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Depressing to see so much vitriol in here for an idea to improve living standards for people who earn less. The argument that cost of living will somehow incre

Depressing to see so much vitriol in here for an idea to improve living standards for people who earn less. The argument that cost of living will somehow increase in linear proportional lockstep with minimum wage increases is nonsense. Abolishing minimum wage opens the door for horrendous exploitation of people, the labour in the market are not perfect rational actors and businesses will exploit this where possible. A liveable baseline is really important. We are mostly all commenting from the privilege of skilled labour and all the freedoms and benefits that come with that.

ceeplusplus 4y ago
Rent prices in the Bay Area, Seattle, LA, NYC, and other high minimum wage cities beg to differ. As a percentage of monthly minimum wage earnings I'd bet rent comes out as higher in high minimum wage cities than low wage cities.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  Now control for median wage (which is pretty much completely unaffected by a $5-10 spread of minimum wage but is drastically affected by high wage earners) and land use policies, see if the correlation holds.
- lesuorac 4y ago
  An x% increase in minimum wage is correlated with an <x% inflation [1]. This is also trivial to show as the cost of a good is rarely majority labor (even trucking is majority diesel) so if a $9 shipment is $1 profit, $4 gas, $2 labor, $2 depreciation a 10% increase in labor (to $2.2) only moves the overall cost to $9.2 is a 2% increase. But even if a good was majority labor, a total cost of $9 with $8 labor becomes $9.8 which is still less than 10%. Obviously also goods produced by labor above the minimum wage (ex. plumbers) isn't affected by a change in the minimum wage. [1]: https://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf https://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf
- somethoughts 4y ago
  Its been my tangential and perhaps unpopular observation that in high COL areas where there's a high minimum wage/high salaries - there's an increasing benefit to RV/apartment arbitrage. Basically take benefits of the high minimum wage that was meant to address housing costs/RV camping but live in an RV/couch surf/double up a single family during the week anyways. There are stories/Youtube videos of of techies living the RV life or multiple roommates to benefit from this arbitrage. To be honest if you are single maybe the tradeoffs aren't that bad. Also there's also these challenges apply to "self-employed contractors" as well. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/07/the-uber-drivers-forced-to-sleep-in-parking-lots-to-make-a-decent-living https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/07/the-uber-...
  - gbronner 4y ago
    The big arb is living with your parents. Bank high salaries and pay little or nothing in rent. Great way for coastal elites to effectively pass money to their kids
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  At least as indicated by homelessness rates, this appears to be the case. https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/images/rent.png https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/images/rent.png From: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ Recent HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30708256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30708256
- klyrs 4y ago
  Is the rent a function of minimum wage, or is it a function of land prices? Because it's homeowners, landlords, and firms who use real estate as an investment vehicle who are driving up the land prices and also setting rents. You and I can negotiate a higher wage based on cost of living, and then participate in that bubble. Somebody making minimum wage, not so much.
  - dcolkitt 4y ago
    They’re both a function of general anti-market policies of their local government. The City government of San Francisco opposes free markets in both labor and housing. Therefore it has a gigantic housing shortage because developers are shackled from meeting demand. That same anti-market outlook also leads lawmakers to thinking workers are incapable of negotiating their own fair wages, and hence they set very high minimum wages. Homeowners and landlords in Houston also use housing as an investment. However the cost is not nearly anywhere as high because the local government in Houston is much more friendly to free market policies towards property developers.
baggy_trough 4y ago
If you hate the low skilled, then raising the minimum wage is an excellent idea, because it will prevent them from being gainfully employed.
- TomGullen 4y ago
  It's obviously a scale and a balancing act, because you can't be seriously arguing that any increase will force all unskilled labour into unemployment. So I suppose the argument is that some people think it's too low, some too high, and some just about right.
  - codeguro 4y ago
    > you can't be seriously arguing that any increase will force all unskilled labour into unemployment Why not? If Peter's labor is only worth $X but minimum wage is raised to $X+5, a company can reasonably be expected to fire Peter. Now Peter is out of a job. Should I just take it on your word and evaluate policy based on its purported intent and not on the consequences?
