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which is exactly as it should be. Expecting workers to work for lower-than-survival rates is a Bad Thing. The question we should be asking isn't "how can we m

which is exactly as it should be. Expecting workers to work for lower-than-survival rates is a Bad Thing. The question we should be asking isn't "how can we make low skill workers work for less money?". That is a race to the bottom that results in bigger societal problems and overall, bigger societal costs as those dispossessed people who are expected to work longer hours for less money than they can survive on realise that its easier and more profitable (and therefore more economically rational) to mug people in their homes, strip copper from empty houses and bridges and generally turn to crime.

Duff 15y ago
Lower than survival? Please. People need a purpose. Something to do. That's a big part of what work is -- and our society provides all sorts of incentives that take those opportunities away and destroy the communities (as in people communities) that people with less means once depended on. In the process, we make alot of other people rich. Crime like what you describe is evidence of desperation -- people are able to strip copper out of buildings because none of the neighbors give a shit, and the local government's policies make it viable for speculators to keep buildings vacant. Read "The Death and Life of American Cities". Poverty doesn't need to equal misery, and being provided with stuff doesn't equate to happiness. We forgot about that after World War 2.
- bandushrew 15y ago
  "Lower than survival? Please." with no minimum wage limit, what is to stop pay dropping below the 'viable life' line, however you personally define it? "People need a purpose. Something to do." They also need money: to eat, to live, to feed their dependents, to transport themselves (to work!), to educate themselves, to clothe themselves and to warm themselves in winter. To medicate themselves. To participate in life. "Crime like what you describe is evidence of desperation -- people are able to strip copper out of buildings because none of the neighbors give a shit, and the local government's policies make it viable for speculators to keep buildings vacant." That may be why people get away with it. but people perform those acts out of desperation. because they need money to do all the above. "Read "The Death and Life of American Cities". Poverty doesn't need to equal misery, and being provided with stuff doesn't equate to happiness. We forgot about that after World War 2." Im not talking about buying them televisions. Im talking about being able to afford to take your daughter to the doctor, to buy yourself a book for school. If you can so easily brush off the sodding huge downsides of poverty, I am going to go out on a limb and claim that you have never experienced it in its real form. Poverty is brutal. It makes people hard, it makes people stupid and it makes them desperate.
  - Duff 15y ago
    What is the "viable life line"? Minimum wage jobs are supplements to other income. The actual minimum wage required to support a small family without external assistance is probably more like $15-18/hour. I'm not white-washing and pretending that being poor is fun. But the combination of US economic, social and criminal policies in the United States has created great injustices that have destroyed millions of lives. 1 in 3 black men will find themselves incarcerated during their lives. (http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/14873_Chapter9.pdf http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/14873_Chapter9.pdf) That statistic is a national disgrace.
    - bandushrew 15y ago
      What is the "viable life line"? Minimum wage jobs are supplements to other income." oh? what other supplements, exactly? more minimum wage jobs? how many supplements do you expect me to utilize? "The actual minimum wage required to support a small family without external assistance is probably more like $15-18/hour." how do you define 'support'? do you mean to educate, clothe, provide warmth and food. Do you just mean food? food and housing? food 4 days a week, and housing 5 days a week? are both parents working? who is looking after the kids? just one parent? so they are supporting how many people? "1 in 3 black men will find themselves incarcerated during their lives. " Indeed. lets see whether we can find a solution to that which doesn't require lowering the minimum wage.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
First of all, you are exaggerating wildly. It wouldn't be "lower than survival" rates. It would probably be a standard of living along the lines of India's top 5-10%. Second of all, if you want high skilled workers to subsidize the unskilled, it's not necessary to disincentivize work. You could instead use guaranteed jobs - replace unemployment/welfare/etc with a job picking up trash by the roadside, cleaning the DMV, beautifying public spaces, etc. This is what FDR did. Thus, low skill workers would no longer be faced with the choice of TV or flipping burgers. It would instead be DMV bathrooms vs flipping burgers. To create even further incentive for work, you could stigmatize those with the guaranteed jobs. Instead of paying money, you could pay with in-kind benefits: rooms in a dormitory instead of housing vouchers, standardized cheapo clothing instead of money to purchase Modern Couture, cafeteria meals instead of McD's. Thus, even if your material standard of living doesn't go up from getting a job, your status does.
- ebiester 15y ago
  The problem is one of real estate. Even in a moderately inexpensive place like Tucson, a studio is about 400 dollars a month. Split between three people, that's a little less than 150 a month. Food, at just above minimum, is 80 a month. (Food is more expensive in the southwest due to a lack of arable land.) Electricity should add about 10 bucks a month a person. Transportation will run 15 a month for bus due to subsidies. You'll be losing 3 hours a day to transport if you're unlucky, and the bus isn't wonderfully reliable, but let's go with it. (And a bike can cost more in repairs and you may just lose your job if you show up in the condition you'll be after biking in 100 degree heat.) So, at your bare bottom essentials, you're looking at 260 a month, and hope you don't break an arm or have a life-threatening injury, because that's more money than you may make in a year. That means, at a minimum, you would need to make ~3200 to survive. That assumes no crisis ever. And most importantly, that assumes no children. After all, you have no extra money for condoms or other birth control, and if you're raped, you have no money for an abortion. And that's to live three to a studio eating a step above gruel. 3200 goes a heck of a lot further in India. We just can't compete. But what we forget is that welfare isn't for the mother -- it's for the child. It's to make sure we don't have kids begging in the street rather than going to school, that we don't have emaciated children nutrient-deficient, lowering their IQs by nutrition -- no fault of their own. The question becomes, how do you make sure we establish a baseline for children so that those who have the ability to rise out even have a chance?

