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

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#791

Post by simonh » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

decebalus1 wrote: post #132

simonh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medians don’t tell the whole story. Incomes for high wage earners in the US have increased disproportionately compared to European countries, while wages for middle and low income groups stagnated in comparison. The value of benefits isn’t takin into account. Health care is a huge driver of inequality in the US. Tens of millions of you get minimal health care, and even many on health care plans only qualify for a fra…

> They know that whatever happens to them, they will get decent health care, their kids will get a decent education, and they’re more likely to get fair treatment from their employer. And as a former manager once told me, 'one needs the constant fear of homelessness to keep workers in line'. That is the real engine of innovation /s

I don’t see how that can work. People in fear are going to be more risk averse, surely, and innovation is always risky.

I mean clearly the US is still a very innovative economy, it’s not like everyone is constantly in fear of starvation any second. But still, I don’t see how fear promotes innovation. There are many economic and societal factors in the US that promote risk taking and innovation, but fear of hunger in oppressed workers isn’t one of them.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#792

Post by whimsicalism » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #785

xapata wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords are price takers, not price makers. The market for apartments is highly competitive.

If that was true, apartment pricing would be flat or even trending down, as landlords would compete on price. But they don't. Instead, landlords fight against the construction against additional housing so they can limit supply and increase prices. I had a 900 sq foot, 2br, 1 bath apartment in the suburbs in 2012 that was $800/month. Each annual lease renewal was a higher price. When I moved out in 2015, the price wa…

Rising prices have nothing to do with whether it is a competitive market.

I agree with most of the rest of your comment, but none of that means that the landlords are price setters.

Nor does it show that discussing supply is a "deflection."

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#793

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

cherrycherry98 wrote: post #718

what_is_orcas wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. Why should the minimum wage not provide a sufficiently secure life for the worker? I say this all the time: if you can't afford to pay your workers a living wage you can't afford to be in business .

This is nothing but a platitude that attempts to shame businesses for not meeting some idealistic vision of how the world ought to be. There's no hard rules about what wages should or should not be, as with any other market price. A business will pay however much they need to attract and keep the labor they need. If no one wants to work for them they need to increase the wages they offer, which may in turn result in…

With no minimum wage, you create a race to the bottom on wages in jobs that are currently minimum wage. No matter how little you pay, you'll find someone who is so desperate for scraps that they'll accept less.

And with that, you create a drop in the standard of living, where even having your own bedroom is considered a luxury.

> Some laborers aren't worth paying a minimum wage, they wind up earning nothing from not having work instead of what their true worth is and being able to build up skills.

No, what happens then is they work 3 jobs to survive and die an early death.

> I think it could also remove some negotiating power from laborers. Businesses can peg their wages at the minimum and balk at those asking for raises, they pay the legally mandated price for that tier of work after all.

That makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever, that someone would make MORE money if there wasn't a legal minimum? What?

Laborers don't have negotiating power in the bottom end. As I said above, there are enough desperate people to create a race to the bottom. If you eliminate the minimum wage, then you're not giving them leverage, you're just creating more desperate people.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#794

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

988747 wrote: post #615

what_is_orcas wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. Why should the minimum wage not provide a sufficiently secure life for the worker? I say this all the time: if you can't afford to pay your workers a living wage you can't afford to be in business .

Because minimum wage job is supposed to be temporary. You do it right after high school, for couple years, before you decide on what you want your "real" job to be. Or you do it part time to pay your expenses while attending college. No minimum wage work should be something you do your whole life.

> Because minimum wage job is supposed to be temporary.

Historically, this is flat-out wrong. It's a lie. It's just a new talking point invented by corporations to convince the population to vote against minimum wage increases.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#795

Post by nobody9999 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #721

nitrogen wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't denying progress, they're denying the idea that inflation should treat that progress as a decrease in prices.

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s This statement seems obviously false to me and is what I was disagreeing with. This entire conversation was spawned because many people felt the need to defend this statement.

>This statement seems obviously false to me and is what I was disagreeing with. This entire conversation was spawned because many people felt the need to defend this statement.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't disagree with your point at all.

Materially we've got more stuff, sure. The issue I pointed up (and perhaps that others were alluding) is that social mobility has been negatively affected over the past 50 years.

And the prospect that one won't be able to "succeed" (whatever definition of success you want to use) because the deck has been systematically stacked against you in favor of those who are already wealthy is definitely a factor in why folks feel they're not as well off as they'd like to be.

