5 ms·

There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. People are paid what the market will bear. $28k is about 13/hour. For places like Ea

There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. People are paid what the market will bear. $28k is about 13/hour. For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it. As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances.

gowld 9y ago
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/enlisted-paygrades-and-ranks-3356726 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/enlisted-paygrades-and-ran... says E1-E3 are for basic training and first assignment, and E4 is $25k/yr. Plus I suppose (not sure) that military has much better health insurance (and other benefits, like food and maybe housing?) than Amazon warehouse employees
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  I'd suspect the military jobs have substantially better job security, as well.
  - panzagl 9y ago
    For many it's the last job they ever have...
  - colek42 9y ago
    That is a two-way street. You are also not allowed to leave.
- colek42 9y ago
  Housing is usually a shared apartment on base with high restrictions. Kinda like a college dorm room with lots of rules. Heath care is okay, it is free, which is nice, but military hospitals sometimes do not attract the best and brightest. We had some issues over the years. You get about $300 or so for a food allowance each month unless you live on base, then you get crappy chow hall food.
- colek42 9y ago
  You will usually not make E4 until you hit your 3 year mark. The reg says you must have two years time in service. There are plenty of privates walking around Afghanistan right now.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
smt88 9y ago
> There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. Who thinks this? I don't know any adult who is that naive. > People are paid what the market will bear. In many industries, the employer side of the market is vastly more powerful than the employee. The employer can just pass on an employee asking for too much money; an employee may be facing weeks without a job, which is difficult for most people to afford. In those situations, the market can bear quite a bit more than it has to, which is the reason minimum-wage requirements don't kill most industries. > For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it. That's true if the government is protecting the employee with a safety nets, like welfare and ACA, and laws, like COBRA. A better-paid employee could save more money and provide their own safety net, as many high earners do with rainy-day accounts, investments, passive income, etc. Because Amazon employees aren't necessarily saving enough to afford to build their own safety nets, taxpayers are effectively subsidizing Amazon. > As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances. I'm not sure this is apples-to-apples because military benefits are substantial, and the most major downside to military service (the risk of being sent into armed combat) is very difficult to put into monetary terms.
- randyrand 9y ago
  Take an economics course. It should be eye opening. Honestly, it should be required reading for anyone that debates politics and economics. https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/supply-demand-equilibrium/economics-introduction/v/introduction-to-economics https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...
  - sidlls 9y ago
    I've taken economics courses. Real ones from an accredited University, even. The only thing eye opening about them was the revelation that the entire field has such math and science envy.
  - smt88 9y ago
    Took them up to the graduate level. They were certainly eye-opening, and probably not in the way you think. If you have an argument against anything I've said (rather than condescension and a veiled insult), I'd be genuinely interested to know what it is.
randyrand 9y ago
Here's the thing, people are worth what the market will bear.
- ndespres 9y ago
  I wish I could believe that you're being rhetorical, but it's evident by your other comments on this thread, and your handle, that your views are indeed as undistinguished and juvenile as they appear to be. It's true that under capitalism, a laborer is only valued to the extent that their labor can be exploited to further the interest of capital, but it is incorrect to believe that this is the only possible system (it is not), or that it is somehow natural and correct (it is neither), or that the inherent value of Amazon's serfs is truly set by market forces (it is not) rather than the value of their own humanity. Applauding Amazon or any multinational corporation for squeezing the maximum value out of workers is rather disgusting.
lotsofpulp 9y ago
The definition of what something is worth is what the market will bear.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- danShumway 9y ago
  That sounds like a tautology to me. Most people do not define worth based on monetary cost; you are using a very narrow economic definition. If you can't get past that word, then please substitute "value", or "usefulness", or some other equivalent above.
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    If you ask someone if it was worth it to have a plumber fix a pipe, or a moving company to move their furniture, you would be comparing how much someone is getting paid versus you doing it yourself. An employer paying an employee is a business transaction, there is no other meaning than where the supply curve meets the demand curve, in a business activity, whether it be selling an item or buying labor. Now, it should be noted that this only works when there are a multitude of buyers and sellers, but that problem is a different problem and should be recognized as such, instead of suggesting employers pay more than market rate, maybe we should be focusing our efforts on the real problem of monopsonies. Or if people are inherently "worth" something just for being, then I think it's more accurate to refer to that as "What are people entitled to" rather than "what are people worth" to avoid muddying up definitions.
    - danShumway 9y ago
      If anything, this implies the opposite of your definition. If you ask someone if it was worth it to have a plumber fix a pipe, and they say 'no', what they're telling you is whether or not their time is worth more than the price of paying a plumber. If it's possible for someone to believe they are getting more value out of a transaction then they are paying into it, than how can value be defined by what they pay? If market prices actually determined something's value, then you would never ask if hiring a plumber was 'worth it', because by definition the answer would be yes. After all, by definition the plumber is worth what you pay them. But you do ask, because most people recognize that when they define 'value', they are referring to something external which the market can provide them. Winning or losing in a transaction only works if you believe the value of what you get can be different than what you pay. I dislike tautological definitions because they're not useful and they don't provide any new information. The claim that OP was trying to make was "what most people think of as value (for example, 'how much money an employee makes a company') does not correlate to pay." That's an interesting claim because by default people who are operating under principles of fairness might assume otherwise. To say 'everyone is payed what they're worth by definition because what they're worth is what we pay them' supplies no information to anyone and is not an interesting claim to make. It's technically self-consistent, but brings nothing new to the discussion.
elicash 9y ago
The first part of your comment relates to an ideological view I disagree with, but at least is a fair argument to make in advocating we go about our lives and not concern ourselves with issues of low pay -- that the market is self-correcting and best to leave it alone. And I'd argue we structure our society in the way that we think achieves the outcomes we want. A normal debate to have. But it does bother me when workers are pitted against one another, like you pitting underpaid warehouse workers against the military. We see this a lot. Fast food workers should try to negotiate for higher pay because teachers make X. Etc etc. If you think military pay is too low, then argue for higher military pay.
- colek42 9y ago
  I think the pay is fair for the military. It is an entry-level job. I used it as an example since it is how I spent the first 10 years or so of my adulthood. Becuase I got paid crap and had horrible working conditions it gave me the motivation I needed to learn how to program computers. Now I am a highly paid SWE. If I was making 100k a year enlisted I would have never had the motivation to do what I am doing now.
  - elicash 9y ago
    To be clear, you're now arguing pay at Amazon is "crap" but that it's good because it gives people motivation to change careers. Glad we could clarify that.
    - colek42 9y ago
      To be clear, I said my pay was crap when doing a comparison to my pay as an SWE. It was crap, but fair considering my skill set.