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      It cannot fire a guy or it'd have to quit business altogether as others would not be able to keep up. We've seen this problem in multiple cases - most often companies do not have sufficient spare workers to handle even a health issue, much less someone quitting. You're not evaluating it based on consequences but what you think would be potential consequences. Instead, run an experiment and see what actually happens. Actually don't, since we already have data that what you describe is not happening.
  - baggy_trough 4y ago
    Not all, but the marginal ones. The larger the minimum wage, the more marginal workers are affected.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  No problems with job openings right now for low skilled labor just lots of companies that won’t pay market rate because it threatens their existing pool of below market rate workers
exabrial 4y ago
Conflating 1: a person who is knowledgeable enough that raising minimum wage paid in fiat currency does nothing, and 2: not wanting to improve living standards for people who earn less, is quite the jump. Everyone arguing against it has good intentions. In fact, the reason many people are arguing against a minimum wage increase is because they recognize that is is _always_ regressive against anyone that isn't a Politician trying to buy votes.
- thatfrenchguy 4y ago
  > a person who is knowledgeable enough that raising minimum wage paid in fiat currency does nothing, It does something though, it compresses inequalities because not everything is done by people paid a minimum wage.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  > a person who is knowledgeable enough that raising minimum wage paid in fiat currency does nothing Are you being hyperbolic here or are you actually arguing that somehow minimum wages increase inflation to the point that they're a wash and thus literally "do nothing"? Normally I'd assume the former, but since you're replying to someone who's saying people are arguing the latter, I have to at least allow the possibility you're defending the idea. Which would be silly. An increase in the minimum wage can't increase the money supply, and can't create global inflation on its own. And any effects like this could only really happen if the whole economy were under the minimum wage, which would imply much deeper problems that couldn't possibly be solved by raising it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tux1968 4y ago
> Depressing to see so much vitriol in here for an idea to improve living standards for people who earn less. It's depressing that you would frame the opposition in such a light. People are objecting to an idea that they think won't work, or actually be counterproductive. It's really disingenuous to wrap a very flawed plan in the glowing virtue of its noble intent, and then dismiss any opposition as ignoble.
- gilbetron 4y ago
  If the other "side" doesn't bother generating ideas to help with the situation, then it is a fair thing to deride the opposition. It's like the (bad) engineer that just points out problems without trying to come up with alternative solutions. I'm not saying you are that person, but it is aggravating to attempt to solve a problem only to have a contingent whose only goal seems to be preventing a solution. It seems like a certain amount of people honestly believe that have people live impoverished lives is simply a necessary feature of economic systems. "We can't have a minimum wage because it will just increase prices of everything and make the minimum wage moot. We can't give people free stuff because then they will be lazy and won't contribute." I reject that notion, and if you are in the group that believes such a thing I'm going to oppose you stringently, sorry.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hansvm 4y ago
    > can't say an idea is bad without providing a solution ... engineers who do that are bad People try to do impossible things all the time, and saving a lot of headache by pointing out ahead of time why they're impossible seems prudent even if you don't have a better alternative (no comment on whether increasing minimum wage actually can't have its intended effects -- I don't know enough to contribute positively to either side of that debate). If somebody comes along and asks you to build an encryption system that only a million people in the government can break into then you don't need a better solution available to be allowed to tell them it's impossible. Similarly with nonsensical ideas like DRM, perpetual motion, .... Maybe it's worth your time to provide real solutions (picking on the DRM example, if the end user doesn't control the hardware and the content is interactive then the problem is solvable), but it's still beneficial to the other side to prove their idea can't work. Is the assumption of bad faith warranted?
jltsiren 4y ago
It's better to focus on the goals than on the means. Instead of talking about minimum wages, we should talk about minimum guaranteed income. For example, if someone works in the long term 40+ hours/week in roles the society considers useful, they should enjoy a middle-class lifestyle. The required income might come from a combination of wages, welfare payments, and tax credits. If someone makes a useful full-time contribution to the society, they should be able to enjoy the benefits. And in the other direction: If someone has a full-time job but does not enjoy middle-class lifestyle, their job should by definition not be considered useful. By extension, businesses depending on such jobs would not be useful. Such businesses should still be allowed to exist, but if new taxes/regulations make them impossible, the society would not lose anything useful. Again by definition.