7 ms·

Luckily the scenario of "employers wield all the power" you describe is so far from reality as to be irrelevant. In theory, employees need a job but they don't

Luckily the scenario of "employers wield all the power" you describe is so far from reality as to be irrelevant. In theory, employees need a job but they don't need this job. Turning it down is and taking a different job is always an option - that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage. You are somewhat right, however - a BI will give people the ability to turn down all jobs. E.g., in the last BI experiment, work effort was reduced by 13% - more than double the effect of the great recession. A much better solution is the Basic Job. You get a Basic Income (which pays less than any job in the market economy) but you need to work for it. You spend a lot less money (anyone working in the market economy doesn't get paid by the basic job), you have minimal disincentive for getting a job, and you get some productive output (e.g. parks have less trash).

mrottenkolber 11y ago
> that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage. What? Most jobs pay less that minimum wage. > E.g., in the last BI experiment, work effort was reduced by 13% - more than double the effect of the great recession. Because 13% didn't feel like being slaves anymore. > A much better solution is the Basic Job. That's slavery.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Less than 1% of people in the US earn minimum wage. http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/characteristics-of-minimum-wage-workers-2014.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/characteristics-of-minim... I'm going to ignore your blatant misuse of the term "slave".
  - tehmaco 11y ago
    3.9% of people paid hourly wages earn at or less than minimum wage from that link. Your figure of 0.9% is for people over 25 who earn exactly minimum wage (1.6% in that line earn less than it) Edit: Also, if you're not paid hourly (i.e. flat salary), you'll not be included in those tables. So if you're salaried at minimum wage, but work unpaid hours (which seems to be common in the US), you're earning less than the minimum wage, but not "Officially".
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      There are 3 million Americans earning minimum wage or below / 318 million Americans = 0.94%. You can change the denominator if you like, that doesn't change the substance. Regardless, 0.94% or 3.9% is far less than "most" (which is what mrottenkolbar claimed).
      - tehmaco 11y ago
        True, but you do need to change the denominator though, as under 16's and retired people don't earn, so those ~105 million people[0] need to be excluded (otherwise it's mis-representing the facts). [0] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=age+histogram+of+the+USA http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=age+histogram+of+the+US...
        yummyfajitas 11y ago
        I said "1% of people" which is correct. You could also say "1.4% of working age people" or "3.9% of hourly wage workers" - these are correct too. The only incorrect statement anyone has made is "most".
wavefunction 11y ago
>>Turning it down is and taking a different job is always an option That's simply not true. There are plenty of regions (many rural places) where the inhabitants have one option of where they can work due to a small number of employers and the individual's skill-set.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Yeah, we should really do something about this ban on internal migration. It's quite unfair that a person born in a rural area requires a difficult to acquire internal visa to shift to a location with better work opportunities. Meanwhile, outside of China...
  - oberstein 11y ago
    But like, how are you supposed to move when you have no car, no job, no computer, are 20 miles from the nearest city with things like libraries in it, and use up enough a fraction of your parents' monthly income (or whatever other source that lets you physically live day-to-day) such that they don't have much in savings to loan you? As 'successful' people we can see many ways out of these arbitrary situations, even if you tie our hands behind our backs with something like "and no plan that involves your current professional skills like acquiring any old computer and doing software dev". We can also execute on our plans. For us, being poor is a choice, many of us started out that way to begin with and chose to do better than our parents. For a lot of others, it's really a lack of capability in not only seeing ways out but also precisely following instructions someone else gave them to get out. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to fresh water... All the opportunities in the world are useless to you if you don't have the capacity to see them or execute on them.
- ams6110 11y ago
  So... move?
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Are you going to pay their moving bills? Are you going to guarantee them a job when they get there? If not, then quit acting like it's the solution.
dazc 11y ago
> " that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage." This may be true in some parts of the world but here in the UK the minimum wage has become a standard wage for all kinds of jobs. This is because we have a tax credit system designed to make up the difference. What's happened over time is employers are gaming the system by offering jobs on minimum wage and the minimum number of hours required for the tax credits to kick in. Often the hours offered result in someone working part time but on hours, such as 10 - 3, that make it impossible to get another part time job. Employers that used to pay overtime now employ extra workers instead. So we have a country where unemployment is relatively low but where a lot of people don't have any disposable income. Efforts by the current Government to address this problem are , predictably, meeting a lot of resistance.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  This seems like an excellent system - you are getting productive output from more people than we do. This sort of contradicts the impression I have of the UK, namely council flats full of people who haven't worked in years. (Admittedly, I lived in the UK less than a year and don't know the stats.) In the US most of our poor folks don't work - do you have stats showing differently in the UK? I'm very curious now.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    I find it very difficult to describe that as an "excellent" system... A GOOD system is the one which helps hard workers to lift themselves from being poor in any meaningful way (less bureaucracy, more help with kids, less taxes, more subsidies etc.) rather than one that prevents an easy improvement. What OP described ain't that good, unless your primary goal is to have nice low stats for unemployment.
    - dazc 11y ago
      This is true. Someone in a low paid job used to be able to work overtime (often at a premium) or get a second job. The current system disincentives old fashioned hard work as any extra money earned equates to a drop in benefits received.
versteegen 11y ago
> that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage. I thought this statement might be due to the crazy-low federal minimum wage in the USA, so I looked at statistics here in NZ where the minimum wage is closer to reasonable (although still only 75% of the living wage [1]). 2.4% of people in employment earn minimum wage [2], and 39% earn less than the living wage for their main job [3] (about the same if you look at total income). All statistics and values I've collected are for 2013. [1] http://www.livingwage.org.nz/about http://www.livingwage.org.nz/about [2] http://employment.govt.nz/er/pay/backgroundpapers/2013/mwr-2013-and-mwo-2014-cabinet-papers.pdf http://employment.govt.nz/er/pay/backgroundpapers/2013/mwr-2... [3] https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/nzlivingwage/pages/129/attachments/original/1434872244/Living_wage_and_the_world's_most_liveable_city_FINAL.pdf?1434872244 https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/nzlivingwage/pages/129...
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Theoretically that may be right. But the goal isn't just to make the math work. Its also to make the most good for the most people. And as automation proceeds, making fake jobs for people is not helping them. You'd have one guy spreading trash, and another picking it up.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Once automation actually replaces all the jobs lets rethink things. At that point a BI will be so cheap to provide that few people will have any objection. (Similarly, a 1900-level BI is already very easy to provide.) We aren't close to that point yet.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    What is unemployment at right now? If we're not there with automation, we're headed there like a freight train. Meanwhile people without jobs are suffering. Lets fix that right now, with a BI.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      Unemployment is currently 5.5%, i.e. it's a solved problem. If it goes significantly lower the fed will need to raise rates to slow things down. We can also fix the problem of people without jobs by giving people jobs.
s73v3r 11y ago
"Luckily the scenario of "employers wield all the power" you describe is so far from reality as to be irrelevant. In theory, employees need a job but they don't need this job. Turning it down is and taking a different job is always an option - that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage." Yeah, you've clearly not been going outside the past 5 years.

