Sadly, the author doesn't seem to realize that those wages come out of the pocket of the consumer. Lower the cost of labor and you lower the cost of the good that is provided.
>more than 4,000 employees are on food stamps in nine states studied by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Only Walmart, McDonald’s and two dollar-store chains have more workers requiring such assistance, according to the report, which said 70% of recipients work full-time.
In other words, Amazon is costing you, the taxpayer, money by not paying their workers a living wage.
If we could set aside the suffering of the individual (which we cannot) one solution would be to let these companies devolve until they are entirely staffed by starving homeless people and see how that effects the productivity of their workforce.
If Amazon could staff their warehouses with homeless people, let them sleep on-site and only pay them in expired goods, they probably would.
It feels way too close to a probable future for my tastes...
Because the workers do not have any better option, and working for amazon while making 80% of your required expenses, is better than making 0%. It's the same reason why workers in developing countries work in sweatshops. The working conditions might be terrible, but starving in your village is worse.
>If we could set aside the suffering of the individual (which we cannot) one solution would be to let these companies devolve until they are entirely staffed by starving homeless people and see how that effects the productivity of their workforce.
This doesn't make any sense. Just because someone's homeless doesn't mean they're unproductive workers. eg. if they were living paycheck to paycheck and they were laid off. Besides, if the applicant pool is big enough and there are more job seekers than positions available they can have their pick of workers. For your scenario to work you'd need need enough people willing to boycott amazon as an employer, and given the history of consumer boycotts I doubt it will work. I'm sure amazon raising their wages a few dollars will convince enough workers to break rank.
This actually makes a lot of sense and is a new paradigm for analysis, thank you.
I think you mean "taxpayer"
> In other words, Amazon is costing you, the taxpayer, money by not paying their workers a living wage.
Imagine how much assistance they would need if they didn't have jobs.
> living wage.
what constitutes a "living wage" is dependent on the cost of consumer goods which is in turn dependent on the cost of labor. You're not going to escape the fact that some people's labor isn't worth enough to earn them the standard of living that you or they would prefer by wishful thinking or statutory fiat. You can, however, limit their options and distort the market in a vicious circle of economically ignorant mandates.
That would be better.
I would MUCH rather pay for them to be in school instead of just paying part of Bezos' and other Amazon investors operating costs.
Shit I wish I could have a buch of employees and get someone else to pay for them. What a great idea! Why doesn't everyone do that? I mean except for the employees of course. They can't have companies staffed by employees they don't pay for. Duh. Only Amazon and Walmart can have that, obvs. I mean who would be their employees? You? Not me. I guess we need something like a seperate class or group of people who have to be the underpaid employees so that the rest of us can enjoy being the employers without paying for it. We used to have that back in the good old days...
It's almost like this is a stupid argument that there is no way to excuse, and no amount of indirect smoke & mirrors or denial gets around that, and anyone even trying deserves to be among the first people rounded up for the new press gangs they think are so fair a great.
Not for them or for the economy at large. It would be good for people who own capital goods, as they would spend their assistance checks on consumer goods without competing to provide them. The profit would accrue to the few who hold capital and those capitalists would have an enormous supply of reserve labor available, driving down the marginal cost of labor (so the people who did have jobs would have less bargaining power).
> I would MUCH rather pay for them to be in school instead of just paying part of Bezos' and other Amazon investors operating costs.
Thats interesting, how many people can you currently afford to feed, house, and pay tuition for?
> It's almost like this is a stupid argument that there is no way to excuse, and no amount of indirect smoke & mirrors or denial gets around that, and anyone even trying deserves to be among the first people rounded up for the new press gangs they think are so fair a great.
It may seem that way to you. Actually what we have is a bunch of people who are ignorant of economics but still have opinions about how the economy should be run, and a class of politicians who appeal to their ignorance by selling them fairy tales that ignore scarcity and appeal to wishful thinking.
It’s wages chasing price chasing wages. And we need more and more food for exponentially increasing population with a smaller work force and lesser land. Only solution is to eliminate such jobs and automate field Ag.
And grow indoors as much as possible. Indoor Ag can increase productivity, use less land and water and also can employ workers from an educated pool because automation requires some skill. So we are also tackling unemployment instead of exploiting poor undocumented immigrants and paying them slave wages.
I see amazon warehouse jobs with low pay the same as farm workers doing repetitive manual work. Automate. Automate. Automate.
Disclosure: I donate to progressive efforts in this space to drag the minimum wage up, which has not kept pace with inflation for many years.
Thread topic for another day.
Yes, agreed.
> properly tax the wealthiest and their wealth/assets.
Accounting gimmicks don't solve scarcity. You could expropriate all the wealth in the world, it wouldn't feed people for a year. You can't eat money.
> Thread topic for another day.
It is directly relevant to this discussion of the cost of labor and the standard of living that a laborer can expect.
> You could expropriate all the wealth in the world, it wouldn't feed people for a year. You can't eat money.
