8 ms·

Wages should be higher. Considering inflation, minimum wage workers in the 60's made more than they do today. The issue is labor surplus caused by both globaliz

Wages should be higher. Considering inflation, minimum wage workers in the 60's made more than they do today. The issue is labor surplus caused by both globalization and illegal immigration. Edit: To those downvoting me, could you explain why? Because minimum wage has decreased[1], wages have been stagnant[2], and globalization has undeniably affected the midwest negatively[3]. I suppose the impact of illegal immigration is up for debate, but when you have 10 million illegal immigrants working for less than minimum wage in a country of 300 million, of course there will be wage suppression. [1]http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-table-4-39-minimum-wage-1960-2011/ http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-table-4... [2] https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2016/09/15/u-s-household-incomes-a-49-year-perspective https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2016/09/1... [3]http://chicagopolicyreview.org/2012/04/09/the-global-midwest-richard-longworth/ http://chicagopolicyreview.org/2012/04/09/the-global-midwest...

malandrew 9y ago
No, wages should not be higher. The cost of living should be lower. Productivity increases year over year. It should be much cheaper to have a decent life today than in the 60s. Plenty of people in other countries live a lot better than many Americans on a lot less money per day. We need to ask ourselves why.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Potato potahto. You are both saying that a job should provide more buying power.
  - rhino369 9y ago
    It's not potato pahtahto. Many US jobs are in competition with third world wages. If you raise wages 1000 dollars and increase cost of living 1000 it isn't a wash, since some companies might choose to outsource.
    - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      Americans shouldn't be competing with workers in third world countries. That behavior leads to a race to the bottom to see what country is willing to offer the cheapest labor, lowering the standard of living for everyone except the business owners.
      - forgotmysn 9y ago
        welcome to the free market
        TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        I'm sorry, but this is the kind of low-effort response that I come here to avoid. There's no substance, nothing thought-provoking, just conjecture designed to illicit an emotional response.
      - malandrew 9y ago
        It doesn't necessarily have to lower the standard of living for everyone. Goods and services can get cheaper alongside purchasing power leading to the standard of living being approximately the same. It's not a problem for labor to be cheaper if the cost of living also becomes cheaper. It only lowers the standard of living if the ratio of income to cost of living drops. Those at the bottom today have a standard of living that is in many ways better than the standard of living of a billionaire a century ago. Why? Productivity gains.
        TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        There have absolutely been productivity gains, but those gains haven't been going to the workers. Return on labor has dropped, with the corporations seeing the gains. In the 70's in America, a laborer in a single worker family could afford a house, car, and retirement. Can a laborer in a third world country do the same?
        malandrew 9y ago
- astrodust 9y ago
  Why not both? You can measure a country's success not by how much its top-earners pull down but by how much those at the bottom make. > It should be much cheaper to have a decent life today than in the 60s. It would be if not for the problem of housing and transportation being vastly more expensive than they were in the 1960s. You could get a cheap suburban home back then for less than a year's salary. Try that now and you're living 300 miles from the nearest city.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    > You can measure a country's success not by how much its top-earners pull down but by how much those at the bottom make. Wealth isn't measured in how much you make. It's measured in choices. You can measure a country's success by how many choices those at the bottom have. https://mises.org/blog/wealth-isnt-just-measured-money-%E2%80%94-its-measured-choices https://mises.org/blog/wealth-isnt-just-measured-money-%E2%8... > It would be if not for the problem of housing and transportation being vastly more expensive than they were in the 1960s. You could get a cheap suburban home back then for less than a year's salary. Try that now and you're living 300 miles from the nearest city. You've now correctly identified the problem. Housing costs in the US are out of control and have been for a long time because we have policies that promote housing as an investment asset that should always grow in value. Many baby boomers have their entire net worth tied up in housing and have supported policies for decades that increase the value of that asset to support their retirement. Housing has become a vehicle for an inter-generational transfer of wealth from the young to the old.