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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#821

Post by Spooky23 »

tomcam wrote: post #640
Spooky23 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> define what is a poverty wage, it is important. If you work full time as an adult and are Medicaid eligible, you’re being paid poverty wages. > What is the change of the model in case of the restaurant? Raise the prices. It’s already happened anyway, the market has plenty of elasticity. Restauranteurs always whine about how impossible it is to raise prices, yet they seem to manage to do so just fine.

That’s a really excellent idea. On the off chance that you may be wrong in a few cases, what happens if you go out of business after raising your prices enough to get wages high enough to be where you think they should be?

That’s why the government has minimum wages, which help the market deal with that.

Fast service restaurants have already adapted. Five Guys or Chipotle cost more for a better product. McDonalds has to remind you on the wrapper that their burger contains beef.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#822

Post by Spooky23 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #741
6510 wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a working restaurant a few blocks away.

And they're fully staffed. What do all the employees of the shuttered restaurant do?

60% of restaurants fail in the first year. The employees get unemployment (they aren’t gig workers) and find another job.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#823

Post by scaramanga »

55555 wrote: post #682
scaramanga wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, what does adequate mean? I guess a place to sleep, a place to clean oneself, food and clothing seems like a reasonable bar for a wage above poverty. Are there many full time jobs in the US that do not allow that? I would say, a place where you don't have to share quarters with strangers, be exposed to violence, drugs, have your sleep interrupted, where the housing is stable enough that you don't need to leave…

A lot of the issues you reasonably want to avoid seem like they could be solved more directly by other means. The argument seems to be, "America is a hell hole, so everyone needs enough money to escape it." There are poor countries where people dont live in fear of eviction and the slums arent full of violence and drugs. Maybe it's too difficult to change culture though, and we should just throw money at the problem.

The fact that it can be done in a poor country is all the more reason that it's a scandal that it is not being done in a rich country.

These poor countries don't have any special techniques or mystical cultural powers. For example, the fact that south Korea has adequate flood defences and the UK does not is not because Korean culture lends them a racial character uniquely cognizant of water management passed down from their ancestors over generations of rice cultivation or whatever... There is absolutely no reason the UK is unable to "throw money" at constructing flood defences (altering planning policy, etc.) if they were to so chose.

The idea is not to "escape the hellhole" but to transform it in to "not a hellhole", through the direct, rational application of readily available, and completely straight-forward policy mechanisms.

But maybe it's too difficult to use political policy as a tool to achieve desired outcomes and we should blame the victims, turning it in to a nebulous cultural or moral failing and then wait around for the culture to just spontaneously change itself, eh :)

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#824

Post by solosoyokaze »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #788
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add transportation and communications to the "basics of survival".

This is nowhere close to 'basics of survival'. You can survive on 2 hamburgers a day and 1 liter of drinking water, this is called survival. If you want 'basics of nice living' then call it that way, but don't redefine the dictionary. Think of 'basics of survival' what you need to continue to live if you land on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, naked and with no tools.

You can’t live without shelter or medical care.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#825

Post by [deleted] »

neilwilson wrote: post #704
jschveibinz wrote: post #2

This article unfortunately doesn't address the business side of the problem. Fast food restaurants, or place like "Dale's" mentioned in the article, make very little profit. It is most likely below 10%. Here is an estimate: https://www.restaurant365.com/blog/what-is-the-average-profi... . A 10% profit is very modest. That's not the story of the "fat cats getting rich on the back of the workers" that the article is al…

"I'm just saying that both sides of the equation need to be examined, i.e. the plight of the worker AND the plight of the business." It was examined. In 1944 in the Beverage Report "Full Employment in a Free Society". It concluded that people not earning sufficient to eat is an order of magnitude more harm than businesses not earning a profit and that the labour market should always be a sellers market, not a buyers…

[deleted]

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#826

Post by AdrianB1 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #574
atoav wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> 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 is, to begin with, not true. It's common for small businesses to be operating at the margin. If you don't have someone making the sandwiches then you don't have revenue and you still have rent and utilities…

Housing cost is directly link to wages, when wages increase then the rent goes up, sometimes more than wages. This is because housing is in very limited supply (some artificial due to zoning and regulations) and extra income will be sucked out as rent.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#827

Post by Kalium »

cbozeman wrote: post #447
kukx wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Please, define what is a poverty wage, it is important. The ability to afford adequate housing, food, and clothing. I'm not saying we should mandate people can afford a 1500 sq. ft. home, ribeye steaks every evening, and Ralph Lauren Polo threads, but how about at least a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment; nutritious, nourishing food; Walmart clothing at a minimum. > What is the change of the model in case of the…

> how about at least a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment; nutritious, nourishing food; Walmart clothing at a minimum.

It's interesting to see how standards have shifted over time. Not too long ago, it was considered sufficient if people could afford their own room in a boarding house. Those frequently had shared bathroom and dining facilities, and provided nutritious and nourishing meals. That was considered a worthy, dignified life by a great many.

Boarding houses went away in no small part because they were zoned out of existence. Often on the grounds that they were an immoral existence and it was the duty of the best of us (read: richest) to mandate a correct social order for the lower classes.

I find this interesting because it implies that we're going to continue to have this problem - a lack of dignity - no matter what we do. You can already see the ratchet turning. There are people who earnestly believe that food isn't nutritious and nourishing unless it's Organic (by some definition) and thus that universal access to Organic food is a moral requirement.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#828

Post by mk81 »

The solution to this problem was to not ship millions of manufacturing jobs overseas (destroying middle class employment for people who prefer to work with their hands) and to prevent illegal immigration (flooding the economy with an endless supply of unskilled labour).

But Pandora's box was opened, and destabilization seems to be the only possible outcome at this point. It won't be as rosy as this article makes it out to be.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#829

Post by wildrhythms »

throwaway292893 wrote: post #85
colinmhayes wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel happy enough with the situation. No one should be forced to work a shitty job imo.

Well I'm not. Now there's two anecdotes to work with. I worked a shitty job to get through college, it's a stepping stone. These jobs aren't meant to live on. They should be used as part time jobs for people transitioning in their careers, like students. When you give handouts to people who don't want to work you are not doing them any favors. They become reliant and trapped in that loop. That's not to say there shou…

We hear this same diatribe every time this topic comes up.

"Fast food work is a stepping stone to a better job!"

Have you been to a McDonalds or Wendys recently? Most of the workers are in their 30s-40s+. The concept of a low-wage "stepping stone" job is a fallacy that people have subscribed to to justify paying unlivable wages.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#830

Post by Retric »

throwawayboise wrote: post #738
rbg246 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Support a family? How many kids should I be able to support on my unskilled 40 hours/week? Look, I might be convinced that minimum wage is too low, though I'm much more inclined to leave that as a matter for the employee and employer to reach agreement on. But if you have no marketable skills and the only work you can get is entry-level minimum wage, you have no business starting a family as the sole income-earner. N…

That’s a rather eugenic standpoint. I think the argument is actual children are part of those family’s, it’s up to society how to deal with it. Currently we subsidize business and families, but perhaps we could remove the business subsidy.
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