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> Why put the burden of social policy on private businesses instead of society through the government where it belongs? Because 1) Businesses just like people

> Why put the burden of social policy on private businesses instead of society through the government where it belongs? Because 1) Businesses just like people benefit from the conditions created through government spending, and therefore have some degree of obligation to support that spending via taxation, 2) businesses are in some way a part of society, and 3) I'm not sure how you're distinguishing 'through the government' vs something else.

mgoetzke 8y ago
And of course all jobs are worth some minimum. If somebody wants somebody to invest their time to do something for them it costs money. No matter how easy or simple it seems to be. And ALL time of ALL people should have a minimum monetary value associated with it to ensure ALL people can be members of society that don't have to sleep on the street or in cars, no matter what job they choose. The companies CAN decide NOT to hire people, if it is not worth to them of course.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Like I said above, that’s easy to say for people in the tech industry many of whom work for companies that don’t have to worry about being run in a manner to be profitable.... How many people could YC funded companies hire if they had to bootstrap businesses using their own money?
  - scroot 8y ago
    If a company cannot afford to pay a living wage for its full time employees, is it "profitable" in any meaningful sense? The owners of that company are pushing the burden onto the rest of society.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      So it’s bad for a mom and pop franchisor to have to operate profitably and pay minimum wage but not for Silicon Valley companies that don’t have to operate profitably and who can afford to pay their workers six figures because of VC funding?
      - scroot 8y ago
        The mom and pop are pushing their costs onto the rest of society, ie public money. We at least try not to let people starve in the street, and so provide government services for the poor. The VCs, for all of the faults of that system, aren't.
        scarface74 8y ago
        And what happens when the VC funds lose money that they got from government run pension funds and the taxpayers have to make up the difference?
        scroot 8y ago
        What you're pointing out is definitely an important contradiction. Talking about "mom and pop" shops is a bit of a distraction -- a minimum wage gives even large companies an excuse to become some of the worst offenders, which, in part, contributes to the VC-style sytem. Take a company like Amazon. Up until recently, they were known for paying their own warehouse workers low or minimum wage and working them like dogs. This is a highly profitable company. What have highly profitable companies done with their profits, by and large, since 2009? Stock buybacks and other types of security investments. This increases the pool of money that can be used for speculation by the wealthy -- and VCs, who can then "speculate" and keep otherwise "non-viable" businesses afloat. So while I don't necessarily agree with what you say about the small shops, you do have a valid point. These are structural problems.
scarface74 8y ago
I never said that business shouldn’t pay taxes. But what do you think is going to happen to the local pizza shop that my 16 year old son and his two friends work at that probably is only making his owner $50K a year once they have to pay them a “livable wage” of $17/hour? https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228698 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228698 It’s amazing that HN posters, many working at unprofitable companies funded by VCs are more than willing to tell other companies how much they should be paying their employees when they actually have to do the unheard of business move of running a profitable business instead of losing money year after year hoping for an “exit strategy”.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Your 16 year old son isn't really representative of the sort of folks depending on minimum wage incomes. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/upshot/minimum-wage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/upshot/minimum-wage.html
  - scarface74 8y ago
    You saw the part of my post where I advocated for the EITC? From the article: About 12 percent of those who would gain from an increase to $10.10 live in households with incomes above $100,000. This group highlights the fact that the minimum wage is not nearly as well targeted toward poverty reduction as the earned-income tax credit, a wage subsidy whose receipt, unlike the minimum wage, is predicated on family income.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      And it's less that the rich receive some benefit than that the burdens and benefits are widely uneven. If the rich pay taxes and then receive some percentage of them back in benefits, well, BFD. It doesn't make much difference whether you pay $30,000 in taxes by paying $30,000 directly or by paying $40,000 with a $10,000 credit. On the other hand, if you say that people who had been making $10 have to make $17, that's a real kick in the teeth to the person who had been making $20 and is still making $20 only now things cost more because on the supply side it's more expensive to hire and on the demand side there is more competition for goods and services. Meanwhile the money isn't actually coming from the rich, it's coming from people who hire the poor, which isn't the same thing. The burden it puts on small shops is larger than the burden it puts on Apple.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> Businesses just like people benefit from the conditions created through government spending, and therefore have some degree of obligation to support that spending via taxation The issue is that a minimum wage isn't a general tax on businesses that benefit from the conditions created through government spending, it's a tax on only those businesses that hire unskilled workers. If you want a wage subsidy then why put the burden on the small shops that were keeping people out of unemployment instead of spreading the burden evenly by instituting a UBI?
- scarface74 8y ago
  And in that case increasing minimum wage makes the problem worse. Investments will go even more toward businesses that are not labor intensive like tech and less toward businesses that rely on unskilled and semi skilled labor - increasing income inequality.
- iguy 8y ago
  I think it's helpful sometimes to think of the minimum wage not as a prescribed payment, but as a ban on employment below some level. We've decided that it's better to be unemployed than to be paid less than X. That's OK, we ban lots of other things people might otherwise voluntarily agree to -- like overly dangerous jobs, where we as a community take a longer-term view than the guy desperate to make the rent. Partly because we'll be on the hook when he lands himself in hospital. But banning more and more jobs doesn't obviously improve matters. It seems that we've already banned many starter-jobs, the sort teenagers used to work.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    So it’s better to not have any money than some money? That seems very paternalistic.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > I think it's helpful sometimes to think of the minimum wage not as a prescribed payment, but as a ban on employment below some level. We've decided that it's better to be unemployed than to be paid less than X. Which is kind of the point. You help people by giving them options, not by taking them away. Comparisons to workplace safety rules are inapt because the worthwhile ones are anti-stupidity rules. It doesn't help anybody to have unsafe working conditions, which means every instance of it is a mistake. When someone gets hurt they're harmed and the company is liable, which is worse for all parties than preventing the harm to begin with. When designed properly, the law is only prohibiting something that nobody has any legitimate reason to ever do. Whereas there are legitimate reasons to pay someone $10/hour -- you derive $11/hour worth of value from it and their second best alternative was to make $9/hour (or, when that's prohibited too, to be unemployed).