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    Spending trends for Americans over the last 75 years: https://howmuch.net/articles/american-spending-past-75-years https://howmuch.net/articles/american-spending-past-75-years
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    "Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to the society? The answer seems at first sight abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." -- Karl Marx https://goo.gl/LJh3Kh https://goo.gl/LJh3Kh
- lacampbell 9y ago
  I'm from one of the countries where we live a lot worse than Americans for a lot more per day (New Zealand). What first world country is 'better' in that regard than America?
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
There's a huge difference between "wages should be higher" and "it should be illegal to pay low wages". Like, this is the difference between "people should have housing" and "being homeless should be illegal". Outlawing a thing does not fix the economic forces that generate it.
- acover 9y ago
  The minimum wage is an effort to increase the welfare of those whose skills are in excess supply. Economics is complicated and far from reliable. The idea that removing the minimum wage would result in full employment is ridiculous. It would make businesses richer and subject millions of people to worse poverty. There is open debate that the minimum wage even reduces employment [1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage
  - malandrew 9y ago
    If you don't address other costs, rising minimum wages can end up putting employers out of business. Now you have a decline in the supply of minimum wage jobs. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2951110 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2951110
    - acover 9y ago
      I'm not being precise. I do not have the expertise to debate this. When I talk about the minimum wage, what really matters is what that income can buy you. Rather than discussing nominal wage and associated costs let's just combine them and talk about real wages. Clearly there is a point where a higher minimum wage (real) is infeasible and detrimental. In my opinion there is a wide range of minimum wages (real) that raise the welfare of those whose skill is in excess supply.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    >The minimum wage is an effort to increase the welfare of those whose skills are in excess supply. It's an inefficient one. We can do a better job at improving their welfare at a lower overall cost.` >The idea that removing the minimum wage would result in full employment is ridiculous. I'm not arguing that at all. >It would make businesses richer and subject millions of people to worse poverty. So combine abolishing the minimum wage with a complimentary policy that makes businesses poorer and alleviate the poverty of millions. A minimum wage is not the only way to make employers pay to alleviate the poverty of the working poor.
hencq 9y ago
You could argue that mandatory minimum wages are a poor way of raising incomes. It's basically putting the burden solely on employers. Some people argue that this means businesses become less competitive, which leads them to hire less. Perhaps abandoning the minimum wage, but replacing it with a basic income, e.g. through a negative income tax, might yield better results. I don't know enough about it to have strong opinions on this, but just wanted to point out that minimum wages are just one solution/tool.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Basic income is effectively the same thing as an employer-of-last resort (at a guaranteed wage), without the obligation to work. I'm not saying that one is better than the other -- I don't have an opinion on that. I am saying that the market effect is the same.
throwaway91111 9y ago
You're forgetting automation. Unskilled labor is valued less now; i don't think you can pin everything on labor surplus (especially illegal immigration) when the labor market itself is restricting.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  I haven't forgotten. Automation isn't the reason manufacturing was shipped to Asia in the 70's, though. It's not why manufacturing was shipped to Mexico in the 90's. The cheap labor is the reason.