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  I'd expand the goals / means somewhat: Hierarchy of Failures in Problem Resolution https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarchy_of_failures_in_problem_resolution/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarc... (Invereting the senses it becomes a "kill chain" or success chain.) 0. Is there a problem? 1. What is the problem? 2. What is/are the root cause(s)? 3. What is/are the goal(s)? 4. How do we get there from here? 5. Who needs to be persuaded to help, or at least not obstruct, and how to communicate this? 6. Executing on project. 7. Assessment. Many people jump straight to method (sama here: boost minimum wage) or goal, without doing a deep think of cause. In some cases, the cause step isn't all that critical --- if someone's drowing or your tyre's flat, you don't launch a nine-month blue-ribbon commission to determine cause, you fix the problem and get people out of harms' way. If tyres keep going flat, or accidents occur, or houses burn down, or appliances electrocute people, etc., then you might want to spend some time on root cause, and address that. In the case of homelessness, housing, wages, and inequality, my very strong suspicion is that some very widely-accepted and held models are grossly wrong. Quite possibly because there's a beneficial interest in prolonging the problem or objecting to effective remedies, though various forms of local-minimal fixity might also play a large role.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
imapeopleperson 4y ago
> We are mostly all commenting from the privilege of skilled labour and all the freedoms and benefits that come with that I’m concerned more about the impact on small business owners who depend on cheap labor. Surely we don’t want to have EVERYTHING be Walmart/Amazon/McDonalds… A more suitable solution would be to address expenses we all face, like healthcare, that could benefit small business entrepreneurs as well as employees Besides, it IS possible to elevate beyond minimum wage with time, effort, and politics.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
  If a business can’t pay to have a dignified workforce the business has place in a civilized society. If a business is so poorly run as to be incapable of paying a livable wage then its mere existence is testament to our decaying standards and the world would be better without it. These barely solvent businesses feeding off desperation should be culled regularly not allowed to fester while directly contributing to incalculable suffering that radiates through the entire community.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I hear this often repeated, but it makes no sense to me. The inverse is that if a person's labor isn't worth minimum wage, you would rather have them unemployed. Assuming you don't think that person should starve, then it becomes if their labor isn't worth minimum wage, you would rather provide for their entire cost of living, than have them work and subsidize the difference between the value of their labor and what is needed to survive.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
      In America companies pay staff between minimum wage and the minimum to attract adequate laborers. This holds true until you get to the exclusive country club golfing class of insufferable wealth where spending money to hire friends is a novelty, like feeding ducks bread at the pond. Any profit that a company takes is an act of economic and social violence against the staff who only submits to such lopsided conditions because the state chooses more permanent forms of violence for transcending the carefully manipulated social hierarchy. So, yes, let the business being subsidized by taxes go under and let’s provide food clothes and shelter for the disaffected. That owner is a leech and should be imprisoned for fraudulently profiting off of arbitrage between labor costs and sale value at the taxpayer expense. Slightly off topic, I strongly encourage you too get your feet wet by serving the generationally impoverished. Check back in with me after 1,000 hours of service and let e know how it went.
IanDrake 4y ago
alasdair_ 4y ago
Why not just increase taxes to the point where everyone in the country gets $25 an hour from the government, if that’s the end goal? Why is it the employer’s job to enact a government policy?
- culopatin 4y ago
  Please don’t. For reference please see Argentina
foogazi 4y ago
> Depressing to see so much vitriol in here for an idea to improve living standards for people who earn less I’m all for people improving their living standards - but some here think people can’t do it on their own. If my kid only gets D’s in tests do I teach him or do I just give her B’s > We are mostly all commenting from the privilege of skilled labour and all the freedoms and benefits that come with that. Yes, and that benefit comes from the increased skills of labor Why not help other to catch better fish for themselves ?
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  And would you get properly paid for doing so? Currently teachers of this kind are one of the seriously underpaid professions for how hard and how much education and practice this job requires. This approach also does not work for quite a chunk of people with physical or mental issues. And for social exclusion - if your kid gets D's because they never got to lessons, isn't that better solved otherwise?
  - foogazi 4y ago
    > And would you get properly paid for doing so? I’d have to figure out if it was worth my time/effort