mrottenkolber 11y ago

> that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage. What? Most jobs pay less that minimum wage. > E.g., in the last BI experiment, work effort was reduced by 13% - more than double the effect of the great recession. Because 13% didn't feel like being slaves anymore. > A much better solution is the Basic Job. That's slavery.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Less than 1% of people in the US earn minimum wage. http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/characteristics-of-minimum-wage-workers-2014.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/characteristics-of-minim... I'm going to ignore your blatant misuse of the term "slave".
- tehmaco 11y ago
  3.9% of people paid hourly wages earn at or less than minimum wage from that link. Your figure of 0.9% is for people over 25 who earn exactly minimum wage (1.6% in that line earn less than it) Edit: Also, if you're not paid hourly (i.e. flat salary), you'll not be included in those tables. So if you're salaried at minimum wage, but work unpaid hours (which seems to be common in the US), you're earning less than the minimum wage, but not "Officially".
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    There are 3 million Americans earning minimum wage or below / 318 million Americans = 0.94%. You can change the denominator if you like, that doesn't change the substance. Regardless, 0.94% or 3.9% is far less than "most" (which is what mrottenkolbar claimed).
    - tehmaco 11y ago
      True, but you do need to change the denominator though, as under 16's and retired people don't earn, so those ~105 million people[0] need to be excluded (otherwise it's mis-representing the facts). [0] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=age+histogram+of+the+USA http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=age+histogram+of+the+US...
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        I said "1% of people" which is correct. You could also say "1.4% of working age people" or "3.9% of hourly wage workers" - these are correct too. The only incorrect statement anyone has made is "most".

