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Is there any evidence that whole-workforce productivity applies equally to minimum wage jobs? If not, the claim seems unsustainable. Completely anecdotally, im

Is there any evidence that whole-workforce productivity applies equally to minimum wage jobs? If not, the claim seems unsustainable. Completely anecdotally, improvements in labor productivity due to automation (etc) are less likely to be impactful in jobs like waiting tables, delivering newspapers or flipping hamburgers. That anecdotal evidence is backed by research that shows that service sector productivity tends to lag other sectors significantly.

thunderbird120 6y ago
It absolutely does not. Productivity gains over the past 50 years have been disproportionately concentrated in higher skilled positions (who earn salaries, not wages). If you feel like reading a 66 page extremely dry analysis of the relationship between compensation and productivity then here you go. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24165.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w24165.pdf
- hinkley 6y ago
  A good follow-on question might be, do we expect more from low-wage employees now than we did then? When I was a teenager, food service proved to be a much more complicated job than I anticipated it to be. My first tech jobs paid better (even though an internship would have paid more), and felt simpler. If only because I'd spread out the effort of learning the skills over 8 years instead of 3 months.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > do we expect more from low-wage employees now than we did then? Given an example of warehouse workers, and how companies are enacting more and more automated "anti-slacking" restrictions, yeah, I think we are.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      I had to pay my way through college, like a few of my friends, but I was struggling to juggle the two and trying to grow up at the same time. The on-campus tech job paid about 10% more, day 1, than any of my friends were making. So I used the higher pay and all the tricks my roommates taught be for frugal living and cut back my hours about 25%. I tried not to brag about it. I even felt a little guilty about how hard they were busting their asses, while I had a job where I could automate the tedious bits myself, and once I was not low man on the totempole I could delegate other parts. PSA: Be nice to your food service staff. And your janitors. Instead of thanking god it's them instead of you, be grateful someone else took that shit job so you don't have to cook and clean up after yourself.
  - cameronh90 6y ago
    Low wage jobs are often damn hard work. However, they're damn hard work that most able-bodied people could do. That will mean they get paid less than an entry level but skilled tech job.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    I too was surprised at how complicated my first food service job was. there are so many opportunities to mess up in every minute of peak hours. at the same time, I almost miss it. if food service paid the same as software dev, I might seriously consider switching back. as stressful as it was, there was a sense of closure at the end of every shift. if I messed something up, I would either hear about it by the end of the day, or it just wouldn't matter. in software dev, I can get bitten today by a poor design decision I made last year. nothing is ever fixed or finished; the bugs just haven't been filed yet.
    - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
      I worked at Subway for 6 years while earning my CS degree. I sometimes miss the mindless simplicity of the work. I miss knowing exactly what I need to be doing every day. But I certainly don't miss with dealing with the general public, where a very vocal minority has decided that it is socially acceptable to yell at service workers. It's even worse when it's their own mistake, like they ask for mustard when they meant honey mustard, and somehow I'M the idiot for not knowing which one they meant. Or they ask for "light mayo" and I ask them to clarify if they meant a small amount of mayo, or the low-fat mayo, and they snap an answer back at me as if I was being a smart-ass. The answers were close to 50/50 by the way. Damn maybe I don't miss it after all. I could go on for hours about how shitty some customers can be.
      - leetcrew 6y ago
        > But I certainly don't miss with dealing with the general public, where a very vocal minority has decided that it is socially acceptable to yell at service workers. It's even worse when it's their own mistake, like they ask for mustard when they meant honey mustard, and somehow I'M the idiot for not knowing which one they meant. yeah I don't really miss stuff like that. although as I've gotten older, I've started to appreciate people who are overtly hostile. at least you know where they stand. I find it much harder to gauge people's intentions in white-collar land.
gowld 6y ago
The headline is a lie, which the article itself acknowledges and tries to rebut with handwaving about feedback effects.
ikeboy 6y ago
The article brings up this objection and handwaves it away.
ahoy 6y ago
There's no reason that we couldn't allow workers to be the beneficiaries of automation.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  Indeed they are, through the greater quality and variety of products available.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
This whole discussion is a little strange to me. Why would we tie minimum wage to worker productivity OR inflation? What is the minimum wage trying to accomplish in the first place? It seems obvious to me that we have to index it to the living wage instead. A full-time job needs to cover: one half of a 2-bedroom apartment in the outskirts of town, plus food, bills, and basic medical expenses. If it doesn't cover this, then this person is going to rely on government programs. And if the government programs aren't there, they'll be coming home each night after a full day of work and watching their kid get skinnier, seeing their CEO collect multimillion dollar bonuses in the news, and you can be damn sure they won't stand for it. They'd unionize, protest, and demand higher compensation. Our social safety nets are an important part of our society, but when they're required and used by full-time employees, it's something of a taxpayer subsidy for the corporations who can now pay their employees less than what's required to live. And if a job can't be done profitably for a living wage, we need to let that job go. Automate it, outsource it, let the companies that depend on this exploitative labor pivot to new business models, or let them wither and die. The jobs are going to leave eventually anyway - we might as well accelerate the push toward a modern labor economy that's already underway. We can funnel the productivity gains from automation into education, to allow the displaced a chance to retool and learn a new skill, and to bulk up our social safety nets for those who are too old to do so.