ceeplusplus 4y ago

Rent prices in the Bay Area, Seattle, LA, NYC, and other high minimum wage cities beg to differ. As a percentage of monthly minimum wage earnings I'd bet rent comes out as higher in high minimum wage cities than low wage cities.

stormbrew 4y ago
Now control for median wage (which is pretty much completely unaffected by a $5-10 spread of minimum wage but is drastically affected by high wage earners) and land use policies, see if the correlation holds.
lesuorac 4y ago
An x% increase in minimum wage is correlated with an <x% inflation [1]. This is also trivial to show as the cost of a good is rarely majority labor (even trucking is majority diesel) so if a $9 shipment is $1 profit, $4 gas, $2 labor, $2 depreciation a 10% increase in labor (to $2.2) only moves the overall cost to $9.2 is a 2% increase. But even if a good was majority labor, a total cost of $9 with $8 labor becomes $9.8 which is still less than 10%. Obviously also goods produced by labor above the minimum wage (ex. plumbers) isn't affected by a change in the minimum wage. [1]: https://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf https://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf
somethoughts 4y ago
Its been my tangential and perhaps unpopular observation that in high COL areas where there's a high minimum wage/high salaries - there's an increasing benefit to RV/apartment arbitrage. Basically take benefits of the high minimum wage that was meant to address housing costs/RV camping but live in an RV/couch surf/double up a single family during the week anyways. There are stories/Youtube videos of of techies living the RV life or multiple roommates to benefit from this arbitrage. To be honest if you are single maybe the tradeoffs aren't that bad. Also there's also these challenges apply to "self-employed contractors" as well. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/07/the-uber-drivers-forced-to-sleep-in-parking-lots-to-make-a-decent-living https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/07/the-uber-...
- gbronner 4y ago
  The big arb is living with your parents. Bank high salaries and pay little or nothing in rent. Great way for coastal elites to effectively pass money to their kids
dredmorbius 4y ago
At least as indicated by homelessness rates, this appears to be the case. https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/images/rent.png https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/images/rent.png From: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ Recent HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30708256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30708256
klyrs 4y ago
Is the rent a function of minimum wage, or is it a function of land prices? Because it's homeowners, landlords, and firms who use real estate as an investment vehicle who are driving up the land prices and also setting rents. You and I can negotiate a higher wage based on cost of living, and then participate in that bubble. Somebody making minimum wage, not so much.
- dcolkitt 4y ago
  They’re both a function of general anti-market policies of their local government. The City government of San Francisco opposes free markets in both labor and housing. Therefore it has a gigantic housing shortage because developers are shackled from meeting demand. That same anti-market outlook also leads lawmakers to thinking workers are incapable of negotiating their own fair wages, and hence they set very high minimum wages. Homeowners and landlords in Houston also use housing as an investment. However the cost is not nearly anywhere as high because the local government in Houston is much more friendly to free market policies towards property developers.

baggy_trough 4y ago

If you hate the low skilled, then raising the minimum wage is an excellent idea, because it will prevent them from being gainfully employed.

TomGullen 4y ago
It's obviously a scale and a balancing act, because you can't be seriously arguing that any increase will force all unskilled labour into unemployment. So I suppose the argument is that some people think it's too low, some too high, and some just about right.
- codeguro 4y ago
  > you can't be seriously arguing that any increase will force all unskilled labour into unemployment Why not? If Peter's labor is only worth $X but minimum wage is raised to $X+5, a company can reasonably be expected to fire Peter. Now Peter is out of a job. Should I just take it on your word and evaluate policy based on its purported intent and not on the consequences?
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    It cannot fire a guy or it'd have to quit business altogether as others would not be able to keep up. We've seen this problem in multiple cases - most often companies do not have sufficient spare workers to handle even a health issue, much less someone quitting. You're not evaluating it based on consequences but what you think would be potential consequences. Instead, run an experiment and see what actually happens. Actually don't, since we already have data that what you describe is not happening.
- baggy_trough 4y ago
  Not all, but the marginal ones. The larger the minimum wage, the more marginal workers are affected.
rdtwo 4y ago
No problems with job openings right now for low skilled labor just lots of companies that won’t pay market rate because it threatens their existing pool of below market rate workers

