4 ms·

I might have believed you before the covid epidemic but I think it definitely proved that wrong. We have a dearth of essential people. Nurses are a perfect exam

by brmgb 6y ago

I might have believed you before the covid epidemic but I think it definitely proved that wrong. We have a dearth of essential people. Nurses are a perfect example. Yet they keep being paid like crap. It is becoming clearer by the day that the job market is not an efficient market at all. Why keep pretending ?

rebelos 6y ago
First of all, everything is running remarkably smoothly given the circumstances. The Covid-19 statistics are largely a consequence of people acting individually out of self interest and ignorance, yielding negative systemic externalities, and not a dysfunction of the healthcare system. Furthermore, if you think about how insurance risk pooling works, it's quite easy to see how an insurance-backed, profit-motivated healthcare system may not be the best vehicle to address a systemic health problem afflicting the entire population. You may recall AIG as a rough analogue for this situation. Or even entities insuring against natural disasters in California. The government has to step in to prevent failure. And then we have the most obvious counterargument to your flawed thesis: why would labor compensation go up during a recession with high unemployment and considerable attendant macroeconomic instability? Those factors have contributed to dramatically increased substitutability and thus quite naturally suppress wage growth.
ponker 6y ago
Nursing is hard work but it is not paid like crap.
- brokenmachine 6y ago
  I don't think nurses are paid fairly for the work they do. I think the health industry takes advantage of their desire to help.
  - nkurz 6y ago
    Per my link in the comment above, do you feel the average RN salary of $113,000/year in California is unfairly low, or were you unaware their salary was this high, or do you doubt that the number is accurate?
    - ponker 6y ago
      I mean I can understand both points of view. I can understand thinking, as I said, that "nurses are not paid like crap," but I can also understand that watching a nurse work for a day one could think "there's no salary that would be fair for that," and also "Why does a software engineer sit down all day for $250K while nurses push their body and minds to the limit for $113k," which is of course extensible to people beyond software engineers.
    - brokenmachine 6y ago
      You have picked the headline number of the highest in the country. Are the living costs higher in that state (I'm Australian)? Yes, that is higher than I would have expected, but I do think it's unfairly low because personally I wouldn't do a nurses job for three times that, plus you need a degree to be an RN. You're asking the wrong person for their opinion though - my job has very little stress and I earn more that that. I do have to endure quite a few minor annoyances however, but nothing like I imagine a nurse does. For the record, I think a lot of jobs are artificially underpaid. The best trick corporations ever did was to promote the illusion of such a thing as unskilled labor.
      - nkurz 6y ago
        > Are the living costs higher in that state (I'm Australian)? Yes, average cost of living in California is about the highest in the US, although there is large variation within different parts of the state. A comparison point might be that the average teacher in California is paid about $82,000/year: https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2019/04/which_states_have_the_highest_and_lowest_teacher_salaries.html https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2019/04/which.... My impression from the overall range of numbers for the different states is that nurses are paid a considerably above average salary for a a difficult job. > You're asking the wrong person for their opinion Outside opinions are good --- I don't think there is a clear answer here. As an American, I was somewhat surprised by how high the nurse salaries are compared to other essential professions like teaching. I also agree that they seem very low compared to many tech professions. The question then is whether one should view the tech professions as overpaid or the nurses/teachers as underpaid. The easy answer is that under capitalism, paying for a more expensive programmer can help you make even more money; while paying more for a nurse or teacher doesn't necessarily improve your profit.
- nkurz 6y ago
  Good point. I wondered what the numbers actually are, and found this: https://nurse.org/articles/highest-paying-states-for-registered-nurses/ https://nurse.org/articles/highest-paying-states-for-registe... It claims that in 2019 the average salaries for RN's in the US varied from just under $60K/year in South Dakota and Mississippi to over $100K/year in Hawaii and California.
FireBeyond 6y ago
Yeah, you might want to talk to EMTs and paramedics before you talk about nurses being paid like crap. EMTs average $11/hr. Paramedics $17/hr. Paramedics, in particular, who are trained to autonomously administer near 60 drugs, to intubate people, in some cases start central lines (which even most nurses cannot do).

