5 ms·

As an engineer, I have many privileges. Two that stand out here are salary, and the power dynamic I enjoy with my employer. I am well paid, enough said. I also

As an engineer, I have many privileges. Two that stand out here are salary, and the power dynamic I enjoy with my employer. I am well paid, enough said. I also am not beholden to the whims of my management. I can take time off, they need me to be happy, I can effect change on my management as they can effect change on their subordinates. High pay is great, but to a point, I place a higher value on the dignity that I enjoy in my employment. > Inflation-adjusted minimum wage imposed to all businesses/states. I can't say I have a better idea here, but the whole concept of a minimum wage seems like a problem. It strongly implies that there are a large class of jobs where the employer has all of the power, and does not have to compete to attract employees. Also strongly implied is that minimum wage workers do not have an alternative means of supporting themselves. Practically speaking, raising minimum wage regularly should help keep workers out of poverty. Still, these people will still have to contend with employers that treat them like commodities, with no real alternative way to support themselves.

e40 5y ago
Your two points are so incredibly key. I've felt and known this for a long time. The last 5-6 years has made me thing so much of _why_ this is the case is rooted in: 1. Race and how people are perceived--the rise of race issues in the referenced period is so confusing to me, as I thought we were getting past them, but it is very clear that a huge percentage of the US population is still have 19th century views on race. 2. Certain companies (like Amazon) who few low-skilled workers as machines to use up and throw away. As for the "inflation-adjusted minimum wage" ... the argument used to be "small businesses will suffer" but strangely I haven't heard that in a long time. In fact, I don't hear anyone refuting the idea of IAMW. It's so insane to me that we don't do this. Maybe that would give politicians an incentive to keep inflation low? (Because they want to keep the minimum wage as low as possible?)
- faangiq 5y ago
  > 2. Certain companies (like Amazon) who few low-skilled workers as machines to use up and throw away. Don’t worry, these companies view high-skilled workers the same way.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Yes, but they get a lot more out of this...
- pirate787 5y ago
  The big problem with the minimum wage is that, if higher than the market-clearing price, it takes away the lowest rung of the opportunity ladder for the least skilled.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    That's not true. Fact is, labor costs money for the laborer to exist and show up for work. No matter what, that money is paid, or the labor does not exist and or show up for work. Your argument is one of merit, skill and market value. This is exactly the wrong way to look at things. If we start from the cost of labor, and it does have a cost as I put above, whether to fund the labor boils down to the value said labor has for others, and that value can be traded on accordingly. Fact is we need basic labors. Anyone can do them. There should be no shame in this work, and it should be valued as the massive time and effort savings to others that it really is. And automation holds few answers right now, and I would argue for a considerable time yet. People will be doing those labors. Question really is how much does it cost people, who hold other positions in life, to perform basic labors themselves? And the answer is expensive!! That difference in value can very easily fund labors then. It's a perfectly acceptable basis, and it means we value labor differently and it means we recognize that guy digging the ditch, or making our shit disappear, or any number of basic things has the same waking hours any of us do, same basic needs any of us do, and may have a family as any of us do. This idea of people being inherently worthless is very highly toxic and is doing a great harm to all of us. It's completely unacceptable given the quite obvious value even basic labors actually do have for us overall.
    - bumby 5y ago
      This seems to conflate moral worth and economic worth. People can have equal inherent moral value at the same time that some jobs have inherently disproportionate economic value.
      - ddingus 5y ago
        I didn't make a moral argument. What I did do is make an economic one, and suggest how we value things change. A whole bunch of Economics is rooted in a few basies that we all just take as givens. We don't have to. I also didn't make an equal economic value argument, for that matter.
- xhevahir 5y ago
  We don't do that because business lobbies have managed to prevent it.
- naasking 5y ago
  > it is very clear that a huge percentage of the US population is still have 19th century views on race I think it's clear that this is how it's portrayed. I'm not sure the portrayal is all that accurate, or even relevant in most of the cases being discussed.
