In April fast-food workers in Cali will get $20 an hour

[SakurabasEar]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I present to you, our newest staff members...

I was going to post this also, here in korea, these kiosks are everywhere.

They only need a crew of like 3 or 4 people now, even at busy locations.

 

[Two Crows]

Duplicate

 

[Fox by the Sea]

It's over $40,000 per year for a job a 16 year old can do with about 1 week of training, and about 33% of employees are teens. Paying that much for that little will trigger inflationary effects in both wages and the general economy.
(Ex. Why do landscaping for $17 when you can be indoors all day for 20$ to start? Why manage and take all that extra work when you can drop ~4$k at 45+ salary for hourly, with no pay loss if the same amount of OT is required?)

All this will do is drive up wages, drive up the money supply, drive up inflation, and leave everyone right where they started in terms of income with depreciated savings/assets. It's a fool's errand.

Doesn't your nation have any jobs that aren't suitable for a middle-class lifestyle?

come on now. these sound like canned arguments. drive up inflation because mcdonalds servers would get a better wage? why aren't they causing inflation in other countries where they aren't paid shit?
and this isn't middle a middle class job. it's hardly a working class job. after taxes they get way less. there's no equivalent in my country of a class of jobs that are so prevalent and at the same time so criminally underpaid.

 

[Two Crows]

I don't mind paying tards more. They just spend it and it goes back into the local economy...

Except for inflation, which has significant impacts on everyone.

This is a good point. Inflation and soaring costs of living are very real. Working people simply need enough money to be able to live close enough in expensive cities to work their jobs. As the requirement for more money to live anywhere near the population centers increases, something has to take up the slack.

One way or the other, the costs are going to have to be paid by someone. Maximizing how much of this comes from the often marginalized and poor workers' pockets is one solution, but that strategy has pretty serious drawbacks for society, and can result in higher crime and social service draws.

Surely there's a better balance for making up the difference. Some combination of lower corporate profits, higher taxes to fund social services, and consumers paying more money for the convenience of eating very unhealthy food prepared almost immediately and possibly handed to them through a vehicle window.

As things are today, at the end of 2023, in the USA, the top 10% of income earners pay MORE federal taxes than the bottom 90% combined.

The bottom 50% (half of all US citizens) pay less than 3% of costs, and that is ALL Federal taxation (including their own retirement funds in FICA taxes, which to be fair, they aren't going to get anyway). Suggesting this is maximizing the cost paid by the working class and poor is simply mistaken. The poor pay nothing as things are, and the working class pay less than they cost.

Average Federal expense per capita of the entire USA: $19,434.

Average Federal taxes paid by bracket translates to a household (at a rate of 22%), needs to earn ~88$k for one person to be a net zero cost.

More and/or stronger benefits DO mean more taxes, but they will be at the expense of the Middle/Working/Poor classes. Not the wealthy, as advocated by politicians and hucksters. That is a lie; the key question we all should be asking when confronted with another unpleasant fact of human existence is this; "How much are YOU, personally, willing to pay to change it?". Because that is how much you actually support whatever change/action/correction/justice/what-the-fuck-ever is actually being proposed. Yes, we all sympathize with the plight of the homeless/disadvantaged/refugees/whoever, but how much of YOUR families income are you willing to forego for them?

In my personal life, the answer from the vast majority has been "absolutely nothing, I deserve more than I have already!"
Everyone is quick to spend someone else's money, and a few REAL heroes step up and put everything on the line for what they believe in, but most people want the credit without the sacrifice.

 

[Two Crows]

come on now. these sound like canned arguments. drive up inflation because mcdonalds servers would get a better wage? why aren't they causing inflation in other countries where they aren't paid shit?
and this isn't middle a middle class job. it's hardly a working class job. after taxes they get way less. there's no equivalent in my country of a class of jobs that are so prevalent and at the same time so criminally underpaid.

That simply isn't true, and my opinion has nothing to do with this.

20$/Hr x 40 Hr/Week x 52 Week/Annum = $41,600.

This means a two person household of high school dropouts would have access to an $83,200 income. That is higher than the median for the entire USA (all skills and education). The reason this isn't happening in other nations is multifaceted, but includes lower standards of living (yes, even in the EU).

