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No One Wants to Pay Anymore
- asylteltine 3y agoBoth camps are right. Some jobs don’t pay enough, but also many jobs don’t really deserve more pay… if the government didn’t hand out cash like it was candy it wouldn’t have been a problem and we wouldn’t have had runaway inflation
- 303uru 3y ago>many jobs don’t really deserve more pay I love when people say this. Why do you get to decide what someones time is worth? Just because you like $2 cheeseburgers doesn't mean someone has to toil in the kitchen for $7 an hour for you. Trump handed out cash like candy to the already wealthy, not sure what that has to do with low wage workers. Or are you claiming that people getting $1200 once a few years ago is keeping them out of the workforce today, because that's hilarious.
- lancesells 3y agoIt's funny how the jobs that "don't deserve more pay" are the ones that make everyone else's life so much more convenient. Why do people eat fast food or get their groceries delivered? Because it saves them time, effort, and money. I would suggest getting a little perspective and more importantly, compassion for your fellow humans. Things like food are actually one of the things you need to stay alive.
- asylteltine 3y agoThose are the jobs that already started to get automated and I’m happy about it. Even McDonald’s has more kiosks than humans. It’s just a matter of time
- lancesells 3y agoAccording to Google's latest IO conference, corporate jobs and emails are getting automated too.
- chrisbrandow 3y agoBaumol’s cost disease comes to mind here as well
- anotherhue 3y agoCosts have risen. Odds are your salary offer isn't sensible anymore. Tiny violin plays.
- paulddraper 3y agoWhy is it tiny Mr Silicon Valley man?
- SuperNinKenDo 3y agoAll anybody could afford.
- strangesmells06 3y agoIve noticed the worst customer service offenders are companies in monopoly condition markets. Utility companies, cell phone companies, student loan servicers, finance companies (mortgage and house), government..., etcetera Once theres no competition a customer needing help becomes a burden. These companies then usually outsource customer service to the most clueless people and have extra long wait times.
- zdragnar 3y agoCustomer retention can cost as much as, if not more than, customer acquisition, depending on the market. If you're a monopoly, you can spend the absolute bare minimum on both.
- 303uru 3y agoKeep out the immigrants. Stop any and all attempts at building affordable housing. Make it untenable for younger generations to have children. Saddle anyone capable of going to college with $100k in debt. Wonder why no one wants to make me a dollar menu burger for $5 an hour anymore!!!
- paulddraper 3y agoPursue inflationary monetary policy
- abenga 3y agoWhat is the alternative?
- r0ckarong 3y agoStop inflating some people's bank accounts by squeezing everyone else to death.
- paulddraper 3y agoNon-inflationary monetary policy
- abenga 3y agoWhen/where has this ever worked?
- selfmodruntime 3y agoThe notion that immigration is needed to fill underpaid manual labor is in itself rather shady. Immigrants do not want to work those jobs either, they are often forced because they have to and compared to the past, their hard work does not offer upward social mobility anymore.
- 303uru 3y ago
- jldugger 3y agoCan't readily find it but there was a pretty good Odd Lots podcast on the interaction between labor supply and restaurant design. California raises wages, and less labor intensive counter service measurably replace table service. As is typical for the show, it went into nuanced dynamics of the industry, wish I could find it again.
- treis 3y agoThis is one of those things people want to be true but is not. Labor participation is down significantly in those ages <25. 63 -> 51 and 47 -> 30 for teenagers in 10 years. Wages are slightly up adjusted for inflation over that time. https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-particip...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ttymck 3y agoWhy do you think labor participation is down?
- singron 3y agoCollege enrollment increased between 2000 and 2010, however it's been basically flat or slightly down since then. If you look at the monthly stats, the labor force participation rates for the younger groups seems like it goes down sharply with recessions and doesn't recover much. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bBX7 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bBX7 The monthly data also makes it clear that this isn't a smooth trend over decades.
- ttymck 3y agoI don't feel like I'm any closer to understanding why GP feels labor participation is down.
- karmakaze 3y agoSeems simple and transitive. If you don't want to pay for staff, I don't want to pay for lack of service.
