". If that inspires confidence in anyone, please, I'd like to hear how.

I assume you are complaining about house prices not being directly included in the CPI?

I don't know about the exact methodology, but the concept makes sense to me. "Everyone" is buying food "everyday", so it's sensible to have, say, the price of bread included directly. On the other hand, "no one" is buying houses "everyday"; what people are buying everyday is housing, i.e. how much do you spend to have a roof over your head. This is correlated to house prices, but not that strongly. If you bought your house 30 years ago and the mortgage is paid, it doesn't matter whether houses next to you are suddenly worth 50% more, you're still going to pay the same for housing (except maybe due to taxes). If you're renting, it is going to track house prices, but not perfectly. Apparently, in the SF area, the average rent has actually slightly decreased since 2019, while the average house price has increased.

All of this means that while the average house price might have increased by x%, the average person (as in, if you aggregate those already owning a house, those renting, those buying houses now, ...) is not spending x% more on housing, so it makes sense to use a metric that follows the latter and not the former. Yes, if you're looking at buying a house, it means CPI is not very accurate for you, but then a single number is never going to perfectly fit everyone.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#248

Post by chinathrow » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

> 'Honestly? No'

The 'No' alone would be enough, but the 'Honestly?' would me want to look for other jobs right away.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#249

Post by thow-58d4e8b » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

landemva wrote: post #76

baron816 wrote: post #18

This isn’t exactly great news, but it’s probably not as bad as you think. It means that inflation is a tractable problem. The Fed as a lot of tools at its disposal (first of which is to take its foot off the gas). If we were in a situation where workers were demanding higher wages because they were expecting prices to go up, and businesses were raising prices to pay workers who were demanding higher wages, then we’d…

'The Fed as a lot of tools at its disposal...' Average and poor Americans would be better off with a simple formula to set money expansion. Then fire the private 'Federal Reserve' banksters and let someone else have the contract to clear checks. It is long past time to end the 3rd central bank.

The FED has tools to affect monetary base (physical currency + bank reserves). But inflation is mostly a function of money supply (physical currency + deposits), not monetary base. All tools at FED's disposal are very indirect, leading to frequent "pushing on a string" situations

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#250

Post by Gareth321 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

Real wages have been flat since the 1970s (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...). "Okay, so people's living standards are about the same since 1970?" Not even close. The problem with inflation is that its calculation is fraught with all kinds of selective weighting, bias, and politics. Take a look at the relative differences between the things which have decreased and increased in cost in real terms (https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2017/5/29/saupload_i...). Okay, so TVs and cellphones are cheaper, but necessities like college, childcare, and healthcare are up significantly.

And when you drill in more, there are other issues. For example, the housing metric appears relatively flat in real terms, right? Except, that doesn't tell the story for the majority of Americans. Housing costs are WAY up in cities as Americans migrate to where the jobs are, while housing costs are down in all the areas where jobs are disappearing. In practise, housing costs are actually significantly up for most Americans, but because the CPI is calculated across the entire nation, the government can claim inflation is low. This allow them to keep the fed rate low, which keeps stock valuations high. This LOOKS great and generates great headlines, but the reality is that most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s.

And then we come to the other elephant in the room: why are real wages flat? Given the incredible performance of the American economy since 1970, shouldn't real wages be significantly UP? This is yet another reminder that wealth is being squeezed from the bottom and funnelled straight up. As a non-American, it's heartbreaking to see efforts to unify the underclass completely derailed by this ridiculous race war. Poor people in America have FAR more in common with each other than the rich, no matter race. I really hope you all manage to set aside the obvious red herring of race and unite in tackling your staggering wealth inequality.