Duff 15y ago

Lower than survival? Please. People need a purpose. Something to do. That's a big part of what work is -- and our society provides all sorts of incentives that take those opportunities away and destroy the communities (as in people communities) that people with less means once depended on. In the process, we make alot of other people rich. Crime like what you describe is evidence of desperation -- people are able to strip copper out of buildings because none of the neighbors give a shit, and the local government's policies make it viable for speculators to keep buildings vacant. Read "The Death and Life of American Cities". Poverty doesn't need to equal misery, and being provided with stuff doesn't equate to happiness. We forgot about that after World War 2.

bandushrew 15y ago
"Lower than survival? Please." with no minimum wage limit, what is to stop pay dropping below the 'viable life' line, however you personally define it? "People need a purpose. Something to do." They also need money: to eat, to live, to feed their dependents, to transport themselves (to work!), to educate themselves, to clothe themselves and to warm themselves in winter. To medicate themselves. To participate in life. "Crime like what you describe is evidence of desperation -- people are able to strip copper out of buildings because none of the neighbors give a shit, and the local government's policies make it viable for speculators to keep buildings vacant." That may be why people get away with it. but people perform those acts out of desperation. because they need money to do all the above. "Read "The Death and Life of American Cities". Poverty doesn't need to equal misery, and being provided with stuff doesn't equate to happiness. We forgot about that after World War 2." Im not talking about buying them televisions. Im talking about being able to afford to take your daughter to the doctor, to buy yourself a book for school. If you can so easily brush off the sodding huge downsides of poverty, I am going to go out on a limb and claim that you have never experienced it in its real form. Poverty is brutal. It makes people hard, it makes people stupid and it makes them desperate.
- Duff 15y ago
  What is the "viable life line"? Minimum wage jobs are supplements to other income. The actual minimum wage required to support a small family without external assistance is probably more like $15-18/hour. I'm not white-washing and pretending that being poor is fun. But the combination of US economic, social and criminal policies in the United States has created great injustices that have destroyed millions of lives. 1 in 3 black men will find themselves incarcerated during their lives. (http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/14873_Chapter9.pdf http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/14873_Chapter9.pdf) That statistic is a national disgrace.
  - bandushrew 15y ago
    What is the "viable life line"? Minimum wage jobs are supplements to other income." oh? what other supplements, exactly? more minimum wage jobs? how many supplements do you expect me to utilize? "The actual minimum wage required to support a small family without external assistance is probably more like $15-18/hour." how do you define 'support'? do you mean to educate, clothe, provide warmth and food. Do you just mean food? food and housing? food 4 days a week, and housing 5 days a week? are both parents working? who is looking after the kids? just one parent? so they are supporting how many people? "1 in 3 black men will find themselves incarcerated during their lives. " Indeed. lets see whether we can find a solution to that which doesn't require lowering the minimum wage.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

First of all, you are exaggerating wildly. It wouldn't be "lower than survival" rates. It would probably be a standard of living along the lines of India's top 5-10%. Second of all, if you want high skilled workers to subsidize the unskilled, it's not necessary to disincentivize work. You could instead use guaranteed jobs - replace unemployment/welfare/etc with a job picking up trash by the roadside, cleaning the DMV, beautifying public spaces, etc. This is what FDR did. Thus, low skill workers would no longer be faced with the choice of TV or flipping burgers. It would instead be DMV bathrooms vs flipping burgers. To create even further incentive for work, you could stigmatize those with the guaranteed jobs. Instead of paying money, you could pay with in-kind benefits: rooms in a dormitory instead of housing vouchers, standardized cheapo clothing instead of money to purchase Modern Couture, cafeteria meals instead of McD's. Thus, even if your material standard of living doesn't go up from getting a job, your status does.

ebiester 15y ago
The problem is one of real estate. Even in a moderately inexpensive place like Tucson, a studio is about 400 dollars a month. Split between three people, that's a little less than 150 a month. Food, at just above minimum, is 80 a month. (Food is more expensive in the southwest due to a lack of arable land.) Electricity should add about 10 bucks a month a person. Transportation will run 15 a month for bus due to subsidies. You'll be losing 3 hours a day to transport if you're unlucky, and the bus isn't wonderfully reliable, but let's go with it. (And a bike can cost more in repairs and you may just lose your job if you show up in the condition you'll be after biking in 100 degree heat.) So, at your bare bottom essentials, you're looking at 260 a month, and hope you don't break an arm or have a life-threatening injury, because that's more money than you may make in a year. That means, at a minimum, you would need to make ~3200 to survive. That assumes no crisis ever. And most importantly, that assumes no children. After all, you have no extra money for condoms or other birth control, and if you're raped, you have no money for an abortion. And that's to live three to a studio eating a step above gruel. 3200 goes a heck of a lot further in India. We just can't compete. But what we forget is that welfare isn't for the mother -- it's for the child. It's to make sure we don't have kids begging in the street rather than going to school, that we don't have emaciated children nutrient-deficient, lowering their IQs by nutrition -- no fault of their own. The question becomes, how do you make sure we establish a baseline for children so that those who have the ability to rise out even have a chance?