gowld 9y ago

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/enlisted-paygrades-and-ranks-3356726 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/enlisted-paygrades-and-ran... says E1-E3 are for basic training and first assignment, and E4 is $25k/yr. Plus I suppose (not sure) that military has much better health insurance (and other benefits, like food and maybe housing?) than Amazon warehouse employees

ceejayoz 9y ago
I'd suspect the military jobs have substantially better job security, as well.
- panzagl 9y ago
  For many it's the last job they ever have...
- colek42 9y ago
  That is a two-way street. You are also not allowed to leave.
colek42 9y ago
Housing is usually a shared apartment on base with high restrictions. Kinda like a college dorm room with lots of rules. Heath care is okay, it is free, which is nice, but military hospitals sometimes do not attract the best and brightest. We had some issues over the years. You get about $300 or so for a food allowance each month unless you live on base, then you get crappy chow hall food.
colek42 9y ago
You will usually not make E4 until you hit your 3 year mark. The reg says you must have two years time in service. There are plenty of privates walking around Afghanistan right now.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

smt88 9y ago

> There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. Who thinks this? I don't know any adult who is that naive. > People are paid what the market will bear. In many industries, the employer side of the market is vastly more powerful than the employee. The employer can just pass on an employee asking for too much money; an employee may be facing weeks without a job, which is difficult for most people to afford. In those situations, the market can bear quite a bit more than it has to, which is the reason minimum-wage requirements don't kill most industries. > For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it. That's true if the government is protecting the employee with a safety nets, like welfare and ACA, and laws, like COBRA. A better-paid employee could save more money and provide their own safety net, as many high earners do with rainy-day accounts, investments, passive income, etc. Because Amazon employees aren't necessarily saving enough to afford to build their own safety nets, taxpayers are effectively subsidizing Amazon. > As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances. I'm not sure this is apples-to-apples because military benefits are substantial, and the most major downside to military service (the risk of being sent into armed combat) is very difficult to put into monetary terms.