mgoetzke 8y ago

And of course all jobs are worth some minimum. If somebody wants somebody to invest their time to do something for them it costs money. No matter how easy or simple it seems to be. And ALL time of ALL people should have a minimum monetary value associated with it to ensure ALL people can be members of society that don't have to sleep on the street or in cars, no matter what job they choose. The companies CAN decide NOT to hire people, if it is not worth to them of course.

scarface74 8y ago
Like I said above, that’s easy to say for people in the tech industry many of whom work for companies that don’t have to worry about being run in a manner to be profitable.... How many people could YC funded companies hire if they had to bootstrap businesses using their own money?
- scroot 8y ago
  If a company cannot afford to pay a living wage for its full time employees, is it "profitable" in any meaningful sense? The owners of that company are pushing the burden onto the rest of society.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    So it’s bad for a mom and pop franchisor to have to operate profitably and pay minimum wage but not for Silicon Valley companies that don’t have to operate profitably and who can afford to pay their workers six figures because of VC funding?
    - scroot 8y ago
      The mom and pop are pushing their costs onto the rest of society, ie public money. We at least try not to let people starve in the street, and so provide government services for the poor. The VCs, for all of the faults of that system, aren't.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        And what happens when the VC funds lose money that they got from government run pension funds and the taxpayers have to make up the difference?
        scroot 8y ago
        What you're pointing out is definitely an important contradiction. Talking about "mom and pop" shops is a bit of a distraction -- a minimum wage gives even large companies an excuse to become some of the worst offenders, which, in part, contributes to the VC-style sytem. Take a company like Amazon. Up until recently, they were known for paying their own warehouse workers low or minimum wage and working them like dogs. This is a highly profitable company. What have highly profitable companies done with their profits, by and large, since 2009? Stock buybacks and other types of security investments. This increases the pool of money that can be used for speculation by the wealthy -- and VCs, who can then "speculate" and keep otherwise "non-viable" businesses afloat. So while I don't necessarily agree with what you say about the small shops, you do have a valid point. These are structural problems.

