Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#491

Post by tomhoward » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #460

tomhoward wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ignore the religious association, how is this concept any different from the notion that society functions better when people are industrious and maximise their efforts to do things that are useful and valuable to others? I hear the PWE invoked (usually with a sneer), and reflect that it seems to be referring to exactly how my parents have operated throughout their adult lives, and that if everyone behaved the…

> If you ignore the religious association, how is this concept any different from the notion that society functions better when people are industrious and maximise their efforts to do things that are useful and valuable to others? Probably the religious connection helps illuminate the problem more than it is hiding anything. The reason this is called a Protestant work ethic is that some Christian sects don't think de…

OK. This does seem like a straw man characterisation. Or at least it's different to what I had in mind.

> "The PWE quite intentionally doesn't care about those effects, what possible effect could you have next to the will of God anyway?"

Can you provide any links to material that back up that claim? It's not how it's described in the Wikipedia page, for what it's worth.

I'll grant you there may be some people who think the kind of things you describe, but does it really have any kind of dominant influence in the world? I see no evidence for that, and I can't see how society could ever have functioned or progressed if it did.

What I see is that well-functioning people in well-functioning societies take care to do things that have positive consequences for themselves, their families and their societies, and try to go about them industriously so as to maximise those positive effects.

And people generally pay close attention to what others are doing, to gauge who is making a positive contribution and who isn't (both on an individual level, and at a corporate/government level). Then we encourage and reward those who make a good contribution, and critique/penalise those who don't (and ideally, help/support those who can't).

Sure, it's not "God" keeping tally, but it's society at large, by making direct observations and sharing their observations through word of mouth and (more recently) through the media.

I'd suggest that society's progress may be faltering because too many people - including many highly-paid and highly-powerful people - are not making a sufficiently positive contribution to society, whilst many people who make a strong contribution don't get adequately rewarded.

But to me that seems more due to an abandonment of the principles of said work ethic, rather than being too heavily beholden to it.

I guess we seem to be talking about different things, so at this stage I don't seem to be missing anything :)

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#492

Post by mcny » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

blacksoil wrote: post #141

The lady in the example is 33 has a diabetes, 3 kids to support, and presumably also have to support for her disabled mother. To make the matter even more sad she had no higher level education. I can imagine how hard and tough it is for her. But I don't think raising the minimum wage or a mandated salary increase/promotion is the real solution here. The real solutions would be to: 1. Educate parents on the importance…

Absolutely. Refrain from having children if you cannot afford to have children.

People love to tell me I'm insensitive but I say the community needs to step up and do it part to help raise the children. We won't do that. We harp on about "personal responsibility".

I think most* people who don't already have children (me included) should elect to not have children in the current situation. There is no benefit to having children in the west. We don't care after our parents. How can we expect our children to provide care for us? It makes no sense to have children on am individual level. Yes, a shrinking population can wreak havoc to GDP growth rate but what is this GDP growth doing for people out of work and unable to afford health care in Wisconsin?

There is a stigma associated with not having children. It needs to go away. It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#493

Post by kamaal » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

dzdt wrote: post #425

dgudkov wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best t…

There is a pretty high threshold before book learning provides any payoff. The minimum cutoff that some employers take seriously is 12 years of school or the equivalent. Lets guess the guy selling pens is at a grade level of half that. If he could self-teach at the same rate as the education system would advance him (unlikely), that is still 6 years of sitting in a library before reaching the first threshold of signi…

There is one kind of learning that you do to get a job. But education in general is something that is beyond that.

Learning basic personal finance, or a skill, or learning to exercise, or reading about government services, learning cooking etc can go a great deal in fixing one's problems.

Education often involves learning something, its not always reading text books and writing exams.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#494

Post by swift532 » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #442

boulos wrote: post #428

A few threads seem to believe that the minimum wage is high enough / need not be increased. I don’t actually want to argue about mechanism, but think that it’s imoortant to note that the math says our (current) minimum wage is demonstrably insufficient to remove poverty. With the Federal minimum wage currently at $7.25/hr, that’s just $15k/year at full-time. That puts many minimum wage workers below many countries’ a…

Servers still have to receive the standard minimum wage. If their tips don’t bring them up to that level, their employer has to make up the difference. Of course, not all employers follow the law, but that’s the requirement.

On a related note, wouldn't an employer likely fire a server that doesn't earn enough tips, say, two months in their employment?

