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> The reality for us every-day workers is that either the minimum wage is increased or we'll have to make up for it in taxes that support programs to compensate

> The reality for us every-day workers is that either the minimum wage is increased or we'll have to make up for it in taxes that support programs to compensate for the lack of a liveable wage. Exactly. Too low a minimum wage actually becomes a subsidy to employers.

Alex3917 7y ago
Higher minimum wage is a subsidy for tech companies though. A better policy would be UBI rather than higher minimum wage.
- danmaz74 7y ago
  > Higher minimum wage is a subsidy for tech companies though By which mechanism?
  - Alex3917 7y ago
    When you raise the minimum wage, it makes automation more effective in comparison. Which is why in NYC when they raised the minimum wage for fast food workers, most of the people at McDonald's who used to take orders just got replaced with kiosks. This is in effect a subsidy for the tech companies that automate labor, like the company that makes the McDonald's kiosks.
    - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago
      If a job can't be done for a livable wage, then we have to be willing to let those jobs go. Automate them, outsource them, let the companies who rely on exploitative labor fail -- the jobs are going to leave eventually anyway. Meanwhile, we should funnel some of those productivity gains to build a robust social safety net (including education and job retraining) to give the displaced some dignity, and the ability to retool and become productive again if they so choose.
    - sachdevap 7y ago
      That automation is in competition with minimum wage is unsubstantiated. And if companies innovate to get rid of the need for minimum wage jobs when min wage is raised, the society's response should not be to throttle innovation or keep lower minimum wage, but to institutionalize changes to how we redistribute the gains of that innovation.
    - rapind 7y ago
      If this is true, then I would guess that eventually it would have happened anyways. Automation is only going to get more effective, and the costs to automate can only go down. So at the most, all this could do is speed up adoption (but I still question if it really has or is just a scapegoat).
    - jeremyjh 7y ago
      Higher wages might make it easier to make a business case for installing kiosks, but it does nothing to lower the price of the kiosks. I don't see how it qualifies as a "subsidy".
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        It's a market shift more than a subsidy. Given a constant demand for, say, fast-food ordering services, there are two competing supplies addressing that need: minimum-wage labour, or automated kiosks. By raising the minimum wage, you're shifting the supply curve up, which if sufficient, kicks the advantage to the kiosk manufacturer(s). Advantage: automation. The kiosk vendors get a windfall benefit as they can now capture this share of the market. The restaurateurs may wish to consider what their new market position vis-a-vis suppliers is. With minimum-wage labour, any one unit of input (worker) is fungible for another, and the employer has considerable leverage over the supply in that whilst a worker is out of a job, the employer need only find another replacement worker. Up against a (likely) automation oligopoly or monopoly, the restaurateur is now at the short end of the market stick, and may face future price (or other) demands or concessions from the automation vendor(s). At least to the point of substituting back in human labour.
    - germinalphrase 7y ago
      If minimum wage becomes a living wage then there are more people capable of accepting jobs that are needed and more difficult to automate - for instance, caregivers.
    - ggggtez 7y ago
      >Which is why in NYC when they raised the minimum wage for fast food workers, most of the people at McDonald's who used to take orders just got replaced with kiosks Is it really true though? When you actually look at the real world, you'll find those kiosks at McDonalds in airports too, despite not being in districts that raised minimum wage. And what about McDonalds in other wealthy countries, that often have state mandated living wages much higher than in the US? They don't particularly seemed to have rushed to automate any quicker than in the US. In fact, I think it's more likely that you are overlooking the myriad of other benefits: The kiosk can take orders in any language, for example. Perhaps the Kiosk was always the superior option for McDonalds to use for their store. It just took until the coincidental timing for the technology to become cheaper, and robust enough, to use in practice.
      - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago
        They've been superior for a while. We had touchscreen kiosks at a Jack-in-the-Box (cheap burger chain) at near my university back in 2007. It was a pilot program, and the CEO said they found that young people preferred to wait in line for the kiosk rather than place their order with an actual human, but older people preferred the opposite, so they decided to wait before rolling it out to all their locations. I think touchscreen devices are finally omnipresent enough that the older age demographics can handle ordering via a touchscreen. A more sinister take would be that the larger restaurant chains anticipated minimum-wage increases, and timed the rollout of touchscreen devices to coincide with the rollout of minimum wage legislation, so their lobbyists can make the argument that minimum wage increases cost jobs, because they're still going to have to pay the cooks in the back and the people to keep the place clean.
closeparen 7y ago
I used to think this was bad. Now I’m not sure. The model where employers are responsible for employee well being leaves a lot to be desired: a) The employer can always get out of the obligation by just not employing the person, reducing their hours, switching to a contractor relationship, etc. It only benefits employed people. b) It creates pressure for everyone to be employed by a corporation, as opposed to retirement, entrepreneurship, or whatever else people might want to do. c) It favors large employers over small ones. If we want everyone to have something, we should provide it at public expense, not attach it as a condition of other relationships. Yes this might be “a subsidy for employers” but progressive taxation takes it from the employer’s beneficial owner anyway.