- ZoomerCretin 3y agoI think this has far less to do with poor worker sentiment for the prevailing wage than the massive and unabated increase in the cost of living, particularly housing. Very few young people have housing security. You simply cannot live on your own anymore (and yes, I'm counting having roommates) without paying huge amounts of money in rent. There is no financial cushion to be had; at least one roommate must personally make 3x rent, or know someone who does and is willing to cosign. You must pay for an automobile and repairs, gas, insurance on top of that, Uber when your car is in for repairs, because public transit is laughably poor if it exists at all, and the cost of groceries and eating out are so high that we're starting to reduce total food consumption. These aren't inevitable problems; they are self-inflicted political own-goals. Cities inflict insane restrictions on land, causing rents (commercial and residential) to skyrocket, and underfunding public transit, forcing everyone to spend huge amounts of money on automobiles + insurance + now high interest rate loans. The vast majority of this problem would be solved if only we had an abundance of cheap and amenity-rich housing, as well as functional public transit. Our society is culturally much poorer, and we have far fewer artists and creatives, because the amount of work, effort, and money required to not go hungry or go out on the streets increases every year. By making housing more abundant and cheap, we can reduce the cost of living directly, since people would no longer have to pay 80% of their income in rent, and meals+groceries would be cheaper since commercial rents would go down. Half a million Americans are homeless, largely due to the cost and scarcity of housing. And who is served by this status quo? There is a large voting constituency of homeowners who want to see the value of their property and the price of their rents continue to increase. Not to mention the very large constituency + lobbying arm (Oil&Gas, Auto industry) supporting the one-person:one-car model of transportation. Politicians do not want to rock this boat, not only because it would be very unpopular and cost them campaign contributions, but because the vast majority of them are well-to-do and benefit from rising housing prices. As the saying goes, it's difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary (or net worth, in this case) depends upon them not understanding it. In California, we see this coming to a head where the state is finally stepping in (at least on housing) due to being much further along than the rest of the country in facing extreme living costs. They are slowly battling the powerful layers of vetocracy and bureaucratic cruft that has accumulated over the past 60+ years, but it is paying off. Granted, most housing being built remains automobile-dependent or exposed to noise and sound pollution due to proximity to highways, but it is progress in a state where 50 year old shit shacks sell for $1,500,000. https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1725234349111721992 https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1725234349111721992 We see from Tokyo that the current state of the west is neither permanent, nor inevitable. By simply legalizing housing and mixed-use (retail) development, we can have much better and cheaper urban areas. They also have a huge high speed rail network, which makes a huge amount of land available to commuters. Highways clog and get congested during rush hour, which reduces speeds drastically. Trains run the same speed all day, every day.
- gamesbrainiac 3y agoAfter the first two sentences of this article, I felt seen. I don’t fit into any of my old suits either.
- 1123581321 3y agoConsignment shops and a tailoring appointment should get you going for 10-30% of the suit’s retail price. It’s worth getting the tailor’s opinion on modifying your current suits, too. It’s usually free to have them take a look.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- taylodl 3y agoI've seen these signs. I stop patronizing the places displaying these signs. I'm not giving business to liars. I saw one of these kinds of signs, at a Dairy Queen no less, and contacted DQ with a photo of the sign. Lots of people stopped patronizing the locations owned by that franchisee and they had to sell to new owners. When it comes to restaurants, I'm absolutely 100% in control of those with whom I do business. Show me you're a liar or an asshole and I'll stop doing business with you.
- Elena120 3y ago[dead]
- noodlesUK 3y agoThere's more to this than simple supply and demand economics. People take into account significantly more factors than raw pay when deciding to pick a job (and especially when leaving one). Working conditions are especially horrible in pretty much all the cases of "nobody wants to work anymore" that I have seen. Even if you paid me a good wage, I might not want to work at a terrible employer. It doesn't help that the terrible employers also usually pay below-market wages.
- Gibbon1 3y agoRecently went to get a vaccine shot. Making talk with the pharmacist she let the mask slip, working conditions are horrible. The problem with supply and demand is like everything from economics[1] it acts as if only money is important. And discounts things like being able to hold up psychologically. When your pharmacists are at the breaking point where they're going to up and quit at the first opportunity because they can't stand the job anymore, your system is sick indeed. [1] First rule of economics, humans are robots obsessed with money.
- shiroiuma 3y agoDid she say specifically why the working conditions were so horrible?
- Gibbon1 3y agoIt's a pro social job where you are responsible for something important. But the MBA's that run pharmacies have stripped pharmacists of all power and are overworking them relentlessly.
- tomjen3 3y agoIt doesn't and it is generally acknowledged that working conditions are a part of the pay that gets factored in when you do supply and demand. But the example from Ford where he did nothing to improve the working conditions, but made 5 usd/day the standard is also famous for a reason: double the pay and you get the kind of people who care primarily about money.