malandrew 9y ago

No, wages should not be higher. The cost of living should be lower. Productivity increases year over year. It should be much cheaper to have a decent life today than in the 60s. Plenty of people in other countries live a lot better than many Americans on a lot less money per day. We need to ask ourselves why.

maxerickson 9y ago
Potato potahto. You are both saying that a job should provide more buying power.
- rhino369 9y ago
  It's not potato pahtahto. Many US jobs are in competition with third world wages. If you raise wages 1000 dollars and increase cost of living 1000 it isn't a wash, since some companies might choose to outsource.
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    Americans shouldn't be competing with workers in third world countries. That behavior leads to a race to the bottom to see what country is willing to offer the cheapest labor, lowering the standard of living for everyone except the business owners.
    - forgotmysn 9y ago
      welcome to the free market
      - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        I'm sorry, but this is the kind of low-effort response that I come here to avoid. There's no substance, nothing thought-provoking, just conjecture designed to illicit an emotional response.
    - malandrew 9y ago
      It doesn't necessarily have to lower the standard of living for everyone. Goods and services can get cheaper alongside purchasing power leading to the standard of living being approximately the same. It's not a problem for labor to be cheaper if the cost of living also becomes cheaper. It only lowers the standard of living if the ratio of income to cost of living drops. Those at the bottom today have a standard of living that is in many ways better than the standard of living of a billionaire a century ago. Why? Productivity gains.
      - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        There have absolutely been productivity gains, but those gains haven't been going to the workers. Return on labor has dropped, with the corporations seeing the gains. In the 70's in America, a laborer in a single worker family could afford a house, car, and retirement. Can a laborer in a third world country do the same?
        malandrew 9y ago
astrodust 9y ago
Why not both? You can measure a country's success not by how much its top-earners pull down but by how much those at the bottom make. > It should be much cheaper to have a decent life today than in the 60s. It would be if not for the problem of housing and transportation being vastly more expensive than they were in the 1960s. You could get a cheap suburban home back then for less than a year's salary. Try that now and you're living 300 miles from the nearest city.
- malandrew 9y ago
  > You can measure a country's success not by how much its top-earners pull down but by how much those at the bottom make. Wealth isn't measured in how much you make. It's measured in choices. You can measure a country's success by how many choices those at the bottom have. https://mises.org/blog/wealth-isnt-just-measured-money-%E2%80%94-its-measured-choices https://mises.org/blog/wealth-isnt-just-measured-money-%E2%8... > It would be if not for the problem of housing and transportation being vastly more expensive than they were in the 1960s. You could get a cheap suburban home back then for less than a year's salary. Try that now and you're living 300 miles from the nearest city. You've now correctly identified the problem. Housing costs in the US are out of control and have been for a long time because we have policies that promote housing as an investment asset that should always grow in value. Many baby boomers have their entire net worth tied up in housing and have supported policies for decades that increase the value of that asset to support their retirement. Housing has become a vehicle for an inter-generational transfer of wealth from the young to the old.
- malandrew 9y ago
  Spending trends for Americans over the last 75 years: https://howmuch.net/articles/american-spending-past-75-years https://howmuch.net/articles/american-spending-past-75-years
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  "Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to the society? The answer seems at first sight abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." -- Karl Marx https://goo.gl/LJh3Kh https://goo.gl/LJh3Kh
lacampbell 9y ago
I'm from one of the countries where we live a lot worse than Americans for a lot more per day (New Zealand). What first world country is 'better' in that regard than America?

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

There's a huge difference between "wages should be higher" and "it should be illegal to pay low wages". Like, this is the difference between "people should have housing" and "being homeless should be illegal". Outlawing a thing does not fix the economic forces that generate it.

acover 9y ago
The minimum wage is an effort to increase the welfare of those whose skills are in excess supply. Economics is complicated and far from reliable. The idea that removing the minimum wage would result in full employment is ridiculous. It would make businesses richer and subject millions of people to worse poverty. There is open debate that the minimum wage even reduces employment [1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage
- malandrew 9y ago
  If you don't address other costs, rising minimum wages can end up putting employers out of business. Now you have a decline in the supply of minimum wage jobs. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2951110 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2951110
  - acover 9y ago
    I'm not being precise. I do not have the expertise to debate this. When I talk about the minimum wage, what really matters is what that income can buy you. Rather than discussing nominal wage and associated costs let's just combine them and talk about real wages. Clearly there is a point where a higher minimum wage (real) is infeasible and detrimental. In my opinion there is a wide range of minimum wages (real) that raise the welfare of those whose skill is in excess supply.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  >The minimum wage is an effort to increase the welfare of those whose skills are in excess supply. It's an inefficient one. We can do a better job at improving their welfare at a lower overall cost.` >The idea that removing the minimum wage would result in full employment is ridiculous. I'm not arguing that at all. >It would make businesses richer and subject millions of people to worse poverty. So combine abolishing the minimum wage with a complimentary policy that makes businesses poorer and alleviate the poverty of millions. A minimum wage is not the only way to make employers pay to alleviate the poverty of the working poor.

hencq 9y ago

You could argue that mandatory minimum wages are a poor way of raising incomes. It's basically putting the burden solely on employers. Some people argue that this means businesses become less competitive, which leads them to hire less. Perhaps abandoning the minimum wage, but replacing it with a basic income, e.g. through a negative income tax, might yield better results. I don't know enough about it to have strong opinions on this, but just wanted to point out that minimum wages are just one solution/tool.

dredmorbius 9y ago
Basic income is effectively the same thing as an employer-of-last resort (at a guaranteed wage), without the obligation to work. I'm not saying that one is better than the other -- I don't have an opinion on that. I am saying that the market effect is the same.

throwaway91111 9y ago

You're forgetting automation. Unskilled labor is valued less now; i don't think you can pin everything on labor surplus (especially illegal immigration) when the labor market itself is restricting.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
I haven't forgotten. Automation isn't the reason manufacturing was shipped to Asia in the 70's, though. It's not why manufacturing was shipped to Mexico in the 90's. The cheap labor is the reason.