3 ms·

This doesn’t check out. If I was paid $500K to work, and $600K to not work, I would choose not to work. The absolute numbers don’t matter for the incentives to

by pb7 5y ago

This doesn’t check out. If I was paid $500K to work, and $600K to not work, I would choose not to work. The absolute numbers don’t matter for the incentives to be inverted. Low wages are an unrelated problem. Suggesting the US is not a first world country further weakens this entire comment.

floatingatoll 5y ago
(I'm so glad to see this reply, because it means I was successful at describing the referenced mindset and have inspired a discussion of the viewpoint itself. Even if I'm not sure how much of it I agree with myself, that's a win.)
wholinator2 5y ago
How can you say that the fact that wages are lower than the alternative is the problem, and in the same paragraph say that low wages are an unrelated problem. Low wages are literally _the_ problem. If you paid people more, they would leave unemployment and take the pay. In my experience it's a small subset that refuses to work at all costs. I know people who want to work but just can't find jobs that ate _worth it_. A job needs to be worth it or we create a dystopia of essentially mass capitalistic incarceration. By your own statement, if they raise the wage, people will go back to work. This "solution" is just kicking the legs out from under people who are just barely able to stand as it is.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Personally, I’m a pretty solid fan of UBI, but I didn’t try to incorporate my views on that into the explainer. As you note, there are a lot of weaknesses in the “work is required for life” principle that we inherited from the founding colonies.
msh 5y ago
Well unamployment benefits does not need to be constant. Where I am from I can get 90% of my previous paycheck up to a max of approx 3200 USD a month for the first two years. Then they start to drop off quite fast to a much lower buttom. So even if a new job was lower than the 3200 USD I could be getting I would still be incentivised to get a new job before the high benefits runs out.

by pb7 5y ago

floatingatoll 5y ago

(I'm so glad to see this reply, because it means I was successful at describing the referenced mindset and have inspired a discussion of the viewpoint itself. Even if I'm not sure how much of it I agree with myself, that's a win.)

wholinator2 5y ago

How can you say that the fact that wages are lower than the alternative is the problem, and in the same paragraph say that low wages are an unrelated problem. Low wages are literally _the_ problem. If you paid people more, they would leave unemployment and take the pay. In my experience it's a small subset that refuses to work at all costs. I know people who want to work but just can't find jobs that ate _worth it_. A job needs to be worth it or we create a dystopia of essentially mass capitalistic incarceration. By your own statement, if they raise the wage, people will go back to work. This "solution" is just kicking the legs out from under people who are just barely able to stand as it is.

floatingatoll 5y ago
Personally, I’m a pretty solid fan of UBI, but I didn’t try to incorporate my views on that into the explainer. As you note, there are a lot of weaknesses in the “work is required for life” principle that we inherited from the founding colonies.

msh 5y ago

Well unamployment benefits does not need to be constant. Where I am from I can get 90% of my previous paycheck up to a max of approx 3200 USD a month for the first two years. Then they start to drop off quite fast to a much lower buttom. So even if a new job was lower than the 3200 USD I could be getting I would still be incentivised to get a new job before the high benefits runs out.