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Except raising the minimum wage is often met with cries that it will stifle business and prevent competition. The problem is fundamentally that labor markets ca

Except raising the minimum wage is often met with cries that it will stifle business and prevent competition. The problem is fundamentally that labor markets can't be free markets, and the minimum wage is not a viable way to control the market distortions. The better solution is to use a basic income which allows people to not work for companies like Amazon until they can pay a better wage.

vorpalhex 8y ago
A minimum wage of $7/hr in the Bay Area or NYC is useless. That won't cover transportation. $14/hr is still, basically, the same amount of more or less useless. In, to quote Ken White, "pluck-my-banjo" Texas, that's a perfectly fine and livable sum. A dollar or two raise and you can probably start saving up for a house realistically. $14/hr is kingly. Amazon warehouses are usually not in banjo-playing rural areas, but rather as close to major towns as is economically feasible for Amazon's rent bill. This is neither a basic income nor a federal minimum wage problem. This is a lack of competing opportunities for minimally skilled workers problem. If these same workers had realistic job opportunities that paid well, then Amazon would have to raise wages (and pass some of that onto the consumers, but, that's relatively nothing).
- gowld 8y ago
  There's a large tier between banjo-playing Texas and "Bay Area" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_locations#Fulfillment_and_warehousing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_locations#Fulfi...
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  Can we please end this charade of pretending a $14 wage is kingly anywhere? I mean even the whole idea of 'banjo-playing areas'? Come on. I find it really gross the way people that have good jobs and have never left urban/suburban environments typecast the rest of the country.
  - sol_remmy 8y ago
    > I find it gross that.. Can you leave the mock disgust behind? You probably live in an urban/suburban area just like the rest of us, yet your lecturing us. $14 an hour is not as bad as you think. Median nursing salary in England = 23000 pounds = 32300 usd. So the median amazon warehouse worker makes 82.5% of what the median nurse makes in the U.K. Is that really so bad?
    - deadmetheny 8y ago
      I do live in a rural area of the USA, and I can verify that making $14/hr is enough to live a modest lower middle class lifestyle around here. Is that good enough for you? A lot of people here have preconceived notions about the living conditions of non-coastal areas and, to be frank, it gets old. OP is correct to lecture people because they are completely fucking correct in most cases.
    - thirdsun 8y ago
      You can't compare absolute wages between the US and europe. This kind of money will buy you a way better life in europe if you consider health care, social security and overall working conditions.
  - epicureanideal 8y ago
    Yeah, even in the cheapest parts of the US, $14/hr at best would make you "upper lower class" or "lower middle class", meaning consistently able to pay your rent for an apartment. Or possibly, if you're really really good with your money otherwise and also manage to save for years without any medical expenses, start buying a small condo or half of a duplex. But that's not kingly for sure.
  - vorpalhex 8y ago
    That's about $30k a year. That's comfortable in areas within an hour or two of my town. I made that amount when I was in college, in the DC area, and most certainly survived just fine. Had I lived more rural in an area where entry level homes are <200k and not 600k+, that would of gone much farther. And the banjo-playing is mostly a joke, especially in Texas. That being said, as an avid hiker, I spend a significant chunk of my time in places best labeled as "Nowhere, really".
scarface74 8y ago
Amazon already owns Kiva. If you make the minimum wage high enough, it just gives them more incentive to automate.
- krapp 8y ago
  It's impossible to give Amazon more incentive to automate, since they already intend to automate everything as soon as it's feasible. Raising minimum wage or even wages in general for warehouse workers wouldn't accelerate that schedule, since the obstacles to automation are primarily technical. Kivas are nice and all, but they can't pick and they definitely can't stow. They could probably move pallets, but couldn't palletize, and having them run around the facilities at the necessary speed dragging a train of pallets would be a safety hazard. They are really good at reading QR codes and turning at 90 degree angles, though.
  - SE4L 8y ago
    But it's a business decision to pay expensive engineering time to automate what can be done by people for much cheaper. If the people become too expensive, the business decision becomes easier. There are places in India where they pay 100 men pennies to dig a trench. Sure, they could buy a machine so 1 person could do the work of 100, but if the machine costs 100k and the guy who is trained to operate it makes 10 an hour, the payoff time is too long to justify. If the guys digging the trench demand 5 an hour, the barrier to the investment goes down significantly. This is why, if a 15 dollar minimum wage is passed nation wide, you will never order from a person at McDonald's again... and any niche restaurant that does use people will cost significantly more. A large business like McDonalds benefits from this because they can absorb the cost. A small business can't, so big corporation's have less competition and can make even larger profits because they have less downward pressure on their prices.
    - krapp 8y ago
      I can't back it up with data, but I'm not certain that $15/hr would be too expensive for Amazon warehouse labor. Automating those warehouses entirely would either require very expensive, as yet technically infeasible, robots (and the engineering infrastructure to maintain them) capable of adapting to the existing human-centric ergonomics, and/or committing to redesigning all of the facilities around a new automation paradigm. Paying humans more still seems like a better deal for the forseeable future.