What's more, it's been getting harder for the poorest Americans to make ends meet for quite some time. And that situation has been making its way up the economic ladder too. That result is no accident either.

As such, it's no wonder many folks wonder why they can't get ahead even if they do what they're told is necessary to make that happen.

That's a cultural and economic problem that has been growing for a long time. And one that cheap gadgets and technology can't fix.

What could help is sharing the economic benefits of the increased productivity enabled by technology. But we're not doing that, are we?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#796

Post by pgwhalen » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #625

rspeele wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest gun manufacturer you can buy stock in is Ruger (RGR) with a market cap of 1.17B. Add Smith & Wesson and you're at 2B. Throw in Vista Outdoors which owns many of the top US ammo brands (plus some minor firearm and accessory brands) and you can get the total up to 4.3B. I'll multiply that by 10 to guesstimate privately held companies, local gun stores, and the rest of the long tail. So let's say we're at $4…

Yeah, that's weird in perspective. Snapchat's valuation doesn't give them buying power, but Apple has nearly 200B cash on hand -- they could theoretically buy and close down all of these manufacturers and test the hypothesis that Big Gun is causing all the shootings.

> Snapchat's valuation doesn't give them buying power

This isn't true in practice. Sure, company stock is not as great as the almighty US dollar, but can be used to purchase other companies, and its valuation directly affects how much cash the company can raise.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#797

Post by vmception » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #792

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was true, apartment pricing would be flat or even trending down, as landlords would compete on price. But they don't. Instead, landlords fight against the construction against additional housing so they can limit supply and increase prices. I had a 900 sq foot, 2br, 1 bath apartment in the suburbs in 2012 that was $800/month. Each annual lease renewal was a higher price. When I moved out in 2015, the price wa…

Rising prices have nothing to do with whether it is a competitive market. I agree with most of the rest of your comment, but none of that means that the landlords are price setters. Nor does it show that discussing supply is a "deflection."

Supply and demand is a factor. You can talk about it. It is not a unique enough factor to this time period. I feel like you wanted someone to acknowledge that.

Perhaps property sales and rentals should require attestations about who offered what price and we can use that data to consider deterrents or levies on those who moved the price up from the prior owner or tenant. Sure there are some prospective occupants that will say a higher price just to skip the queue, I dont think they are really the majority of people even when well funded transplants descend upon a town. I think the majority just take whatever the landlord offers.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#798

Post by oblio » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #703

oblio wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biontech researched the Pfizer vaccine. It's a German company. AZ is British.

Pfizer developed the treatment Paxlovid.

https://www.voanews.com/a/european-drug-regulator-recommends...

The first one is Swedish and the second is British.

The US is much better at creating visibility for its accomplishments.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#799

Post by bumby » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #726

vmception wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of this to remember is that highly compensated employees are still subjects to this reality. The numbers themselves dont actually matter. It doesnt matter if highly compensated to you means $88k or $150k annual compensation, $450k or $750k. If a single earner cant buy a home outright in 5 years in that area, then the compensation isn't high enough compared to when wages were keeping up. There was a hou…

> There was a housing shortage in the 1970s too, so the supply side isnt a worthwhile deflection. Uh, source on the housing shortage in the 1970s being even remotely close to this level? Because, yeah, demand outstripping the heck out of supply is the "deflection" I'd pick.

[1] is a bit noisy because it's monthly data, but if you give it a 12-month moving average, it definitely seems like housing availability was substantially above current levels from about 1973-1992.

I'm curious if there are any theories besides wage stagnation that caused that change?

[1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSACSR

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#800

Post by bumby » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #631

rspeele wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest gun manufacturer you can buy stock in is Ruger (RGR) with a market cap of 1.17B. Add Smith & Wesson and you're at 2B. Throw in Vista Outdoors which owns many of the top US ammo brands (plus some minor firearm and accessory brands) and you can get the total up to 4.3B. I'll multiply that by 10 to guesstimate privately held companies, local gun stores, and the rest of the long tail. So let's say we're at $4…

>Isn't that kind of podunk scale for an industry to have a rock solid hold on US politics? Not when a Constitutional Amendment makes that industry "too big to fail" because its thesis on the necessity of the right to keep and bear arms depends on there being an industry manufacturing arms to begin with (at least at modern scale,) and when the industry overwhelmingly supports one political party, driving animosity wit…

>You just don't have the same intersection of identity politics, culture and even religion with any other industry

I think this kind of monolithic homogenous group is fiction. I hear the same thing from other people about tech. Both sentiments lack a nuanced perspective.