| > Because law requires such a low wage that it competes with the cost of being unemployed. Everything competes with being "unemployed" -- which is another way of saying that you do your own labor. You can pay someone to make your dinner or make it yourself, pay someone to fix your car or fix it yourself, pay someone to make your clothes or make them yourself etc. Specialization generally wins, even when you're not making a lot of money. > this is why people in those jobs live shorter lives. There are multiple reasons why this is the case. The people with the ability to do skilled labor more often also have the ability to do other things that increase their longevity. People who make less money are more likely to smoke cigarettes etc. There isn't a single unified cause, it's many things that correlate with each other. > Then why aren't they better off now than before that was done? Because they're not allowed to build housing and provide medical care. Zoning restrictions constrain housing construction, the AMA restricts the supply of doctors and people with legitimate medical degrees from other countries can't just come here and practice etc. Regulatory capture is a thing. But the medical regulators are captured by the AMA (i.e. incumbent doctors), not Walmart or Comcast, who have no real interest in higher medical costs. The zoning boards are captured by local homeowners. > Wages for many many skilled labor jobs (whose capacities have proportionally increased faster than average) have decreased very significantly over recent decades when accounting for inflation. This is just common knowledge. Your argument was that a significant proportion of these people would end up doing unskilled labor. No they wouldn't, they'd still prefer to make $60,000 rather than $30,000 even if their skillset used to pay an inflation-adjusted $70,000. And some of them will even refuse the $60,000 and find a way to change careers to one that pays more. |