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It's funny that detractors of the minimum wage never make an argument in favor of the alternative. Perhaps that makes them realize the cruelty in it. > I don't

It's funny that detractors of the minimum wage never make an argument in favor of the alternative. Perhaps that makes them realize the cruelty in it. > I don't think people working 40s per week deserve to live alone > I think people who do unskilled work don't deserve to live comfortably

imgabe 5y ago
Probably because those are strawman arguments that nobody makes. How about > I don't think teenagers, people with employed spouses, people with investments or social security or other sources of income should ever be able to take a job for less than what a person could completely support themselves on. Minimum wage jobs are a small portion of all available jobs. There are many jobs, even so-called "unskilled" ones that pay more than minimum wage. As a free adult, it is your responsibility to figure out how to make enough money to live in a way in which you're comfortable.
- batiudrami 5y ago
  Why would anyone work those jobs then if objectively better ones are available to them and they are capable of performing them?
  - imgabe 5y ago
    For many people they are part-time jobs and the minimum wage job is not a primary source of income. For the rest, maybe instead of asking "How can we distort the market to force employers to pay more for labor than the value it produces?" we should be asking "How can we make more higher value jobs available to more people?".
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  It’s funny how it’s always the people’s responsibility to get a better job, not the company’s responsibility to find a way to be profitable with reasonable wages.
  - imgabe 5y ago
    When you go to the store do you offer to pay extra money for groceries so the store can make more money? Why not? Why don’t you find a way to be more profitable so you can pay reasonable prices? People buy things, including labor, at the price others are willing to sell them.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      There is a wee bit of a difference between a corporation making more money, and a human being being able to afford rent and food. That’s why I point out how fucked up it is that we are harsh towards people and treat corporations with kid gloves. That’s why they’re not equivalent; if the store can’t charge more money (up until a point) it cuts into their profits. If a human can’t make enough money with their labor, they starve. Hopefully you can understand why these are morally dissimilar.
      - imgabe 5y ago
        If the store is a small business, the profits are what the owner uses to afford rent and food. So, how is that morally dissimilar? "Corporations" are just groups of people. They are not some amorphous, abstract thing that just preys on helpless humans. > If a human can’t make enough money with their labor, they starve. There is absolutely no reason a normal, healthy adult offering 40 hours per week of effort should not be able to produce far more than minimum wage levels of value. If there are not opportunities for them to do that, we should investigate why that is, and provide opportunities for them to create that value. That is better for everyone because there is more valuable work being done. Pretending that a job that only creates $7 per hour of value actually creates $15 or more is just a lie. It's spending a dime to get a nickel and it's ultimately unsustainable. If there's an abundance of jobs paying well above minimum wage, then it doesn't matter what the minimum wage is because people will have better options and the market will determine what price people are willing to accept to do what work. We're already seeing this as people have better options and are refusing to do lower paid work.
        5y ago
ashtonkem 5y ago
There’s a reason why the common refrain is “but what about high school jobs!” It’s much more palatable to believe that the main people working at this wage are children that don’t need the money, even though reality is much worse. Edit: Hah! Someone posted it at the exact same time I originally posted this. Perfect.
unishark 5y ago
I thought the primary argument against it was that the alternative is unemployment. You're implying the options are to pay the same person high or low wages. I don't think this is universally accepted at all.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > I thought the primary argument against it was that the alternative is unemployment. Which is utterly insane when you think about it. The current minimum wage is practically unlivable, and it's supposed to be a good thing for people to make even less just to box-check "employed"? At least if you're unemployed, it's theoretically possible to put your energies into learning something to get a better job, but impossible to do that if you're burning all your energy for little more than pocket money. The only people who'd gain from a lower minimum wage are employers, who'd have the opportunity to exploit cheaper labor.
  - unishark 5y ago
    Now you seem to be arguing for a complete set of welfare benefits comparable to whatever minimum wage is? Because a job is obviously more than a "box check". It's an income. Otherwise, anyone could turn their nose up at those soul-sucking low-wage jobs and choose that unemployment alternative willingly.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Rebelgecko 5y ago
This study makes 2 assumptions that seem suspect to me: 1. It's unaffordable to spend more than 30% of your income on rent + utilities. Perhaps ironically I think this rule is the least true in areas with highly priced housing markets- if you're paying 40% of your post-tax income on housing, that leaves a ton of room to spend money on other things. I realize this isn't necessary true for people making minimum wage, but I wish they did a more analysis that for that. Instead they just used the ancient 30% rule of thumb. 2. You can only afford to live somewhere if 40% of the 2 bedroom homes are within your budget I'm definitely not an economist or housing expert, but it seems unintuitive to me that we'd ever reach an equilibrum where the lowest earners can afford to the majority of homes. If everyone can afford most housing, wouldn't landlords just raise prices on luxury or above-average properties until only people who make more than average can afford them? Two-income households also have an inherent advantage if there's any sort of bidding war.
lambdaphagy 5y ago
There was a time in my life where I would have made approximately minimum wage at a nominal 40 hour work week, and far below that in consideration of actual hours worked. I didn't live alone. I don't know whether you would have called my conditions "comfortable", but with some spending discipline I was able to travel to Europe several times a year. I value my solitude to be sure, but it's not really clear why living alone is a right rather than a nice-to-have or even a policy goal. If legislators had responded to my plight by making the terms of my employment illegal and hoping for the best, gratitude would not necessarily have been my first instinct.
- unishark 5y ago
  I think having roommates should be the default living situation for people unless/until they have a family (which are technically a form of roommate of course). Besides being wasteful of space and resources, there's the (now well-known) mental health downsides or being alone. Humans aren't really made to live that way long-term. Personally I had roommates when I was single even when I had a good job. I viewed it as a way to meet people when I moved to a new city, which it was. It is important for roommates to view it this way though. People view it as purely financial can make bad roommates.
ayngg 5y ago
Because increasing minimum wage is popular politics but it doesn't really solve the issue, and that is even if policymakers are capable of coming together to agree on how to make a 'livable' minimum wage (a livable wage in rural midwest is not the same as NY or SF for example), and how to keep that wage at a livable level without having to go through the political quagmire we currently are going through every 10-20 years. It isn't even clear that the minimum wage should be livable in the first place, as that also has its own costs as capital is liquid enough to go elsewhere leading to a race to the bottom. Policymakers have shaped the economic system in a way that suppresses the value of unskilled labor, and simply forcing the increase has serious costs which most people don't appreciate, costs that are harder to bear for some compared to others, for example huge multinationals are much better equipped to deal with said costs compared to smaller, independent businesses. The appeal to emotion regarding this is especially dangerous since it often ignores the reasons why the problem persists, and when the problem is as difficult as this is, there are many potential pitfalls when creating a solution (especially a popular one), which can lead to making things even worse than before. The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all. I think it is a little disingenuous to characterize people who are critical of concepts like a livable minimum wage the way you have, wage insecurity is a serious and complex problem that wont be solved simply by controlling the price of labor. Ian Shapiro has a lecture about wage insecurity in his power and politics course at Yale that discusses UBI, minimum wage and other alternatives which I think provides a decent, but brief overview of the issues faced regarding policies like this. Here is a link specifically to where he starts to discuss the idea of 15$ minimum wage. https://youtu.be/bldeaDRWJYc?t=2443 https://youtu.be/bldeaDRWJYc?t=2443

