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MIT Living Wage Calculator

livingwage.mit.edu

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Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#261

Post by harshalizee »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #254
harshalizee wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when private industry colludes to decide what "market" wages are? This has literally happened even in Big Tech, leading to lawsuits within the last decade. If a business can't pay a person working full time to satisfy their basic needs, their business model is not viable. If they can and don't pay so, it's plain exploitation. Ex. Walmart employees can't support themselves and rely on social services desp…

Do you feel the same way about all of the companies that are not profitable and only are in business because they have a website with “.ai” and they can get funding from YC? While the first generation American has to scrounge up for a franchise that only nets $70K a year?

That's comparing Apples to tortoises. If an investor wants to invest/gamble on a startup, it's their prerogative. Same as if Bob's uncle wants to give him a small loan to buy into a franchise. I still expect both of them to pay rightful living wages to their employees. Owner's business problems are not the employees problem

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#262

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

NewJazz wrote: post #40
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #15

There is something wrong with the transportation cost. I live in a poor rural county, and it says the 0-child transportation cost is $10k+. People's trucks here don't even cost that much, and they don't drive far. I see it counts as 2 working adults, but it's still grossly inflated.

Are you factoring in fuel, repairs, maintenance, registration/taxes, and insurance? As well as depreciation?

I think I underestimated the fuel cost, that seems to be the bulk of it. The rest is nothing; two or three oil changes, some other basic maintenance you can DIY, or more serious maintenance you get the neighbor to help out with, and insurance is cheap on old clunkers.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#263

Post by bumby »

SideQuark wrote: post #243
bumby wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue is those smaller cities don’t offer a large supply of job opportunities. So people are often not able to pick and choose their location.

Plenty of cities outside the top 100 have massive amounts of jobs. And the person I replied to specifically stated willing to vary location as an option.

Fair enough, but I think we’re talking different scale. Top 100 cities is still a population of >200k. I was thinking of the small dying rust-belt type of <10k or so

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#264

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #260
cam_l wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is it the responsibility of private industry to support a “living wage?” Because if they don't, they are externalising the true costs of labour to the government, or the community. Which is fine, by the way, but they cannot then turn around and oppose the cost of taxation needed for gov programs which support people who aren't receiving that living wage. Nor, and worse still, oppose a living wage and then force…

The "true cost of labor" is set by the market. The cost to society of a person who can't find work because viable work opportunities have been destroyed by overregulation is unambiguously higher than that of the same person being gainfully employed, even for a "non-living" wage - because in the latter case it's easy for government to make up the difference in a way that's fair to everyone, whereas paying their full l…

Please don’t say you actually believe the talking point that if it weren’t for regulation factory jobs would come back or do you believe on the high end that tech companies are laying people off because of regulation?

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#265

Post by bumby »

BizarroLand wrote: post #239
bumby wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not against that idea but there are some knock-on effects we should be careful of. For example, it will make it hard for younger people to get a job. If I have to pay a teenager the same as someone with a decade or more of work experience, that teenager probably won’t get a job. With a lot of these discussions, we need to be careful about the seductively simple solutions.

If the minimum was the actual minimum, then why would the person with a decade of experience ever work for it?

Because sometimes people have other goals or are just not an industrious personality.

I remember a radio interview with a fast food worker who’s response was basically “I like my job and don’t want to do something else, but I just want it to be a higher wage”

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#266

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

harshalizee wrote: post #261
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel the same way about all of the companies that are not profitable and only are in business because they have a website with “.ai” and they can get funding from YC? While the first generation American has to scrounge up for a franchise that only nets $70K a year?

That's comparing Apples to tortoises. If an investor wants to invest/gamble on a startup, it's their prerogative. Same as if Bob's uncle wants to give him a small loan to buy into a franchise. I still expect both of them to pay rightful living wages to their employees. Owner's business problems are not the employees problem

No it’s the same thing, no one is going to invest in a company losing millions a year to start a McDonalds franchise - certainly not YC.

Bobs uncle doesn’t have the kind of money that YC has. It’s the ultimate hypocrisy and “let them eat cake” kind of talk.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#267

Post by bumby »

hackable_sand wrote: post #190
bumby wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The larger point I’m making is the “living wage” may be built on an idea that the assumed consumerist norm is ideal.

Like food and shelter?

I would add healthcare to that. But I wouldn’t add things like the typical transportation costs like those in the study that are derived from consumer surveys. And from my personal anecdotal experience, the food costs mentioned seem high, so they might be more consumerist than you let on.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#268

Post by bumby »

lp4v4n wrote: post #219
jandrewrogers wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I can easily eat for $12/day even in Seattle. There are days when I probably spend half of that. We aren't talking beans and rice here, these are diverse satisfying meals. It does require you to cook though.

I don't doubt you can eat three meals with 6 dollars, but it's crazy how solipsistic people are when it comes to food. Not everybody can buy food in bulk and cook at home. A 10 oz ham sandwich will probably cost you more than 2 dollars even if you buy everything at the supermarket. I don't know why people are so reluctant to admit that 12 dollars a day is not much for groceries.

A ham sandwich is probably one of the poorest examples for this point. Ham has a fairly long shelf life, comes pre-cooked, and is exceedingly cheap as far as meat goes if you buy it on the bone when it’s available. Especially if you are willing to bake your own bread (I often see bread machines in many thrift stores), a ham and cheese sandwich is closer to $1 than $2.

1/5 lb of ham @$2.5lb is $0.50. A slice of cheese @ $2.50/lb is about $0.20. Two slices of homemade bread is about $0.20. I don’t know how much you’d add for vegetables or condiments but it ain’t much.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#269

Post by NewJazz »

mhb wrote: post #191
NewJazz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So has the US, difference is the US citizens don't get anything good out of their debt.

> US citizens don't get anything good out of their debt Partly because they're paying for drug innovation and defense for other countries.

Nobody asked them to do that lol. Keep coping.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#270

Post by OneMorePerson »

burkaman wrote: post #20
renewiltord wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, oil nations are different. Norway's resources are well-managed, but oil nations with outsourced defence just have different constraints.

Every single nation on Earth has mandatory paid vacation, except for the United States and three tiny islands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... . Edit: And looking into it a little, I'm pretty sure two of those islands actually do have mandatory paid leave after a minimum period of employment.

This is a case of a list of facts that are pretty meaningless.

For most countries they say you get leave, but it doesn't count for part time workers, or contractors obviously, or people like farmers who are outside the typical work system. Further in reality enforcement is incredibly spotty, some countries have a history of making laws without any intention of enforcement just for show.

Most every white collar job in the US that I've ever heard of has ~2+ weeks vacation per year, it's necessary to get any employees so there's no need to make a law about it.

Meanwhile certain countries on that list work 6-7 days a week, so the 5-10 mandated days off really aren't what they seem.

It's incredibly obvious that places like the EU handle vacation stuff way better than the US and it's well known around the world for that, but pretending that the US has the worst working conditions is insulting to places where people are putting up with way worse conditions.

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