[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by silverct9a

Because inflation and COL hasn’t risen significantly higher than wages? Bumper sticker talk…easy to say when it’s not happening to you

https://www.winknews.com/2021/12/16/...a-living-wage/

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/empl...study-suggests

Anecdotal stories of someone here or there - though I feel for Brent and Mack - does not mean it is a significant problem for society. How many - absolute or percentage - of people working 40 hrs are homeless? I doubt you can answer since your link can't.


"No agency or organization in the area can tell us exactly how many people are homeless and working."

[HarryWhom]

Originally Posted by Corrie22

well thankfully their common sense didn't........

And of course the inverse of libs is cons, which in a word, says it all....

[Arcenal813]

Originally Posted by silverct9a

This is where you and I disagree. Who determines the value? Wages are set arbitrarily by industries and industries are ran by the few elite who funnel the majority of profits right to the top. Without getting too deep, and I’ll leave it at this… there has been a cleverly disguised corporate bail out the last two years and most main street everyday people have been completely oblivious( this was by design BTW). The only indication most have is this “sudden” inflation.

Moving on - Let’s take a garbage man for example, low skilled labor work right? Doesn’t require an advanced degree and probably at most earns $25/hr. Let’s say there is no garbage man to pick up your waste for like a month or two…they went on strike - It would be a complete disaster and I’d argue these lowly garbage men could shut down most of society simply by not participating.

Ever wonder why they’ve been “shaming” low wage workers lately about not wanting to return to low wage public facing work? Society needs them to continue exploiting them for corporate profits. I’d argue these “low end” jobs are even more important.

.......

If you increase the garbage man's wage, the chemical engineer who went through years of arduous study and who implements scientific finds into work will also want a relatable increase in pay. Increase the garbage man's wage from $25/hr to $35/hr, expect the standard starting engineering pay to go from $65k to $90k.

Otherwise, WHY would ANYWONE want to go through school, licensing, etc, if we can all just make a "living wage?"

Low wage jobs are of little value because they are easily replaceable. ANYONE can do then. ANYONE can flip a burger. Don't like the job Okay, Jim bob who just got out of the can can do it.

Value comes from what is hard to obtain.

[Ghaati]

Originally Posted by Arcenal813

.......

If you increase the garbage man's wage, the chemical engineer who went through years of arduous study and who implements scientific finds into work will also want a relatable increase in pay. Increase the garbage man's wage from $25/hr to $35/hr, expect the standard starting engineering pay to go from $65k to $90k.

Otherwise, WHY would ANYWONE want to go through school, licensing, etc, if we can all just make a "living wage?"

Low wage jobs are of little value because they are easily replaceable. ANYONE can do then. ANYONE can flip a burger. Don't like the job Okay, Jim bob who just got out of the can can do it.

Value comes from what is hard to obtain.

Not anyone can flip a burger. Not anyone can do it efficiently. Not anyone can put up with customers who think anyone can do it.

Sort of like customer service. Customer service is a skill. Most people don't have what it takes to put up with people like themselves all day. And yet - they expect their cashiers to be able to get everything 100% correct 100% of the time, with a smile, while two people behind them are yelling at them to hurry up even though they just walked in, and some idiot parent's kid is running around spilling soda on the floor, another guy pushes in front of the line demanding to return his burger because it only had three pickles instead of four, the phone is ringing, and the lady in drive-through wants to know "what's good on the menu today."

Good luck with that job at minimum (or any other) wage. The customer service people and burger flippers deserve more than the average professional football player, IMO.

[silverct9a]

I see. Well CAN anyone flip a burger? I suppose…but do you really think it’s that easy to find people to do it? If so why the hard push by the corporate owned media for front line workers?

https://www.businessinsider.com/rest...-survey-2022-2

I’ll tell you why: The restaurant industry accounts for 4% of the United States’ GDP, more than the Auto industry (3%) and fashion industry (2%) and how do they maintain their high profit margins? Low wages! Exploitation of human capital.

