If you put in 8 hours/day every week, should you receive a wage you can live upon?

[Veliko]

Ah I love the alternative from useless liberal assholes like yourself.

"Wahh! Wahh! Gimmie! Gimmie! Wahh! Someone else has racial privilege! Wahhh! Wahhh! Gimmie everything I want!"

"Wahh! Waahh! I demand racial privilege! Wahh! Wahh! Gimmie my demands!"

"Wahh! Everyone do for me! Now!! I demand it!!!"

"Wahh! How dare anyone tell me I have to do anything! !!!!!"

Pretty much the same dumb contradictory laziness regurigitated over and over again.

You sound angry - are you getting angsty about waiting so long for the wealth to start trickling down?

 

[sao123]

Who says that being on the brink of poverty and merely being able to sustain one's self is a "comfortable life"?

By the way, education is NOT the solution. If everyone went to college...surprise! We'd have the world's most highly-educated McDonalds and Walmart employees (and also the world's most heavily student-loan indebted).

In fact, recent studies suggest that a great many college graduates, perhaps as many as 50%, perform work that requires LESS than a college education and often LESS than a high school education. This may even true for STEM graduates. References:

Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College?

Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed? University Enrollments and Labor Market Realities

From Wall Street to Wal-Mart: Why College Graduates Are Not Getting Good Jobs

The Real Science Gap

The sad reality is that we just simply do not have enough college-education-requiring knowledge-based jobs for everyone. No matter how hard we try, at least for the foreseeable future, someone is going to have to work dead-end poverty-wage jobs at McDonalds and Walmart.

you'll never get spidey to admit that high paying unskilled labor jobs are important to the economy.

 

[Specop 007]

When Employers are telling their Employees how to get Public Funds to better their lives, the Employer is not paying a suitable Wage.

So? Its neither the governments job nor the employers job to take care of someone. If this person is so unhappy with their minimum wage job maybe they should go back to being a doctor or lawyer and stop accepting minimum wage?

 

[Zaap]

You sound angry - are you getting angsty about waiting so long for the wealth to start trickling down?

...says the angry dumb lib waiting for everyone to provide for his useless self.

 

[Matt1970]

Who says that being on the brink of poverty and merely being able to sustain one's self is a "comfortable life"?

By the way, education is NOT the solution. If everyone went to college...surprise! We'd have the world's most highly-educated McDonalds and Walmart employees (and also the world's most heavily student-loan indebted).

In fact, recent studies suggest that a great many college graduates, perhaps as many as 50%, perform work that requires LESS than a college education and often LESS than a high school education. This may even true for STEM graduates. References:

Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College?

Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed? University Enrollments and Labor Market Realities

From Wall Street to Wal-Mart: Why College Graduates Are Not Getting Good Jobs

The Real Science Gap

The sad reality is that we just simply do not have enough college-education-requiring knowledge-based jobs for everyone. No matter how hard we try, at least for the foreseeable future, someone is going to have to work dead-end poverty-wage jobs at McDonalds and Walmart.

An education never guaranteed you a good job. It never has and it never will. What will guarantee you to be a lot less likely to get a good job is no education.

 

[spidey07]

you'll never get spidey to admit that high paying unskilled labor jobs are important to the economy.

There's no such thing as high paying unskilled jobs.

 

[Specop 007]

Bullshit.

Businesses are having a difficult time just finding people who will show up to work vs. sit on their ass collecting unemployment.

Moonbeam, as usual, thinks "job" means something high paying, easy and with little responsibility or hard work. So of course there isnt enough jobs for everyone.

Now if we use the a more practical definition of "job", where you might have to stand, you might have long hours, you might have to work in the sun or the rain or get a little dirty, theres jobs galore. Hell my buddy owns a general contractor business and he cant keep people on board because everyone he hires in the $10-$12 range is a worthless drug using slack ass.

 

[shortylickens]

There's no such thing as high paying unskilled jobs.

