10 ms·

I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. If we shorten the nominal work

by mlyle 5y ago

I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. If we shorten the nominal workweek to 36 hours before overtime is required (and encourage this to be in the form of 4x9 or 9/2 * 8): * Supply of labor will fall, increasing equilibrium pay for everyone * Everyone's quality of life goes up * Traffic and environmental impacts from commuting should improve (a little). * It's a better hedge against automation and outsourcing than artificially increasing the minimum price of labor.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
You need both: A minimum wage ensures a wage of enough income someone can pay for basic needs (housing, food, health, etc) and ratcheting down the work week distributes productivity gains of capital to workers in aggregate. The former is, arguably, more tenable politically at the moment ("Fight for $15" and so on), the latter likely in the future as the electorate (and the beliefs around work and its contribution to someone's identity) evolves. Increasing the minimum wage would also lift ~20 million people out of poverty (at the cost of about 1.4 million jobs) per the US CBO [1] [2] [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta... [2] https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-Wage.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-Wage.... [3] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965483266/-15-minimum-wage-would-reduce-poverty-but-cost-jobs-cbo-says https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965483266/-15-minimum-wage-wo...
- mlyle 5y ago
  I agree that one needs both and that they serve complementary purposes. But a minimum wage is useful to the extent that there are jobs for your lowest skill, least desirable workers. And ensuring that may take reducing the work week.
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Higher minimum wage laws do hurt low skilled workers. We have two great big machines at work each will pay for it's self in under a year at current minimum wage rates. There is no choice but to replace the people for machines if we want to remain competitive.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      It is a win-win. They force other businesses who can't buy a machine to pay a higher floor. If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth. Your company gets more productive. Paying some a lower wage because it delays another machine purchase is not a long term solutiom
      - loonster 5y ago
        > If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth. And those companies will calculate the ROI for moving into a lower tax burdensome area. After the company leaves the people wont have a job or the tax revenue.
        midasuni 5y ago
        Which is why all companies move to Somalia rather than say California
        loonster 5y ago
        Tesla? Some companies are leaving California.
        xapata 5y ago
        No one lives in California; it's too crowded.
        selimthegrim 5y ago
        I hear Hargeisa is nice these days.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    We should consider thinking of those jobs not as lowest skill, but jobs where the workers have the lowest negotiating power.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      They go hand in hand. Why do the workers have the lowest negotiating power in these jobs? It's because they are the most easily replaced and the net benefit from employing them is smallest. [There are some edge cases, where a field is swamped from people doing the job for the love of it... But this is not the typical case.]
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        Isn't the whole point of the minimum wage that the federal / state / local governments are the negotiator of last resort? I.e. people with minimum wage jobs would be paid even less, but for the government using its power to negotiate for them
        mlyle 5y ago
        > Isn't the whole point of the minimum wage that the federal / state / local governments are the negotiator of last resort? Yes. And it's a necessary thing to have. On the other hand... if someone is doing work that returns $15.50/hour on average to the business, and is employed at $10/hour, raising the minimum wage to $15/hour doesn't get that person a raise: it gets them laid off. The things that IMO really help the fundamentals are: * Raising the demand for low-skill labor (e.g. economic growth above productivity improvements) * Raising the average skill level of the workforce, and/or * Reducing the supply of labor.
        vkou 5y ago
        > On the other hand... if someone is doing work that returns $15.50/hour on average to the business, and is employed at $10/hour, raising the minimum wage to $15/hour doesn't get that person a raise: it gets them laid off. No, what it does is it causes prices to go up, which are amortized across all of society - between both people who are paid $15/hour, and people who are paid $150/hour. On average, it is a small wealth transfer from the average person to the working poor.
- kube-system 5y ago
  > A minimum wage ensures a wage of enough income someone can pay for basic needs (housing, food, health, etc) This isn't really a criticism of your comment, but I've always felt that this is a convenient supporting argument that obscures so much nuance that it is actually harmful to the broader goal of more fair wages. There are three huge assumptions that a statement like "an hourly wage should be enough income for basic needs" obscures: 1. that the person is employable (I don't think it's necessarily good to economically guarantee that severely disabled people are forced out of the workplace, even if they have other support systems to guarantee their needs) 2. that the person works a certain number of hours. ($100/hr is not livable if you work one hour per week.) 3. that a person has an assumed set of needs and an assumed support system (different life circumstances require different incomes to meet basic needs) Everyone deserves to afford their basic needs, regardless of any of these confounding factors. Much of our worst poverty is because of one of these factors, not a variable as simplistic as hourly wage. Wages should be fair, but basic needs should be for everyone regardless of their ability to work a 9-to-5. While I do think we need some upwards pressure on wages, I also think social safety nets are a more equitable way to ensure basic needs are met. And we don't need to let employers off the hook for paying the bill, we can tax them to do this.
kbenson 5y ago