Again, don't take my word for it:

2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual | FRED | St. Louis Fed

Release Table for 2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual. FRED: Download, graph, and track economic data.

fred.stlouisfed.org

And before anyone protest with respect to California explicitly, please see #6 on the list above; their median household income is $85,300.

Are you really going to bother with High School and College for just $2,100/year (before taxes)? Do you know what college costs? Consider the extra 2 years of High School alone cost $83.2k for 2 persons in lost wages, and that would take 39.6 years for the college degree or trade pursuit (at the median) to catch-up BEFORE whatever time and expense they incurred ... and this completely ignores investment potential of income over those 40 years. College would, literally, never be worth the investment for over 99% of the nation.

This entire bill is nonsense. You can no more generate wealth for the lower quintiles via legislation than you can increase national wealth via legislation. It doesn't work that way, or everyone everywhere would do it and everyone everywhere would be wealthy.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

That simply isn't true, and my opinion has nothing to do with this.

20$/Hr x 40 Hr/Week x 52 Week/Annum = $41,600.

This means a two person household of high school dropouts would have access to an $83,200 income. That is higher than the median for the entire USA. The reason this isn't happening in other nations is multifaceted, but includes lower standards of living (yes, even in the EU).

Again, don't take my word for it:

2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual | FRED | St. Louis Fed

Release Table for 2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual. FRED: Download, graph, and track economic data.

fred.stlouisfed.org

And before anyone protest with respect to California explicitly, please see #6 on the list above; their median household income is $85,300.

Are you really going to bother with High School and College for just $2,100/year (before taxes)? Do you know what college costs? Consider the extra 2 years of High School alone cost $83.2k per person, it would take 39.6 years for the college degree or trade pursuit (at the median) to catch-up BEFORE whatever time and expense they incurred. And this completely ignores investment potential of income over those 40 years. College would, literally, never be worth the investment for over 99% of the nation.

This entire bill is nonsense. You can no more generate wealth for the lower quintiles via legislation than you can increase national wealth via legislation. It doesn't work that way, or everyone everywhere would do it and everyone everywhere would be wealthy.

sounds to me like you're saying these salaries are actually pretty great and everybody that's been protesting about it are just a bunch of greedy assholes.
i find this position very suspicious since it completely overlaps what the owners would say.
so about 30something k a year, after taxes, is supposed to be a livable wage in a country where the cost of living has went up?

 

[Two Crows]

sounds to me like you're saying these salaries are actually pretty great and everybody that's been protesting about it are just a bunch of greedy assholes.
i find this position very suspicious since it completely overlaps what the owners would say.
so about 30something k a year, after taxes, is supposed to be a livable wage in a country where the cost of living has went up?

No, friend. I'm not saying anything of the sort.
I'm giving you a direct link the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America that shows exactly, and unequivocally, what these salaries are in US terms for 2023/24.

Do you believe the Federal Reserve is lying? Have you ran these numbers through a currency translator to convey their value in your nation?
If those answers are yes, do you believe in free markets? Should more challenging/more in-demand professions be paid more?

If you don't think so; as an example, if you believe all professional athletes are overpaid; I have nothing to offer. It is an impasse if your stance is all workers are equally valuable, and ideological difference.

BUT, if you do believe a society benefits by meeting demand for labor, that is, by paying more for those positions that require more investment, then this is a horrible law, and I believe I have explained why fairly thoroughly. If not, again, why pursue careers with lower or equivalent incomes without an increase in pay? If all careers beneath yours in demand and scarcity receive an increase, why would you not increase demand? If no one increased demand, why would supply of more difficult/demanding careers not fall?

 

[Fox by the Sea]

No, friend. I'm not saying anything of the sort.
I'm giving you a direct link the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America that shows exactly, and unequivocally, what these salaries are in US terms for 2023/24.

Do you believe the Federal Reserve is lying? Have you ran these numbers through a currency translator to convey their value in your nation?
If those answers are yes, do you believe in free markets? Should more challenging/more in-demand professions be paid more?

If you don't think so; as an example, if you believe all professional athletes are overpaid; I have nothing to offer. It is an impasse if your stance is all workers are equally valuable, and ideological difference.