by brmgb 6y ago

rebelos 6y ago

First of all, everything is running remarkably smoothly given the circumstances. The Covid-19 statistics are largely a consequence of people acting individually out of self interest and ignorance, yielding negative systemic externalities, and not a dysfunction of the healthcare system. Furthermore, if you think about how insurance risk pooling works, it's quite easy to see how an insurance-backed, profit-motivated healthcare system may not be the best vehicle to address a systemic health problem afflicting the entire population. You may recall AIG as a rough analogue for this situation. Or even entities insuring against natural disasters in California. The government has to step in to prevent failure. And then we have the most obvious counterargument to your flawed thesis: why would labor compensation go up during a recession with high unemployment and considerable attendant macroeconomic instability? Those factors have contributed to dramatically increased substitutability and thus quite naturally suppress wage growth.

ponker 6y ago

Nursing is hard work but it is not paid like crap.

brokenmachine 6y ago
I don't think nurses are paid fairly for the work they do. I think the health industry takes advantage of their desire to help.
- nkurz 6y ago
  Per my link in the comment above, do you feel the average RN salary of $113,000/year in California is unfairly low, or were you unaware their salary was this high, or do you doubt that the number is accurate?
  - ponker 6y ago
    I mean I can understand both points of view. I can understand thinking, as I said, that "nurses are not paid like crap," but I can also understand that watching a nurse work for a day one could think "there's no salary that would be fair for that," and also "Why does a software engineer sit down all day for $250K while nurses push their body and minds to the limit for $113k," which is of course extensible to people beyond software engineers.
  - brokenmachine 6y ago
    You have picked the headline number of the highest in the country. Are the living costs higher in that state (I'm Australian)? Yes, that is higher than I would have expected, but I do think it's unfairly low because personally I wouldn't do a nurses job for three times that, plus you need a degree to be an RN. You're asking the wrong person for their opinion though - my job has very little stress and I earn more that that. I do have to endure quite a few minor annoyances however, but nothing like I imagine a nurse does. For the record, I think a lot of jobs are artificially underpaid. The best trick corporations ever did was to promote the illusion of such a thing as unskilled labor.
    - nkurz 6y ago
      > Are the living costs higher in that state (I'm Australian)? Yes, average cost of living in California is about the highest in the US, although there is large variation within different parts of the state. A comparison point might be that the average teacher in California is paid about $82,000/year: https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2019/04/which_states_have_the_highest_and_lowest_teacher_salaries.html https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2019/04/which.... My impression from the overall range of numbers for the different states is that nurses are paid a considerably above average salary for a a difficult job. > You're asking the wrong person for their opinion Outside opinions are good --- I don't think there is a clear answer here. As an American, I was somewhat surprised by how high the nurse salaries are compared to other essential professions like teaching. I also agree that they seem very low compared to many tech professions. The question then is whether one should view the tech professions as overpaid or the nurses/teachers as underpaid. The easy answer is that under capitalism, paying for a more expensive programmer can help you make even more money; while paying more for a nurse or teacher doesn't necessarily improve your profit.
nkurz 6y ago
Good point. I wondered what the numbers actually are, and found this: https://nurse.org/articles/highest-paying-states-for-registered-nurses/ https://nurse.org/articles/highest-paying-states-for-registe... It claims that in 2019 the average salaries for RN's in the US varied from just under $60K/year in South Dakota and Mississippi to over $100K/year in Hawaii and California.

FireBeyond 6y ago

Yeah, you might want to talk to EMTs and paramedics before you talk about nurses being paid like crap. EMTs average $11/hr. Paramedics $17/hr. Paramedics, in particular, who are trained to autonomously administer near 60 drugs, to intubate people, in some cases start central lines (which even most nurses cannot do).