Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by drb91 » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #97

Egidius wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pay your employees $7.25 you deserve to be made fun off at least. Jeff Bezos recently also said Amazon deserved being scrutinised. I'm not saying this is what triggered them, but sometimes you have to take a strong position in order to be listened to.

It hasn't crossed a threshold into being a big deal, but singling out an individual does look like bullying and bullying isn't funny. Jeff Bezos has to respect the law or face a series of consequences up to imprisonment. We all know he is going to respect the law like we all do. It is mean spirited to write a (potential) law that disrespects him directly. He can't really respond to that. Sanders should have stuck to…

I hear that hit job of a book A Christmas Carol did unreparable damage to Mr. Scrooge’s reputation. A damn shame.

Mocking rich people for how they spend their money is a pleasant past time for humanity, not anything deplorable.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by Someguywhatever » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

smrtinsert wrote: post #111

chrisseaton wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I've got no sense of humour, but I think that's unprofessional and something like bullying, rather than funny. Legislation should surely not target one individual by name like that?

We don't want to offend one of handful of people that control the vast majority of wealth in the US. That would be so counter to a democracy?

I don't think the poster you're replying to had that in mind. I think it was more a case of 'you catch more bees with honey' rather than draw the guy's ire unnecessarily, just make a law that does X to help people rather than call it the "F* BEZOS law that also helps people".

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by cptskippy » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #165

ajross wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'll get to look progressive for adopting this wage early, while mitigating their competitive disadvantage by forcing every other company to raise their wages too eventually. That's deeply cynical. In the process, they're actually paying real people more money. Which is sort of critically important if you care about this issue and not just taking pot shots at Amazon on HN.

If you critically care about this issue, the extent of which this is labor-driven vs PR-driven is crucial to the war in which $15/hour is just the first battle.

In the absence of a monopoly, those drivers are codependent.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by lgeorget » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #266

lgeorget wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $15 an hour will push a lot of people out of being employable. On the other hand, isn't it illogical in a free market economy that wages do not increase at a rate at least equal to the inflation? How do you keep the economy running if people have less and less purchase power as time goes by? (These are genuine questions, I'm not an economist at all.)

I think the answer is that full employment is increasingly not necessary to keep the economy running in this increasingly automated economy.

But how come low wages do not impact negatively the domestic consumption, which is an important part of the GDP?

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by ttoinou » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

czep wrote: post #238

ttoinou wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no definition of "minimum", "basic living", "safe conditions", "fair hours" etc. Fair hours used to be 10 hours a day 6 days / week. Living used to be able to survive a famine. Safe conditions used to be hunting for animals. All it matters is people interacting voluntarily, that's the only argument against minimum wage. But it is disingenuous to suggest that just because there are people who would take such…

> All it matters is people interacting voluntarily My point is that it is most certainly not voluntary. There are people in the world who are not as lucky or intelligent or resourceful as you, me, and most others on HN. Try to empathize and put yourself in the shoes of the disadvantaged, they do not know the world as we do, they cannot shop around for high paying jobs, and if they miss a paycheck, they may very well…

Putting myself in their shoes is exactly why I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. What paycheck would they risk loosing if they can't find a job anyway ? Minimum wage exclude and marginalize poor people

Asymmetry and inequalities are everywhere. I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mine

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by pkulak » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

L_Rahman wrote: post #274

pkulak wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, does the top comment always have to be cynical? This is exactly what everyone wanted Amazon to do. Maybe it's time to suck it up and give praise where praise is due? There are also benefits to paying more salary than your competitors (no hiring shortages, best employees, low turnover, etc), so I'm not going to blindly accept that it's now in Amazon's interest to drag the rest of the industry along with them. But…

When the topic in question is how one of the most powerful companies on Earth chooses to use its power we should strive to always be this cynical. Skepticism of concentrated power is the ur-American political belief. We seem to have forgotten that lately.

If you're willing to shame a company for behavior you don't like, I think you should be prepared to give praise when they do exactly what you just asked for. When you constantly move the goal posts just so that you never have to abandon your righteous anger for even one day, what kind of incentive does that give companies to change their behavior?

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:36 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #172

rc_mob wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like good problem to have. Companies can pick from a larger pool and find better workers.

Well, I guess that's one way to put a positive spin on unemployment.

It's putting a positive spin on paying people a living wage. Unemployment goes up, support the unemployed with safety nets and raising taxes.

The problem is not the cost; the money exists in the economic system, clearly. It's simply an allocation issue.

But pessimists can keep carrying on with "the sky is falling" while progressive economic policies continue to march forward, bringing the US to parity with the living standards of other first world countries.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

calvinbhai wrote: post #182

mlevental wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>$15/hour is still not much in the international market where Amazon sells its goods. In large parts of Europe it's less than what a warehouse worker makes. i don't understand this comment. while i'm all for warehouse workers getting a fair wage i don't understand the point of comparing a us wage, being paid in the us, to us workers, to foreign workers in foreign economies? yes USD 15 is not enough to survive in Oslo…

+1 And I'm not sure about the actual numbers, but something like $30K per year basically puts one in a top 10% of the world, and more than $50K, you are already in the 1% of the world, by income. (not sure if that factors in cost of living).

You can't just ignore cost of living disparity though. $30K per year is a huge amount of money in some parts of the world -- that's enough to live very well, maybe support multiple wives if the culture allows it. But in San Francisco, that income level for a family puts you below the poverty line and you will struggle to afford housing.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by codedokode » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #84

czep wrote: post #47

Opponents of the minimum wage argue that it reduces employment by creating an artificial floor on wages, that jobs are lost because employers can't afford to pay the minimum. But if you can't pay the minimum, then you didn't really have a job to offer in the first place! By extension of this logic, employers could argue that they are losing jobs because they can only afford to pay someone who will work 12 hours a day…

> If you can't pay a basic living wage, for fair hours, in safe conditions, with necessary medical benefits, then you don't have a job to offer. Why not let the employees decide if the job is worth taking? If there exists people willing to voluntarily take a job given its wage/conditions, you have a job to offer.

This will lead to worsening conditions. For example, a person who lives with parents and doesn't pay any rent can work for significantly lower salary than the one who lives alone. For him even $1/hour is better than getting $0 sitting at home. Or immigrants who live 8 people in a room will be happy to work for a lower pay. The number of available jobs is limited. So people with higher demands, especially people with kids, will have a tough choice: either stay unemployed or live 8 people in a room too.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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Post by josefresco » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #17

>In addition, the company also pledges its public policy team will lobby for an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 — it doesn’t identify a specific wage that it’s targeting, but instead says, “We believe $7.25 is too low. We would look to Congress to decide the parameters of a new, higher federal minimum wage.” I'm going to take a wild guess and assume it will be $15/hour. That way they'll get to look pr…

Similarly, my kids don't get credit for "doing the right thing" only when I'm about to storm into the room to lecture them on whatever they were doing wrong.