5 ms·

It is a K type recovery, the real economy that 99% of people suffer through hasn't recovered yet.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
There is more nuance than that. There always is. Unemployment is at a 60 year low. 10k Boomers retire a day, almost 3 million a year. About a million folks permanently exited the labor force during the pandemic, for a variety of reasons. Wage gains are wrestling with inflation. The benchmark rate increasing will continue to push down equities and real estate while providing risk free return for cash. In the Fed’s attempt to cool the economy, they have arrived at a soft landing. If workers want wages to accelerate (or job security), they will have to organize and unionize as there is a lot of corporate and political momentum attempting to maintain the status quo of an extraction environment. Expect to see profits decline as labor power increases and Boomer consumption declines (half of all people over 55 in the US have no retirement savings per the GAO, 1.8 million of them die every year per the CDC, but those folks clinging on to labor participation is also what’s preventing unemployment from declining further). The stock market is not the economy. Structural demographics have the wheel for the next decade. There is no labor shortage, just a shortage of people willing to work for poverty wages. > Iowa has a stubborn, worsening labor shortage. Burt we don’t believe a bill advancing in the Iowa Legislature loosening child labor laws is a smart or prudent way to address it. > Under the bill, 14-year-old Iowans would be allowed to work in industrial freezers and meat lockers, unloading vehicles and in laundry facilities. Fifteen-year-olds could work in light manufacturing and could work up to six hours daily. Sixteen-year-olds could work as bartenders with parents’ permission. > But find two other provisions of the bill are the most troubling. One would permit businesses that conduct on-the-job training programs to seek state waivers allowing 14-17-year-olds to work in jobs related to manufacturing, mining, construction and processing. Interestingly, the bill would not raise the minimum wage from $7.25/hr or improve worker benefits/working conditions. Aside from being tragically disturbing, this is the stress you want to see if you care about workers. They are grasping at straws. https://www.thegazette.com/staff-editorials/lawmakers-shouldnt-loosen-iowas-child-labor-laws/ https://www.thegazette.com/staff-editorials/lawmakers-should...
- com2kid 4y ago
  Almost no one mentions housing's upwards pressure on wages. In Seattle, renting a studio in a not-terrible part of town costs over $1500 a month. With prices like that, there is no room for "low paying" jobs. Accordingly, everyone has had to raise wages, which means some types of businesses are no longer viable. Child care is a good example, between housing prices and higher wages, daycare in Seattle now starts at $22k a year, with well rated daycares charging around 30k a year, and at those prices many daycares are struggling to stay open! Staff turnover is high, employees cannot afford to live within commute distance of their jobs, but wages cannot go up any more because customers can barely afford prices as they are. The answer is a royal-shit-ton of construction. The answer is the complete demolition of existing zoning laws and a dramatic rethinking of building codes[1]. We need to allow more in-home businesses[2], and allow a wide variety of different styles of housing to be built. The city needs to stop encouraging tall and narrow townhomes that are not livable by families, or really anyone over the age of 40, and stop mixing middle class morality with housing options[3]. If housing goes back to being an 8k a year expense rather than a 20k+ a year expense, wages can stop shooting up. [1] As an example, if I wanted to add a new bedroom to my current, well insulated house, I'd have to get the entire structure of my roof replaced so I could fit in additional couple inches of insulation. I already had an energy assessment done and they confirmed that this change would have, quite literally, 0 impact on my home's energy usage. The law as it stands prevents me from adding more density to my existing house, so good job there city. [2] Why can't I buy breakfast sandwiches out of the front of someone's garage as I walk to the bus stop? Why aren't more barbers working out of their house? [3] Boarding houses and such are famously illegal in most US cities, even though they provide affordable, dense, housing.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    Daycare in Seattle is expensive but not that expensive yet. We paid $1250/month last year, which is a far cry from $22k start. I’m also a 47 year old who lives in a three story Ballard townhome. 3 of these replaced 1 SFH, so it’s a good deal for density.
    - com2kid 4y ago
thunderbird120 4y ago
Quite the contrary, income growth post-covid has disproportionately favored lower income groups[1]. White collar working professionals captured a disproportionate amount of the growth from the previous recovery as a result of over inflated speculative bubbles resulting from low interest rates lasting nearly a decade. Easy to justify speculative tech companies when you don't need to be profitable any time in the near future, but when interest rates are >0% reality sets in. The idea that the crunch is now hitting the "real" economy is a bit out of touch, but given HN's demographics it's not surprising there's so much screeching. [1]https://www.dallasfed.org/cd/communities/2022/0808 https://www.dallasfed.org/cd/communities/2022/0808
- nobu-mori 4y ago
  The article talks only about nominal wage increases. It also has this gem: > Due to the transient nature of pandemic inflation... Real wages, overall, are decreasing: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm > Real average hourly earnings for all employees decreased 0.2 percent from December to January, seasonally adjusted > Real average hourly earnings decreased 1.8 percent, seasonally adjusted, from January 2022 to January 2023