I'm a little worried about how that would affect the lower class in the short term. It's easy to say that they'll get more money as they'll get a day of overtime, but I think it's more likely that a lot of people will find that businesses just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), and then people have more time but are only making 80% of what they were previously, and can't afford both rent and food together in a given month anymore. I think the instability this would cause i the lower class would be devastating. The very people that don't have savings and that can't easily weather large financial events would have once forced on them all at the same time.
- mlyle 5y ago
  I'm not saying to abolish the minimum wage. I'm just saying to reduce the nominal workweek before overtime. > just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), There's not an infinite supply of bodies out there. It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"-- at least not without raising comp. And, of course, getting closer to full employment is a good thing in itself... > but are only making 80% of ... 36/40 = 90%, even in this worst case where someone has their hours reduced from 40 to 36 to avoid overtime pay. I think there's a lot more poor people that are getting 30-35 hours from their job who would be nowhere close to the overtime threshold before, but now that their normal workweek is closer to the max get it sometimes. Any policy change will hit some people negatively, but I think this would be a net positive for the vast majority of lower earners.
  - koala_man 5y ago
    >It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people" Well, you just gave millions of low-income workers 10% less money and 10% more time, so my guess is that more people would be forced to get a second job.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mlyle 5y ago
trcarney 5y ago
>I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. The government being involved is the most likely answer as to why a 40 hour work week is standard and why there are so many "minimum wage" jobs. A funny thing happens when you set floors or ceilings in markets, you hit them. There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set the minimum wage because people act in their own self interest. If the pay is too low, no one will take the job. This is how labor markets are set everywhere else in the economy, I don't understand how the bottom is different. The government shouldn't have anything to do with the work week, the market should decide because what works in one sector in one region may not work in another. The government isn't as smart as the entire labor market making decisions for themselves.
- jedberg 5y ago
  In an ideal spherical cow world, having no minimum wage would work exactly as you describe. In the real world, that's you how get slavery. For many reasons, not everyone has a choice to turn down a $1/hr job.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Where I am McDonalds is begging for people to work at $15/hr. How would they even think about paying less?
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      They'd simply cut wages when the labor supply shock recedes and labor is in surplus again. Businesses do not pay the minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts; on the contrary, it communicates "we'd pay you less if we could, the law simply doesn't allow us to."
      - mlyle 5y ago
        Sure. But note also that there are people one might be willing to gamble on employing at $12/hour but that don't offer a positive return at capital at $15/hour. I think minimum wage laws are important, but that reducing the supply of labor will do more to push up the wages of the lowest earners.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Lol, Congress couldn't even get a minimum wage increase with majority Democrats, there's no way anything else about the workweek is changing any time soon.
chiefalchemist 5y ago
I'm on a 40 hrs one week, 32 hrs the next. That yields every other Friday off. If I get a pronotion / pay increase I'm gonba try to opt for 32 hrs every week. > Everyone's quality of life goes up Ideally, yes. But for those who struggle in various ways the extra free time could be dangerous. I'm definitely in favor of a shorter work week. But there are always unintended consequences. For example I live in NJ. As the pandemic lockdown kicked off so did the adverts for gambling via your mobile device. I'm not in favor of the Nanny State but I can't help but wonder how many ppl are nursing an addiction and associated debt from this intersection.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Yea- if you're not making money, you're usually spending it. Idle time costs more than the $0/hr you make while not working.
  - lukas099 5y ago
    Unless you use part of your free time to do things that you previously had to pay someone to do because you didn't have time.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
The biggest problem is the minimum wage for salaried exempt workers needs to be a few hundred thousand dollars. Otherwise, businesses will continue to label employees managers with no actual management responsibilities with the sole goal of paying someone a lower hourly rate in exchange for a more certain periodic payment. Once you remove this loophole, hourly pay will naturally rise as businesses will opt to hire more hourly workers. The biggest reason hourly workers lack negotiating power is businesses can lean in the salaried “managers” to fill in at no extra cost.
- mlyle 5y ago
  This is an interesting idea, but it seems really impractical to me. As you point out, people enjoy some benefits from certainty in compensation. Outlawing a compensation arrangement far in excess of minimum wage seems questionable. And how far does this extend? Can I not pay a contractor a fixed rate for a project? Or a fixed rate to handle _____ for me for a week? It would seem to encourage arm's-length contracting arrangement for services and coverage, which isn't ideal.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Is it far in excess of minimum wage? A manager can be asked to be on call 24/7. But per hour, that is not much. I don’t see what it would have to do with contractors. Minimum wage laws apply to employer employer relationships. Independent contractors can charge whatever they want.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > Is it far in excess of minimum wage? A manager can be asked to be on call 24/7. But per hour, that is not much. So you want to pay someone for every hour they might get called, too? Even if that is a very rare responsibility? > I don’t see what it would have to do with contractors. It would further encourage contractor relationships, as I said. I don't see this as a good thing.
      - 5y ago

