The problem is that the jobs that are left for those without a tech degree of some sort aren't appreciated by the market and is forcing salaries down way below what is possible to live off. Wallmart is a much more accurate way to look at what automation does.
This is an exaggeration. It may be forcing salaries below the level necessary to support US middle class consumption levels, but there is a huge gap between that and "possible to live off". Where I live, even the middle class don't live in homes with 2 rooms/person or own a car (unlike poor people in the US).
A full time minimum wage job pays $14,500/year. GDP/capita (adjusted for purchasing power) in Bulgaria is $14,100. In Brazil it's $11,700, here in India it's $3800, and in Haiti it's $1200. Yet people continue to live.
(These numbers are adjusted for purchasing power, so don't argue that it's cheaper to live over here.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...
50 years ago GM was the biggest job creator in the country. Average hourly wage was quite good to live off.
Today Wallmart is the biggest and many workers need extra help from the goverment to even make it.
The problem is very real.
If you are a student, in your youth having no obligations sure you probably could. But these are people often with a family.
It's a little hard to argue that it's somehow easier to be a rural Indian subsistence farmer than it is to be a section 8 tenant. From the vantage point of the Indian farmer, the section 8 tenant is mind-bogglingly wealthy. And the rural poor in India outnumber all people in the US below the poverty line by six to one.
Chris Stucchio is right. We need to devise a reasonable argument that one of the most important social issues of our time is making a ~40 million relatively wealthy people even wealthier.
Personally, I'd prefer to keep a focus on education and equality of opportunity, and not spend so much time thinking about what 14k/yr buys you in New York City. But you'll no doubt want to tell me that it's easy for me to say that, and I agree.
What is it sopposed to be an argument for? In Scandinavia everyone is getting free healthcare. Whats the argument?
I have been talking about the fact that technology is driving some types of jobs up in yearly salaries and other types of salaries down. The middle class is disappearing and those jobs that are available for a growing number of people does not allow them to live for that salary.
So no I am not misunderstanding anything and I am not being downvoted because of that. I am being downvoted because some people are getting emotional.
Both groups of people are humans. One group doesn't have consistent running water or electricity. The other does, along with a car, air conditioning, cable television, and schools. The existence of the former group is very inconvenient for your belief that the latter group isn't paid enough to live on.
You're being downvoted because you're simply wrong. That doesn't mean income inequality isn't a problem; I happen to believe it is a problem, unlike Chris Stucchio. But not for the false reason you think it is.
If you think it's without problems that the US have to subsidize many people who have jobs because it's worse in India then we disagree. I think it's problematic that the salaries in the US seem to be pushed into two extremes.
If you think it's a problem that technology ends up pushing those two extremes in the US no matter what happens on the north pole, india or bangladesh, then we agree.
There is nothing inconvenient about other countries living situation. But if you want to play that game then lets also include the people of Scandinavia, France etc who enjoy free healtcare no matter how much they make.
The only thing that seems to be inconvenient here is discussing the situation for those who make 15000 a year. Thats the only reason why for some other worldly reason you want to ignore it by saying other people have it worse.
I am not in the wrong here you are.
You are just trying to push a premise on to me that first of all isn't an argument for anything as I can find countries where people do in fact get more than 15.000USD a year even if they have no job. And who do in fact get free healthcare.
And second of all has nothing to do with what I have been talking about at all.
But I see you guys have made up your mind so nothing fruitful is going to come from this discussion.
Further, medicine is quite cheap and easily available here. In a big expensive city like Pune, Bangalore or Bombay, you might spend 30-50 rupees on a generic "my skin is itchy" cream containing multiple medicines (anti-inflammatory, antifungal, anti-other-itchyness). You just go in and ask the pharmacist for it - no doctor needed. That's a significant financial hit, but for comparison India's National Rural Employment Guarantee (a super corrupt Basic Job for farm workers) pays about 100rs/day.
If you want to argue that wages are not high enough to sustain the moving goalposts of US middle class life, do it. But do it honestly and acknowledge that the main problem is that the definition of "middle class" (or whatever term you want to use) has risen more rapidly than low skill wages.
Using phrases like "possible to live off" is simply a lie. If it were true then I should be surrounded by over a billion dying people and I should be dead myself.
Check your privilege, dude.
Billions of your fellow human beings do not live in New York or SF or in the US for that matter. Comparing with other countries is so misinformed it's not even worth taking serious.
If you want to play with rethorics be my guest. You very well know what I mean and is just trying to dodge the real issue here.
