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A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". And a business that providing tennagers jobs isn't being exploitive. I do think

A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". And a business that providing tennagers jobs isn't being exploitive. I do think employers should be conscious about the kinds of lives they set their employees up for, though we can talk about that without overgeneralization.

dstaley 5y ago
Two things: 1. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about half of people making minimum wage or less are older than 25 years old. 2. A single person working a full-time job (32 hours) at minimum wage makes $12,064. The US federal definition of poverty for this individual would be anything below $12,880. So yes, minimum wage workers are literally, by definition, working for poverty wages.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  I don't find those talking points convincing. For one, even with your statistics, half of folks employed are school-age. Also, poverty is measured by household. Confusing the math isn't a good way to make a quantitative argument. But mostly your argument is a semantic trick around the word "poverty" to rationalize weighted terminology. Again, I have strong feelings that employers should be conscious of the lives and prospects of their employees. For instance, having policies that lead to irregular patterns of night and day shifts that have to be unhealthy long-term. But we can have rational discussion about these issues.
  - ncallaway 5y ago
    > Also, poverty is measured by household. Confusing the math isn't a good way to make a quantitative argument. The figure they used was for a household of size 1, so I don't think they confused the math and I think they made a perfectly strong quantitative argument. https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines#threshholds https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines#threshholds
- AdrianB1 5y ago
  Where is a full time job 32 hours? We work 40 hours in most of the world, that is 25% more.
  - WarChortle18 5y ago
    Many companies in the US limit their employees to 32 or 36 hours a week so they don't have to pay benefits. It's a horrible system.
bp0017 5y ago
Be careful with this argument, it's a talking point that over-represents the amount of these jobs held by teenagers earning pocket money. Quite a lot of minimum wage jobs are held by single parents or people just trying to stay afloat. By the way, even if it is just teenagers, I don't think that should somehow disqualify them from earning fair wages. They aren't being "provided" jobs, they work to produce value for a company, and and should be compensated fairly regardless of their financial situation.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  I'm more concerned that teenagers in poverty won't be able to get jobs at all.
  - rbg246 5y ago
    But you have said yourself it's 'bagel' money, it doesn't seem to be coherent to be defending both teenager after school jobs and teenagers in poverty.
    - humanrebar 5y ago
      Teenagers getting whatever after school jobs they can contribute to incomes for households in poverty. If the McD's kiosk takes the cashier job, the family loses income. I don't want households in poverty. I'm just unconvinced by this mechanism. I'd rather see minimum incomes or policies to deflate housing costs.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      You seem to have read too quickly, the poster was talking about someone working a cashier in a store that sells bagels, not about someone making money to buy bagels.
kixiQu 5y ago
https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percent-workers-benefit/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percen... 88 percent of people making the federal minimum wage are older than 20. A third are older than 40. Median age is 31. More than half work full time.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  You have a good point, and I appreciate the evenhanded approach. I'm still far from sold that "poverty wage" is a useful term if we want to have a healthy discussion. It leaves too much nuance out.
  - vlahmot 5y ago
    It doesn’t though. Poverty is well defined (and is defined based on the number of people in the household). https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines
    - AdrianB1 5y ago
      So wages should be linked to the number of people in the household? Workers with more kids should earn more by law? We do this is Europe, we pay something called 'kid allowance'. In some places people make 10 kids for the allowance, ignore them or mistreat them and live on that money.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    Name one state where someone making minimum wage can afford an apartment, food, healthcare, and utilities, and some form of transportation. I think it's fair to say that if you can't, that counts as poverty.
    - humanrebar 5y ago
      Who says that's the point of minimum wage? That's where we disagree.
Pfhreak 5y ago
I was a teenager working a minimum wage job. I also had to pay for housing, meals, healthcare, etc. Don't assume a teenager has a life less complex than yours.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  With all due respect, you don't know me or what I've been through either.
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    Sure. Point stands: I was literally a teenager making change on bagel purchases. (Yes, actual bagel shoppe.) I was absolutely making poverty wages. If I did not have free meals from work as a perk I would have starved.
    - humanrebar 5y ago
      And I worked minimum wage and it allowed my poor household to make ends meet. And another minimum wage job helped me stay solvent enough to survive university.
      - 8note 5y ago
        In what location though? Living costs are notably different by location
        humanrebar 5y ago
        Apologies, but I'd rather not reveal too much personal info. But I did get need-based financial assistance in university. And I did attend a low cost school for financial reasons. I didn't "pay my way through school washing dishes" or anything like that. I wasn't supported by my family so the extra income through low pay jobs was critical.
        5y ago
cjohnson318 5y ago
> A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". Aren't they though? You don't get a discount on rent because you're not 20 yet, and being under 20 doesn't mean you have rich parents that can subsidize your lifestyle.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  I'm not arguing for low wages. But it's dishonest to conflate household income and individual salary. More specifically, having a roommate or two or living with some family unit is fairly normal at that age. So other income needs to be accounted for to make that semantic argument stick. Of course not everyone can have employed housemates. But even in those cases, it's not clear to me that banning 16 year olds from working those jobs helps all those 16 year olds. It seems likely that many of them end up worse off.
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    I'm sorry, but I think you absolutely have to give reasons to create a subclass. People do not need to explain why they should be treated the same.
    - humanrebar 5y ago
      How is paying a teenager to sweep a floor making a subclass? Seems like we're on a trajectory to replace that teenager with a vacuum drone, and I don't see as many teenagers employed in that world. The wealthy wouldn't notice. Their teenagers are entrepreneuring and racking up unpaid volunteer hours to pad resumes. The teenagers with jobs are the ones that could use the money.
      - pnutjam 5y ago
        It's pretty asinine to pretend these entry level jobs teach anyone anything. Let it be automated. The kids that are hard-working and poor will find something else to do. You don't have a right to exploit kids.
rbg246 5y ago
Any gap in labor law leads to exploitation by a business owner, anything that can lead to business advantage gets used. Besides I found really distasteful when I was in my 20s being told that I didn't need the additional money because I didn't have a mortgage. I don't think we need to rely on employer moralism, so Dickensian.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  I'm not arguing for ageism. I'm only arguing that "poverty wage" isn't a helpful term.
pnutjam 5y ago
How do you feel about kids saving for or working while attending college? It's pretty rich to say people don't deserve money when they need it.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  I worked while attending college. I suspect the supply of those jobs will be affected, meaning marginally employable youth will just be unemployed.
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    But they are supposed to pay for an ever increasing tuition bill with 1990's minimum wage?
lolbert 5y ago
>without overgeneralization says they who are overgeneralizing you assume teenagers are only making pocket money, whereas there are definitely teenagers working so the family can make ends meet