by mlyle 5y ago

toomuchtodo 5y ago

You need both: A minimum wage ensures a wage of enough income someone can pay for basic needs (housing, food, health, etc) and ratcheting down the work week distributes productivity gains of capital to workers in aggregate. The former is, arguably, more tenable politically at the moment ("Fight for $15" and so on), the latter likely in the future as the electorate (and the beliefs around work and its contribution to someone's identity) evolves. Increasing the minimum wage would also lift ~20 million people out of poverty (at the cost of about 1.4 million jobs) per the US CBO [1] [2] [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta... [2] https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-Wage.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-Wage.... [3] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965483266/-15-minimum-wage-would-reduce-poverty-but-cost-jobs-cbo-says https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965483266/-15-minimum-wage-wo...

mlyle 5y ago
I agree that one needs both and that they serve complementary purposes. But a minimum wage is useful to the extent that there are jobs for your lowest skill, least desirable workers. And ensuring that may take reducing the work week.
- xupybd 5y ago
  Higher minimum wage laws do hurt low skilled workers. We have two great big machines at work each will pay for it's self in under a year at current minimum wage rates. There is no choice but to replace the people for machines if we want to remain competitive.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    It is a win-win. They force other businesses who can't buy a machine to pay a higher floor. If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth. Your company gets more productive. Paying some a lower wage because it delays another machine purchase is not a long term solutiom
    - loonster 5y ago
      > If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth. And those companies will calculate the ROI for moving into a lower tax burdensome area. After the company leaves the people wont have a job or the tax revenue.
      - midasuni 5y ago
        Which is why all companies move to Somalia rather than say California
        loonster 5y ago
        Tesla? Some companies are leaving California.
        xapata 5y ago
        No one lives in California; it's too crowded.
        selimthegrim 5y ago
        I hear Hargeisa is nice these days.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  We should consider thinking of those jobs not as lowest skill, but jobs where the workers have the lowest negotiating power.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    They go hand in hand. Why do the workers have the lowest negotiating power in these jobs? It's because they are the most easily replaced and the net benefit from employing them is smallest. [There are some edge cases, where a field is swamped from people doing the job for the love of it... But this is not the typical case.]
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      Isn't the whole point of the minimum wage that the federal / state / local governments are the negotiator of last resort? I.e. people with minimum wage jobs would be paid even less, but for the government using its power to negotiate for them
      - mlyle 5y ago
        > Isn't the whole point of the minimum wage that the federal / state / local governments are the negotiator of last resort? Yes. And it's a necessary thing to have. On the other hand... if someone is doing work that returns $15.50/hour on average to the business, and is employed at $10/hour, raising the minimum wage to $15/hour doesn't get that person a raise: it gets them laid off. The things that IMO really help the fundamentals are: * Raising the demand for low-skill labor (e.g. economic growth above productivity improvements) * Raising the average skill level of the workforce, and/or * Reducing the supply of labor.
        vkou 5y ago
        > On the other hand... if someone is doing work that returns $15.50/hour on average to the business, and is employed at $10/hour, raising the minimum wage to $15/hour doesn't get that person a raise: it gets them laid off. No, what it does is it causes prices to go up, which are amortized across all of society - between both people who are paid $15/hour, and people who are paid $150/hour. On average, it is a small wealth transfer from the average person to the working poor.
kube-system 5y ago
> A minimum wage ensures a wage of enough income someone can pay for basic needs (housing, food, health, etc) This isn't really a criticism of your comment, but I've always felt that this is a convenient supporting argument that obscures so much nuance that it is actually harmful to the broader goal of more fair wages. There are three huge assumptions that a statement like "an hourly wage should be enough income for basic needs" obscures: 1. that the person is employable (I don't think it's necessarily good to economically guarantee that severely disabled people are forced out of the workplace, even if they have other support systems to guarantee their needs) 2. that the person works a certain number of hours. ($100/hr is not livable if you work one hour per week.) 3. that a person has an assumed set of needs and an assumed support system (different life circumstances require different incomes to meet basic needs) Everyone deserves to afford their basic needs, regardless of any of these confounding factors. Much of our worst poverty is because of one of these factors, not a variable as simplistic as hourly wage. Wages should be fair, but basic needs should be for everyone regardless of their ability to work a 9-to-5. While I do think we need some upwards pressure on wages, I also think social safety nets are a more equitable way to ensure basic needs are met. And we don't need to let employers off the hook for paying the bill, we can tax them to do this.

