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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#431

Post by lolbert »

humanrebar wrote: post #338
rbg246 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is saying that these sorts of companies have lots of money. These business have a model that relies on poverty wages changing the minimum wage will disrupt these businesses greatly and I don't see a problem with that. You can't keep a broken thing going because of the businesses that will have to change their model. But sorry I also see your point there needs to be help to business to change thei…

A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". And a business that providing tennagers jobs isn't being exploitive. I do think employers should be conscious about the kinds of lives they set their employees up for, though we can talk about that without overgeneralization.

>without overgeneralization

says they who are overgeneralizing

you assume teenagers are only making pocket money, whereas there are definitely teenagers working so the family can make ends meet

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#432

Post by DavidButter »

enjoyyourlife wrote: post #430
zizee wrote: post #382

Honest question: why do discussions about minimum wage in the U.S. never propose having teenagers having a different minimum to adults? In australia we have a $12.50/hr minimum for 15 year olds. It climbs in increments until about $25/hr. This system allows teenagers to get a foot in the door for low-skilled jobs, and allows adults to get paid a livable wage. The result is that a lot of fast food jobs are performed b…

That incentivizes companies to hire teenagers instead of adults

Could that possibly be a bad sounding thing that turns out to be a good thing? I am not familiar with Australian labor issues.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#433

Post by dstaley »

0x0000000 wrote: post #409
dstaley wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outside of collector/classic car insurance policies or parked insurance, there is not $200 to $300 a year car insurance in the USA. Absolutely beg to differ. I was on a high-deductible, low-benefit plan for a two-year old used economy car in Louisiana with no marks on my driving record for $250/month. The insurance cost was more than the monthly cost of the car. That being said, it was more than the state mandated…

The user you replied to said per year, not per month.

Well that'll teach me to read the comments after a full day of work. Thank you for the correction!

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#434

Post by rbg246 »

kukx wrote: post #406
andrei_says_ wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Maintaining laws which force working employees into poverty in order to support inadequate business models is not the solution. Employees outnumber business owners - more people having spending power is vital for the economy.

Please, define what is a poverty wage, it is important. How much stuff one should afford to avoid being called poor. What is the change of the model in case of the restaurant? I can see only one, automate the jobs away to reduce the costs, namely replace humans with robots. But, if we consider these crappy jobs, what about people that are not qualified/able to do any more advanced jobs? People have vastly different c…

There are definitions and I believe another commenter in this thread has defined it very solidly about poverty.

There will always be service sector jobs, this is the argument luddites were having in 1815 (I don't want to get into this as it is distracting from my main point).

We should be ensuring that anyone putting in 40 hours a week should be able to support a family. The wealth is there to be able to create this society (not saying it's easy not saying there are not problems).

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#435

Post by parineum »

imbnwa wrote: post #72
claudiulodro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it because the high-schoolers who would normally do that aren't looking for jobs due to pandemic? The concept that entry-level food service is mostly staffed by high-schoolers who don't really "need" the money is the weirdest trope. Basically every restaurant is open during school hours. Who is handling the lunch rush?

Yeah, I worked in hospitality my entire 20s in a major American city, only ONCE did I work with an actual HS teenager and that was at a middle-brow Mexican place and his family knew the owners, and he only worked weekends. Great kid though. Also, most places serve alcohol and teens can't serve.

>Also, most places serve alcohol and teens can't serve.

Considering how profitable alcohol is, I wonder if that regulation isn't a major factor in hiring under 21s.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#436

Post by hkarthik »

enjoyyourlife wrote: post #430
zizee wrote: post #382

Honest question: why do discussions about minimum wage in the U.S. never propose having teenagers having a different minimum to adults? In australia we have a $12.50/hr minimum for 15 year olds. It climbs in increments until about $25/hr. This system allows teenagers to get a foot in the door for low-skilled jobs, and allows adults to get paid a livable wage. The result is that a lot of fast food jobs are performed b…

That incentivizes companies to hire teenagers instead of adults

It also incentivizes teenagers to work instead of hang around parking lots being goofballs.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#437

Post by atoav »

syshum wrote: post #414
andrei_says_ wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Maintaining laws which force working employees into poverty in order to support inadequate business models is not the solution. Employees outnumber business owners - more people having spending power is vital for the economy.