BUT, if you do believe a society benefits by meeting demand for labor, that is, by paying more for those positions that require more investment, then this is a horrible law, and I believe I have explained why fairly thoroughly. If not, again, why pursue careers with lower or equivalent incomes without an increase in pay? If all careers beneath yours in demand and scarcity receive an increase, why would you not increase demand? If no one increased demand, why would supply of more difficult/demanding careers not fall?

i can believe athletes are overpaid and that mcdonalds workers are underpaid in the same sentence without it being contradictory, and without thinking all workers are equally valuable. it's obvious they are not, but from this one does not automatically draw the conclusion that current wages are FAIR, according to the actual need of having a livable decent job.

NOT having that as a baseline for wages is insane to me, especially when it comes to a sector which employs a huge number of people.

the idea that why would anyone even go to college if these jobs would be readily available comes from the idea that somehow everybody CAN go to college. if you're some poor shmuck from the hood, and you're not academically gifted and nobody would give you a student loan, it feels like your life is already set on a trajectory of eternal low wage. you are being told that your life simply cannot be decent.


and the inflation argument simply does not work. they are paid way more in other countries than in the us and there's no inflation to be had from that.

 

[Two Crows]

i can believe athletes are overpaid and that mcdonalds workers are underpaid in the same sentence without it being contradictory, and without thinking all workers are equally valuable. it's obvious they are not, but from this one does not automatically draw the conclusion that current wages are FAIR, according to the actual need of having a livable decent job.

NOT having that as a baseline for wages is insane to me, especially when it comes to a sector which employs a huge number of people.

the idea that why would anyone even go to college if these jobs would be readily available comes from the idea that somehow everybody CAN go to college. if you're some poor shmuck from the hood, and you're not academically gifted and nobody would give you a student loan, it feels like your life is already set on a trajectory of eternal low wage. you are being told that your life simply cannot be decent.


and the inflation argument simply does not work. they are paid way more in other countries than in the us and there's no inflation to be had from that.

No, you can not reach that conclusion without an alternate explanation of wages other than Supply vs. Demand aside from personal fiat. Barring dictatorship, how do you determine this?

In the USA, every poor and working class person (bottom 40th percentile) automatically receives enough Federal Aid to attend 4 years of college. Not ANY college (ex. Harvard), but many schools at every state level for any major.

"Fair" has absolutely nothing to do with economics. It's a personal value judgement that is completely irrelevant to markets. Adam Smith and his contemporaries struggled with the notion of "value vs. price" in the water-diamond paradox, until marginality was introduced and rendered those perspectives irrelevant.

Put it another way; Who determines what is "fair", aside from personal opinion? The correct answer is the market. What everyone else wants is the valuable contribution, period, sans ultimate leader dictating what you should have.

The baseline you propose isn't viable because the incomes and standards of living across the USA are neither consistent nor equivalent. A poor/undesirable wage in some states is good/average-or-better in others.

Offering this wage to uneducated/no-skill workers reduces incentive for workers to learn trades and meet some of the areas of greatest demand in the US. Plumbers, Carpenters, and their ilk are needed. This under-cuts their supply as it takes far longer to learn how to apply a trade than it takes to learn how to press the button on the shake machine and hit the timer on the burger-cooker.

Inflation can be a daunting subject, but it is undeniable in economic theory accepted worldwide (outside of N. Korea). This is wage pressure, and money supply pressure, and there is no question or doubt.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

No, you can not reach that conclusion without an alternate explanation of wages other than Supply vs. Demand aside from personal fiat. Barring dictatorship, how do you determine this?

In the USA, every poor and working class person (bottom 40th percentile) automatically receives enough Federal Aid to attend 4 years of college. Not ANY college (ex. Harvard), but many schools at every state level for any major.

"Fair" has absolutely nothing to do with economics. It's a personal value judgement that is completely irrelevant to markets. Adam Smith and his contemporaries struggled with the notion of "value vs. price" in the water-diamond paradox, until marginality was introduced and rendered those perspectives irrelevant.

Put it another way; Who determines what is "fair", aside from personal opinion? The correct answer is the market. What everyone else wants is the valuable contribution, period, sans ultimate leader dictating what you should have.

The baseline you propose isn't viable because the incomes and standards of living across the USA are neither consistent nor equivalent. A poor/undesirable wage in some states is good/average-or-better in others.

