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Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company.

by adrr 6y ago

endtime 6y ago
To "live" at what standard of living? A smartphone? A recent one? What standard of medical care? What about entertainment? What if someone wants only to eat organic, fair trade food? When you pay for yourself, you're price sensitive and try to choose what makes sense for you. When you're not price sensitive, you run into a major incentive problem. If your life is funded by taxpayers, you have no reason not to argue that basic subsistence requires a lifestyle as expensive as you can get away with.
- adrr 6y ago
  There’s obviously income thresholds for Medicaid, food stamps and other services. ACA clearly defines standard of medical care. Not sure what your asking because the government has already figured this out base on data.
- mdoms 6y ago
  Everyone I know who has lived on government assistance is most certainly price sensitive.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > To "live" at what standard of living? Decent. Roosevelt: """ In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living. """ > A smartphone? Yes > A recent one? Define "recent". One that has internet connectivity, allows you to install apps that are increasingly required today (banks, school, mail, auth etc.) > What standard of medical care? All of it except cosmetic. A.k.a. universal healthcare. > What about entertainment? What about it? Define entertainment. Let's do this way more broadly: how about vacations, sick leaves and parental leave? > What if someone wants only to eat organic, fair trade food? Yes. The poor cannot escape bad eating habits because (especially in the US) more often than not they have no access to healthy food, and healthy food is much more expensive than current government assistance can cover.
  - OCASM 6y ago
    Demanding other people take care of you even against their will and using the power of the state to achieve so. How is that not slavery?
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      Demanding other people live in perpetual poverty with no safety nets, how is that not slavery. BTW: Are you American, and do you by any chance identify as Christian? Because I've only seen two groups of people so hellbent on never helping their fellow man. American Christians and American libertarians.
      - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
        You must have lived a horribly isolated life if those are the only groups you've ever seen this behavior from. Take a look at the EU and austerity measures if you want to see this kind of behavior on a large scale.
        dmitriid 6y ago
        > Take a look at the EU and austerity measures I've yet to see an austerity measure that strips away even the most basic protections the way US does. > this kind of behavior on a large scale. The US: 40 million people one month away from eviction. 30 million people are one medical emergency away from life-time of crippling debt. Americans: oh, look at austerity measures in Europe.
      - OCASM 6y ago
        Could be that I do want people to improve their lives and just happen to disagree with your methods? No, disagreeing with your must mean I want people to stay in poverty forever... Learn from immigrants: they earn their way to a better life by applying themselves and helping each other.
        dmitriid 6y ago
kube-system 6y ago
I agree in spirit, but not in execution. What you suggest implies the necessity of discrimination between different workers in the same job, which I don't agree with. I think the better solution is to set a reasonable rate, fix it to inflation, and use corporate taxes to fund social safety nets.
prostoalex 6y ago
Thanks, that seems to be the most rational approach and can be tied to a specific formula. I wonder why states/municipalities don't just leave it at that - a specific consumption basket whose cost is recalculated annually, vs having recurrent loud debates about it with some arbitrary round numbers.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I wonder why states/municipalities don't just leave it at that - a specific consumption basket whose cost is recalculated annually, vs having recurrent loud debates about it with some arbitrary round numbers. Because the level at which it is safe to set local minimum wage without net adverse effects from job loss depends on a variety of conditions besides price levels, including prevailing low-end wages in localities that compete to attract employment. Building a formula that fully addresses this is nontrivial, and even with one that worked locally there would be a reason for broader regional/national campaigns to kick the floor up.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company. No, the government is subsidizing the worker, and in a system of means-tested aid doing so less than it would be without the job. If you can't employ people at wages that don't get them fully off public aid, then people can't get the jobs that let them build the skills to be employable at decent wages. Your plan is a recipe for (1) killing businesses and tax revenue that support public assistance, and (2) killing people's ability to move up and off of public assistance, so that for any given minimum standard of living we’ll need more public funds to reach it but have less available. It's much better to tax capital returns and use the proceeds to support the un- and under-employed (whether permanent or transitional) then it is to block the onramps to people becoming employable at wages that are livable. And that's even ignoring that Medicaid and other public assistance usually aren't based solely on individual income but household circumstance, so that the required minimum wage by that standard would be dependent on household circumstances, which is problematic.
raizinho 6y ago
It's expecting companies to subsidize misguided government policies. For example, if the government restricts housing (and implements rent control) which drives up prices, why should companies pay more to make sure people can afford housing costs? How about runaway inflation? There's always talk about market failures when many times government failures are the true causal mechanism.

Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company.

by adrr 6y ago

Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company.

endtime 6y ago

To "live" at what standard of living? A smartphone? A recent one? What standard of medical care? What about entertainment? What if someone wants only to eat organic, fair trade food? When you pay for yourself, you're price sensitive and try to choose what makes sense for you. When you're not price sensitive, you run into a major incentive problem. If your life is funded by taxpayers, you have no reason not to argue that basic subsistence requires a lifestyle as expensive as you can get away with.

adrr 6y ago
There’s obviously income thresholds for Medicaid, food stamps and other services. ACA clearly defines standard of medical care. Not sure what your asking because the government has already figured this out base on data.
mdoms 6y ago
Everyone I know who has lived on government assistance is most certainly price sensitive.
dmitriid 6y ago
> To "live" at what standard of living? Decent. Roosevelt: """ In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living. """ > A smartphone? Yes > A recent one? Define "recent". One that has internet connectivity, allows you to install apps that are increasingly required today (banks, school, mail, auth etc.) > What standard of medical care? All of it except cosmetic. A.k.a. universal healthcare. > What about entertainment? What about it? Define entertainment. Let's do this way more broadly: how about vacations, sick leaves and parental leave? > What if someone wants only to eat organic, fair trade food? Yes. The poor cannot escape bad eating habits because (especially in the US) more often than not they have no access to healthy food, and healthy food is much more expensive than current government assistance can cover.
- OCASM 6y ago
  Demanding other people take care of you even against their will and using the power of the state to achieve so. How is that not slavery?
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Demanding other people live in perpetual poverty with no safety nets, how is that not slavery. BTW: Are you American, and do you by any chance identify as Christian? Because I've only seen two groups of people so hellbent on never helping their fellow man. American Christians and American libertarians.
    - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
      You must have lived a horribly isolated life if those are the only groups you've ever seen this behavior from. Take a look at the EU and austerity measures if you want to see this kind of behavior on a large scale.
      - dmitriid 6y ago
        > Take a look at the EU and austerity measures I've yet to see an austerity measure that strips away even the most basic protections the way US does. > this kind of behavior on a large scale. The US: 40 million people one month away from eviction. 30 million people are one medical emergency away from life-time of crippling debt. Americans: oh, look at austerity measures in Europe.
    - OCASM 6y ago
      Could be that I do want people to improve their lives and just happen to disagree with your methods? No, disagreeing with your must mean I want people to stay in poverty forever... Learn from immigrants: they earn their way to a better life by applying themselves and helping each other.
      - dmitriid 6y ago

kube-system 6y ago

I agree in spirit, but not in execution. What you suggest implies the necessity of discrimination between different workers in the same job, which I don't agree with. I think the better solution is to set a reasonable rate, fix it to inflation, and use corporate taxes to fund social safety nets.

prostoalex 6y ago

Thanks, that seems to be the most rational approach and can be tied to a specific formula. I wonder why states/municipalities don't just leave it at that - a specific consumption basket whose cost is recalculated annually, vs having recurrent loud debates about it with some arbitrary round numbers.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> I wonder why states/municipalities don't just leave it at that - a specific consumption basket whose cost is recalculated annually, vs having recurrent loud debates about it with some arbitrary round numbers. Because the level at which it is safe to set local minimum wage without net adverse effects from job loss depends on a variety of conditions besides price levels, including prevailing low-end wages in localities that compete to attract employment. Building a formula that fully addresses this is nontrivial, and even with one that worked locally there would be a reason for broader regional/national campaigns to kick the floor up.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company. No, the government is subsidizing the worker, and in a system of means-tested aid doing so less than it would be without the job. If you can't employ people at wages that don't get them fully off public aid, then people can't get the jobs that let them build the skills to be employable at decent wages. Your plan is a recipe for (1) killing businesses and tax revenue that support public assistance, and (2) killing people's ability to move up and off of public assistance, so that for any given minimum standard of living we’ll need more public funds to reach it but have less available. It's much better to tax capital returns and use the proceeds to support the un- and under-employed (whether permanent or transitional) then it is to block the onramps to people becoming employable at wages that are livable. And that's even ignoring that Medicaid and other public assistance usually aren't based solely on individual income but household circumstance, so that the required minimum wage by that standard would be dependent on household circumstances, which is problematic.

raizinho 6y ago

It's expecting companies to subsidize misguided government policies. For example, if the government restricts housing (and implements rent control) which drives up prices, why should companies pay more to make sure people can afford housing costs? How about runaway inflation? There's always talk about market failures when many times government failures are the true causal mechanism.