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There's an obvious way that Amazon would workaround this law. They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. And offer performance-based b

by whack 5y ago

There's an obvious way that Amazon would workaround this law. They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. And offer performance-based bonuses that bring the average wage back to what it is today. I don't see how the law would handle this. I can't think of any reasonable way to outlaw "we'll pay you more for doing more work" policies. Even if it leads to the exact same outcome - most workers will do exactly what they are doing now, because everyone wants to get paid more. There is another obvious solution here. Increase budgets for Earned-Income-Tax-Credits or initiate a Universal Basic Income. This would increase the baseline standard-of-living for all workers, so that they would have better alternatives to what Amazon is offering. Of course, this would also mean that the average taxpayer would need to accept his obligations to his fellow citizen, and shoulder the cost of doing so. Not nearly as popular as outsourcing this responsibility to private companies.

jancsika 5y ago
> They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. 1: set of people willing to take a job with decent pay/benefits and then find out over the course of probably months that they are in a current day episode of Black Mirror where the job has been scientifically designed to burn them out. 2: set of people willing to take a job for minimum wage with the "freedom" to hit stretch goals and make their wildest dreams come true! I claim that set 1 has more people in it. I offer into evidence the fact that Amazon already chose #1 when choosing #2 would have been vastly more cost effective for them if the sets contained the same number of people.
- whack 5y ago
  True, but consider the following. Every single restaurant waiter and uber driver is already a member of set 2. In fact, even more so - they are taking jobs with zero or below-minimum-wage, with the expectation that they will earn more from variable income. Uber, lyft, and the dining industry hasn't had too much trouble hiring people from set 2. I agree that set 1 is larger and preferable to Amazon. But if set 1 is outlawed, they will simply transition to set 2 instead. Or give everyone a pay cut and hire more people. Not pay their employees the same wage for lower output.
nerdponx 5y ago
Without greater taxes on the beneficiaries of Amazon's profits (shareholders and people whose salaries are dependent on company performance like the CEO), UBI is itself a subsidy to those beneficiaries.
- whack 5y ago
  Entrepreneur A creates a company with a very labor-intensive business plan. He eventually hires 1 million low-wage blue collar workers, all of whom preferred working for him over their next best alternative. His company earns $1 billion in annual profits. Entrepreneur B creates a company specifically designed to require minimal labor. He hires only a small number of workers, mostly high-earning and white collar professionals. His company earns $1 billion in annual profits. I would argue that both entrepreneurs should be equally obligated to support the social safety net. And both companies should be taxed equally to fund the social safety net. Imposing higher taxes and obligations onto entrepreneur A and his company, is a perverse way of punishing entrepreneurs for pursuing labor-intensive business models which create more job opportunities for low-wage workers. If anything, we should be doing the opposite.

by whack 5y ago

jancsika 5y ago

> They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. 1: set of people willing to take a job with decent pay/benefits and then find out over the course of probably months that they are in a current day episode of Black Mirror where the job has been scientifically designed to burn them out. 2: set of people willing to take a job for minimum wage with the "freedom" to hit stretch goals and make their wildest dreams come true! I claim that set 1 has more people in it. I offer into evidence the fact that Amazon already chose #1 when choosing #2 would have been vastly more cost effective for them if the sets contained the same number of people.

whack 5y ago
True, but consider the following. Every single restaurant waiter and uber driver is already a member of set 2. In fact, even more so - they are taking jobs with zero or below-minimum-wage, with the expectation that they will earn more from variable income. Uber, lyft, and the dining industry hasn't had too much trouble hiring people from set 2. I agree that set 1 is larger and preferable to Amazon. But if set 1 is outlawed, they will simply transition to set 2 instead. Or give everyone a pay cut and hire more people. Not pay their employees the same wage for lower output.

nerdponx 5y ago

Without greater taxes on the beneficiaries of Amazon's profits (shareholders and people whose salaries are dependent on company performance like the CEO), UBI is itself a subsidy to those beneficiaries.

whack 5y ago
Entrepreneur A creates a company with a very labor-intensive business plan. He eventually hires 1 million low-wage blue collar workers, all of whom preferred working for him over their next best alternative. His company earns $1 billion in annual profits. Entrepreneur B creates a company specifically designed to require minimal labor. He hires only a small number of workers, mostly high-earning and white collar professionals. His company earns $1 billion in annual profits. I would argue that both entrepreneurs should be equally obligated to support the social safety net. And both companies should be taxed equally to fund the social safety net. Imposing higher taxes and obligations onto entrepreneur A and his company, is a perverse way of punishing entrepreneurs for pursuing labor-intensive business models which create more job opportunities for low-wage workers. If anything, we should be doing the opposite.