Most people once they move out of their early twenties have obligations bigger than themselves. Sure some people can choose to live for 1400/month but most people can't and therefore the government is stepping in to help.
Maybe you don't have a problem with that. I do.
If only I were smart enough to have thought of that. Then I might have cited PPP-adjusted numbers rather than nominal ones. I'd have said this: "GDP/capita (adjusted for purchasing power) in Bulgaria is $14,100...here in India it's $3800"
If I were really smart, I might also have anticipated your dishonest response and said this: "These numbers are adjusted for purchasing power, so don't argue that it's cheaper to live over here."
[edit: It's amusing that in your response you bring up food. Fun fact: poor people over here aren't fat. You really need to leave the US at some point in your life. Canada and the UK don't count.]
As I understand it, yummyfajitas is saying [roughly] "here's how much money people make around the world, adjusted for purchasing power which means that it does make sense to compare. It's less than most people in the US. Obviously, they also live in much worse conditions, but that isn't the same as to literally be dying."
What yummyfajitas concludes from the above is that having less money won't lead to people literally being "unable to live", but rather "unable to live with the lifestyle they are currently accustomed to".
This is his position as I understand it.
Which part of that are you disagreeing with?
But I see strawmen works.
NOTE: I accidentally posted this comment to the wrong parent earlier. reposting.
As I have said the problem is that it's not enough and so they need to get help from the government which many of them get.
It's bordering an absurd rethorical nitpicking if you really aren't able to discuss this in a normal manner with a fairly normal understand of the US system.
It may be forcing salaries below the level necessary to support US middle class consumption levels, but there is a huge gap between that and "possible to live off".
If you actually agreed with me but simply used a different definition that I did for the term "live off", why not just say "by 'live off' I actually meant 'maintain US middle class consumption levels'"?
But Chris Stucchio obviously does know many things about what life is like for people in the US who make 15k/yr (he's from the US, for what it's worth). He's demonstrated that amply in this thread and elsewhere.
For your comment to be a real argument, you'd need to accompany that shrill statement with a list of specific things about what it's like to live on 15k/yr in the US; in other words, you'd need to support your statement with evidence.
We talked about the term "to live of". It's pedantic as was claimed that with that i meant would die from. Especially if you know anything about what happens to people who make that little a year in terms of government subsidizing.
Let me repeat. This discussion has NOTHING absolutely nothing to do with what other people do in other countries. We were talking about the US we where talking about the problem of wages being pushed into two extremes.
Specifically, you said that the reason that wage disparity is a problem is that it is impossible for a family to "live on" the incomes from a Wal-Mart job, and therefore the government is required to subsidize them.
You made an argument that was trivial for Chris Stucchio to dismiss: for every Wal-Mart employee making $14,000/yr, 6-8 Indian people are living with far less (PPP adjusted!), and raising families while doing it. Now you're stuck; you either have to come up with an argument that Indian people are different from Americans, or that Indian people are "not really living". Neither argument is fun to defend, as you've made very apparent.
My suggestion is, make better arguments, or at least, don't complain so loudly when your bad arguments are routed by facts.
Look: neither of us are going to solve income inequality by talking about it on HN. As you can see by the pale cast your comments seem to be taking on almost as soon as you write them, it's unlikely you're going to do much of anything to move the world forward by advocating for this issue today.
But one thing we can do to make the world better is to get better at having discussions with people that disagree with us. Maybe start with that here on HN.
I find 'yummyfajitas arguments painful to read. Most of the time, they create an annoying feeling of knowing he must be wrong, via a sort of deontological spidey-sense, but not knowing exactly how to rebut him. But that's a good thing, not a bad one: it means that to argue with him, you need to do better than playing to a crowd of people who already agree with you. And after all, what would be the point of doing that?
You are basically saying that we can't discuss the US because there are other places where people are worse of. Otherwise it make no sense to point to other places where people are worse of.
This is not about argument, this is about premise for the discussion. I am not buying yours or any other who use other countries as an argument for why it's not a problem that people on low wages have to be subsidized.
If you don't think it's a problem they have to be then we disagree. It's as simple as that.
The (rather gigantic) example of Asian rural poor might foreclose on your argument that Wal-mart wages are "un-livable". It might not if you can marshall a better argument, but that's not the tack I'd take.
What you're missing is that "Wal-mart wages are un-livable" isn't the only argument against income inequality; in fact, it's one of the poorer ones, as I think you've now seen.
