Care to point me in the directions of some materials you’d like me to read? Most leftist opinions I’ve observed over the years are quite clearly in favor of increased minimum wage that keeps up with inflation, so I’m very curious to know what leftist critiques you’re referring to. It seems to me that conservatives and neoliberals are in favor of keeping minimum wage low and not in line with inflation.
Given the fact that the majority of developed nations switch back and fourth between conservative and neoliberal governments who have both promoted minimum wage rates that are far below livable wages and don’t take inflation into account, I have a hard time believing what you’re saying but again, I’m open to reading any materials you’d suggest.
I get what you’re saying, but I think you’re missing my point. The USA is not like European countries such as Sweden. For where the USA is at right now, it makes sense to focus on minimum wage being a livable wage and that doesn’t preclude efforts for strong unionization and collective bargaining being made.
No minimum wage in the USA would not at all be like no minimum wage in Sweden. It’s a completely different situation and to compare the USA with European countries that don’t have minimum wage but do have strong unions, meaningful collective bargaining and high taxation that gives rise to the average working class person not having to deal with the struggles that the average American working class person has to deal with.
If minimum wage was abolished in the USA or it wasn’t prioritized, all you’d end up with is workers being even more exploited and having far less time to organize strong unions-- which is exactly what’s happening in the USA right now with minimum wage being as low as it is.
First, even someone like myself who find the idea of minimum wage laughable wouldn’t really propose abolishing the minimum wage. Just let it sort of be forgotten.
That avoids the worst of the problems that might come from abandoning it. And truly, if we could run the experiment and see the results, I have my doubts that we’d find people offering 25¢/hr… sure, there’d be trolls out there claiming it to rile people up, but you can’t get work out of anorexically-starved people. The fast food place near my office has “$14/hr” emblazoned on their marquee right now. Minimum wage is already moot almost everywhere, even without it being raised.
But there’s just no reason to run that experiment, and if you think it could end in disaster, I see no reason to demand that out of spite.
What we might do instead (and the libertarian in me objects strongly just on principle) is to focus on some sort of restrictions for offering part-time work. Can’t prohibit it entirely (there may be situations where they only need 20 hours of labor per week), but we could make sure that they’re not doing it just to dick with people and keep their paychecks low. That seems to me like it’s much closer to an unfair bargaining tactic than it is to anything reasonably needed for them to conduct business.
Imagine a scenario where grocery stores sold meals/food/ingredients in portions too small for even a single person. At that point, people would probably be compelled (I like this word better than “forced”) to buy them. Because they were compelled to do so, the prices would rise.
There is a finite amount of food, some of which is packaged in portions-too-small. Because of the less-than-widespread availability of normal-sized portions, some people simply have to get the too-small-portions… it’s all that’s left. Since people buy them at inflated prices, this causes food distributors to package yet more in the too-small-portions, higher profit margin. At some point, some equilibrium is reached, but by the time that happens it’s a large fraction that is sold Too Small™, and even the remainder carries a premium (since many people who don’t want to be gouged are bidding on a limited supply of normal portions).
In such a situation, it would be a legitimate power of government to put a stop to the nonsense and say “you’re not allowed to do that”. It doesn’t do so currently, because there’s no need to do that. For food. That situation is a little far-fetched, it is some local minimum that wouldn’t be easy to reach from where we are now, but would be quite sticky and hard to leave if circumstances ever did drive things there.
I think we’re stuck in that local minima now, for employment. If some business legitimately only needs 15 or 20 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to disallow this. If there is a business that needs 400 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to split that up among 20 part-time workers unless they are trying to manipulate the labor market.
It may be counter-intuitive that it’s possible to manipulate the market that way, and I doubt very much that most of them are perfectly aware that they’re doing it… but so many are partially aware of it. How many stories have I read on r/antiwork where someone’s griping that their manager is fucking with them by giving them zero-hour weeks and so on. Many more offer part-time because it sidesteps the requirement to offer medical insurance.
Since at least the first Bush term, I’ve heard the joke “the economy’s so great, everyone has a job followed up by the second guy saying yeh I know I have two of them”. This is a big deal, even if it doesn’t seem like it. And changing it might make a big difference.
I think there are people who want part-time jobs, and enough legitimate excuse for part-time jobs for that to (mostly) match. I think (at least in the US), that the proliferation of part-time jobs far out-supplies either the demand for those, or the excuse for those.
Practically all of retail and restaurant work is such, and at least on reddit’s antiwork sub, that seems to be quite alot of what people complain about.
