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I’m sorry, what? Wage growth has stagnated for most Americans in the lat few decades. The idea that billionaires are a necessity for the existence of jobs is ab
by lefrenchy 6y ago
I’m sorry, what? Wage growth has stagnated for most Americans in the lat few decades. The idea that billionaires are a necessity for the existence of jobs is absurd.
Ask yourself this: if they are paying their employees so well, where are they getting all that money?
- gadders 6y agoOne possible cause for wage growth stagnation is the increase in the supply of labour from EG immigration and H1B visas and the like.
- airstrike 6y agoYeah, no. The cause for wage growth stagnation isn't immigration. Immigration is a net positive for society. Emigration is the real harm. That much is settled in Economics. The cause for wage growth is, perhaps, the offshoring of labor to cheaper economies. Better for Nike to pay minimum wage in China than in the US. Meanwhile, capital gains remain domestic as business owners don't relocate
- gadders 6y agoYou supply a lot of assertions in your reply. I'm not sure why you think having more people to fill a role wouldn't drive the price down. Supply and demand applies to jobs and workers as much as any other part of economics.
- airstrike 6y ago> I'm not sure why you think having more people to fill a role wouldn't drive the price down. Immigration indeed lowers wages for competing workers, but it also increases wages for complementary workers and generates surplus to owners of capital – which in the long-term constitute a net gain to all of society, but at a minimum does constitute a net loss to workers at large. Research suggests negative wage effects are concentrated among low-skilled workers. Immigration can indeed have disruptive effects, but it can be managed, and its net gains for the whole of society are fairly well established.
- isoskeles 6y agoI'm curious what you mean by complementary workers. In the example of immigrants doing hard manual labor, especially agricultural work, who are the complementary workers? I'd infer it's workers like the people who transport crops around or operate the machinery to plant / grow the crops, etc. Is that close to the meaning you intended?
- airstrike 6y agohttps://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2014/05/01/the-economics-of-immigration-a-story-of-substitutes-and-complements/ https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2014...
- gowld 6y agoonly under the shadow of weakened unions.
- lefrenchy 6y agoProtections for labor have been stripped await as Capitalism has become more and more hegemonic over the last 50 years. Profit seeking corporations have always looked for ways to cut their wages. Combine this with the fact that we have become an increasingly globalized world, where labor standards are much lower in third world countries, and you have many factors that play into wage stagnation. It is ultimately a race to the bottom when you have a globalized economy, but do not have standardized worker protections across said economy. Immigration has plenty of benefits on society, and we should not use wage stagnation relative to productivity growth (which can be stopped) justify isolationism and protectionism. Whether we like it or not, we live in an increasingly globalized economy and we should fight to have broader labor protections and give more power to workers to be able to protect themselves and fight for fairer wages. The alternative is, as I previously stated, a race to the bottom.