[devmor]

It is in effect a subsidy to employers, while still being a benefit to employees.

As prior evidence shows, there is always someone willing to work for less, if they have to. As such, the only real solution to the issue that does not make the economic situation worse for employees is to punish corporations for paying so little that their employees need benefits from the government.

Anything else only hurts the employees or provides greater subsidy to the employer.

[astrange]

> As prior evidence shows, there is always someone willing to work for less, if they have to.

Such people are not particularly easy to find right now. The employment situation in the US is the best for workers it has been in decades.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12032194

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060

[devmor]

These datapoints strengthen my argument. More Americans are in the workforce than ever before, because every household requires more laborers to do work for less compensation.

Federal employment data also does not paint a cohesive picture of the situation.

For one, it does not include undocumented labor - the labor that makes up the vast majority of incredibly low paid positions. Secondly, it is inflated by the fact that so many people are forced to work part-time positions - usually multiple at once.

[astrange]

> More Americans are in the workforce than ever before, because every household requires more laborers to do work for less compensation.

That isn't what they show. Actually what they show is that households have gotten smaller over time, because people have gotten richer/older and no longer live with their parents.

> Federal employment data also does not paint a cohesive picture of the situation.

These numbers come from a monthly household survey and don't have this issue. They know what they're doing.

> For one, it does not include undocumented labor - the labor that makes up the vast majority of incredibly low paid positions.

Such people have, since 2019, actually gotten the most pay increases of any part of the working population.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010

> Secondly, it is inflated by the fact that so many people are forced to work part-time positions - usually multiple at once.

Only 5% of Americans report working multiple jobs, and that's not particularly historically high.

Your idea of how the economy works is just a decade out of date. In the ways you think it's bad it is specifically the best it's been in decades, or in fact ever.

This is a common issue though: https://x.com/dkthomp/status/1793270876550398329

The cause of this issue is that the US media believes their job is to avoid reporting good news, unless they can do it ironically.

[devmor]

No, unfortunately you are mistaken - the US media does not inform my worldview as I generally do not consume it without supplement.

My idea of how the economy works is informed by the state of the economy for real people - unlike yours, which relies entirely on federal data manipulated to present the picture that the federal government is succeeding in its economic policy. They do “know what they’re doing”, certainly. You on the other hand, do not seem to.

Every single thing you have said here is wrong or a misunderstanding of what data has actually been gathered and where it comes from.

[astrange]

The BLS is an independent agency. There isn't a single "the federal government" that cares about its image like this. Nor does "the federal government" have a single economic policy. It has, like, two or three of them and some (fiscal vs monetary policy) are directly opposed to each other.

A monthly survey of 60k households is "talking to real people" and it's the only way to get accurate impressions of what's happening to them. If you rely on people bitching then you'll get a negativity bias.

> Every single thing you have said here is wrong or a misunderstanding of what data has actually been gathered and where it comes from.

I understand it fine. You seem to have moved from not realizing I was posting direct survey data, to coping by just claiming the numbers are made up.

Note that if you claim it's made up now, why was it not made up in 2009 or 2020 when it did look bad?