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Yeah, fair. But perhaps higher minimum wages, and no zero hour contacts? Better worker protections? If economic survival requires depletion of your sleep (whic

Yeah, fair. But perhaps higher minimum wages, and no zero hour contacts? Better worker protections? If economic survival requires depletion of your sleep (which is so important), it's highlighting an imbalance in the overall system.

saberdancer 6y ago
Higher minimum wage is not without problems. If someone is not highly skilled and works low end jobs, he could be left jobless if minimum wage increases. Some businesses already have low profitability and they can't absorb an increase in minimum wage. I know where you are getting from but I don't see a simple solution. UBI might help but from my perspective the cost of UBI is too large to pull off in any normal economy (petro states in the gulf can probably pull it off).
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  That's a risk, but I don't think it's as big as you think it is; it implies that an employer already has more staff than they need to have. Social safety nets is another thing that needs to be improved though. I don't believe in UBI myself, I think (and I'm not an economist) that the cost of living will just go up by an equal amount, negating the whole thing. It seems to work on a small scale, but cost of living is not changed significantly if only a small section of a country receives UBI. Anyway, back to unemployment, in theory automation causes unemployment too, but in practice, while people lose jobs over automation, the overall unemployment rate is not significantly affected. Or in other words, there's always more work to be done.
- Shacklz 6y ago
  > If someone is not highly skilled and works low end jobs, he could be left jobless if minimum wage increases. If you made this argument 100 years ago I might be inclined to agree with you, but "reasonable" minimum wages (i.e.: a 40h/week job pays always enough to feed a family and a roof over your head) have been tried and tested in countries all over the world and as far as I'm aware, they're almost always a success. The 'low skill worker' losing job opportunities because of too high minimum wages is a myth that just doesn't hold up to reality, no matter how many times conservatives afraid of losing their own bottom line or relative status repeat it.
  - saberdancer 6y ago
    It may have less of an effect than it is claimed, in some jobs the demand is there regardless of wages, so any increase in cost gets transferred to the consumer. If your janitor gets a 20% increase, it is doubtful he will get sacked because he is needed. But if the same happens to a person packing boxes or working and McDonalds, he might lose a job to overseas or a new automated machine. If you take it to extreme, it's obvious it's not a myth. Imagine a 100k USD yearly minimum wage. Obviously all unskilled worked wouldn't be able to earn this much for the employed, but in places where you have to have someone do the job, they'd enjoy their new high minimum wage.
    - Shacklz 6y ago
      You might be interested in this article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/sunday/us-denmark-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/sunday/us-denmark... (note that technically, Denmark has no minimum wage - but mechanism that essentially enforce the same) A few quotes here: > Starting pay for the humblest burger-flipper at McDonald’s in Denmark is about $22 an hour once various pay supplements are included. > Americans might suspect that the Danish safety net encourages laziness. But 79 percent of Danes ages 16 to 64 are in the labor force, five percentage points higher than in the United States.
  - wwtrv 6y ago
    While the argument might be overblown in many cases you can’t really deny that many South/South-Western European countries have huge youth unemployment rates, especially in low incomes areas, which can at least partially be attributed to minimum wage laws.
judgemcjudgy 6y ago
I find the assumption so very silly that you could imply increase wages for everyone and everything else would stay the same. Sorry, I can't help saying that. But very well, let's assume it could work that way. Then you still haven't changed anything about the need for alarm clocks or work at inconvenient hours. So talking about minimum wage is really besides the point here. Even high paid physicians have to work ungodly hours at times.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

saberdancer 6y ago

Higher minimum wage is not without problems. If someone is not highly skilled and works low end jobs, he could be left jobless if minimum wage increases. Some businesses already have low profitability and they can't absorb an increase in minimum wage. I know where you are getting from but I don't see a simple solution. UBI might help but from my perspective the cost of UBI is too large to pull off in any normal economy (petro states in the gulf can probably pull it off).

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
That's a risk, but I don't think it's as big as you think it is; it implies that an employer already has more staff than they need to have. Social safety nets is another thing that needs to be improved though. I don't believe in UBI myself, I think (and I'm not an economist) that the cost of living will just go up by an equal amount, negating the whole thing. It seems to work on a small scale, but cost of living is not changed significantly if only a small section of a country receives UBI. Anyway, back to unemployment, in theory automation causes unemployment too, but in practice, while people lose jobs over automation, the overall unemployment rate is not significantly affected. Or in other words, there's always more work to be done.
Shacklz 6y ago
> If someone is not highly skilled and works low end jobs, he could be left jobless if minimum wage increases. If you made this argument 100 years ago I might be inclined to agree with you, but "reasonable" minimum wages (i.e.: a 40h/week job pays always enough to feed a family and a roof over your head) have been tried and tested in countries all over the world and as far as I'm aware, they're almost always a success. The 'low skill worker' losing job opportunities because of too high minimum wages is a myth that just doesn't hold up to reality, no matter how many times conservatives afraid of losing their own bottom line or relative status repeat it.
- saberdancer 6y ago
  It may have less of an effect than it is claimed, in some jobs the demand is there regardless of wages, so any increase in cost gets transferred to the consumer. If your janitor gets a 20% increase, it is doubtful he will get sacked because he is needed. But if the same happens to a person packing boxes or working and McDonalds, he might lose a job to overseas or a new automated machine. If you take it to extreme, it's obvious it's not a myth. Imagine a 100k USD yearly minimum wage. Obviously all unskilled worked wouldn't be able to earn this much for the employed, but in places where you have to have someone do the job, they'd enjoy their new high minimum wage.
  - Shacklz 6y ago
    You might be interested in this article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/sunday/us-denmark-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/sunday/us-denmark... (note that technically, Denmark has no minimum wage - but mechanism that essentially enforce the same) A few quotes here: > Starting pay for the humblest burger-flipper at McDonald’s in Denmark is about $22 an hour once various pay supplements are included. > Americans might suspect that the Danish safety net encourages laziness. But 79 percent of Danes ages 16 to 64 are in the labor force, five percentage points higher than in the United States.
- wwtrv 6y ago
  While the argument might be overblown in many cases you can’t really deny that many South/South-Western European countries have huge youth unemployment rates, especially in low incomes areas, which can at least partially be attributed to minimum wage laws.

judgemcjudgy 6y ago

I find the assumption so very silly that you could imply increase wages for everyone and everything else would stay the same. Sorry, I can't help saying that. But very well, let's assume it could work that way. Then you still haven't changed anything about the need for alarm clocks or work at inconvenient hours. So talking about minimum wage is really besides the point here. Even high paid physicians have to work ungodly hours at times.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]