Care to point me in the directions of some materials you’d like me to read? Most leftist opinions I’ve observed over the years are quite clearly in favor of increased minimum wage that keeps up with inflation, so I’m very curious to know what leftist critiques you’re referring to. It seems to me that conservatives and neoliberals are in favor of keeping minimum wage low and not in line with inflation.
Given the fact that the majority of developed nations switch back and fourth between conservative and neoliberal governments who have both promoted minimum wage rates that are far below livable wages and don’t take inflation into account, I have a hard time believing what you’re saying but again, I’m open to reading any materials you’d suggest.
deleted by creator
I get what you’re saying, but I think you’re missing my point. The USA is not like European countries such as Sweden. For where the USA is at right now, it makes sense to focus on minimum wage being a livable wage and that doesn’t preclude efforts for strong unionization and collective bargaining being made.
No minimum wage in the USA would not at all be like no minimum wage in Sweden. It’s a completely different situation and to compare the USA with European countries that don’t have minimum wage but do have strong unions, meaningful collective bargaining and high taxation that gives rise to the average working class person not having to deal with the struggles that the average American working class person has to deal with.
If minimum wage was abolished in the USA or it wasn’t prioritized, all you’d end up with is workers being even more exploited and having far less time to organize strong unions-- which is exactly what’s happening in the USA right now with minimum wage being as low as it is.
deleted by creator
First, even someone like myself who find the idea of minimum wage laughable wouldn’t really propose abolishing the minimum wage. Just let it sort of be forgotten.
That avoids the worst of the problems that might come from abandoning it. And truly, if we could run the experiment and see the results, I have my doubts that we’d find people offering 25¢/hr… sure, there’d be trolls out there claiming it to rile people up, but you can’t get work out of anorexically-starved people. The fast food place near my office has “$14/hr” emblazoned on their marquee right now. Minimum wage is already moot almost everywhere, even without it being raised.
But there’s just no reason to run that experiment, and if you think it could end in disaster, I see no reason to demand that out of spite.
What we might do instead (and the libertarian in me objects strongly just on principle) is to focus on some sort of restrictions for offering part-time work. Can’t prohibit it entirely (there may be situations where they only need 20 hours of labor per week), but we could make sure that they’re not doing it just to dick with people and keep their paychecks low. That seems to me like it’s much closer to an unfair bargaining tactic than it is to anything reasonably needed for them to conduct business.
deleted by creator
Imagine a scenario where grocery stores sold meals/food/ingredients in portions too small for even a single person. At that point, people would probably be compelled (I like this word better than “forced”) to buy them. Because they were compelled to do so, the prices would rise.
There is a finite amount of food, some of which is packaged in portions-too-small. Because of the less-than-widespread availability of normal-sized portions, some people simply have to get the too-small-portions… it’s all that’s left. Since people buy them at inflated prices, this causes food distributors to package yet more in the too-small-portions, higher profit margin. At some point, some equilibrium is reached, but by the time that happens it’s a large fraction that is sold Too Small™, and even the remainder carries a premium (since many people who don’t want to be gouged are bidding on a limited supply of normal portions).
In such a situation, it would be a legitimate power of government to put a stop to the nonsense and say “you’re not allowed to do that”. It doesn’t do so currently, because there’s no need to do that. For food. That situation is a little far-fetched, it is some local minimum that wouldn’t be easy to reach from where we are now, but would be quite sticky and hard to leave if circumstances ever did drive things there.
I think we’re stuck in that local minima now, for employment. If some business legitimately only needs 15 or 20 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to disallow this. If there is a business that needs 400 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to split that up among 20 part-time workers unless they are trying to manipulate the labor market.
It may be counter-intuitive that it’s possible to manipulate the market that way, and I doubt very much that most of them are perfectly aware that they’re doing it… but so many are partially aware of it. How many stories have I read on r/antiwork where someone’s griping that their manager is fucking with them by giving them zero-hour weeks and so on. Many more offer part-time because it sidesteps the requirement to offer medical insurance.
Since at least the first Bush term, I’ve heard the joke “the economy’s so great, everyone has a job followed up by the second guy saying yeh I know I have two of them”. This is a big deal, even if it doesn’t seem like it. And changing it might make a big difference.
deleted by creator
I think there are people who want part-time jobs, and enough legitimate excuse for part-time jobs for that to (mostly) match. I think (at least in the US), that the proliferation of part-time jobs far out-supplies either the demand for those, or the excuse for those.
Practically all of retail and restaurant work is such, and at least on reddit’s antiwork sub, that seems to be quite alot of what people complain about.
Is that literally “less they starve”, or a broader “provides basic needs beyond nutrition”?
If the latter, would you mind giving a short overview of what you consider those basic needs to be?
deleted by creator