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General handyman work is not trivial. It's physical and requires a lot of tacit knowledge and perseverance. A regular 9-5 Starbucks job is, by comparison, prett
by Robotbeat 5y ago
General handyman work is not trivial. It's physical and requires a lot of tacit knowledge and perseverance. A regular 9-5 Starbucks job is, by comparison, pretty easy-in, easy-out (which doesn't mean we shouldn't pay people a reasonable minimum wage even for Starbucks... at very least $12.50/hour or something like it was in the late 1960s, if not $15 or $21/hour like it would be if we adjusted for overall productivity growth).
- kortilla 5y ago> if not $15 or $21/hour like it would be if we adjusted for overall productivity growth Why would you ever consider doing that? Livable wage discussions are about what’s livable, not how much value the job provides.
- Robotbeat 5y agoLivable wage discussions are often also about inequality and the broad sharing of societal-level progress. I think one reason Americans have become less optimistic about technology and progress is the benefits have not been shared as widely. Fixing minimum wage to productivity increases would help renew the social contract of people allowing (sometimes disruptive) innovation and progress. But sure. Let’s tie federal minimum wage to inflation and then do local cost-of-living adjustments, say make minimum wage equal to, say, three times the typical rent for a two bedroom apartment in the area. That way places that might really struggle with $21/hour minimum wage (like Wichita, Kansas) but have low housing cost would be able to maintain adequate employment levels and attract business investment. (It would also force NIMBY-heavy communities like San Jose, California actually have to pay a consequence for extreme housing costs in the form of higher wage costs for local low-skill services… Encouraging more housing to be built.)