- chernevik 5y ago
  > strangely I haven't heard that in a long time. In fact, I don't hear anyone refuting the idea of IAMW. This probably says more about the breadth of your sources than anything else. If you aren't hearing the case against a minimum wage (and it's a strong one) you aren't reading widely enough.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Wages are a key inflation driver; IAMW would be a perpetual motion inflation engine. Long term, if you have MW as a key minimum support measure, you want it to keep pace or better with inflation, but over the short term you want it to be countercyclical with inflation, rising most rapidly when inflation is low, and least when it is high. And this leaves out discussion of the problems of a minimum wage as a basic support mechanism, which are also significant.
  - dllthomas 5y ago
    We could plausibly tie it to targeted inflation (or just have it rise on a fixed schedule). We shouldn't tie it to measured or anticipated inflation, for the reasons you say.
Consultant32452 5y ago
The CPI is already corrupted and consistently below real COL increases because it’s tied to entitlements and taxes. It’s used as a tool to steal from the poor. Further tying it to minimum wage will only add more pressure to politicize and corrupt the CPI calculation. That is the failure point in all similar ideas.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >Further tying it to minimum wage will only add more pressure to politicize and corrupt the CPI calculation. That is the failure point in all similar ideas. That's not much of an issue in practice: to even get a few those ideas implemented already requires voter vigilance and strong societal push. If you have those then a reliable CPI is just another thing this vigilance/push should cover. If you don't have them, you wont get far with those proposals either. So it's not like we can get the proposals into laws, but the CPI will be the issue making them ineffective. It's all or nothing.
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    We can be certain the CPI has been corrupted since at least the Boskin commission in 1996. Taxes and entitlements are tied to inflation. The Boskin commission determined if they could find the CPI was over-stated by 1.1% they could save $1 Trillion over 10 years. Magically, with no new research, they came up with a justification to lower the CPI estimate by 1.1%. Raising taxes and cutting Social Security without getting caught is the third rail of politics. The amount of pressure to find ways to do this is immense. This is the level of corruption you are dealing with. We are not even on a path from "here" to a place where the CPI is an actual fair estimation of inflation. Most people don't even know this is a problem. It's too complicated for regular folks to even deal with and all the establishment political figures are in on it, so they obviously won't draw attention to it.
coldtea 5y ago
>not have to compete to attract employees. Also strongly implied is that minimum wage workers do not have an alternative means of supporting themselves. In practice, that's the case. I think that the idea that it isn't so, and people go to this or that employer out of "free choice", stems from a religious-like belief in "free market", than from real-life empirical evaluation of how desperate and poor people pick jobs - and what options are open to then. >Still, these people will still have to contend with employers that treat them like commodities, with no real alternative way to support themselves. True. But at least they will make some more money will doing so - and might even afford to save a buck or too, and eventually look elsewhere.
- Skunkleton 5y ago
  > But at least they will make some more money will doing so - and might even afford to save a buck or too, and eventually look elsewhere. Yeah, I hope so. Maybe someone will come up with a better idea later.
  - Atheros 5y ago
    Replace the minimum wage with an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. It has the benefits of getting people enough money to live without significantly distorting the labor market. And it's more politically expedient than guaranteed minimum income.
consp 5y ago
> It strongly implies that there are a large class of jobs where the employer has all of the power, and does not have to compete to attract employees That is even true in cases where there is even balanced employment-employer availability due to other factors. My country should be more civilized by my dad got 6 years of pension payment reduced because the employer "failed to pay" but on every balance sheet his pay was added because "automatic" and nobody warned him, just the employer. Afterwards the lawyers told him to take the "I'll pay one year" deal of the employer because of the likelyhood of getting nothing due to limited liability companies protection. And this in Europe, not even the US. The balance is so far off it's not even remotely fair game.

