4 ms·

Wages are pretty sticky, I'd bet the unemployment benefits have already permanently increased the wage floor nationally.

Balgair 6y ago
One thing that I have not seen said is about the stability of unemployment. I remember last year that there were a lot of people waiting a long time to get on unemployment due to the pandemic. Months went by before those checks came in. Now, if you have the resources to work a job, you'll have to go off unemployment. But if that job fires you, you're stuck back in the possibly months long process to get unemployment. Sure, you could try to get another job, but that also has a time lag and other risks, and diapers don't buy themselves. It's not about the cash as much as it is about the cash-flow. You can plan around a small amount. But variable amounts are much harder to plan for, even if the net cash may be higher in the end.
LanceH 6y ago
> have already permanently increased the wage floor nationally At the expense of full employment.
- ZoomerCretin 6y ago
  https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/12/18/how-widespread-is-labor-monopsony-some-new-results-suggest-its-pervasive/ https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/12/18/how-widespread-is-... The labor market is not adequately explained with only Econ 101 concepts. Employers pay below the true market rate that they are capable of paying because of their market power to set prices.
  - LanceH 6y ago
    Raising the cost of labor means less employment. This is really unassailable and as much as people desire it to not be true, it is. It may not show up as a straight line like an Econ 101 graph, but it's 100% there. It gets confirmed over and over again. No, I'm not going to provide sources on this. They are everywhere. Sure there are some places paying less because they have jobs and a choice of workers. Artificially raising the pay will yield the same number of jobs. This isn't true across the entirety of the US labor market.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      >This isn't true across the entirety of the US labor market. There is also a labor market outside the US that puts a ceiling to US wages.
    - andrewjl 6y ago
      Not so simple. Raising the cost of labor also means increased aggregate demand as workers make use of a higher disposable income. On the business side, capex increases as routine work is automated. As we've in prior periods, automation creates more jobs than it eliminates, whether the through higher-end tasks or through increases in demand due to fall-off in breakeven price.

Balgair 6y ago

One thing that I have not seen said is about the stability of unemployment. I remember last year that there were a lot of people waiting a long time to get on unemployment due to the pandemic. Months went by before those checks came in. Now, if you have the resources to work a job, you'll have to go off unemployment. But if that job fires you, you're stuck back in the possibly months long process to get unemployment. Sure, you could try to get another job, but that also has a time lag and other risks, and diapers don't buy themselves. It's not about the cash as much as it is about the cash-flow. You can plan around a small amount. But variable amounts are much harder to plan for, even if the net cash may be higher in the end.

LanceH 6y ago

> have already permanently increased the wage floor nationally At the expense of full employment.

ZoomerCretin 6y ago
https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/12/18/how-widespread-is-labor-monopsony-some-new-results-suggest-its-pervasive/ https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/12/18/how-widespread-is-... The labor market is not adequately explained with only Econ 101 concepts. Employers pay below the true market rate that they are capable of paying because of their market power to set prices.
- LanceH 6y ago
  Raising the cost of labor means less employment. This is really unassailable and as much as people desire it to not be true, it is. It may not show up as a straight line like an Econ 101 graph, but it's 100% there. It gets confirmed over and over again. No, I'm not going to provide sources on this. They are everywhere. Sure there are some places paying less because they have jobs and a choice of workers. Artificially raising the pay will yield the same number of jobs. This isn't true across the entirety of the US labor market.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    >This isn't true across the entirety of the US labor market. There is also a labor market outside the US that puts a ceiling to US wages.
  - andrewjl 6y ago
    Not so simple. Raising the cost of labor also means increased aggregate demand as workers make use of a higher disposable income. On the business side, capex increases as routine work is automated. As we've in prior periods, automation creates more jobs than it eliminates, whether the through higher-end tasks or through increases in demand due to fall-off in breakeven price.