exabrial 4y ago

Conflating 1: a person who is knowledgeable enough that raising minimum wage paid in fiat currency does nothing, and 2: not wanting to improve living standards for people who earn less, is quite the jump. Everyone arguing against it has good intentions. In fact, the reason many people are arguing against a minimum wage increase is because they recognize that is is _always_ regressive against anyone that isn't a Politician trying to buy votes.

thatfrenchguy 4y ago
> a person who is knowledgeable enough that raising minimum wage paid in fiat currency does nothing, It does something though, it compresses inequalities because not everything is done by people paid a minimum wage.
stormbrew 4y ago
> a person who is knowledgeable enough that raising minimum wage paid in fiat currency does nothing Are you being hyperbolic here or are you actually arguing that somehow minimum wages increase inflation to the point that they're a wash and thus literally "do nothing"? Normally I'd assume the former, but since you're replying to someone who's saying people are arguing the latter, I have to at least allow the possibility you're defending the idea. Which would be silly. An increase in the minimum wage can't increase the money supply, and can't create global inflation on its own. And any effects like this could only really happen if the whole economy were under the minimum wage, which would imply much deeper problems that couldn't possibly be solved by raising it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tux1968 4y ago

> Depressing to see so much vitriol in here for an idea to improve living standards for people who earn less. It's depressing that you would frame the opposition in such a light. People are objecting to an idea that they think won't work, or actually be counterproductive. It's really disingenuous to wrap a very flawed plan in the glowing virtue of its noble intent, and then dismiss any opposition as ignoble.

gilbetron 4y ago
If the other "side" doesn't bother generating ideas to help with the situation, then it is a fair thing to deride the opposition. It's like the (bad) engineer that just points out problems without trying to come up with alternative solutions. I'm not saying you are that person, but it is aggravating to attempt to solve a problem only to have a contingent whose only goal seems to be preventing a solution. It seems like a certain amount of people honestly believe that have people live impoverished lives is simply a necessary feature of economic systems. "We can't have a minimum wage because it will just increase prices of everything and make the minimum wage moot. We can't give people free stuff because then they will be lazy and won't contribute." I reject that notion, and if you are in the group that believes such a thing I'm going to oppose you stringently, sorry.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hansvm 4y ago
  > can't say an idea is bad without providing a solution ... engineers who do that are bad People try to do impossible things all the time, and saving a lot of headache by pointing out ahead of time why they're impossible seems prudent even if you don't have a better alternative (no comment on whether increasing minimum wage actually can't have its intended effects -- I don't know enough to contribute positively to either side of that debate). If somebody comes along and asks you to build an encryption system that only a million people in the government can break into then you don't need a better solution available to be allowed to tell them it's impossible. Similarly with nonsensical ideas like DRM, perpetual motion, .... Maybe it's worth your time to provide real solutions (picking on the DRM example, if the end user doesn't control the hardware and the content is interactive then the problem is solvable), but it's still beneficial to the other side to prove their idea can't work. Is the assumption of bad faith warranted?

jltsiren 4y ago

It's better to focus on the goals than on the means. Instead of talking about minimum wages, we should talk about minimum guaranteed income. For example, if someone works in the long term 40+ hours/week in roles the society considers useful, they should enjoy a middle-class lifestyle. The required income might come from a combination of wages, welfare payments, and tax credits. If someone makes a useful full-time contribution to the society, they should be able to enjoy the benefits. And in the other direction: If someone has a full-time job but does not enjoy middle-class lifestyle, their job should by definition not be considered useful. By extension, businesses depending on such jobs would not be useful. Such businesses should still be allowed to exist, but if new taxes/regulations make them impossible, the society would not lose anything useful. Again by definition.