Here is what I wrote:
"...The problem is that the jobs that are left for those without a tech degree of some sort aren't appreciated by the market and is forcing salaries down way below what is possible to live off. Walmart is a much more accurate way to look at what automation does..."
That was then turned into a discussion about the term "possible to live off" which frankly in the context we are talking here is juvenile and unnecessarily pedantic. Do you really believe that I meant will die from?
But sure I am guilty of falling for it given I was assuming at least some intellectual honesty from the person I was discussing with. I now see it was just a way to throw the "someone is worse off" card which is very convenient yet completely besides the point.
I never even made an argument against income inequality so why you judge my posts on that is beyond my understanding.
And unless you or anyone else is talking about a global redistribution of wealth comparing to other countries is not only weak it's a false claim of morality.
Each country should be able to discuss the merits of it's own societies status quo without having to point to people starving to death in Ethiopia.
You know, I'm not sure if you're talking about me or yummyfajitas here, but I think you're being unfair. We had a discussion in which clearly there was at least some misunderstanding. yummyfajitas raised a valid point (it is possible to live on less salary, just with lower standards of living). You made your own point, which is that this is still not a very desired outcome. It took us several posts to realise what everyone was saying and what everyone meant, which is regrettable, but I don't think it's "intellectually dishonest" of any side.
Honestly, it's kind of disheartening to try and have a discussion with someone and to be called "intellectually dishonest" and "juvenile". I don't think anyone here is mean or acting in bad faith, I honestly think this thread just had a lot of "talking past each other". Not grounds for insulting one another, surely?
It became a discussion because yummyfajitas started nitpicking on "possible to live of".
With regards to the intellectual honesty. When you start claiming that "being able to live of" means "to die from" and keep claiming it as if it's me who is using the term in wrongly you are into that territory.
The discussion we where having was about what technology does to salaries but yummyfajitas managed to turn it into a discussion about whether it's possible to live of 15K a month and then a discussion about how people in other countries have it worse.
But I digress. The little army of libertarians is on a downvote mission so no matter what i say is being sent to obscurity.
Part of the reason for this is that my underlying values are nearly the same as yours. In terms of values, I'm nearly a standard NY liberal [1]. For example, you probably favor either Basic Income or a Welfare State - I prefer a Basic Job. Our underlying reasons are the same (don't let people starve), we just differ on which policy will actually achieve the best outcome for the lowest price.
In contrast, someone with libertarian values would be fine letting people starve, even if he preferred a Basic Job to other policy proposals.
[1] The only big points where my values differ are on inequality, which I don't view as an intrinsic problem (maybe it's an extrinsic one, but I'm unconvinced). I also don't buy into the racial/sexual collectivism of modern liberalism - I.e., I don't believe "women" have rights, I believe only an individual woman does.
Also: perhaps because you're better at math than I am, you come across to me as somewhat astringently rationalist. It's noticeable in discussions where logic and orthodoxy conflict, for instance in discussions about race and IQ.
I get how that's a result of the issues selected for discussion on HN, and the way they tend to get discussed; you could be mistaken for a libertarian in the same way I could be mistaken as a shill for NSA.
Happily, in neither yummyfajitasland nor tptacekland will anyone be starving, although tptacekland also has single-payer health care.
Interesting--normally I see neo-reactionaries linking progressivism with christian tradition; and it's not meant as a compliment. I don't think I've ever seen a progressive endorsing that link before.
Also, I should note that I'm a consequentialist (although in practice I try to use virtue ethics), and closer to tptacekian politics than yummyfajitian politics.
1400 would require ~10.50 an hour.
1208/mo, actually.
Treat every job like that job's on the endangered jobs list and try not to put all your eggs in one basket.
Now, I'd personally have a problem if you didn't add the opportunity portion I mentioned above b/c then it just turns into another "bootstrap" fallacy.
So then people in the future get a tech degree, and humanity will be better off, because instead of a million people with a tech degree and 999 million farming, we now have 0 people wasting their precious mind on farming and a billion solving hard problems.
Like I said, people will be forced to retool. That is a good thing.
You used to be able to retool fairly easily. That is just not the case anymore. The jobs where that is possible is increasingly paying less and less.
THAT is the problem. The real problem. The increasing problem.
You know, I've never actually seen any evidence of this. People say it a lot, but it's not reflected in the numbers.
However, if it is true, it's simply the case that there will be a slight permanent increase in the number of people who are unemployed.