wavefunction 11y ago

>>Turning it down is and taking a different job is always an option That's simply not true. There are plenty of regions (many rural places) where the inhabitants have one option of where they can work due to a small number of employers and the individual's skill-set.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Yeah, we should really do something about this ban on internal migration. It's quite unfair that a person born in a rural area requires a difficult to acquire internal visa to shift to a location with better work opportunities. Meanwhile, outside of China...
- oberstein 11y ago
  But like, how are you supposed to move when you have no car, no job, no computer, are 20 miles from the nearest city with things like libraries in it, and use up enough a fraction of your parents' monthly income (or whatever other source that lets you physically live day-to-day) such that they don't have much in savings to loan you? As 'successful' people we can see many ways out of these arbitrary situations, even if you tie our hands behind our backs with something like "and no plan that involves your current professional skills like acquiring any old computer and doing software dev". We can also execute on our plans. For us, being poor is a choice, many of us started out that way to begin with and chose to do better than our parents. For a lot of others, it's really a lack of capability in not only seeing ways out but also precisely following instructions someone else gave them to get out. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to fresh water... All the opportunities in the world are useless to you if you don't have the capacity to see them or execute on them.
ams6110 11y ago
So... move?
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Are you going to pay their moving bills? Are you going to guarantee them a job when they get there? If not, then quit acting like it's the solution.

dazc 11y ago

> " that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage." This may be true in some parts of the world but here in the UK the minimum wage has become a standard wage for all kinds of jobs. This is because we have a tax credit system designed to make up the difference. What's happened over time is employers are gaming the system by offering jobs on minimum wage and the minimum number of hours required for the tax credits to kick in. Often the hours offered result in someone working part time but on hours, such as 10 - 3, that make it impossible to get another part time job. Employers that used to pay overtime now employ extra workers instead. So we have a country where unemployment is relatively low but where a lot of people don't have any disposable income. Efforts by the current Government to address this problem are , predictably, meeting a lot of resistance.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
This seems like an excellent system - you are getting productive output from more people than we do. This sort of contradicts the impression I have of the UK, namely council flats full of people who haven't worked in years. (Admittedly, I lived in the UK less than a year and don't know the stats.) In the US most of our poor folks don't work - do you have stats showing differently in the UK? I'm very curious now.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  I find it very difficult to describe that as an "excellent" system... A GOOD system is the one which helps hard workers to lift themselves from being poor in any meaningful way (less bureaucracy, more help with kids, less taxes, more subsidies etc.) rather than one that prevents an easy improvement. What OP described ain't that good, unless your primary goal is to have nice low stats for unemployment.
  - dazc 11y ago
    This is true. Someone in a low paid job used to be able to work overtime (often at a premium) or get a second job. The current system disincentives old fashioned hard work as any extra money earned equates to a drop in benefits received.

versteegen 11y ago

> that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage. I thought this statement might be due to the crazy-low federal minimum wage in the USA, so I looked at statistics here in NZ where the minimum wage is closer to reasonable (although still only 75% of the living wage [1]). 2.4% of people in employment earn minimum wage [2], and 39% earn less than the living wage for their main job [3] (about the same if you look at total income). All statistics and values I've collected are for 2013. [1] http://www.livingwage.org.nz/about http://www.livingwage.org.nz/about [2] http://employment.govt.nz/er/pay/backgroundpapers/2013/mwr-2013-and-mwo-2014-cabinet-papers.pdf http://employment.govt.nz/er/pay/backgroundpapers/2013/mwr-2... [3] https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/nzlivingwage/pages/129/attachments/original/1434872244/Living_wage_and_the_world's_most_liveable_city_FINAL.pdf?1434872244 https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/nzlivingwage/pages/129...

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Theoretically that may be right. But the goal isn't just to make the math work. Its also to make the most good for the most people. And as automation proceeds, making fake jobs for people is not helping them. You'd have one guy spreading trash, and another picking it up.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Once automation actually replaces all the jobs lets rethink things. At that point a BI will be so cheap to provide that few people will have any objection. (Similarly, a 1900-level BI is already very easy to provide.) We aren't close to that point yet.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  What is unemployment at right now? If we're not there with automation, we're headed there like a freight train. Meanwhile people without jobs are suffering. Lets fix that right now, with a BI.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Unemployment is currently 5.5%, i.e. it's a solved problem. If it goes significantly lower the fed will need to raise rates to slow things down. We can also fix the problem of people without jobs by giving people jobs.

s73v3r 11y ago

"Luckily the scenario of "employers wield all the power" you describe is so far from reality as to be irrelevant. In theory, employees need a job but they don't need this job. Turning it down is and taking a different job is always an option - that's why virtually no jobs actually pay the minimum wage." Yeah, you've clearly not been going outside the past 5 years.