There is more nuance than that. There always is. Unemployment is at a 60 year low. 10k Boomers retire a day, almost 3 million a year. About a million folks permanently exited the labor force during the pandemic, for a variety of reasons. Wage gains are wrestling with inflation. The benchmark rate increasing will continue to push down equities and real estate while providing risk free return for cash. In the Fed’s attempt to cool the economy, they have arrived at a soft landing. If workers want wages to accelerate (or job security), they will have to organize and unionize as there is a lot of corporate and political momentum attempting to maintain the status quo of an extraction environment. Expect to see profits decline as labor power increases and Boomer consumption declines (half of all people over 55 in the US have no retirement savings per the GAO, 1.8 million of them die every year per the CDC, but those folks clinging on to labor participation is also what’s preventing unemployment from declining further). The stock market is not the economy. Structural demographics have the wheel for the next decade. There is no labor shortage, just a shortage of people willing to work for poverty wages. > Iowa has a stubborn, worsening labor shortage. Burt we don’t believe a bill advancing in the Iowa Legislature loosening child labor laws is a smart or prudent way to address it. > Under the bill, 14-year-old Iowans would be allowed to work in industrial freezers and meat lockers, unloading vehicles and in laundry facilities. Fifteen-year-olds could work in light manufacturing and could work up to six hours daily. Sixteen-year-olds could work as bartenders with parents’ permission. > But find two other provisions of the bill are the most troubling. One would permit businesses that conduct on-the-job training programs to seek state waivers allowing 14-17-year-olds to work in jobs related to manufacturing, mining, construction and processing. Interestingly, the bill would not raise the minimum wage from $7.25/hr or improve worker benefits/working conditions. Aside from being tragically disturbing, this is the stress you want to see if you care about workers. They are grasping at straws. https://www.thegazette.com/staff-editorials/lawmakers-shouldnt-loosen-iowas-child-labor-laws/ https://www.thegazette.com/staff-editorials/lawmakers-should...

com2kid 4y ago
Almost no one mentions housing's upwards pressure on wages. In Seattle, renting a studio in a not-terrible part of town costs over $1500 a month. With prices like that, there is no room for "low paying" jobs. Accordingly, everyone has had to raise wages, which means some types of businesses are no longer viable. Child care is a good example, between housing prices and higher wages, daycare in Seattle now starts at $22k a year, with well rated daycares charging around 30k a year, and at those prices many daycares are struggling to stay open! Staff turnover is high, employees cannot afford to live within commute distance of their jobs, but wages cannot go up any more because customers can barely afford prices as they are. The answer is a royal-shit-ton of construction. The answer is the complete demolition of existing zoning laws and a dramatic rethinking of building codes[1]. We need to allow more in-home businesses[2], and allow a wide variety of different styles of housing to be built. The city needs to stop encouraging tall and narrow townhomes that are not livable by families, or really anyone over the age of 40, and stop mixing middle class morality with housing options[3]. If housing goes back to being an 8k a year expense rather than a 20k+ a year expense, wages can stop shooting up. [1] As an example, if I wanted to add a new bedroom to my current, well insulated house, I'd have to get the entire structure of my roof replaced so I could fit in additional couple inches of insulation. I already had an energy assessment done and they confirmed that this change would have, quite literally, 0 impact on my home's energy usage. The law as it stands prevents me from adding more density to my existing house, so good job there city. [2] Why can't I buy breakfast sandwiches out of the front of someone's garage as I walk to the bus stop? Why aren't more barbers working out of their house? [3] Boarding houses and such are famously illegal in most US cities, even though they provide affordable, dense, housing.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Daycare in Seattle is expensive but not that expensive yet. We paid $1250/month last year, which is a far cry from $22k start. I’m also a 47 year old who lives in a three story Ballard townhome. 3 of these replaced 1 SFH, so it’s a good deal for density.
  - com2kid 4y ago

thunderbird120 4y ago

Quite the contrary, income growth post-covid has disproportionately favored lower income groups[1]. White collar working professionals captured a disproportionate amount of the growth from the previous recovery as a result of over inflated speculative bubbles resulting from low interest rates lasting nearly a decade. Easy to justify speculative tech companies when you don't need to be profitable any time in the near future, but when interest rates are >0% reality sets in. The idea that the crunch is now hitting the "real" economy is a bit out of touch, but given HN's demographics it's not surprising there's so much screeching. [1]https://www.dallasfed.org/cd/communities/2022/0808 https://www.dallasfed.org/cd/communities/2022/0808

nobu-mori 4y ago
The article talks only about nominal wage increases. It also has this gem: > Due to the transient nature of pandemic inflation... Real wages, overall, are decreasing: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm > Real average hourly earnings for all employees decreased 0.2 percent from December to January, seasonally adjusted > Real average hourly earnings decreased 1.8 percent, seasonally adjusted, from January 2022 to January 2023