The wealth exists. Tax it. This isn’t about monetary inflation (as your quote attempts to conflate with wealth), it’s about redistributing existing and future wealth (not just income, wage and equity alike).
Bezos' wealth is in amazon infrastructure/capital goods which delivers consumer goods to millions of people a day, and crucially, cannot be converted to food. How are you proposing to transform the market capitalization of amazon into a higher standard of living for the average person?
> Many developed countries have a reasonable minimum/living wage,
According to whom? I'm sure there are millions of wage laborers in those countries who would prefer to make more money and consider their preference to be entirely reasonable. Workers in the United States have a reasonable living wage, therefore nothing need change.
> World’s smallest violin.
Right, read an economics textbook please. People can't eat money.
(responding to your edit)
> The wealth exists. Tax it.
So return on investment goes down, which lowers marginal profitability, meaning fewer firms are solvent. Then people have fewer places to work and fewer places to buy goods. People who worked at those businesses are now out of work so the few remaining businesses have more labor to choose from, justifying them paying even less. Everyone who doesn't get a job can just get public assistance, meaning they aren't contributing with their labor but they still bid for goods, causing the price of goods to go up. Thats a terrible idea.
> This isn’t about monetary inflation (as your quote attempts to conflate with wealth),
Per Krugman, monetary inflation is intended to drive down real wages.
> it’s about redistributing existing and future wealth
You can redistribute it so people can have a higher standard of living momentarily by purchasing consumption items. Thats exchanging capital for consumer goods, which results in a lower standard of living over time because there is less capital. Additionally the profits from those sales of consumer goods accrue to the people who still hold productive capital, i.e. the wealthy. You're describing a process that causes the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.
Those pesky abolitionists apparently missed that too. Don't you think they'd have given up had they realized what emancipation would have done to the price of their clothing?
Not really. It's just a snarky illustration that there's more to consider than effects on consumer prices.
> It's just a snarky illustration
It's an illustration that familiarity with a subject is not a prerequisite for arrogant pontification.
Sadly, you don't seem to realize that those wages come out of the pocket of the consumer. Lower the cost of labor and you lower the cost of the good that is provided. Why not lower those costs to the minimum? /s
Also, a wage laborer who opts out of the wage labor system will likely end up just as dead as a slave who tries to opt out of the slave system. The "voluntariness" of wage labor isn't quite the panacea is seems to be, when you realize many people are given the choice between one or more shitty jobs or no job at all.
Not sure why you feel that an /s tag is necessary. Why not make your point in plain terms so people can read, understand, and respond?
> Also, a wage laborer who opts out of the wage labor system will likely end up just as dead as a slave who tries to opt out of the slave system.
Yes, however one will be murdered for his refusal to be a slave, whereas one will starve to death or die of exposure for his failure to produce food and shelter. There is no equivalence between being murdered and the natural result of failing to work for food and shelter.
> The "voluntariness" of wage labor isn't quite the panacea is seems to be,
Its not a "panacea," merely a matter of basic human rights that someone should be allowed to choose where to work (or if they want to work at all).
> when you realize many people are given the choice between one or more shitty jobs or no job at all.
They are given as many choices as there are other people offering deals. That they need food and shelter to live is a fact of nature, not something capitalists invented so as to replace slavery.
It's a panacea in the sense you seem to see that ritualized choice as a cure for whatever negatives are implicit in all the choices presented, and thus a license to ignore them.
To tie things back to the beginning, you reacted to a story about the decline in many people's standard of living with a rather tone-deaf observation that some other people will benefit from that decline. Maybe you should consider that decline they experience a little more thoughtfully.
I was merely responding to your attempt to conflate slavery with a voluntary agreement.
> To tie things back to the beginning, you reacted to a story about the decline in many people's standard of living with a rather tone-deaf observation that some other people will benefit from that decline. Maybe you should consider that decline they experience a little more thoughtfully.
I observed that the suggested solution to the decline in standard of living would not have the desired effect. At no point have you challenged this observation, which suggests that you have no reason to dispute it. Several times now, you have displayed a poor attitude, which is well within your rights as a human being but suggests you don't have anything to offer to move the discussion forward.
> Maybe you should consider that decline they experience a little more thoughtfully.
Sure, why don't you do the same? I suggest reflecting on the economic realities of scarcity and the labor-multiplying effect of capital.
...and apparently missing the actual point in the process.
A simple search contradicts your claim: nytimes says: "A pair of Levi's 501 jeans cost $50 in 1998, and $46 in 2008"[1]
>Same thing with colleges. Low wage adjuncts as far as the eye can see, but higher education has never been more expensive.
The problem here are price insensitive consumers given tons of free money by the government (in the form of guaranteed student loans, regardless of ability to pay back). If you were given the gift of one free TV of your choice (valued up to $2000), your purchasing decision would be very different than if you were simply given $2000 in cash.