randyrand 9y ago
Take an economics course. It should be eye opening. Honestly, it should be required reading for anyone that debates politics and economics. https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/supply-demand-equilibrium/economics-introduction/v/introduction-to-economics https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...
- sidlls 9y ago
  I've taken economics courses. Real ones from an accredited University, even. The only thing eye opening about them was the revelation that the entire field has such math and science envy.
- smt88 9y ago
  Took them up to the graduate level. They were certainly eye-opening, and probably not in the way you think. If you have an argument against anything I've said (rather than condescension and a veiled insult), I'd be genuinely interested to know what it is.

randyrand 9y ago

Here's the thing, people are worth what the market will bear.

ndespres 9y ago
I wish I could believe that you're being rhetorical, but it's evident by your other comments on this thread, and your handle, that your views are indeed as undistinguished and juvenile as they appear to be. It's true that under capitalism, a laborer is only valued to the extent that their labor can be exploited to further the interest of capital, but it is incorrect to believe that this is the only possible system (it is not), or that it is somehow natural and correct (it is neither), or that the inherent value of Amazon's serfs is truly set by market forces (it is not) rather than the value of their own humanity. Applauding Amazon or any multinational corporation for squeezing the maximum value out of workers is rather disgusting.

lotsofpulp 9y ago

The definition of what something is worth is what the market will bear.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
danShumway 9y ago
That sounds like a tautology to me. Most people do not define worth based on monetary cost; you are using a very narrow economic definition. If you can't get past that word, then please substitute "value", or "usefulness", or some other equivalent above.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  If you ask someone if it was worth it to have a plumber fix a pipe, or a moving company to move their furniture, you would be comparing how much someone is getting paid versus you doing it yourself. An employer paying an employee is a business transaction, there is no other meaning than where the supply curve meets the demand curve, in a business activity, whether it be selling an item or buying labor. Now, it should be noted that this only works when there are a multitude of buyers and sellers, but that problem is a different problem and should be recognized as such, instead of suggesting employers pay more than market rate, maybe we should be focusing our efforts on the real problem of monopsonies. Or if people are inherently "worth" something just for being, then I think it's more accurate to refer to that as "What are people entitled to" rather than "what are people worth" to avoid muddying up definitions.
  - danShumway 9y ago
    If anything, this implies the opposite of your definition. If you ask someone if it was worth it to have a plumber fix a pipe, and they say 'no', what they're telling you is whether or not their time is worth more than the price of paying a plumber. If it's possible for someone to believe they are getting more value out of a transaction then they are paying into it, than how can value be defined by what they pay? If market prices actually determined something's value, then you would never ask if hiring a plumber was 'worth it', because by definition the answer would be yes. After all, by definition the plumber is worth what you pay them. But you do ask, because most people recognize that when they define 'value', they are referring to something external which the market can provide them. Winning or losing in a transaction only works if you believe the value of what you get can be different than what you pay. I dislike tautological definitions because they're not useful and they don't provide any new information. The claim that OP was trying to make was "what most people think of as value (for example, 'how much money an employee makes a company') does not correlate to pay." That's an interesting claim because by default people who are operating under principles of fairness might assume otherwise. To say 'everyone is payed what they're worth by definition because what they're worth is what we pay them' supplies no information to anyone and is not an interesting claim to make. It's technically self-consistent, but brings nothing new to the discussion.

elicash 9y ago

The first part of your comment relates to an ideological view I disagree with, but at least is a fair argument to make in advocating we go about our lives and not concern ourselves with issues of low pay -- that the market is self-correcting and best to leave it alone. And I'd argue we structure our society in the way that we think achieves the outcomes we want. A normal debate to have. But it does bother me when workers are pitted against one another, like you pitting underpaid warehouse workers against the military. We see this a lot. Fast food workers should try to negotiate for higher pay because teachers make X. Etc etc. If you think military pay is too low, then argue for higher military pay.

colek42 9y ago
I think the pay is fair for the military. It is an entry-level job. I used it as an example since it is how I spent the first 10 years or so of my adulthood. Becuase I got paid crap and had horrible working conditions it gave me the motivation I needed to learn how to program computers. Now I am a highly paid SWE. If I was making 100k a year enlisted I would have never had the motivation to do what I am doing now.
- elicash 9y ago
  To be clear, you're now arguing pay at Amazon is "crap" but that it's good because it gives people motivation to change careers. Glad we could clarify that.
  - colek42 9y ago
    To be clear, I said my pay was crap when doing a comparison to my pay as an SWE. It was crap, but fair considering my skill set.