dstaley 5y ago

Two things: 1. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about half of people making minimum wage or less are older than 25 years old. 2. A single person working a full-time job (32 hours) at minimum wage makes $12,064. The US federal definition of poverty for this individual would be anything below $12,880. So yes, minimum wage workers are literally, by definition, working for poverty wages.

humanrebar 5y ago
I don't find those talking points convincing. For one, even with your statistics, half of folks employed are school-age. Also, poverty is measured by household. Confusing the math isn't a good way to make a quantitative argument. But mostly your argument is a semantic trick around the word "poverty" to rationalize weighted terminology. Again, I have strong feelings that employers should be conscious of the lives and prospects of their employees. For instance, having policies that lead to irregular patterns of night and day shifts that have to be unhealthy long-term. But we can have rational discussion about these issues.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  > Also, poverty is measured by household. Confusing the math isn't a good way to make a quantitative argument. The figure they used was for a household of size 1, so I don't think they confused the math and I think they made a perfectly strong quantitative argument. https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines#threshholds https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines#threshholds
AdrianB1 5y ago
Where is a full time job 32 hours? We work 40 hours in most of the world, that is 25% more.
- WarChortle18 5y ago
  Many companies in the US limit their employees to 32 or 36 hours a week so they don't have to pay benefits. It's a horrible system.

bp0017 5y ago

Be careful with this argument, it's a talking point that over-represents the amount of these jobs held by teenagers earning pocket money. Quite a lot of minimum wage jobs are held by single parents or people just trying to stay afloat. By the way, even if it is just teenagers, I don't think that should somehow disqualify them from earning fair wages. They aren't being "provided" jobs, they work to produce value for a company, and and should be compensated fairly regardless of their financial situation.

humanrebar 5y ago
I'm more concerned that teenagers in poverty won't be able to get jobs at all.
- rbg246 5y ago
  But you have said yourself it's 'bagel' money, it doesn't seem to be coherent to be defending both teenager after school jobs and teenagers in poverty.
  - humanrebar 5y ago
    Teenagers getting whatever after school jobs they can contribute to incomes for households in poverty. If the McD's kiosk takes the cashier job, the family loses income. I don't want households in poverty. I'm just unconvinced by this mechanism. I'd rather see minimum incomes or policies to deflate housing costs.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    You seem to have read too quickly, the poster was talking about someone working a cashier in a store that sells bagels, not about someone making money to buy bagels.

