4 ms·

>This is something we all should care about if we’re not just here to make a quick buck. Long term we need teachers and cooks and waiters and artists to keep SF

by lsc 8y ago

>This is something we all should care about if we’re not just here to make a quick buck. Long term we need teachers and cooks and waiters and artists to keep SF a desirable place to live. The problem could also be solved, (assuming building more at market rate housing) by simply paying the cooks and waiters and artists more. I mean, I'm a sysadmin, which is also 'support staff' and also doesn't require a degree... and I'm getting like twice here what I would elsewhere. I don't see why waiters should be any different.

abalone 8y ago
That’s a nice thought, but obviously you would see massive price hikes at restaurants and stores, and it’s likely that consumers would patronize them less. Macroeconomics rarely have such simple solutions. SF already leads the nation in raising the minimum wage. Tech businesses are a bad compare because the revenue per employee is typically much higher than the service industry.
- lsc 8y ago
  > That’s a nice thought, but obviously you would see massive price hikes at restaurants and stores, and it’s likely that consumers would patronize them less. I dunno about the last part. I personally perceive service and food around here to be incredibly cheap (compared to rent and wages for the sort of work I do) - There is, of course a demand curve, and raising prices will somewhat lower demand for the more optional kinds of service work, but we don't really know where that demand curve goes; personally, you'd have to double prices before I changed my consumption of locally produced services other than uber much at all. Right now, my perception is that area stores and restaurants are massively understaffed and open very limited hours, presumably because they aren't charging enough to pay enough to hire enough people. >Tech businesses are a bad compare because the revenue per employee is typically much higher than the service industry. That was kind of my point. right now, local services are under-priced compared to tech worker wages and compared to rent. Of course, this is going to result in dramatically lower revenue per employee than if they charged a lot more. A lot of the tech industry is also 1 on 1 service stuff. Depending on the day, my own work is more than half 1 on 1 kind of work that "doesn't scale" - but I still get paid a lot because the people I'm helping are valuable. Same principle applies to other kinds of support staff. If you support someone more valuable... you usually get paid more.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    > local services are under-priced compared to tech worker wages Okay, but if you 'fixed' that, then local services would be over-priced compared to non-tech-worker wages. Then where would non-tech-workers get haircuts or cognitive behavioral therapy?
    - lsc 8y ago
      The argument I'm putting forth is that raising the costs (and pay) for service work, if that could be done without raising the rent, would be a net positive for said service workers, just 'cause they spend a disproportionately large percentage of their income on rent (compared to tech workers) -
      - afarrell 8y ago
        But they're still going to have really long commutes because they can't find housing near where they live unless they outbid software engineers, which would raise the rent. And then the software companies will just have to raise salaries to beat them and more money will go toward the landlords. If you have a mostly-fixed supply and you subsidize buying that supply, you just raise the price. In order to increase the number of people who are able to live their jobs, you need to change the physical structure of area near their jobs to have more housing. You can't turn money into housing by just adding money. Only construction can do that.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        lsc 8y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16991980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16991980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16992481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16992481 I was responding to the objection that even if we were building unlimited new housing, the new stuff would be unaffordable to those on the bottom. And one solution to that is to pay them more relative to those on the top. I think it's obvious to people who don't own or live in rent controlled places that we need more housing overall. I was just responding to the fair objection that more housing, by itself, isn't enough to house people who are massively underpaid.

by lsc 8y ago

abalone 8y ago

That’s a nice thought, but obviously you would see massive price hikes at restaurants and stores, and it’s likely that consumers would patronize them less. Macroeconomics rarely have such simple solutions. SF already leads the nation in raising the minimum wage. Tech businesses are a bad compare because the revenue per employee is typically much higher than the service industry.

lsc 8y ago
> That’s a nice thought, but obviously you would see massive price hikes at restaurants and stores, and it’s likely that consumers would patronize them less. I dunno about the last part. I personally perceive service and food around here to be incredibly cheap (compared to rent and wages for the sort of work I do) - There is, of course a demand curve, and raising prices will somewhat lower demand for the more optional kinds of service work, but we don't really know where that demand curve goes; personally, you'd have to double prices before I changed my consumption of locally produced services other than uber much at all. Right now, my perception is that area stores and restaurants are massively understaffed and open very limited hours, presumably because they aren't charging enough to pay enough to hire enough people. >Tech businesses are a bad compare because the revenue per employee is typically much higher than the service industry. That was kind of my point. right now, local services are under-priced compared to tech worker wages and compared to rent. Of course, this is going to result in dramatically lower revenue per employee than if they charged a lot more. A lot of the tech industry is also 1 on 1 service stuff. Depending on the day, my own work is more than half 1 on 1 kind of work that "doesn't scale" - but I still get paid a lot because the people I'm helping are valuable. Same principle applies to other kinds of support staff. If you support someone more valuable... you usually get paid more.
- afarrell 8y ago
  > local services are under-priced compared to tech worker wages Okay, but if you 'fixed' that, then local services would be over-priced compared to non-tech-worker wages. Then where would non-tech-workers get haircuts or cognitive behavioral therapy?
  - lsc 8y ago
    The argument I'm putting forth is that raising the costs (and pay) for service work, if that could be done without raising the rent, would be a net positive for said service workers, just 'cause they spend a disproportionately large percentage of their income on rent (compared to tech workers) -
    - afarrell 8y ago
      But they're still going to have really long commutes because they can't find housing near where they live unless they outbid software engineers, which would raise the rent. And then the software companies will just have to raise salaries to beat them and more money will go toward the landlords. If you have a mostly-fixed supply and you subsidize buying that supply, you just raise the price. In order to increase the number of people who are able to live their jobs, you need to change the physical structure of area near their jobs to have more housing. You can't turn money into housing by just adding money. Only construction can do that.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - lsc 8y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16991980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16991980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16992481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16992481 I was responding to the objection that even if we were building unlimited new housing, the new stuff would be unaffordable to those on the bottom. And one solution to that is to pay them more relative to those on the top. I think it's obvious to people who don't own or live in rent controlled places that we need more housing overall. I was just responding to the fair objection that more housing, by itself, isn't enough to house people who are massively underpaid.