Should anyone ever make more money while unemployed than when employed?
Won't that completely alter the valuation of work and with that the proper functioning of the economy?
PS I know people that own businesses that can't reopen because people that usually would work for them don't want to come back as the salary he pays is less than the unemployment benefit.
I mean, what's the point of building AI and robots and advanced energy sources and bio engineering if they don't fundamentally improve the quality of life for everyone? I certainly don't think there's some moral requirement to force everyone to work.
1. they'll invent problems
I.e. "first world problems". We (in America, anyway) live in an incredible utopia by any historical standard. But I read on the news every day about an endless series of phony crises. (The coronavirus thing is a real crisis, but even so, by historical epidemics it is not that bad. The bubonic plague, for example, killed something like 35%.)
2. they'll be miserable and self-destructive
This is a well known problem with the offspring of very wealthy people who never had to try at anything.
3. they die
People often die shortly after their retirement. They don't survive the loss of purpose.
People don't need a Sword of Damocles hanging over their head threatening them with homelessness, loss of medical treatment and hunger solely because they didn't find purpose in life.
How is being miserable and self destructive and losing purpose, as a worst case scenario, worse than homelessness, drug addiction, loss of friendship, family, self respect, health and medical treatment?
I mean, I don't see the connection. Are you saying that unless people are literally threatened with homelessness, starvation and death they won't find purpose on their own?
The top video game streamers in the world today make millions of dollars a year:
https://www.esportsbets.com/news/highest-paid-twitch-streame...
I'm guessing you wouldn't look down on your son for playing football hard in High School and trying to go pro. Would you berate your child for dreaming of playing for the NFL if they had some talent for the game? Well, nowadays, your son could go pro in video games. Tyler Bevins, for example, from the article, was entertaining over 14 million fans and was making over $500K per month.
If it's between my kids dreaming of going pro in eSports vs being a quiet Walmart greeter for 30 years - you can bet I'd encourage them to get good at those games. Play that Nintendo, son.
I'd council him that football is a career with a very small chance of success, with a high probability of brain injury and/or other debilitating injuries, and a profession you're forced out of young.
> Play that Nintendo, son.
If he's 30, still living in your basement and hasn't made a dime yet, that ship sailed long ago.
> a quiet Walmart greeter for 30 years
Somehow I escaped being a Walmart greeter :-)
Hey, you can advise or support your son however you wish. But don't ask others to pay for his Nintendo dreams.
i guess the point is, at least as i understand it, we should be able to find the mission in life without that "sword of damocles" as the other poster said
maybe we can have jobs, or communites, or organizations that we serve in and contribute to them without necessarily needing to be compensated by them, but because we believe in them we contribute (our time, mind, effort etc)
also, the "need for purpose" might be a very mondern concept, i wonder how traditional societies (sorry for the loaded word) go a about life in that respect...
You'll find it in religious work ethics, too, as well as "idle hands", etc.
It blows my mind that people that are so prone to speaking about freedom wrt Capitalism always seem to be very uncomfortable with freedom in its literal sense.
This also reminds me of the opening lines of Bertrand Russell's essay "In Praise of Idleness":
"Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment."
I expected a negative reaction for my post.
> you imply that people find purpose in their jobs
That's true for an awful lot of people. Even if their purpose is simply to take care of their families.
> you seem to ignore that this purpose can come from other aspects in life than wage labour
Labor is often a means to some other purpose.
> freedom in its literal sense
Freedom has many, many meanings, which should not be conflated with each other. "Free markets", for example, doesn't mean everything should be free of cost.
And for an awful lot of people it's not. It will also be significant portion that finds purpose due to no other options as they try to make the best of their situation. I would not call getting paid to providing for ones family a purpose, since it would end if the person would be able to provide in some other way. If that was true, people would find purpose in standing in rationing lines.
> Labor is often a means to some other purpose.
