[leopaacc]

Uhh, the solution is not so simple. Small businesses are often on a very tight budget. That unemployment checks are currently paying a lot more than a large set of wages would has resulted in a shrinking worker pool, further complicating matters.

[hachari]

If you can’t run your business because you can’t afford to offer a fair wage your business is not sustainable.

[kokanator]

So it is ok for the government, through their spending power, to make your business unsustainable where it was in fact very sustainable pre-covid? [0][1]

First they shutdown the businesses because of COVID and then they make it too expensive to reopen them. And your tax dollars and your children's tax dollars have made it all possible.

For those who do not own a business, would it be alright if the government came and took your job from you which caused you to loose your home and savings without any compensation or a way to regain the loses you incurred? It is really no different.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/09/it-pays-to-stay-unemployed-t...

[1]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-americans-are-gett...

[bsder]

> So it is ok for the government, through their spending power, to make your business unsustainable where it was in fact very sustainable pre-covid?

Okay, I'll bite on this: "Yes. It is."

Was your business paying healthcare? No? Then no sympathy.

Were your employees getting public assistance? Yes? Then no sympathy.

I can go on. These are not "sustainable" businesses without external funding in the form of social benefit programs.

The lack of movement in the minimum wage has allowed FAR too many businesses to abuse employees while pocketing the profit. The restaurant sector is particularly egregious with their exceptions. Outsourcing is also particularly egregious in things like "cleaning staff" where the hired contracting company simply can't do the job without violating even the horribly low minimum wage.

If unemployment benefits pay better than your job, that says something about the employer, not the unemployment benefits.

[kokanator]

I assume your are stating that putting businesses out of business will solve either of these issues? More competition for workers increases wages not the other way around. If you decrease the number of competitors for labor in a market the cost of labor will actually decrease since there will be less employers for workers to seek out better opportunities.

This is simple supply and demand.

What we have in this case is what happens at times in the commodities market ( before you bash me, no people are NOT commodities but the example serves ). Short sighted thinking may tell a government to for instance buy 25% of the corn from the market ( or force ethanol into gas ) to create an artificial raise in the price of corn. However, in the long term farmers will plant more corn and the price of corn will soon tank from oversupply.

What we have here is the government removing employees from the employment market to force wages higher. The problem is that it is not sustainable ( remember the businesses creating tax revenue to pay for it are now out of business ). Eventually those unemployed workers will be forced back into the labor market ( just like the extra corn ) and there won't be enough jobs for the number of workers and labor prices and benefits will tank.

Helping people through the COVID pandemic was necessary and appropriate. Using that as an excuse to restructure the market seems like bad timing.

"If unemployment benefits pay better than your job, that says something about the employer, not the unemployment benefits."

This is a rare situation. It used to be you received about 80% of your wage on unemployment. Now you can make as much as 200% your wage on unemployment. Remember unemployment benefits were intended to catch you if you experienced a crisis not sustain you for the long haul.

[bsder]

> I assume your are stating that putting businesses out of business will solve either of these issues?

We have deemed jobs that pay too little to be a nuisance to society and that they absolutely should be put out of business.

That is the whole point of the minimum wage.

The problem is that the minimum wage is so pitifully low that economically effective unemployment benefits are significantly higher. If the minimum wage were $15 (which is still below where it should be due to cost of living adjustments), unemployment benefits wouldn't look anywhere nearly so attractive.

[neilwilson]

Business is there to serve society, not the other way around.

Pay the wage or get out of the market so that superior businesses with better productivity can grow.

"And your tax dollars and your children's tax dollars have made it all possible."

Other way around. Payments from government are what make tax payments possible - which will always match what government pays out for any positive tax rate if everybody spends all they earn.

If they don't (ie they save - which is what causes a deficit) then that will catch up when they get around to spending those savings. [0]

" there won't be enough jobs for the number of workers"

There should always be enough jobs for the number of workers - with the state providing a job at the living wage to top up the permanent shortage that comes from relying entirely on the private sector.

All the private sector has to do then is pay the wage if they want the labour. Competition for labour then works, and private firms can replace jobs with machines without anybody getting too upset about it. All of which drives forward productivity and the overall standard of living.

Labour should always be reassuringly expensive. Then we make best use of it because it is scarce.

[0] The Deficit Myth, Stephanie Kelton. https://www.amazon.com/Deficit-Myth-Monetary-Peoples-Economy...

[kokanator]

> Payments from government are what make tax payments possible

Can you expound on this a bit? I think I am not understanding what you are stating. The way I read it at this point is that the taxes on a government payment is what makes the tax revenue possible. The math doesn't work here in the way I am understanding it. Unfortunately the link is to a book which I cannot read directly.

>Superior businesses with better productivity can grow

Businesses typically gain productivity as they scale. So that little delicatessen on the corner that makes the most amazing pastrami sandwich and is a neighborhood gathering spot is very very inefficient but is serving a great purpose. If all of these types of businesses die we are left with McDonalds which if anything isn't 'for the people'.

[6510]

In NL, covid rules say you can now fire people for economic reasons.

[whythre]

You couldn’t fire them for economic reasons before?

[6510]

no, unless you go bankrupt of course. Even then the next company taking the contract might have to hire you.

[missedthecue]

"If your small business can't make revenue faster than the federal reserve can print new money, you shouldn't be in business"

[tharne]

The original commenter's point (I think) is that the government is inflating wages by giving money away for free. It's easy to tell others to pay higher wages when it's not your money or your business.

[lupire]

That's fine; if you shutter your below unemployment wage business, you can get unemployment wages too.

[jjeaff]

For a few months, then what?

It's like a monopoly dumping prices until you go out of business. Then once you are out of business, the free money faucet stops.

[fxtentacle]

Or you need VC money ;)

Is Uber still losing money?

[davengh]

That unemployment pay is more attractive than working says a lot about prevailing wages. If unemployment covers rent and working does not, why in the hell would any rational person want to work? And why should employers think they shouldn't have to compete with that?

[leopaacc]

Part of the problem is that the high unemployment premiums are coming from via the stimulus packages which will probably end at some point. In the meantime more businesses will go bankrupt or close doors. So yeah, it's rational for the employee to sit things out, but the market is distorted

[dublin]

Remember, as Thomas Sowell has correctly pointed out, the true minimum wage is always ZERO. I'm advising a smallish manufacturer now whose goal (as a response to minimum wage and other govt regulation) is to eliminate ALL of their employees, through both automation and outsourcing. I've seen the numbers, and this takes them from barely profitable in a good economy to marginally profitable even in a fairly down economy. They will not survive another downturn if they don't do this, so all the jobs will be gone soon, anyway.

This isn't what they want to do, but what they must do, especially with no barrier to Chinese cheating in the market.

Policy has consequences, and right now, most of our government policies are actually arguing against creating (or even maintaining) jobs.

[benlivengood]

Has Thomas Sowell talked to any panhandlers lately? I'd say the floor on minimum wage is at least $3/Hr if one can sit on a curb with cardboard and earn that much.

[rdtwo]

Panhandling is way more profitable than that. I’d estimate they earn 30-50 an hour in Seattle

[benlivengood]

I was estimating the floor in 99% of the country and not just the big cities because labor costs are very regional.

[WalterGR]

How are you making that estimate?

[rdtwo]

Extrapolate out of how often I see folks giving money out on my way home at the same intersection (around 1/4) times for a 2 minute wait. With what looks to be more than a dollar worth of sponsorship for the panhandlers habit