- fullshark 3y agoSome businesses' economics simply don't make sense if their labor costs grow X%. Maybe they can charge more to make up for it, but it's actually not as simple as "this business owner is being cheap."
- Jaygles 3y agoYeah, the larger symptom is there is less money to go around after buying necessities. Inflation stings twice, cost savings on necessities will include shifting purchases from less-efficient local businesses to more-efficient global mega corps. And the slice of income that goes to desires will shrink which also reduces spend on local businesses. So the local businesses get hurt from both ends. Their costs of inputs also rise, and the demand for the services decrease. The only businesses who can keep or lower prices and also pay more for labor are one's that have large profit margins. And then even if there's enough profit margin to survive the hair cut, that may lead to a situation where the business owner's time and effort could be better spent on other opportunities. So even profitable businesses may close if the owner thinks they could do better.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y agoYes, of course, but it's not workers' responsibility to make sure business owners have sustainable businesses. If your business model relied on getting timber for half the market price, that's called running a business badly. If you then started crowing on "What's wrong with you people? Why won't you lazy businesses sell me bloody timber?!" You'd rightly be considered deranged.
- ttymck 3y ago"this business model is cheap", then?
- xtracto 3y agoThen those should not exist. Or should be outsourced to markets where labour costs match
- tomjen3 3y agoWhen the economics doesn't make sense, then you close the business down. You don't complain that people don't want to work any more.
- pbjtime 3y agoBusiness: "I'd like to buy paper." Wholesaler: "That's $x per team." Business: "The market price has gone up. That means people don't want to sell paper anymore!" THAT'S HOW YOU SOUND, OUT OF TOUCH WHINERS
- jjoonathan 3y ago"There's a shortage of $30k Lamborghinis!"
- gambiting 3y agoAh the good old "no one wants to work anymore": https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymo...
- gedy 3y agoThe article ignores the step after paying people more - they usually need to raise prices too, and customers balk and don't want to pay either. That said, my opinion is if rent was cheaper, a lot more people would be willing to do these service jobs of it meant they could live independently.
- oddevan 3y agoI think you hit the nail on the head here: "if rent was cheaper" The jobs that that people "don't want to work anymore" no longer pay a living wage. Between rent hikes squeezing the low end, high interest rates squeezing the middle class, and every major company from oil down to Kellog's raising prices but not wages, people can't _afford_ to take menial, minimum-wage jobs anymore. Oh, and a bunch of people died because of COVID, so supply has been affected too.
- slyall 3y ago"I interviewed a Japanese bespoke shoemaker last month and asked why are there so many craft-based businesses in japan, like bespoke tailors. He said rent is relatively low in Tokyo, so if you have a passion for making suits and you only have a few customers, you're fine" https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1725234349111721992 https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1725234349111721992 Low rent was both commercial and housing.
- AdrianB1 3y agoIsn't Japan's population decreasing dramatically, so the demand for housing is not increasing like in USA? They also have a very strict immigration policy, opposite of USA.
- cbhl 3y agoThat's at the country level, but _Tokyo_ was also seeing a rural-to-urban migration that ran from the 1950s to a peak in 2019 or so, and maintained relatively low rents between housing and transportation policies compared to major US cities.
- deleted 3y ago
- injeolmi_love 3y agoThe supply for labor depends on the marginal benefits versus the marginal costs. If leisure gets cheaper, taxes go up, or jobs get worse, people on the margin will choose to work fewer hours or exit the workforce. There’s nothing wrong about this! It’s how a free market is supposed to work. Unfortunately, in our capitalist system, people are demonized for choosing to work less or not at all. It’s viewed as immoral not to work, because the institutions view humans as cattle that must be milked to the maximum. I expect new policies will be created beyond the ones already in place to force people to work. We should resist this, so I support the sentiment of the blogpost even though it’s misleading on a factual basis.
- AdrianB1 3y agoWhat system do you propose to solve this problem?
- injeolmi_love 3y agoNo system, just stop using force to protect the interests of capitalists.
- jongjong 3y agoWell, I suspect many of the people who would normally work as waiters or blue collar jobs became rich on Dogecoin, dealing drugs or other social scheme. The social aspect of blue collar work has delivered financial opportunities. And many people who studied for years and used to work as honest engineers or scientists are now out of jobs don't want to work as waiters or do blue collar work, especially for such a corrupt system. Is it bad though? You want them to spit in your food?