e40 5y ago

Your two points are so incredibly key. I've felt and known this for a long time. The last 5-6 years has made me thing so much of _why_ this is the case is rooted in: 1. Race and how people are perceived--the rise of race issues in the referenced period is so confusing to me, as I thought we were getting past them, but it is very clear that a huge percentage of the US population is still have 19th century views on race. 2. Certain companies (like Amazon) who few low-skilled workers as machines to use up and throw away. As for the "inflation-adjusted minimum wage" ... the argument used to be "small businesses will suffer" but strangely I haven't heard that in a long time. In fact, I don't hear anyone refuting the idea of IAMW. It's so insane to me that we don't do this. Maybe that would give politicians an incentive to keep inflation low? (Because they want to keep the minimum wage as low as possible?)

faangiq 5y ago
> 2. Certain companies (like Amazon) who few low-skilled workers as machines to use up and throw away. Don’t worry, these companies view high-skilled workers the same way.
- coldtea 5y ago
  Yes, but they get a lot more out of this...
pirate787 5y ago
The big problem with the minimum wage is that, if higher than the market-clearing price, it takes away the lowest rung of the opportunity ladder for the least skilled.
- ddingus 5y ago
  That's not true. Fact is, labor costs money for the laborer to exist and show up for work. No matter what, that money is paid, or the labor does not exist and or show up for work. Your argument is one of merit, skill and market value. This is exactly the wrong way to look at things. If we start from the cost of labor, and it does have a cost as I put above, whether to fund the labor boils down to the value said labor has for others, and that value can be traded on accordingly. Fact is we need basic labors. Anyone can do them. There should be no shame in this work, and it should be valued as the massive time and effort savings to others that it really is. And automation holds few answers right now, and I would argue for a considerable time yet. People will be doing those labors. Question really is how much does it cost people, who hold other positions in life, to perform basic labors themselves? And the answer is expensive!! That difference in value can very easily fund labors then. It's a perfectly acceptable basis, and it means we value labor differently and it means we recognize that guy digging the ditch, or making our shit disappear, or any number of basic things has the same waking hours any of us do, same basic needs any of us do, and may have a family as any of us do. This idea of people being inherently worthless is very highly toxic and is doing a great harm to all of us. It's completely unacceptable given the quite obvious value even basic labors actually do have for us overall.
  - bumby 5y ago
    This seems to conflate moral worth and economic worth. People can have equal inherent moral value at the same time that some jobs have inherently disproportionate economic value.
    - ddingus 5y ago
      I didn't make a moral argument. What I did do is make an economic one, and suggest how we value things change. A whole bunch of Economics is rooted in a few basies that we all just take as givens. We don't have to. I also didn't make an equal economic value argument, for that matter.
xhevahir 5y ago
We don't do that because business lobbies have managed to prevent it.
naasking 5y ago
> it is very clear that a huge percentage of the US population is still have 19th century views on race I think it's clear that this is how it's portrayed. I'm not sure the portrayal is all that accurate, or even relevant in most of the cases being discussed.
chernevik 5y ago
> strangely I haven't heard that in a long time. In fact, I don't hear anyone refuting the idea of IAMW. This probably says more about the breadth of your sources than anything else. If you aren't hearing the case against a minimum wage (and it's a strong one) you aren't reading widely enough.
dragonwriter 5y ago
Wages are a key inflation driver; IAMW would be a perpetual motion inflation engine. Long term, if you have MW as a key minimum support measure, you want it to keep pace or better with inflation, but over the short term you want it to be countercyclical with inflation, rising most rapidly when inflation is low, and least when it is high. And this leaves out discussion of the problems of a minimum wage as a basic support mechanism, which are also significant.
- dllthomas 5y ago
  We could plausibly tie it to targeted inflation (or just have it rise on a fixed schedule). We shouldn't tie it to measured or anticipated inflation, for the reasons you say.

Consultant32452 5y ago

The CPI is already corrupted and consistently below real COL increases because it’s tied to entitlements and taxes. It’s used as a tool to steal from the poor. Further tying it to minimum wage will only add more pressure to politicize and corrupt the CPI calculation. That is the failure point in all similar ideas.

coldtea 5y ago
>Further tying it to minimum wage will only add more pressure to politicize and corrupt the CPI calculation. That is the failure point in all similar ideas. That's not much of an issue in practice: to even get a few those ideas implemented already requires voter vigilance and strong societal push. If you have those then a reliable CPI is just another thing this vigilance/push should cover. If you don't have them, you wont get far with those proposals either. So it's not like we can get the proposals into laws, but the CPI will be the issue making them ineffective. It's all or nothing.
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  We can be certain the CPI has been corrupted since at least the Boskin commission in 1996. Taxes and entitlements are tied to inflation. The Boskin commission determined if they could find the CPI was over-stated by 1.1% they could save $1 Trillion over 10 years. Magically, with no new research, they came up with a justification to lower the CPI estimate by 1.1%. Raising taxes and cutting Social Security without getting caught is the third rail of politics. The amount of pressure to find ways to do this is immense. This is the level of corruption you are dealing with. We are not even on a path from "here" to a place where the CPI is an actual fair estimation of inflation. Most people don't even know this is a problem. It's too complicated for regular folks to even deal with and all the establishment political figures are in on it, so they obviously won't draw attention to it.

coldtea 5y ago

>not have to compete to attract employees. Also strongly implied is that minimum wage workers do not have an alternative means of supporting themselves. In practice, that's the case. I think that the idea that it isn't so, and people go to this or that employer out of "free choice", stems from a religious-like belief in "free market", than from real-life empirical evaluation of how desperate and poor people pick jobs - and what options are open to then. >Still, these people will still have to contend with employers that treat them like commodities, with no real alternative way to support themselves. True. But at least they will make some more money will doing so - and might even afford to save a buck or too, and eventually look elsewhere.

Skunkleton 5y ago
> But at least they will make some more money will doing so - and might even afford to save a buck or too, and eventually look elsewhere. Yeah, I hope so. Maybe someone will come up with a better idea later.
- Atheros 5y ago
  Replace the minimum wage with an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. It has the benefits of getting people enough money to live without significantly distorting the labor market. And it's more politically expedient than guaranteed minimum income.

consp 5y ago

> It strongly implies that there are a large class of jobs where the employer has all of the power, and does not have to compete to attract employees That is even true in cases where there is even balanced employment-employer availability due to other factors. My country should be more civilized by my dad got 6 years of pension payment reduced because the employer "failed to pay" but on every balance sheet his pay was added because "automatic" and nobody warned him, just the employer. Afterwards the lawyers told him to take the "I'll pay one year" deal of the employer because of the likelyhood of getting nothing due to limited liability companies protection. And this in Europe, not even the US. The balance is so far off it's not even remotely fair game.