imgabe 5y ago

Probably because those are strawman arguments that nobody makes. How about > I don't think teenagers, people with employed spouses, people with investments or social security or other sources of income should ever be able to take a job for less than what a person could completely support themselves on. Minimum wage jobs are a small portion of all available jobs. There are many jobs, even so-called "unskilled" ones that pay more than minimum wage. As a free adult, it is your responsibility to figure out how to make enough money to live in a way in which you're comfortable.

batiudrami 5y ago
Why would anyone work those jobs then if objectively better ones are available to them and they are capable of performing them?
- imgabe 5y ago
  For many people they are part-time jobs and the minimum wage job is not a primary source of income. For the rest, maybe instead of asking "How can we distort the market to force employers to pay more for labor than the value it produces?" we should be asking "How can we make more higher value jobs available to more people?".
ashtonkem 5y ago
It’s funny how it’s always the people’s responsibility to get a better job, not the company’s responsibility to find a way to be profitable with reasonable wages.
- imgabe 5y ago
  When you go to the store do you offer to pay extra money for groceries so the store can make more money? Why not? Why don’t you find a way to be more profitable so you can pay reasonable prices? People buy things, including labor, at the price others are willing to sell them.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    There is a wee bit of a difference between a corporation making more money, and a human being being able to afford rent and food. That’s why I point out how fucked up it is that we are harsh towards people and treat corporations with kid gloves. That’s why they’re not equivalent; if the store can’t charge more money (up until a point) it cuts into their profits. If a human can’t make enough money with their labor, they starve. Hopefully you can understand why these are morally dissimilar.
    - imgabe 5y ago
      If the store is a small business, the profits are what the owner uses to afford rent and food. So, how is that morally dissimilar? "Corporations" are just groups of people. They are not some amorphous, abstract thing that just preys on helpless humans. > If a human can’t make enough money with their labor, they starve. There is absolutely no reason a normal, healthy adult offering 40 hours per week of effort should not be able to produce far more than minimum wage levels of value. If there are not opportunities for them to do that, we should investigate why that is, and provide opportunities for them to create that value. That is better for everyone because there is more valuable work being done. Pretending that a job that only creates $7 per hour of value actually creates $15 or more is just a lie. It's spending a dime to get a nickel and it's ultimately unsustainable. If there's an abundance of jobs paying well above minimum wage, then it doesn't matter what the minimum wage is because people will have better options and the market will determine what price people are willing to accept to do what work. We're already seeing this as people have better options and are refusing to do lower paid work.
      - 5y ago

ashtonkem 5y ago

There’s a reason why the common refrain is “but what about high school jobs!” It’s much more palatable to believe that the main people working at this wage are children that don’t need the money, even though reality is much worse. Edit: Hah! Someone posted it at the exact same time I originally posted this. Perfect.