kbenson 5y ago

I'm a little worried about how that would affect the lower class in the short term. It's easy to say that they'll get more money as they'll get a day of overtime, but I think it's more likely that a lot of people will find that businesses just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), and then people have more time but are only making 80% of what they were previously, and can't afford both rent and food together in a given month anymore. I think the instability this would cause i the lower class would be devastating. The very people that don't have savings and that can't easily weather large financial events would have once forced on them all at the same time.

mlyle 5y ago
I'm not saying to abolish the minimum wage. I'm just saying to reduce the nominal workweek before overtime. > just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), There's not an infinite supply of bodies out there. It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"-- at least not without raising comp. And, of course, getting closer to full employment is a good thing in itself... > but are only making 80% of ... 36/40 = 90%, even in this worst case where someone has their hours reduced from 40 to 36 to avoid overtime pay. I think there's a lot more poor people that are getting 30-35 hours from their job who would be nowhere close to the overtime threshold before, but now that their normal workweek is closer to the max get it sometimes. Any policy change will hit some people negatively, but I think this would be a net positive for the vast majority of lower earners.
- koala_man 5y ago
  >It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people" Well, you just gave millions of low-income workers 10% less money and 10% more time, so my guess is that more people would be forced to get a second job.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mlyle 5y ago

trcarney 5y ago

>I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. The government being involved is the most likely answer as to why a 40 hour work week is standard and why there are so many "minimum wage" jobs. A funny thing happens when you set floors or ceilings in markets, you hit them. There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set the minimum wage because people act in their own self interest. If the pay is too low, no one will take the job. This is how labor markets are set everywhere else in the economy, I don't understand how the bottom is different. The government shouldn't have anything to do with the work week, the market should decide because what works in one sector in one region may not work in another. The government isn't as smart as the entire labor market making decisions for themselves.

jedberg 5y ago
In an ideal spherical cow world, having no minimum wage would work exactly as you describe. In the real world, that's you how get slavery. For many reasons, not everyone has a choice to turn down a $1/hr job.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Where I am McDonalds is begging for people to work at $15/hr. How would they even think about paying less?
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    They'd simply cut wages when the labor supply shock recedes and labor is in surplus again. Businesses do not pay the minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts; on the contrary, it communicates "we'd pay you less if we could, the law simply doesn't allow us to."
    - mlyle 5y ago
      Sure. But note also that there are people one might be willing to gamble on employing at $12/hour but that don't offer a positive return at capital at $15/hour. I think minimum wage laws are important, but that reducing the supply of labor will do more to push up the wages of the lowest earners.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

Lol, Congress couldn't even get a minimum wage increase with majority Democrats, there's no way anything else about the workweek is changing any time soon.

chiefalchemist 5y ago

I'm on a 40 hrs one week, 32 hrs the next. That yields every other Friday off. If I get a pronotion / pay increase I'm gonba try to opt for 32 hrs every week. > Everyone's quality of life goes up Ideally, yes. But for those who struggle in various ways the extra free time could be dangerous. I'm definitely in favor of a shorter work week. But there are always unintended consequences. For example I live in NJ. As the pandemic lockdown kicked off so did the adverts for gambling via your mobile device. I'm not in favor of the Nanny State but I can't help but wonder how many ppl are nursing an addiction and associated debt from this intersection.

beerandt 5y ago
Yea- if you're not making money, you're usually spending it. Idle time costs more than the $0/hr you make while not working.
- lukas099 5y ago
  Unless you use part of your free time to do things that you previously had to pay someone to do because you didn't have time.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

The biggest problem is the minimum wage for salaried exempt workers needs to be a few hundred thousand dollars. Otherwise, businesses will continue to label employees managers with no actual management responsibilities with the sole goal of paying someone a lower hourly rate in exchange for a more certain periodic payment. Once you remove this loophole, hourly pay will naturally rise as businesses will opt to hire more hourly workers. The biggest reason hourly workers lack negotiating power is businesses can lean in the salaried “managers” to fill in at no extra cost.

mlyle 5y ago
This is an interesting idea, but it seems really impractical to me. As you point out, people enjoy some benefits from certainty in compensation. Outlawing a compensation arrangement far in excess of minimum wage seems questionable. And how far does this extend? Can I not pay a contractor a fixed rate for a project? Or a fixed rate to handle _____ for me for a week? It would seem to encourage arm's-length contracting arrangement for services and coverage, which isn't ideal.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Is it far in excess of minimum wage? A manager can be asked to be on call 24/7. But per hour, that is not much. I don’t see what it would have to do with contractors. Minimum wage laws apply to employer employer relationships. Independent contractors can charge whatever they want.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > Is it far in excess of minimum wage? A manager can be asked to be on call 24/7. But per hour, that is not much. So you want to pay someone for every hour they might get called, too? Even if that is a very rare responsibility? > I don’t see what it would have to do with contractors. It would further encourage contractor relationships, as I said. I don't see this as a good thing.
    - 5y ago