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#495

Post by southerndrift » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

patricius wrote: post #450

boulos wrote: post #428

A few threads seem to believe that the minimum wage is high enough / need not be increased. I don’t actually want to argue about mechanism, but think that it’s imoortant to note that the math says our (current) minimum wage is demonstrably insufficient to remove poverty. With the Federal minimum wage currently at $7.25/hr, that’s just $15k/year at full-time. That puts many minimum wage workers below many countries’ a…

No minimum wage is able to remove poverty. Set it too low and it has no effect, since it will be below the price you are able to get on a free market. Set it too high and fewer jobs will be available, and thus less people are able to earn money to fight their poverty.

As far as I understand it, minimum wage helps people in employer markets. Prices would go down to zero or at least the minimum cost of living if people would fully compete for jobs in markets with more workers than jobs available.

Inevitably, the market for unskilled labor is an employer market because there will always be a supply of workers unless each and everybody has a job. However skilled somebody is, if he doesn't find a job in his profession, he falls back onto the unskilled labor market in every other profession.

It is correct that minimum wage prevents the existence of some jobs. But it ensures higher wages for all of the unskilled workers who create more value and who are not replaced by a lower bidder.

The jobs that create less value than minimum wage are still available for freelancers. Companies have to buy them as a product or service.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#496

Post by coldtea » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:34 PM UTC

sheepmullet wrote: post #438

coldtea wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t have to go back many generations to see that compared to today almost everyone played on hard mode. Hard mode is comparable across the same game. Those in 1800 played 1800s game, those in Nigeria play the Nigerian game, etc. You wouldn't consider it much of a success if a person with huge work, skills, and effort got themselves to 1800-era middle class possessions TODAY, would you?

> Hard mode is comparable across the same game. Our ancestors struggled in a much harsher world and got us to a point where we can enjoy easy mode. Why can’t the poorest Americans do the same?

Because those ancestors "struggled in a much harsher world" in easy mode.

They struggled in an era of economic upward momentum, much mobility, job creation, with a population boom, and when the US emerged as global leader. And from 30s to 70s, in a much more labor and working class friendly climate, when lots of protections and rights were established (the 8-hour work day, pensions, minimum wages, equal rights for women and foreign workers, work safety, etc).

Not on an era of stagnant wages, job outsourcing, automation, over-concentration of money to too few hands, precariousness, eroded labour rights, when other countries emerge as global leaders, and so on.

When playing life's levels, it's not just the conditions you meet that matter, it's the momentum of the whole game environment too. If the game environment constantly upgrades, gives you more guns, ammo, etc, it's easier than playing easier initial conditions but seeing very slow or negative game environment progress.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#497

Post by kamaal » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:34 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #490

xvire wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning costs is only marginally higher than the cost of idleness.

you assume poor people are idle.

I don't think any one is saying its easy. People are only saying access to resources and the overall process has only gotten easier.

A person still has to work an uphill run everyday until they reach some financial break through .

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#498

Post by hedvig » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

blacksoil wrote: post #141

The lady in the example is 33 has a diabetes, 3 kids to support, and presumably also have to support for her disabled mother. To make the matter even more sad she had no higher level education. I can imagine how hard and tough it is for her. But I don't think raising the minimum wage or a mandated salary increase/promotion is the real solution here. The real solutions would be to: 1. Educate parents on the importance…

Okay but changing the minimum wage would have a real impact in her life now going forward. Does your plan retroactively change her state?

Also, there will always be some worse off country to say "look it could be worse, see how lucky you are?" I think that is such a disingenuous and irrelevant point.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#499

Post by _rpaf » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

shaftoe wrote: post #431

iei02ndjd wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all the free time in the world while working 3 jobs: https://youtu.be/wFNj5sireDo

You don't get ahead by making excuses and you don't help people by defending straw men.

You also don't get ahead if you there's a perfectly valid reason outside of your control that prevents you from 'getting ahead', or makes it extremely unlikely. Most dictionaries would call those 'excuses'. And you especially don't get ahead if those valid reasons exist but are seldom discussed by the people with the most power to solve them, and are instead often reduced to 'excuses', 'lazyness', or any other straw man, like the one you're complaining about.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#500

Post by sharemywin » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

dgudkov wrote: post #238

noobermin wrote: post #18

It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Similarly, if you are born to very well off standards, even if you're a dope and spend money from Dad's inheritance on cocaine, sure, you won't be successful but you'll still have a net of some kind. You ca…

>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best t…

Imagine everyone was able to get "educated" and get a white collar job, what would that look like? No one to work factories or construction, wait tables, etc. Society is made by object moving not papers or digits. And people are getting pissed off because the paper pushers and the digit movers are getting all the rewards and theirs nothing left for the people doing the actual work.

Don't get me wrong I enjoy the benefits of a "good" job and I finished college to get where I am.