Alex3917 7y ago

Higher minimum wage is a subsidy for tech companies though. A better policy would be UBI rather than higher minimum wage.

danmaz74 7y ago
> Higher minimum wage is a subsidy for tech companies though By which mechanism?
- Alex3917 7y ago
  When you raise the minimum wage, it makes automation more effective in comparison. Which is why in NYC when they raised the minimum wage for fast food workers, most of the people at McDonald's who used to take orders just got replaced with kiosks. This is in effect a subsidy for the tech companies that automate labor, like the company that makes the McDonald's kiosks.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago
    If a job can't be done for a livable wage, then we have to be willing to let those jobs go. Automate them, outsource them, let the companies who rely on exploitative labor fail -- the jobs are going to leave eventually anyway. Meanwhile, we should funnel some of those productivity gains to build a robust social safety net (including education and job retraining) to give the displaced some dignity, and the ability to retool and become productive again if they so choose.
  - sachdevap 7y ago
    That automation is in competition with minimum wage is unsubstantiated. And if companies innovate to get rid of the need for minimum wage jobs when min wage is raised, the society's response should not be to throttle innovation or keep lower minimum wage, but to institutionalize changes to how we redistribute the gains of that innovation.
  - rapind 7y ago
    If this is true, then I would guess that eventually it would have happened anyways. Automation is only going to get more effective, and the costs to automate can only go down. So at the most, all this could do is speed up adoption (but I still question if it really has or is just a scapegoat).
  - jeremyjh 7y ago
    Higher wages might make it easier to make a business case for installing kiosks, but it does nothing to lower the price of the kiosks. I don't see how it qualifies as a "subsidy".
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      It's a market shift more than a subsidy. Given a constant demand for, say, fast-food ordering services, there are two competing supplies addressing that need: minimum-wage labour, or automated kiosks. By raising the minimum wage, you're shifting the supply curve up, which if sufficient, kicks the advantage to the kiosk manufacturer(s). Advantage: automation. The kiosk vendors get a windfall benefit as they can now capture this share of the market. The restaurateurs may wish to consider what their new market position vis-a-vis suppliers is. With minimum-wage labour, any one unit of input (worker) is fungible for another, and the employer has considerable leverage over the supply in that whilst a worker is out of a job, the employer need only find another replacement worker. Up against a (likely) automation oligopoly or monopoly, the restaurateur is now at the short end of the market stick, and may face future price (or other) demands or concessions from the automation vendor(s). At least to the point of substituting back in human labour.
  - germinalphrase 7y ago
    If minimum wage becomes a living wage then there are more people capable of accepting jobs that are needed and more difficult to automate - for instance, caregivers.
  - ggggtez 7y ago
    >Which is why in NYC when they raised the minimum wage for fast food workers, most of the people at McDonald's who used to take orders just got replaced with kiosks Is it really true though? When you actually look at the real world, you'll find those kiosks at McDonalds in airports too, despite not being in districts that raised minimum wage. And what about McDonalds in other wealthy countries, that often have state mandated living wages much higher than in the US? They don't particularly seemed to have rushed to automate any quicker than in the US. In fact, I think it's more likely that you are overlooking the myriad of other benefits: The kiosk can take orders in any language, for example. Perhaps the Kiosk was always the superior option for McDonalds to use for their store. It just took until the coincidental timing for the technology to become cheaper, and robust enough, to use in practice.
    - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago
      They've been superior for a while. We had touchscreen kiosks at a Jack-in-the-Box (cheap burger chain) at near my university back in 2007. It was a pilot program, and the CEO said they found that young people preferred to wait in line for the kiosk rather than place their order with an actual human, but older people preferred the opposite, so they decided to wait before rolling it out to all their locations. I think touchscreen devices are finally omnipresent enough that the older age demographics can handle ordering via a touchscreen. A more sinister take would be that the larger restaurant chains anticipated minimum-wage increases, and timed the rollout of touchscreen devices to coincide with the rollout of minimum wage legislation, so their lobbyists can make the argument that minimum wage increases cost jobs, because they're still going to have to pay the cooks in the back and the people to keep the place clean.

closeparen 7y ago

I used to think this was bad. Now I’m not sure. The model where employers are responsible for employee well being leaves a lot to be desired: a) The employer can always get out of the obligation by just not employing the person, reducing their hours, switching to a contractor relationship, etc. It only benefits employed people. b) It creates pressure for everyone to be employed by a corporation, as opposed to retirement, entrepreneurship, or whatever else people might want to do. c) It favors large employers over small ones. If we want everyone to have something, we should provide it at public expense, not attach it as a condition of other relationships. Yes this might be “a subsidy for employers” but progressive taxation takes it from the employer’s beneficial owner anyway.