kixiQu 5y ago

https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percent-workers-benefit/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percen... 88 percent of people making the federal minimum wage are older than 20. A third are older than 40. Median age is 31. More than half work full time.

humanrebar 5y ago
You have a good point, and I appreciate the evenhanded approach. I'm still far from sold that "poverty wage" is a useful term if we want to have a healthy discussion. It leaves too much nuance out.
- vlahmot 5y ago
  It doesn’t though. Poverty is well defined (and is defined based on the number of people in the household). https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines
  - AdrianB1 5y ago
    So wages should be linked to the number of people in the household? Workers with more kids should earn more by law? We do this is Europe, we pay something called 'kid allowance'. In some places people make 10 kids for the allowance, ignore them or mistreat them and live on that money.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
  Name one state where someone making minimum wage can afford an apartment, food, healthcare, and utilities, and some form of transportation. I think it's fair to say that if you can't, that counts as poverty.
  - humanrebar 5y ago
    Who says that's the point of minimum wage? That's where we disagree.

Pfhreak 5y ago

I was a teenager working a minimum wage job. I also had to pay for housing, meals, healthcare, etc. Don't assume a teenager has a life less complex than yours.

humanrebar 5y ago
With all due respect, you don't know me or what I've been through either.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  Sure. Point stands: I was literally a teenager making change on bagel purchases. (Yes, actual bagel shoppe.) I was absolutely making poverty wages. If I did not have free meals from work as a perk I would have starved.
  - humanrebar 5y ago
    And I worked minimum wage and it allowed my poor household to make ends meet. And another minimum wage job helped me stay solvent enough to survive university.
    - 8note 5y ago
      In what location though? Living costs are notably different by location
      - humanrebar 5y ago
        Apologies, but I'd rather not reveal too much personal info. But I did get need-based financial assistance in university. And I did attend a low cost school for financial reasons. I didn't "pay my way through school washing dishes" or anything like that. I wasn't supported by my family so the extra income through low pay jobs was critical.
        5y ago

cjohnson318 5y ago

> A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". Aren't they though? You don't get a discount on rent because you're not 20 yet, and being under 20 doesn't mean you have rich parents that can subsidize your lifestyle.

humanrebar 5y ago
I'm not arguing for low wages. But it's dishonest to conflate household income and individual salary. More specifically, having a roommate or two or living with some family unit is fairly normal at that age. So other income needs to be accounted for to make that semantic argument stick. Of course not everyone can have employed housemates. But even in those cases, it's not clear to me that banning 16 year olds from working those jobs helps all those 16 year olds. It seems likely that many of them end up worse off.
- pnutjam 5y ago
  I'm sorry, but I think you absolutely have to give reasons to create a subclass. People do not need to explain why they should be treated the same.
  - humanrebar 5y ago
    How is paying a teenager to sweep a floor making a subclass? Seems like we're on a trajectory to replace that teenager with a vacuum drone, and I don't see as many teenagers employed in that world. The wealthy wouldn't notice. Their teenagers are entrepreneuring and racking up unpaid volunteer hours to pad resumes. The teenagers with jobs are the ones that could use the money.
    - pnutjam 5y ago
      It's pretty asinine to pretend these entry level jobs teach anyone anything. Let it be automated. The kids that are hard-working and poor will find something else to do. You don't have a right to exploit kids.

rbg246 5y ago

Any gap in labor law leads to exploitation by a business owner, anything that can lead to business advantage gets used. Besides I found really distasteful when I was in my 20s being told that I didn't need the additional money because I didn't have a mortgage. I don't think we need to rely on employer moralism, so Dickensian.

humanrebar 5y ago
I'm not arguing for ageism. I'm only arguing that "poverty wage" isn't a helpful term.

pnutjam 5y ago

How do you feel about kids saving for or working while attending college? It's pretty rich to say people don't deserve money when they need it.

humanrebar 5y ago
I worked while attending college. I suspect the supply of those jobs will be affected, meaning marginally employable youth will just be unemployed.
- pnutjam 5y ago
  But they are supposed to pay for an ever increasing tuition bill with 1990's minimum wage?

lolbert 5y ago

>without overgeneralization says they who are overgeneralizing you assume teenagers are only making pocket money, whereas there are definitely teenagers working so the family can make ends meet