That purpose-giving labour doesn't need to be economically coerced wage labour for someone wealthier. Especially if the scarcity is artificial it's most likely seen as an injustice and an insult.
> Freedom has many, many meanings, which should not be conflated with each other. "Free markets", for example, doesn't mean everything should be free of cost.
Yes, the term is used as propaganda. Which is at its most clear as soon as less work is discussed.
I'll tell you, $600 is the new zero that gets you nothing.
If $600 gets you nothing, then what does 2 * $600 get you?
I think it's not an unrealistic way of looking at it to say that our floor is $280, and in reality, we could see up to $600 or more in net welfare added.
What you're actually doing is bringing the poor and the wealthy closer together, reducing inequality. In places with a $15 minimum wage, standard of living actually goes up for the poorest citizens.
How much do you think would entice someone to be a cashier and work 8 hours a day when someone on unemployment in the current system gets say $3600/month. Imagine a poorer state where you can easily make do with $3.6K per month.
My question is pretty much what would you have to pay someone to show up for a somewhat unpleasant workplace when they don't need an income for a decent life already? (and they would lose their previous income if they did work)
I think the math is not so simple there.
Market rates.
Without answering your question directly, that's my answer. Somewhat unpleasant workplaces should be automated, and people should be paid a living wage. If you want them to go to work pay them market rates, or make it pleasant. That's a society I want to live in. The market rate should be determined as whatever they need to pay you above a basic existence to motivate you to do a specific job -- not above death.
I'm not sure why you're advocating a society that, out of some moral imperative around the value of work, creates unpleasant workplaces at wages you can barely live on, and considers that a job well done. Mandatory and uncomfortable is a minimum standard most developed nations left behind a long time ago.
Yes this may cost me more, but you know what, if that means I don't have to stumble over heroin needles and homeless encampments on my way to work, that's a fair trade.
I cannot find the specific reference for it, but I believe I heard people saying some of these systems were having a hard time paying out over $1,000 a month because they were so old and outdated.
This is the case of "don't let the enemy of the perfect be the enemy of the good" that is repeated a lot in policy making. Sure, we could create a more perfect solution, but what are the costs associated with crafting that perfect solution under the specified given time frame?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/outdated-technology-may-slow...
https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/05/when-does-the-expande...
No, but of course the fault lies somewhere between unemployment being too high and wages being too low.
Yes. During a pandemic or other disaster where they are intentionally paid to stay at home like the one we're currently in.
that the economic policy for raising salaries is to introduce an artificially highly set unemployment benefit
I say "has been" because, again, the CARES Act supplementary benefit expired today, with no clear replacement plan in sight, and no equivalent replacement plan anywhere on the horizon.
artificially raising salaries in an imploding economy with high unemployment is beneficial
uh, no, it is a recipe for economic disaster.
Ideally, you'd see living-wage unemployment in a situation like this one matched by the kind of substantial, ongoing supplemental loans to small business owners that'd enable them to pay a living wage directly, and thus successfully compete in the labor market. But our shitshow excuse for a government - and that's not partisan; I'm indicting all sides equally here - has been no more successful at that than it has at supporting workers. And now it looks very much as if we're going to have an economic disaster no matter what anyone does.
Well. Judging by yesterday's GDP figures, I suppose I should say more of an economic disaster.
the number of people for whom this is exactly the right amount is tiny,
all it generates massive imbalances between those for whom this is too much and those for whom this is too little (or causes all kinds of unintended consequences)
I read the a story with the two cashiers, one got laid off, the other not. The one that did not get laid off had to show up to work during the early pandemic when everyone was freaked out, worked eight hours a day then, at the end of day took home less than the second one that got laid off and stayed home all the while.
Please excuse my language. At the moment I can find no word in my lexicon which is both less vulgar and still able to capture my depth of feeling.
You'll understand, of course, that I'm going to need something more than your unsupported assertion to be convinced that this is the case.