[monkeybutton]

There are a lot of low skilled jobs in a service economy. I imagine that a significant fraction of all jobs are low skilled ones. Not everyone is chasing the hustle or whatever either, so there's a significant amount of people will be working those low skilled jobs their whole lives. What quality of life do they deserve? Does society want a permanent underclass that are treated miserably?

[mojzu]

There's also a lot of overlap between these jobs and ones that were essential to keep society running during various lockdowns, so the value these jobs provide doesn't seem to be reflected in the remuneration.

What I don't understand is why many see it as acceptable for any business to pay less than a living wage under any circumstance, it's just a roundabout way of making taxpayers pay for a businesses labour force

[gruez]

>so the value these jobs provide doesn't seem to be reflected in the remuneration.

that's because remuneration isn't based on value, it's based on market conditions. value merely provides an upper bound. as an extreme example, clean water provides near infinite value to you (you need water to survive, so you're willing to pay infinite dollars for it), yet you can get it from your tap at less than a penny per gallon.

>What I don't understand is why many see it as acceptable for any business to pay less than a living wage under any circumstance, it's just a roundabout way of making taxpayers pay for a businesses labour force

But those people on welfare would receive welfare regardless of whether they're hired or not? I don't see how that's "making taxpayers pay for a businesses labour force".

[pmorici]

I don’t believe your premise that such a large share of the available jobs are low skill that there is no room for people to move on to something better. If you look at fast food for example I’m seeing there are about 2.5 million workers which is a tiny percentage of the overall workforce. Looking at the age distribution of the US work force you could staff every fast food restaurant with only 16-19 year olds and still only be employing about half of that age groups work force.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11b.htm

[enragedcacti]

why would you seek out statistics for one single industry that you perceive as low skill rather than just finding low wage statistics specifically?

44% of U.S. workers are employed in low wage jobs with a median annual wage of $18,000. [1]

Sure we can staff fast food with only 16-19 year olds but what about every other sector of the service industry and the myriad of other "low skill" jobs? are there 40 million plus "high skill" jobs out there waiting for the taking? The answer is no. [2]

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-2019-almost-half-o...

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/11/21/low-wag...