You mentioned value being based on hard work and I too use to believe this, but its not. I don’t know your background, but I’m a remote tech worker for a household name tech company and I would argue that if I didn’t show up to work for a week or even a month, absolutely nothing would change in the world; however, if that garbage man, or barista didn’t it wouldn’t take the public long to notice and be affected- in fact the general public would miss a plumber before they’d miss me with my office job, and STEM master’s degree despite me working very hard to achieve it.

Your average 9-5 cubical desk jockey is practically invisible to the world. If you aren’t saving lives, or providing food - basic human necessities, you aren’t really as important as you may think despite advanced education (groundbreaking PhD level research in a critical area such as COVID vaccination during 2020 being an exception) I have absolutely no ego about this (not saying you do, just making an observation).

Originally Posted by Arcenal813

.......

If you increase the garbage man's wage, the chemical engineer who went through years of arduous study and who implements scientific finds into work will also want a relatable increase in pay. Increase the garbage man's wage from $25/hr to $35/hr, expect the standard starting engineering pay to go from $65k to $90k.

Otherwise, WHY would ANYWONE want to go through school, licensing, etc, if we can all just make a "living wage?"

Low wage jobs are of little value because they are easily replaceable. ANYONE can do then. ANYONE can flip a burger. Don't like the job Okay, Jim bob who just got out of the can can do it.

Value comes from what is hard to obtain.

[silverct9a]

Great post and I’m glad someone else can see this perspective - it’s simply not about flipping a burger, but everything else that goes along with it - dealing with the nasty general public for one!

One thing though, professional football players certainly deserve their compensation if we subscribe to the supply & demand model. The revenue the NFL brings in certainly justifies their contracts.

But you bring up an excellent point! That same supply & demand model would suggest that those same fast food workers deserve much more pay. Perhaps they should go the contract route

Originally Posted by Ghaati

Not anyone can flip a burger. Not anyone can do it efficiently. Not anyone can put up with customers who think anyone can do it.

Sort of like customer service. Customer service is a skill. Most people don't have what it takes to put up with people like themselves all day. And yet - they expect their cashiers to be able to get everything 100% correct 100% of the time, with a smile, while two people behind them are yelling at them to hurry up even though they just walked in, and some idiot parent's kid is running around spilling soda on the floor, another guy pushes in front of the line demanding to return his burger because it only had three pickles instead of four, the phone is ringing, and the lady in drive-through wants to know "what's good on the menu today."

Good luck with that job at minimum (or any other) wage. The customer service people and burger flippers deserve more than the average professional football player, IMO.

[silverct9a]

What’s anecdotal about unprecedented inflation, housing costs, gas prices, and general COL increases NOT keeping up with wage growth, yet the average CEO salary being 351 times that of the typical worker?

Originally Posted by oceangaia

Anecdotal stories of someone here or there - though I feel for Brent and Mack - does not mean it is a significant problem for society. How many - absolute or percentage - of people working 40 hrs are homeless? I doubt you can answer since your link can't.


"No agency or organization in the area can tell us exactly how many people are homeless and working."

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by silverct9a

What’s anecdotal about unprecedented inflation, housing costs, gas prices, and general COL increases NOT keeping up with wage growth, yet the average CEO salary being 351 times that of the typical worker?

Don't backpedal, I said "Very few people working 40 hrs/wk are homeless" and you posted your "link" as if contradicted me but it was about a couple of individuals and did nothing to refute what I said. Now you're trying to obfuscate and expand the topic.

[silverct9a]

Backpedal? Don’t flatter yourself. What would cause a working homeless situation? Oh I have an idea: unprecedented inflation, housing costs, gas prices, and general COL increases NOT keeping up with wage growth. Cause and effect…not hard to infer.

Originally Posted by oceangaia

Don't backpedal, I said "Very few people working 40 hrs/wk are homeless" and you posted your "link" as if contradicted me but it was about a couple of individuals and did nothing to refute what I said. Now you're trying to obfuscate and expand the topic.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by silverct9a

Backpedal? Don’t flatter yourself. What would cause a working homeless situation? Oh I have an idea: unprecedented inflation, housing costs, gas prices, and general COL increases NOT keeping up with wage growth. Cause and effect…not hard to infer.

Aside from your blather and armchair logic, you still haven't shown that any significant number of people working full time are homeless. My point stands.