>>which force working employees into poverty I think you have a widely unorthodox defination of "force" as no one is forced to take any job at any wage. Force in the equation would come from the government using the threat of government violence to force a wage on a business owner. A person that voluntary accepts a job for X wage is not "forced" to do so.

Yeah but the job market is not a free market, because not getting a job is existential for those seeking the job, while the company can usually just survive when a position is not filled for a certain time.

This means to make this a free market many nations did the reasonable thing and introduced measures like minimum wages and unemployment benefits. This way when you loose your job the balance of power evens out a little and the job market works better for all involved (workers have a highee chance of finding a job they like, companies have a higher chance of getting people that like them, really shitty companies get an incentive to change).

In the US all shitty work places have no incentive at all to change, because everybody and their dog is struggling to make ends meet. That means no matter how slavishly they treat your people, there will always be another person desperate enough to throw themselves into the grinder. Result: No incentive to change for the company and people who feel like society ows them nothing.

I don't think that is recipe for a bright future, but who am I to judge.

So from a systemic perspective minimum wage is like a limit you can set for how desperate you allow people to get. And quite frankly. 15 USD is still less than if you had adjusted the original minimum wage for inflation, so come on.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#438

Post by parineum »

lucian1900 wrote: post #281
motohagiography wrote: post #149

It's like people don't understand how their wages impact the price of the goods they are producing. The problem is domestic producers can't compete against the actual terrible jobs with poverty wages that foreign producers pay. The trade off is binary. Either you put tariffs on cheaper foreign goods and protect your economy from predatory countries, or you tolerate downward wage pressure. There is no middle ground. I…

You’re describing the effects of imperialism on the working class of the imperialist countries, a point we communists make all the time. It absolutely is a left/right thing, it’s just that the imperialist countries have largely managed to exclude politics left of centre.

Would a communist United States not trade with China?

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#439

Post by dogman144 »

atoav wrote: post #423
rbg246 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is saying that these sorts of companies have lots of money. These business have a model that relies on poverty wages changing the minimum wage will disrupt these businesses greatly and I don't see a problem with that. You can't keep a broken thing going because of the businesses that will have to change their model. But sorry I also see your point there needs to be help to business to change thei…

I don't see it. McDonalds pays minimum wages in most european nations, yet their menu isnt that much more expensive than in the US. Maybe they have a slimmer margin over here, but they are still profitable. That implies that the model is (in principle) just alright, but there are financial flows that will have to change in the US. Of course you don't like to pay more for the labor you use to generate profit — ideally…

Well, without knowing how the Corp is setup, that’s a bad example as this could easily exist: an international company can very easily be paying for high wages in one nation (ie loss leading) by low wages in another. Or staying profitable and with open doors. And so on.

Unless you’ve done an FSA class and you can explain me your thinking more, it’s worth appreciating there are a ton of levers that impact Corp finance. Same way you have performance trade offs for one algo vs the other.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#440

Post by sharkjacobs »

bradleyjg wrote: post #405
zizee wrote: post #382

Honest question: why do discussions about minimum wage in the U.S. never propose having teenagers having a different minimum to adults? In australia we have a $12.50/hr minimum for 15 year olds. It climbs in increments until about $25/hr. This system allows teenagers to get a foot in the door for low-skilled jobs, and allows adults to get paid a livable wage. The result is that a lot of fast food jobs are performed b…

One concern is that this makes teenage employees relatively more attractive and so increases the adult unemployment rate above what it would be with a uniform minimum wage.

Is this a big issue in Australia?
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