I am of the opinion too many musicians are overpaid.

 

[nehalem256]

When Employers are telling their Employees how to get Public Funds to better their lives, the Employer is not paying a suitable Wage.

The problem with your statement is that per the actual numbers low wage jobs are sufficient to support a single adult.

So it is paying a suitable wage to support the person. It just is not paying a suitable wage to support them and their bastard children.

Seems like your are just another liberal trying to blame corporations for the failures of liberalism. (See also how liberals have no issue with illegal immigrants showing up in court, but then constantly lambaste the evil corporations for not getting rid of them).

 

[frostedflakes]

As an economist, I see a lot of over-simplistic economics 101 concepts being thrown around in the political debate about labor in the US. It is quite puzzling, even after many years in the profession.

Usually the fairy tale goes like this: let the market fix it. Most often, it won't.

Free markets are a very, very, very good thing. But they are not perfect mechanisms, and do not suffice by themselves in reality, because reality is much more complex than college level economics models.

Faith in free markets is a very good guiding principle, provided we also understand market failures and the need to address them. Otherwise we end up at equilibria that not only look and feel awful and morally unjust, but also suffer greatly in terms of economic results because of the terrible negative externalities generated.

This is why Scandinavian countries, with their oh-my-god horrendous tax pressures, extremely high minimum wages and large government programs are in fact at the very top of world's charts not only in quality of life and development indexes, but also productivity, innovation and GDP/capita.

People who struggle to make ends meet every single week do a poor job. They are not creative, they cannot afford risk-taking, they do not have time and resources to acquire new skills, they are emotionally upset, unhappy, prone to crime and social deviation. All things that not only make their life miserable, but also cost the society money because of their negative economic externalities generated by these situations.

The funniest thing, is that the country where more people think it's ok to let somebody who works 40 hr/week be poor is the country where it could be the easiest to fix this problem: the United States of America, with its tremendous pool of resources and talent; a lot of which are literally wasted to maintain some sort of bizarre faith in Introduction to Economics concepts.

Economic models are based on assumptions that greatly impact their results. Over-simplified models serve the purpose of explaining basic concepts in a clear way to people who do not yet have more complex instruments. They should not be used to claim anything outside of a basic economics class. That's what advanced economic analysis conducted at the frontier of research is for, and even then the results are often muddy and inconclusive.

Many Scandinavian countries don't even have government-mandated minimum wages, though. Unions and employees collectively bargaining (i.e. market forces, not government fiat) ensure that workers receive a fair wage.

Kind of ironic that in some ways, the "socialist" Scandinavian countries over in Europe have freer markets than the US.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

See what I meant?

Because something is basic, a core fundamental idea it must be wrong because it doesn't present the vagaries of unnecessary complexity. Nice.

 

[Tango]

Many Scandinavian countries don't even have government-mandated minimum wages, though. Unions and employees collectively bargaining (i.e. market forces, not government fiat) ensure that workers receive a fair wage.

Kind of ironic that in some ways, the "socialist" Scandinavian countries over in Europe have freer markets than the US.

You are correct. The minimum wage in general is the product of a bargaining process conducted collectively by organized labor, local and central government and industry lobbies. Once established it is binding for all the workers in the category. Union membership ranges in the 50-70 percent range depending on the country.

 

[Tango]

Because something is basic, a core fundamental idea it must be wrong because it doesn't present the vagaries of unnecessary complexity. Nice.

That is not what I wrote.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Many Scandinavian countries don't even have government-mandated minimum wages, though. Unions and employees collectively bargaining (i.e. market forces, not government fiat) ensure that workers receive a fair wage.

Kind of ironic that in some ways, the "socialist" Scandinavian countries over in Europe have freer markets than the US.