scarface74 8y ago

I never said that business shouldn’t pay taxes. But what do you think is going to happen to the local pizza shop that my 16 year old son and his two friends work at that probably is only making his owner $50K a year once they have to pay them a “livable wage” of $17/hour? https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228698 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228698 It’s amazing that HN posters, many working at unprofitable companies funded by VCs are more than willing to tell other companies how much they should be paying their employees when they actually have to do the unheard of business move of running a profitable business instead of losing money year after year hoping for an “exit strategy”.

ceejayoz 8y ago
Your 16 year old son isn't really representative of the sort of folks depending on minimum wage incomes. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/upshot/minimum-wage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/upshot/minimum-wage.html
- scarface74 8y ago
  You saw the part of my post where I advocated for the EITC? From the article: About 12 percent of those who would gain from an increase to $10.10 live in households with incomes above $100,000. This group highlights the fact that the minimum wage is not nearly as well targeted toward poverty reduction as the earned-income tax credit, a wage subsidy whose receipt, unlike the minimum wage, is predicated on family income.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    And it's less that the rich receive some benefit than that the burdens and benefits are widely uneven. If the rich pay taxes and then receive some percentage of them back in benefits, well, BFD. It doesn't make much difference whether you pay $30,000 in taxes by paying $30,000 directly or by paying $40,000 with a $10,000 credit. On the other hand, if you say that people who had been making $10 have to make $17, that's a real kick in the teeth to the person who had been making $20 and is still making $20 only now things cost more because on the supply side it's more expensive to hire and on the demand side there is more competition for goods and services. Meanwhile the money isn't actually coming from the rich, it's coming from people who hire the poor, which isn't the same thing. The burden it puts on small shops is larger than the burden it puts on Apple.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> Businesses just like people benefit from the conditions created through government spending, and therefore have some degree of obligation to support that spending via taxation The issue is that a minimum wage isn't a general tax on businesses that benefit from the conditions created through government spending, it's a tax on only those businesses that hire unskilled workers. If you want a wage subsidy then why put the burden on the small shops that were keeping people out of unemployment instead of spreading the burden evenly by instituting a UBI?

scarface74 8y ago
And in that case increasing minimum wage makes the problem worse. Investments will go even more toward businesses that are not labor intensive like tech and less toward businesses that rely on unskilled and semi skilled labor - increasing income inequality.
iguy 8y ago
I think it's helpful sometimes to think of the minimum wage not as a prescribed payment, but as a ban on employment below some level. We've decided that it's better to be unemployed than to be paid less than X. That's OK, we ban lots of other things people might otherwise voluntarily agree to -- like overly dangerous jobs, where we as a community take a longer-term view than the guy desperate to make the rent. Partly because we'll be on the hook when he lands himself in hospital. But banning more and more jobs doesn't obviously improve matters. It seems that we've already banned many starter-jobs, the sort teenagers used to work.
- scarface74 8y ago
  So it’s better to not have any money than some money? That seems very paternalistic.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > I think it's helpful sometimes to think of the minimum wage not as a prescribed payment, but as a ban on employment below some level. We've decided that it's better to be unemployed than to be paid less than X. Which is kind of the point. You help people by giving them options, not by taking them away. Comparisons to workplace safety rules are inapt because the worthwhile ones are anti-stupidity rules. It doesn't help anybody to have unsafe working conditions, which means every instance of it is a mistake. When someone gets hurt they're harmed and the company is liable, which is worse for all parties than preventing the harm to begin with. When designed properly, the law is only prohibiting something that nobody has any legitimate reason to ever do. Whereas there are legitimate reasons to pay someone $10/hour -- you derive $11/hour worth of value from it and their second best alternative was to make $9/hour (or, when that's prohibited too, to be unemployed).