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Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

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Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#91

Post by laurent92 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

The principle of inflation is to dynamically adjust:

- Available products in the world,

- Number of people who can afford them.

With Covid, we didn’t produce for 2 months in 2020 and we’ve produced slower in 2021. And all governments distributed free money. So, in theory there is clearly not enough goods produced for everyone in the world. Prices should rise dynamically until 10% fewer people can afford them than in 2019.

Where are the people who can’t afford buying things? There should be a diminution of 10% global consumption, where is it? Where are the people whose company won’t be able to match inflation, even if they unionize?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#92

Post by golemiprague »

mission_failed wrote: post #65
tjpnz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

The best thing you can do is form a union

Unions are mainly good in monopolies and government companies which sucks money out of trapped tax payers. It is not so good when it is a private fast paced company that need to compete against the world and where the employees themselves need to compete against people from all over the world. A software company is not a port.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#93

Post by OtomotO »

dnautics wrote: post #39

If it does, inflation has failed as a policy: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi... "in the long run, it’s really, really hard to cut nominal wages. Yet when you have very low inflation, getting relative wages right would require that a significant number of workers take wage cuts. So having a somewhat higher inflation rate would lead to lower unemployment, not just temporarily, but on a sus…

Great, now you have a job. You can't live with the pay, but at least you have a job. That is something, right?

Spoiler: it's not

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#94

Post by theonemind »

onion2k wrote: post #67
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job. Note that this doesn't always even involve taking it. Go get a job offer that pays better and bring it to your boss. If they want to match it, great. If they don't, bye.

From the other side, whenever a member of my team has come to me asking to match an offer I've always refused and wished them well in their new role. If someone is unhappy enough to start job hunting rather than talking to me then it's a clear sign that they'll leave soon regardless of any pay rise. Psychologically, every pay increase makes someone happy for a short time, and then they get used to it and they start t…

I honestly believe its unlikely that you have an employee for, say, 5 years, then they come to talk to you without getting any counter-offers because they've gotten an average raise of 2% per year, have developed skills, and have market value of 25% greater than their current salary, and you say "ok, I'll give you a 25% raise."

In other words, unless you can contradict me with a straight face, you're basically just saying you underpay as long as you can get away with it and nothing can stop or change that.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#95

Post by kelseyfrog »

skywal_l wrote: post #72
onion2k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the other side, whenever a member of my team has come to me asking to match an offer I've always refused and wished them well in their new role. If someone is unhappy enough to start job hunting rather than talking to me then it's a clear sign that they'll leave soon regardless of any pay rise. Psychologically, every pay increase makes someone happy for a short time, and then they get used to it and they start t…

And when someone come to you asking for a raise, how often do you give it?

Their peers if they're nice enough will let everyone know "Don't ever show up with an offer or you'll be fired." So it happens rarely if at all.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#96

Post by baron816 »

neonbjb wrote: post #55
baron816 wrote: post #18

This isn’t exactly great news, but it’s probably not as bad as you think. It means that inflation is a tractable problem. The Fed as a lot of tools at its disposal (first of which is to take its foot off the gas). If we were in a situation where workers were demanding higher wages because they were expecting prices to go up, and businesses were raising prices to pay workers who were demanding higher wages, then we’d…

This is wrong IMO - the fed has NO tools in its hands. Its last tool was inflation rates, and it burned that during the great recession. It is now caught in a pickle: raise interest rates, causing a mass exodus of wealth from securities to savings accounts and CDs and causing the stock market to tumble (like it arguably always should have done since 2008), or let inflation take its course. I am not an economist, and…

> I am not an economist

Yeah, if you’re interested in this stuff, you should do some research. The Fed’s options aren’t 0% rates vs 15% rates. It’s going to raise rates .25% at a time. .25% is not much of a difference. It’ll move slowly and act cautiously.

The Fed, and other central banks have dealt with inflation many times before. And very effectively at that. Stocks could fall, but the stock market is not the economy, and the Fed has no mandate to prop up stocks.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#97

Post by random_kris »

selestify wrote: post #78
whydid wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love to study history, you can almost predict the future by studying the past. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results. You see many of the same trends in history, yes, but also many surprises. History repeats itself, the second time as farce.

history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#98

Post by roenxi »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #52
tjpnz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

The best thing you can do is organize your workplace. Job hopping allows businesses to eat the market at the edges and eventually squeeze those demands out of the labor pool.

Inflation doesn't - fundamentally - change the power balance between employers and employees. Market forces will cause the situation to find a fair market price. If job hopping can't get you better wages, then you probably don't have enough market power to resist if an employer flat-out cuts your pay.

Though to try and prevent misunderstandings - I do think inflation is bad for people who are paid wages. Market forces aren't perfect and "market price" is really a band of prices. Inflation pushes all workers to the low end of the band and means if anyone doesn't feel like negotiating they will be pushed in to a bad deal by default.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#99

Post by carabiner »

whydid wrote: post #70
silisili wrote: post #58

As someone who does OK, but lives in reality (not the bay area), I feel a revolution coming. I hope it's not a violent one, but who knows at this point. Hopefully it's just a politician with big policy changes. People feel completely disenfranchised. You keep hanging housing over their head but just out of reach like some baby toy, then inflation spikes everything else. What's the point of working even? I don't know…

This is why I love to study history, you can almost predict the future by studying the past. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

I wish I could do this to a useful degree so that I could become a billionaire.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#100

Post by LatteLazy »

This will be unpopular...

If you want to make good pay, you have to make it happen. You have to change jobs occasionally (every 2 years). You have to suck up a bit to managers. You have to be at least average at your job. You have to manage your CV. And you have to negotiate.

I'm not saying this is right or fair or nice.

I'm just saying the vast majority of people I've worked with don't do any of those things (except for being at least average at their jobs). Then they're surprised when it's been 10 years, they haven't gotten a raise or a promotion and they don't have a CV that can get them one.

If you don't play the game, you will lose. We all know the game isn't fair. But you have only those options.

I've played it for the last few years and I'm very well paid. Playing does work. People just don't, in part because no one tells them to.

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