vorpalhex 8y ago

A minimum wage of $7/hr in the Bay Area or NYC is useless. That won't cover transportation. $14/hr is still, basically, the same amount of more or less useless. In, to quote Ken White, "pluck-my-banjo" Texas, that's a perfectly fine and livable sum. A dollar or two raise and you can probably start saving up for a house realistically. $14/hr is kingly. Amazon warehouses are usually not in banjo-playing rural areas, but rather as close to major towns as is economically feasible for Amazon's rent bill. This is neither a basic income nor a federal minimum wage problem. This is a lack of competing opportunities for minimally skilled workers problem. If these same workers had realistic job opportunities that paid well, then Amazon would have to raise wages (and pass some of that onto the consumers, but, that's relatively nothing).

gowld 8y ago
There's a large tier between banjo-playing Texas and "Bay Area" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_locations#Fulfillment_and_warehousing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_locations#Fulfi...
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
Can we please end this charade of pretending a $14 wage is kingly anywhere? I mean even the whole idea of 'banjo-playing areas'? Come on. I find it really gross the way people that have good jobs and have never left urban/suburban environments typecast the rest of the country.
- sol_remmy 8y ago
  > I find it gross that.. Can you leave the mock disgust behind? You probably live in an urban/suburban area just like the rest of us, yet your lecturing us. $14 an hour is not as bad as you think. Median nursing salary in England = 23000 pounds = 32300 usd. So the median amazon warehouse worker makes 82.5% of what the median nurse makes in the U.K. Is that really so bad?
  - deadmetheny 8y ago
    I do live in a rural area of the USA, and I can verify that making $14/hr is enough to live a modest lower middle class lifestyle around here. Is that good enough for you? A lot of people here have preconceived notions about the living conditions of non-coastal areas and, to be frank, it gets old. OP is correct to lecture people because they are completely fucking correct in most cases.
  - thirdsun 8y ago
    You can't compare absolute wages between the US and europe. This kind of money will buy you a way better life in europe if you consider health care, social security and overall working conditions.
- epicureanideal 8y ago
  Yeah, even in the cheapest parts of the US, $14/hr at best would make you "upper lower class" or "lower middle class", meaning consistently able to pay your rent for an apartment. Or possibly, if you're really really good with your money otherwise and also manage to save for years without any medical expenses, start buying a small condo or half of a duplex. But that's not kingly for sure.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  That's about $30k a year. That's comfortable in areas within an hour or two of my town. I made that amount when I was in college, in the DC area, and most certainly survived just fine. Had I lived more rural in an area where entry level homes are <200k and not 600k+, that would of gone much farther. And the banjo-playing is mostly a joke, especially in Texas. That being said, as an avid hiker, I spend a significant chunk of my time in places best labeled as "Nowhere, really".

scarface74 8y ago

Amazon already owns Kiva. If you make the minimum wage high enough, it just gives them more incentive to automate.

krapp 8y ago
It's impossible to give Amazon more incentive to automate, since they already intend to automate everything as soon as it's feasible. Raising minimum wage or even wages in general for warehouse workers wouldn't accelerate that schedule, since the obstacles to automation are primarily technical. Kivas are nice and all, but they can't pick and they definitely can't stow. They could probably move pallets, but couldn't palletize, and having them run around the facilities at the necessary speed dragging a train of pallets would be a safety hazard. They are really good at reading QR codes and turning at 90 degree angles, though.
- SE4L 8y ago
  But it's a business decision to pay expensive engineering time to automate what can be done by people for much cheaper. If the people become too expensive, the business decision becomes easier. There are places in India where they pay 100 men pennies to dig a trench. Sure, they could buy a machine so 1 person could do the work of 100, but if the machine costs 100k and the guy who is trained to operate it makes 10 an hour, the payoff time is too long to justify. If the guys digging the trench demand 5 an hour, the barrier to the investment goes down significantly. This is why, if a 15 dollar minimum wage is passed nation wide, you will never order from a person at McDonald's again... and any niche restaurant that does use people will cost significantly more. A large business like McDonalds benefits from this because they can absorb the cost. A small business can't, so big corporation's have less competition and can make even larger profits because they have less downward pressure on their prices.
  - krapp 8y ago
    I can't back it up with data, but I'm not certain that $15/hr would be too expensive for Amazon warehouse labor. Automating those warehouses entirely would either require very expensive, as yet technically infeasible, robots (and the engineering infrastructure to maintain them) capable of adapting to the existing human-centric ergonomics, and/or committing to redesigning all of the facilities around a new automation paradigm. Paying humans more still seems like a better deal for the forseeable future.