Yeah I don't know how much more people expect to be paid. It's a completely unskilled job that almost anyone can do. Complaining that $21/hr isn't enough would be insane at this point.
A "living wage" bundles the assumption that a single wage must pay for all your expenses in maintaining a predetermined standard of living and that there's no other possible arrangement that should be considered.
And that is, in fact, insane, as it's contrary to the experience of anyone who has worked two jobs, shared a flat, budgeted, or otherwise been creative in making ends meet.
People that work should be able to earn a living wage, period, perhaps its an indication the people you mention are paid too little, why not address that, rather than demanding people on the edge of poverty get paid less...
So should my 17 year old son flipping Pizza deserve a “livable wage”?
There was an article posted on HN a while back where they said the average franchise owner makes around $40K a year - and that’s with them working 60+ hours a week. Where is the money suppose to come from?
Usually when I ask this question, I get the response that those companies don’t deserve to exist. Which is saying a lot considering how many people on HN probably work for a money losing startup living off of VC funding.
>So should my 17 year old son flipping Pizza deserve a “livable wage”?
Choose one: "yes", "I want to pay higher taxes so independent adults can survive on such a wage via government assistance", "people who work 40+ hours a week so I can eat cheap burgers do not deserve to live", "I would be okay with much slower service and business hours that don't intersect with school days, as well as high local unemployment and probably homelessness."
>Where is the money suppose to come from?
Raise prices or cut other costs. If that doesn't do it, well, perhaps they should listen to you and develop more marketable skills, right? I find it weird that you arbitrarily decided on a "skill threshold" where flipping burgers isn't deserving of a livable wage, but for some reason entrepreneurship is.
Raise prices or cut other costs. If that doesn't do it, well, perhaps they should listen to you and develop more marketable skills, right?
So the independent pizza shop owner doesn’t deserve to be in business since they have to actually be profitable but the startup founder who can lose money for a decade supported by granddaddy VC backer does?
And by the way, up until the current administration, every Republican and Democratic administration as well as most conservative and liberal economists has said that the best and least disruptive way to support a “livable wage” for heads of household is to increase the earned income tax credit. I would add make that a reverse payroll tax to make it easier for employers to distribute it to workers during the year. Yes, I’m okay with increased taxes if necessary.
And what about the business owner making on average from statistics $40K a year in gross profits after working 60+ hours a week. Does he deserve to make s livable wage and still be able to work 40 hours a week?
Are we better off if he can’t be in business and has to work for someone else?
Here's a thought experiment I like to use whenever this comes up.
If someone were to approach you on the street and ask you to do something for them that will take an hour of your time, what amount of money do you think would be a fair compensation for just the time expense? Now add to that the fact that it's not just an hour of someones time, it's also an hour of use of an expensive machine they own and maintain.
I've found that when minimum wage is thought of in this way, anything less than $20-25/hour sounds absurd.
The problem that arises is that if you artificially inflate someone's wages to an arbitrary number like 21/hr, they might not provide enough value to economically justify the wage level they're set at.
It's not, and shouldn't be, an emotional argument. It's an economical one.
Frankly, I don't care about any economic argument that says people shouldn't have the ability to put food on their table, a roof over their head, and have decent healthcare. Any company that cannot be profitable and pay their employees enough to cover basic needs shouldn't exist as a company.
I genuinely don't know how to explain that the fact it requires an income of more than 21/hr to meet basic needs is all the justification that should be required.
Maybe if we stopped thinking of employees/contractors as "labor" and thought of them as people it would be easier to empathize with their needs. Do you think that your friends, family, and loved ones deserve a wage that meets their basic needs? Why shouldn't all humans deserve the same?
That's not how capitalism works and that's not why companies exist. Companies pay you what you worth to them. A company is not a human, it doesn't care whether you have a family and are struggling or not.
The primary purpose of a business is to maximize profits for its stakeholders.
> Like what makes educated people more valuable as human beings?
On average, educated people contribute more value to the functioning of society. I can drive myself around. I can't perform my own heart surgery.
The argument that all humans are inherently equally valuable is specious reasoning. I can come up with all sorts of trolly car conundrums that if you were forced to choose, you'd make a value judgement about which person to save because they have more value.
> Any company that cannot be profitable and pay their employees enough to cover basic needs shouldn't exist as a company.
There are many ways to cover your basic needs that don't require you to live on your own in a one-bedroom apartment and three square meals a day. In fact, most of humanity survived by pooling resources. The ability to live entirely on your own being common is a very recent phenomena as is three square meals a day.
All your stating is that people shouldn't have options where they can pool resources. As someone supporting two older adults in my household, you're saying that if they can't get hold a livable wage jobs (unlikely given that one has Parkinson's) but still still could earn money and contribute to the household. You've not made my circumstances harder by legislating away opportunities for them to contribute.
The CEO of walmart most certainly isn't worth 22 million/year. If you can't bring in 21/hour as a cab driver you probably shouldn't be driving cab, especially considering you should be pulling in, what, well over 100/hr gross?
These articles present an incredibly naive analysis of the situation. The logic is "high pay should equal high stock performance" but this fails to recognize that in an effecient market the ability and salary of the ceo would already be priced into the stock, and thus would have "no effect" on its performance. You can't prove that the stock would've done less-worse if a different (lower paid) ceo was there, which is essentially what these articles try and argue.
$21.00 x 40 hours x 52 weeks = 43,680 in pay, for roughly one year.
$3,706 x 12 months = $44,472 in rent.
That's the first number I found on google for "san francisco average rent price" (without quotes).
I agree that those numbers are insane. Accusing someone who makes less than he needs to rent decent housing of complaining seems quite wrong. I understand that San Francisco is at the high end of cost of living. It's also where Uber and Lyft are centered.
The point of the article seems to be that Uber and Lyft support this idea because they're hoping to undermine more meaningful protective legislation, specifically California Assembly Bill 5.
Claiming that this low-ball offer from large corporations would be too hurtful to those corporations, and far too generous to their workers, would be ... insane, right?
Should someone necessarily be able to afford an apartment on their own in one of the most expensive housing markets from an activity that nearly every American adult does?
Is it really insane that people should get paid a living wage, regardless of whether it's a 'skilled job' or not?