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

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#451

Post by markvdb » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

dan-robertson wrote: post #337

efaref wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet connections cost poor people nothing in 1970 because they weren't necessary and could happily live their lives without one. The real item we're looking at here is *communication*, which was cheap: the stamp you needed to send in the form for your taxes cost a few cents. You could get away with using payphones for the few phone calls you absolutely needed to make. In 2021, internet connections and cellphones…

An internet connected smartphone is not equivalent to the postal service (plus a pay phone or landline I guess). It may be that you use a computer or something else for the things that most people use smartphones for, wand so don’t realise how much they cover. You also didn’t mention having to go to the library (distance + fuel/car/travel costs + more time) for information, finding jobs from newspaper advertisements…

Poverty is not just about absolute purchasing power adjusted for location and time. There is also very much an unspoken social context, sometimes even codified into law.

In 1970, obviously nobody expected you to own a smartphone because it didn't exist. Noone had access to such a thing. Not so in 2021 western Europe. The example very much holds in that sense. You could fully participate in society without that expense.

I'm not speaking of keeping up with the Joneses here. I'm speaking of pervasive implicitly embedded demands on people's lifestyles.

What do you think about the effects of the way housing insulation requirements are often written?

What do you think happens when you invite someone to a party at your place in the countryside that is only reasonably reachable by car?

One of the best ways to get a feel for this kind of thing is to go live in an area with significantly lower median purchasing power for some time, a place where the average trustworthy hard-working person has difficulties making ends meet. I've done so. Even if I lived a lifestyle of relative luxury myself, it helped widen my perspective. I can absolutely recommend the experience!

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#452

Post by kukallan » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:52 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #378

kukallan wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for the whole of Europe and I might be a sheep - but at least in Scandinavia, these far right parties are more of a symptom of the mainstream parties refusal to talk about problems related to immigration combined with US cultural influence. Sweden is no.1 in Europe when it comes to gun violence right now and only last year non-right political parties started discussing current crime waves link to integr…

Hard on crime and hard on immigration IS the far right. Sure, if the old parties had veered far-right, new far-right parties wouldn't have shown up. The problem are not the parties, the problem are the policies. Kicking immigrants out or licking them up will not improve the life of the local lower class, despite all the promises. It may improve the life of the rich, who won't have to fear bring mugged. But the reason…

I fully agree. I don't agree with far right policies either and the situation in Sweden breaks my heart. But I'm not surprised that the far right is getting traction in a climate where other parties have been ignoring the problems for so long, and I don't think "efforts to unify the underclass completely derailed by this ridiculous race war" applies to the political climate and right wing parties in Sweden or Scandinavia as a whole as of right now.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#453

Post by throwaway6734 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

throwawaycities wrote: post #309

dan-robertson wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. There are many pitfalls with measuring long-term inflation. How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? These modern technologies make peoples lives much better and were somewhere between impossible and impossibly…

> I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. The answer to the question of “are we better of than we were in 19xx” is somewhat subjective. Take your points: cars are faster/safer/more comfortable/more fuel efficient and houses are bigger and better. Ok so cars and houses are better today than 1970, but how does that relate to us? 1970 Average salary/median house cost/median…

Isn't it possible that the average salary is skewers due to more women entering the work force today than in the past?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#454

Post by cabraca » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

moonchrome wrote: post #415

cabraca wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not only about food, shelter and entertainment, its about perspective. if you have to slave away for another 40 years, living paycheck to paycheck, can barely afford a family, a revolution in whatever form it comes might sound good. Check out the Strike at Kellogs, 80h/week, 16h Shifts for barely any money and the Company just wants to fire the striking employees. You can only press so much productivity out of pe…

> if you have to slave away Yeah this is the reality disconnect, if you call modern work slaving away you're probably not the kind of person that's going to join a violent revolt, it's easy to write that shit on forums.

If you call "80h weeks at Kellogs" not slaving away i dont know what is...

If you call "Amazon workers not being allowed to leave or shelter when there is a tornado warning" not slaving away i dont know what is...

What about all those "Gig Economy" Workers that get paid the bare minimum without benefits?

You might not see it from your cozy office because this development hasn't impacted you yet ... but it will sooner or later.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#455

Post by whoisjohnkid » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

Valakas_ wrote: post #412

neilwilson wrote: post #36

That's because this is Keynesian 'semi-inflation', which is a reallocation and rationing of increasingly scarce resources by price. Markets are doing what markets do. Those with the power to match prices with wage demands stay where they are, and the cost is transferred to those who cannot push wages, and those who lose their jobs. That's actually how inflation is actually controlled - via the threat of unemployment…

The end result of unregulated capitalism is feudalism/slavery. Just think: What is more competitive than a company where its employees work for free? Should we be surprised that this is exactly where things are going? Not literally for free, but to its modern equivalent - the minimum people accept before they get to the streets with pitchforks. The modern day version of working for free is working for a salary where…

I wish we had more systems thinking around these problems.

From my perspective it seems some are quick to want to change to another system on any signs of problems in the initial system; where the new system fails to have any good feedback loops built in.

I also see a lot of one off solutions that don’t fully understand the systems problem that only introduces more complexity to the system usually without solving the initial problem.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#456

Post by batushka3 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

Always remember, inflation is the goverment printing (inflating) currency to the market in order fund it's agenda by stealing your savings. Basicaly inflation is just another process how government steals your money. Inflation is NOT rising prices, they are trying hard to derail the definition. That's why your purchasing power stagnates - by design.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#457

Post by erwincoumans » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

me_me_me wrote: post #338

passerby1 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are metaverse gonna replace lack of owning a house (and travel) soon? /s

Don't even jest, I heard something similar told at work without the /s part.

That sounds similar to The Matrix.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#458

Post by thehappypm » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #414

nickpp wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring what EE countries spend on training countless health care workers who then emigrate and work as cheap and highly educated in the West. And health care cost increase exponentially with quality, not linearly. Bleeding edge research and medical advances appear in the USA mostly. And mostly everybody enjoys the fruits.

I keep hearing about US research but Europe has huge pharma companies: Germany has a bunch, France some more, Switzerland, the UK. The US has a very parasitic healthcare system so I wonder how much their expenses are for actual research.

The US’s pharma have done a ton with pandemic medicine. Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, Novavax, Gilead, Merck..

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#459

Post by throwaway6734 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

montblanc wrote: post #397

dan-robertson wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. There are many pitfalls with measuring long-term inflation. How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? These modern technologies make peoples lives much better and were somewhere between impossible and impossibly…

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s > I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. In terms of mental health, job security, stability (e.g marriage/divorce rates) they may very well be worse off.

Divorce rates and abortions exploded in the 70s and have been coming down since then

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#460

Post by buro9 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

The only signal that results in pay-rises is whether people are leaving to get higher pay elsewhere.

This is the signal that tells an employer that "the market" is valuing people more and so you should pay more to keep them.

Inflation based pay rises are a myth, in that the company is giving a pay rise because the rest of the market is giving pay rises and that delicate balance between retaining people and losing people can be upset.

Should you leave to find something better paid elsewhere? Sure... if money is all that drives and motivates you. But it's not always the case geographically that you have options, and remote work remains somewhat limited for the majority of people.

If people leave my employer will that bump my salary? Sure... if enough people leave and their exit interviews all reveal this "we are under valued and I can earn more down the road" pattern. If people leave for a myriad of personal reasons then the company has no evidence that the market is paying more and they should bump their salaries in return. Even then, it will happen next year as this stuff takes time to build the evidence and result in the change.

Inflation based pay rises were not what you thought they were, and now inflation is rising it's plain to see.