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This is true. For example, a receptionist job pays the same now as when I was doing it 25 years ago. Why should it pay more? There is no shortage of receptionists and it is unskilled, easily replaced if you should quit. Maybe not the best example, but I agree with mathjak107.
Why should that job pay more? Maybe because $1,000 in 1993 is equivalent in purchasing power to $1,737.69 in 2018 $1,000 in 1993
if the weather destroys the tomato crop and you are a heavy user of tomatoes , is your employer obligated to give you an offsetting raise but since your neighbor works for the same company and is allergic to tomatoes and uses none , he gets no raise ? is it even the employers concern that you like tomatoes so much and want to buy them even though outside forces increased the prices ?
or , nice homes are tight in your market and because of short supply and locals wanting to buy homes , they are going for top dollar . should your employer be forced to pay you more because conditions have changed on homes yet your neighbor who works for the same company has no interest in a home so should your employer give you a raise but not him ?
i think most of us would say no . it is just a case of the money supply staying in bounds but supply , demand and local conditions are simply making these things more expensive . it is simply the fact if you want these things you need to increase your income outside of your job . your boss has no responsibility to absorb these factors and pay you more . so you need a 2nd job is what most of us would say ...
that is very different then if the money supply was cranked up and they printed 2 dollars for everyone out there . i think in that case most of us would say we need a raise and should get a raise because this is not just local supply and demand issues where if we wanted the price of tomatoes to fall we can all just stop buying tomatoes ..
two very different scenarios as far as what our expectations for a raise would be .
lots of price increases over the years are supply and demand inflation not monetary inflation . use less and stop over consuming the supply and prices would fall .
you would really need to examine every cost to see if you were in theory entitled to a raise or if it is simply user created price increases and use less and prices would fall.
so simply comparing prices really does not accurately compare because if demand fell on lots of things and we stopped over consuming them prices would fall .
hypothetically if we all stopped using gasoline for personal use gas prices would likely plunge as an example .. should our employer reduce our pay because we are spending less on gas ?.
Last edited by mathjak107; 01-09-2019 at 04:38 AM..
Why should that job pay more? Maybe because $1,000 in 1993 is equivalent in purchasing power to $1,737.69 in 2018 $1,000 in 1993
And?
Trying to mandate that all members of a growing workforce must never lose purchasing power would be a guarantee for a hugely inflationary wage-price spiral.
Maybe the poor fellow you're weeping over should have learned something more useful in the 25 years that went by in your example? I know I certainly did... I make approximately twelve times more than I did in 1993, and so beat the cost of living by a factor of about 7.
Why should everyone lose the benefits of greater economic efficiency so a few can hold on to their obsolete jobs and not have to get with the times?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jnojr
And?
Trying to mandate that all members of a growing workforce must never lose purchasing power would be a guarantee for a hugely inflationary wage-price spiral.
Maybe the poor fellow you're weeping over should have learned something more useful in the 25 years that went by in your example? I know I certainly did... I make approximately twelve times more than I did in 1993, and so beat the cost of living by a factor of about 7.
Why should everyone lose the benefits of greater economic efficiency so a few can hold on to their obsolete jobs and not have to get with the times?
I have to agree. We get no annual "cost of living" increase. We are eligible for an annual performance-based raise, this year from 0-4.5%. For a top performer, that is going to be more than the 2.8% cost of living increase (according to Social Security Administration). If you want to beat inflation by more and even get ahead, it may require not only good performance but continual education and wider experience to achieve promotions, where a pay increase of at least 10% to 30% is common. Just for fun I just calculated my 1993-current and I didn't do quite as well, but still about 9 times more. And. . . my house payment is still the same.
And?
Trying to mandate that all members of a growing workforce must never lose purchasing power would be a guarantee for a hugely inflationary wage-price spiral.
Maybe the poor fellow you're weeping over should have learned something more useful in the 25 years that went by in your example? I know I certainly did... I make approximately twelve times more than I did in 1993, and so beat the cost of living by a factor of about 7.
Why should everyone lose the benefits of greater economic efficiency so a few can hold on to their obsolete jobs and not have to get with the times?
This is the post I was responding to:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eeko156 View Post
This is true. For example, a receptionist job pays the same now as when I was doing it 25 years ago. Why should it pay more? There is no shortage of receptionists and it is unskilled, easily replaced if you should quit. Maybe not the best example, but I agree with mathjak107.
I simply explained WHY jobs should pay more, so don't try to suck me into some kind of esoteric libertarian argument about the free market I have better things than that to waste my time on
I simply explained WHY jobs should pay more, so don't try to suck me into some kind of esoteric libertarian argument about the free market I have better things than that to waste my time on
You simply waved your hands in the air and made some simplistic argument about how you think the world should work. There is no intrinsic reason why any particular job should pay more, or less, or even still exist. Labeling reality "esoteric" and proclaiming that you don't have time to waste on it doesn't change that reality one iota.
Like the song says, "You better start swimming, or you'll sink like a stone!"
This is true. For example, a receptionist job pays the same now as when I was doing it 25 years ago. Why should it pay more? There is no shortage of receptionists and it is unskilled, easily replaced if you should quit. Maybe not the best example, but I agree with mathjak107.
If it pays the same it actually pays way, way less....
inflation.
Download the most recent federal budget, or any of the historical federal budgets and show us where Congress allocates monies to Social Security or Medicare.
Neither Social Security nor Medicare are part of the federal budget, nor have they ever been.
Both programs are off-budget and have been since their inception.
Both programs are totally self-contained. If and when there was a surplus of FICA or HI (Medicare) tax revenues collected, the excess revenues were transferred to the Treasury Department, not Congress.
The OECD is expressly anti-American and has an agenda.
1. Both social security and medicare are "off budget" items but they are most definitely mandatory federal programs. Together they total roughly 62/63% of federal outlays. Further they are in no way, "totally self contained." Via legislation/administrative authority the .gov is on the hook to allocate monies into either program when needed to keep each running.
2. I agree with you the OECD has a strong pro-Europe slant. The worst is using the Euro definition of poverty/financial stress as 50% of median income. That number make the US look terrible because our median incomes are so high.
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