unishark 5y ago

I thought the primary argument against it was that the alternative is unemployment. You're implying the options are to pay the same person high or low wages. I don't think this is universally accepted at all.

tablespoon 5y ago
> I thought the primary argument against it was that the alternative is unemployment. Which is utterly insane when you think about it. The current minimum wage is practically unlivable, and it's supposed to be a good thing for people to make even less just to box-check "employed"? At least if you're unemployed, it's theoretically possible to put your energies into learning something to get a better job, but impossible to do that if you're burning all your energy for little more than pocket money. The only people who'd gain from a lower minimum wage are employers, who'd have the opportunity to exploit cheaper labor.
- unishark 5y ago
  Now you seem to be arguing for a complete set of welfare benefits comparable to whatever minimum wage is? Because a job is obviously more than a "box check". It's an income. Otherwise, anyone could turn their nose up at those soul-sucking low-wage jobs and choose that unemployment alternative willingly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Rebelgecko 5y ago

This study makes 2 assumptions that seem suspect to me: 1. It's unaffordable to spend more than 30% of your income on rent + utilities. Perhaps ironically I think this rule is the least true in areas with highly priced housing markets- if you're paying 40% of your post-tax income on housing, that leaves a ton of room to spend money on other things. I realize this isn't necessary true for people making minimum wage, but I wish they did a more analysis that for that. Instead they just used the ancient 30% rule of thumb. 2. You can only afford to live somewhere if 40% of the 2 bedroom homes are within your budget I'm definitely not an economist or housing expert, but it seems unintuitive to me that we'd ever reach an equilibrum where the lowest earners can afford to the majority of homes. If everyone can afford most housing, wouldn't landlords just raise prices on luxury or above-average properties until only people who make more than average can afford them? Two-income households also have an inherent advantage if there's any sort of bidding war.

lambdaphagy 5y ago

There was a time in my life where I would have made approximately minimum wage at a nominal 40 hour work week, and far below that in consideration of actual hours worked. I didn't live alone. I don't know whether you would have called my conditions "comfortable", but with some spending discipline I was able to travel to Europe several times a year. I value my solitude to be sure, but it's not really clear why living alone is a right rather than a nice-to-have or even a policy goal. If legislators had responded to my plight by making the terms of my employment illegal and hoping for the best, gratitude would not necessarily have been my first instinct.

unishark 5y ago
I think having roommates should be the default living situation for people unless/until they have a family (which are technically a form of roommate of course). Besides being wasteful of space and resources, there's the (now well-known) mental health downsides or being alone. Humans aren't really made to live that way long-term. Personally I had roommates when I was single even when I had a good job. I viewed it as a way to meet people when I moved to a new city, which it was. It is important for roommates to view it this way though. People view it as purely financial can make bad roommates.

ayngg 5y ago

Because increasing minimum wage is popular politics but it doesn't really solve the issue, and that is even if policymakers are capable of coming together to agree on how to make a 'livable' minimum wage (a livable wage in rural midwest is not the same as NY or SF for example), and how to keep that wage at a livable level without having to go through the political quagmire we currently are going through every 10-20 years. It isn't even clear that the minimum wage should be livable in the first place, as that also has its own costs as capital is liquid enough to go elsewhere leading to a race to the bottom. Policymakers have shaped the economic system in a way that suppresses the value of unskilled labor, and simply forcing the increase has serious costs which most people don't appreciate, costs that are harder to bear for some compared to others, for example huge multinationals are much better equipped to deal with said costs compared to smaller, independent businesses. The appeal to emotion regarding this is especially dangerous since it often ignores the reasons why the problem persists, and when the problem is as difficult as this is, there are many potential pitfalls when creating a solution (especially a popular one), which can lead to making things even worse than before. The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all. I think it is a little disingenuous to characterize people who are critical of concepts like a livable minimum wage the way you have, wage insecurity is a serious and complex problem that wont be solved simply by controlling the price of labor. Ian Shapiro has a lecture about wage insecurity in his power and politics course at Yale that discusses UBI, minimum wage and other alternatives which I think provides a decent, but brief overview of the issues faced regarding policies like this. Here is a link specifically to where he starts to discuss the idea of 15$ minimum wage. https://youtu.be/bldeaDRWJYc?t=2443 https://youtu.be/bldeaDRWJYc?t=2443