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by Ekaros 845 days ago
Set maximum billable rate at minimum wage. That seems only fair solution. It is enough for many workers, should be enough for anyone.
3 comments

chuckle why stop there? motherhood seems to be a quite important job. I don't know about you, but my mother didn't even get minimum wage for all her mothering.

How much she got is the same number, whether you measure it in dollars, euros, or pounds: 0.00

In many European countries, you actually do get government assistance for children [1].

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindergeld

Minimum wage never meant livable wage. A specialized professional is typically paid a market rate many times higher than minimum wage. I’m not sure why lawyers should be treated differently (regardless of feelings towards some).
This is literally not true:

It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The idea that minimum wage was never a living wage and never meant to be is a rewriting of history.

Thanks for the reference.
That makes no sense, as it equally rewards lazy people with abilities too lazy to be applied, and people who took years out of earnings to learn new skills.

Of course, the comment might have been obvious trolling.

Not trolling. What, pray tell, is a fair wage? Who gets to decide?

// people who took years out of earnings to learn a new skill //

Here in Indiana, you have to have a Master's degree to be a teacher. Average wage is around $50k. Or you could get a B.S. in communications an and make 2-3x that doing P.R.

Or you could just drop out of high school to become a "creator" at only fans and make zillions a year taking pictures of your toes.

If you want a system which rewards years of learning new skills, this one ain't it.

A fair wage is what the market will pay. Unfortunately for most teachers, there is not a fair market, but a vise with government and unions on either side they’ve created for themselves. Also, when teacher salaries are evaluated at an hourly rate (30 hour weeks, 11-weeks of vacation per year), it’s not as bad as it seems.*

* My wife was a teacher, my parents were teachers, my aunts and uncles were teachers, my grandparents were teachers, my kids are in school and I deal with their teachers. I’m sympathetic to the profession, and have also watched how those steering the ship head right for the iceberg while telling everyone warming them that they aren’t educators so they couldn’t possibly understand. I’m fine letting them lie in the bed they’ve made while getting paid a zillion times more being an IC at a company on one has ever heard of.

// A fair wage is what the market will pay //

Well, I wouldn't go that far (cf. my example above on the pay differential between the oldest profession and the second-oldest profession) But it does at least set prices in a way which both buyer and seller agree on.

// they aren't educators, etc //

You have a way to let teachers make substantially larger wages? Let's hear it:-)

Private tutor?
What's stopping teachers from being private tutors now?