thunderbird120 6y ago

It absolutely does not. Productivity gains over the past 50 years have been disproportionately concentrated in higher skilled positions (who earn salaries, not wages). If you feel like reading a 66 page extremely dry analysis of the relationship between compensation and productivity then here you go. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24165.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w24165.pdf

hinkley 6y ago
A good follow-on question might be, do we expect more from low-wage employees now than we did then? When I was a teenager, food service proved to be a much more complicated job than I anticipated it to be. My first tech jobs paid better (even though an internship would have paid more), and felt simpler. If only because I'd spread out the effort of learning the skills over 8 years instead of 3 months.
- falcolas 6y ago
  > do we expect more from low-wage employees now than we did then? Given an example of warehouse workers, and how companies are enacting more and more automated "anti-slacking" restrictions, yeah, I think we are.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    I had to pay my way through college, like a few of my friends, but I was struggling to juggle the two and trying to grow up at the same time. The on-campus tech job paid about 10% more, day 1, than any of my friends were making. So I used the higher pay and all the tricks my roommates taught be for frugal living and cut back my hours about 25%. I tried not to brag about it. I even felt a little guilty about how hard they were busting their asses, while I had a job where I could automate the tedious bits myself, and once I was not low man on the totempole I could delegate other parts. PSA: Be nice to your food service staff. And your janitors. Instead of thanking god it's them instead of you, be grateful someone else took that shit job so you don't have to cook and clean up after yourself.
- cameronh90 6y ago
  Low wage jobs are often damn hard work. However, they're damn hard work that most able-bodied people could do. That will mean they get paid less than an entry level but skilled tech job.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  I too was surprised at how complicated my first food service job was. there are so many opportunities to mess up in every minute of peak hours. at the same time, I almost miss it. if food service paid the same as software dev, I might seriously consider switching back. as stressful as it was, there was a sense of closure at the end of every shift. if I messed something up, I would either hear about it by the end of the day, or it just wouldn't matter. in software dev, I can get bitten today by a poor design decision I made last year. nothing is ever fixed or finished; the bugs just haven't been filed yet.
  - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
    I worked at Subway for 6 years while earning my CS degree. I sometimes miss the mindless simplicity of the work. I miss knowing exactly what I need to be doing every day. But I certainly don't miss with dealing with the general public, where a very vocal minority has decided that it is socially acceptable to yell at service workers. It's even worse when it's their own mistake, like they ask for mustard when they meant honey mustard, and somehow I'M the idiot for not knowing which one they meant. Or they ask for "light mayo" and I ask them to clarify if they meant a small amount of mayo, or the low-fat mayo, and they snap an answer back at me as if I was being a smart-ass. The answers were close to 50/50 by the way. Damn maybe I don't miss it after all. I could go on for hours about how shitty some customers can be.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      > But I certainly don't miss with dealing with the general public, where a very vocal minority has decided that it is socially acceptable to yell at service workers. It's even worse when it's their own mistake, like they ask for mustard when they meant honey mustard, and somehow I'M the idiot for not knowing which one they meant. yeah I don't really miss stuff like that. although as I've gotten older, I've started to appreciate people who are overtly hostile. at least you know where they stand. I find it much harder to gauge people's intentions in white-collar land.

gowld 6y ago

The headline is a lie, which the article itself acknowledges and tries to rebut with handwaving about feedback effects.

ikeboy 6y ago

The article brings up this objection and handwaves it away.

ahoy 6y ago

There's no reason that we couldn't allow workers to be the beneficiaries of automation.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
Indeed they are, through the greater quality and variety of products available.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago

This whole discussion is a little strange to me. Why would we tie minimum wage to worker productivity OR inflation? What is the minimum wage trying to accomplish in the first place? It seems obvious to me that we have to index it to the living wage instead. A full-time job needs to cover: one half of a 2-bedroom apartment in the outskirts of town, plus food, bills, and basic medical expenses. If it doesn't cover this, then this person is going to rely on government programs. And if the government programs aren't there, they'll be coming home each night after a full day of work and watching their kid get skinnier, seeing their CEO collect multimillion dollar bonuses in the news, and you can be damn sure they won't stand for it. They'd unionize, protest, and demand higher compensation. Our social safety nets are an important part of our society, but when they're required and used by full-time employees, it's something of a taxpayer subsidy for the corporations who can now pay their employees less than what's required to live. And if a job can't be done profitably for a living wage, we need to let that job go. Automate it, outsource it, let the companies that depend on this exploitative labor pivot to new business models, or let them wither and die. The jobs are going to leave eventually anyway - we might as well accelerate the push toward a modern labor economy that's already underway. We can funnel the productivity gains from automation into education, to allow the displaced a chance to retool and learn a new skill, and to bulk up our social safety nets for those who are too old to do so.