dredmorbius 4y ago
I'd expand the goals / means somewhat: Hierarchy of Failures in Problem Resolution https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarchy_of_failures_in_problem_resolution/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarc... (Invereting the senses it becomes a "kill chain" or success chain.) 0. Is there a problem? 1. What is the problem? 2. What is/are the root cause(s)? 3. What is/are the goal(s)? 4. How do we get there from here? 5. Who needs to be persuaded to help, or at least not obstruct, and how to communicate this? 6. Executing on project. 7. Assessment. Many people jump straight to method (sama here: boost minimum wage) or goal, without doing a deep think of cause. In some cases, the cause step isn't all that critical --- if someone's drowing or your tyre's flat, you don't launch a nine-month blue-ribbon commission to determine cause, you fix the problem and get people out of harms' way. If tyres keep going flat, or accidents occur, or houses burn down, or appliances electrocute people, etc., then you might want to spend some time on root cause, and address that. In the case of homelessness, housing, wages, and inequality, my very strong suspicion is that some very widely-accepted and held models are grossly wrong. Quite possibly because there's a beneficial interest in prolonging the problem or objecting to effective remedies, though various forms of local-minimal fixity might also play a large role.
- ryandrake 4y ago

imapeopleperson 4y ago

> We are mostly all commenting from the privilege of skilled labour and all the freedoms and benefits that come with that I’m concerned more about the impact on small business owners who depend on cheap labor. Surely we don’t want to have EVERYTHING be Walmart/Amazon/McDonalds… A more suitable solution would be to address expenses we all face, like healthcare, that could benefit small business entrepreneurs as well as employees Besides, it IS possible to elevate beyond minimum wage with time, effort, and politics.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
If a business can’t pay to have a dignified workforce the business has place in a civilized society. If a business is so poorly run as to be incapable of paying a livable wage then its mere existence is testament to our decaying standards and the world would be better without it. These barely solvent businesses feeding off desperation should be culled regularly not allowed to fester while directly contributing to incalculable suffering that radiates through the entire community.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I hear this often repeated, but it makes no sense to me. The inverse is that if a person's labor isn't worth minimum wage, you would rather have them unemployed. Assuming you don't think that person should starve, then it becomes if their labor isn't worth minimum wage, you would rather provide for their entire cost of living, than have them work and subsidize the difference between the value of their labor and what is needed to survive.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
    In America companies pay staff between minimum wage and the minimum to attract adequate laborers. This holds true until you get to the exclusive country club golfing class of insufferable wealth where spending money to hire friends is a novelty, like feeding ducks bread at the pond. Any profit that a company takes is an act of economic and social violence against the staff who only submits to such lopsided conditions because the state chooses more permanent forms of violence for transcending the carefully manipulated social hierarchy. So, yes, let the business being subsidized by taxes go under and let’s provide food clothes and shelter for the disaffected. That owner is a leech and should be imprisoned for fraudulently profiting off of arbitrage between labor costs and sale value at the taxpayer expense. Slightly off topic, I strongly encourage you too get your feet wet by serving the generationally impoverished. Check back in with me after 1,000 hours of service and let e know how it went.

IanDrake 4y ago

alasdair_ 4y ago

Why not just increase taxes to the point where everyone in the country gets $25 an hour from the government, if that’s the end goal? Why is it the employer’s job to enact a government policy?

culopatin 4y ago
Please don’t. For reference please see Argentina

foogazi 4y ago

> Depressing to see so much vitriol in here for an idea to improve living standards for people who earn less I’m all for people improving their living standards - but some here think people can’t do it on their own. If my kid only gets D’s in tests do I teach him or do I just give her B’s > We are mostly all commenting from the privilege of skilled labour and all the freedoms and benefits that come with that. Yes, and that benefit comes from the increased skills of labor Why not help other to catch better fish for themselves ?

AstralStorm 4y ago
And would you get properly paid for doing so? Currently teachers of this kind are one of the seriously underpaid professions for how hard and how much education and practice this job requires. This approach also does not work for quite a chunk of people with physical or mental issues. And for social exclusion - if your kid gets D's because they never got to lessons, isn't that better solved otherwise?
- foogazi 4y ago
  > And would you get properly paid for doing so? I’d have to figure out if it was worth my time/effort