Its not just. You must also factor in that all these nations pretty much have monolithic demographics, cultural values (everyone is expected to get educated and work) and never mind their immigration laws that are strictly enforced. All of this plus a bit more basically ensures that their societies wont have many people looking to "work the system", etc. Then again you are talking about populations that could fit into New York city or LA.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

That is not what I wrote.

That is what you implied.

 

[Murloc]

Its not just. You must also factor in that all these nations pretty much have monolithic demographics, cultural values (everyone is expected to get educated and work) and never mind their immigration laws that are strictly enforced. All of this plus a bit more basically ensures that their societies wont have many people looking to "work the system", etc. Then again you are talking about populations that could fit into New York city or LA.

immigration laws can be strictly enforced as much as you want but if they're totally pussified or useless you're still in the same place.
Nordic countries are all about foreigners exploiting social services, and recent riots showed that it makes no difference, social help doesn't help assimilation.

Most of the people that crosses the mediterranean has a plan to work the system.

 

[Veliko]

...says the angry dumb lib waiting for everyone to provide for his useless self.

And yet there's no anger in my posts, whilst yours are full of personal attacks.

Pop over to Colorado and have a spliff; you never know, you might enjoy yourself.

 

[Tango]

That is what you implied.

I did not imply anything. I stated a fact. Very often in the political debate about labor in the United States the argument used are incredibly simplistic regurgitations of college level microeconomics that do not capture at all the complex mechanisms of the reality, because emerge from bare-bone models whose only purpose is to expose a class of novices to a concept in a clear way.

Any economist knows that models used for actual practical purposes in the profession (i.e. not teaching to a class of 20 year old kids) look very different because they have to account for multiple frictions, non homogeneity of factors, external shocks, externalities, and dozens of other parameters that structurally change the paradigm and often diametrically revert the final results.

This is all I meant. When debating empirical economic problems, using the gross instruments provided by basic economics is juvenile, in the technical sense of the term, because anybody with rigorous training in the subject would understand that the subject requires very different ones.

Yet, this is done all the time, not only in the blogosphere but also in the media and in the political debate. I do understand most people do not have an economics PhD, but for the same reason I usually do not have strong opinions in matters of surgery, given I am not a trained surgeon.

 

[sandorski]

So? Its neither the governments job nor the employers job to take care of someone. If this person is so unhappy with their minimum wage job maybe they should go back to being a doctor or lawyer and stop accepting minimum wage?

When Well Paying Jobs are replaced with Minimum Wage Jobs, Workers have little choice. Business as well as Government exist for the sake of Citizens, not the other way around.

 

[Zaap]

I am of the opinion too many musicians are overpaid.

Musicians are unskilled?

 

[Zaap]

And yet there's no anger in my posts, whilst yours are full of personal attacks.

Pop over to Colorado and have a spliff; you never know, you might enjoy yourself.

You just claim anyone that disagrees with you is angry- typical hypocrite lib.

 

[theeedude]

We live in exciting times. Emerging middle class in China, shrinking middle class in America. Our business elites are killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. The ability of working class people to make sufficient wages to afford houses, appliances, and cars that were built by them is what powered the expansion of the American economy, and the reversal of that is causing its decline. It's no surprise that our economy is effectively on Fed support, and even zero interest rates are not enough. It can no longer support itself without crutches, because the blood is being cut off from the legs holding it up.

 

[spidey07]

When Well Paying Jobs are replaced with Minimum Wage Jobs, Workers have little choice. Business as well as Government exist for the sake of Citizens, not the other way around.

Lol!

Business absolutely doesn't exist for the sake of citizens or people.

 

[Specop 007]

When Well Paying Jobs are replaced with Minimum Wage Jobs, Workers have little choice. Business as well as Government exist for the sake of Citizens, not the other way around.

Business doesnt exist for the sake of citizens, are you insane? Is it really your opinion businesses are created for no other reason than to give some poor schmuck a job??

 

[Texashiker]

If the federal reserve can print $85 billion a month to shore up the banks, then sure, people should be paid a liveable wage.