Offering this wage to uneducated/no-skill workers reduces incentive for workers to learn trades and meet some of the areas of greatest demand in the US. Plumbers, Carpenters, and their ilk are needed. This under-cuts their supply as it takes far longer to learn how to apply a trade than it takes to learn how to press the button on the shake machine and hit the timer on the burger-cooker.

Inflation can be a daunting subject, but it is undeniable in economic theory accepted worldwide (outside of N. Korea). This is wage pressure, and money supply pressure, and there is no question or doubt.

listen, if you're just going to throw around canned arguments from the cato institute i don't think there's a need for this discussion to continue. the idea that free market is the main determinant in anything is just too ludicrous to combat. if that was the main determinant, you wouldn't need a central bank, you wouldn't need lobbying, you wouldn't have corruption, you wouldn't have misalocation of funds, etc. your arguments ONLY work in a sterile, tightly controlled academic format. in the real world, issues are a lot more complicated.
and it's very easy to determine what FAIR actually is - the ability for the wages you receive to support a decent living, free of humiliating deprivations. there's no need to turn into a debate bro and go around "BUT WHAT WOULD FAIR MEAN TO PEOPLE". this is the type of argument that makes people detest the ones using it.

 

[Two Crows]

listen, if you're just going to throw around canned arguments from the cato institute i don't think there's a need for this discussion to continue. the idea that free market is the main determinant in anything is just too ludicrous to combat. if that was the main determinant, you wouldn't need a central bank, you wouldn't need lobbying, you wouldn't have corruption, you wouldn't have misalocation of funds, etc. your arguments ONLY work in a sterile, tightly controlled academic format. in the real world, issues are a lot more complicated.
and it's very easy to determine what FAIR actually is - the ability for the wages you receive to support a decent living, free of humiliating deprivations. there's no need to turn into a debate bro and go around "BUT WHAT WOULD FAIR MEAN TO PEOPLE". this is the type of argument that makes people detest the ones using it.

Cato Institute? I think you misread something.

The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, with the authority to set monetary policy for the nation, is being directly quoted. My link is directly to their data.

I'm sorry the facts did not align with your worldview, but nothing I posted is subjective beyond the creditability of the US government's ability to quantify phenomenon.

Didn't you read the link? The name is right there in the HTTPS, lol. Here it is again if you missed it:

2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual | FRED | St. Louis Fed

Release Table for 2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual. FRED: Download, graph, and track economic data.

fred.stlouisfed.org

P.S. I don't need the politically aligned postings of media influencers to persuade. I'm a real life grad student in Econ. Give me our topic, and I can give you both empiricist's data to support and a theorists arguments to interpret many popular arguments.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

Cato Institute? I think you misread something.

The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, with the authority to set monetary policy for the nation is being directly quoted. My link is directly to their data.

I'm sorry the facts did not align with your worldview, but nothing I posted is subjective beyond the creditability of the US government's ability to quantify phenomenon.

Didn't you read the link? The name is right there in the HTTPS, lol. Here it is again if you missed it:

2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual | FRED | St. Louis Fed

Release Table for 2022, Release Tables: Real Median Household Income by State, Annual. FRED: Download, graph, and track economic data.

fred.stlouisfed.org

looks like you aren't addressing any of my arguments and are fixated on the fed link like i was somewhere disputing that link.

 

[Two Crows]

looks like you aren't addressing any of my arguments and are fixated on the fed link like i was somewhere disputing that link.

Clearly delineated any argument I have not answered previously, or even one I have, and I will address it clearly immediately.

Sorry, man. You are going to lose this one.
Edit: This last line was overly arrogant and unnecessarily hostile on my part.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

Clearly delineated any argument I have not answered previously, or even one I have, and I will address it clearly immediately.

read my posts, they're all there.

 

[Two Crows]

Edit: Virtually duplicate

 

[Fox by the Sea]

Lol, just copy & paste.

lo, just read.

 

[Two Crows]

lo, just read.

Okay.

You avoid any clear and explicit delineation of agreement, all of which have previously been addressed to satisfaction. IOW, you have nothing more to offer and concede defeat.

BUT, in the spirit of Christmas ... you win. Whatever it is was you were pursuing, however in defiant of global economic model, I concede.

Great argument. Thank you for your time.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

Okay.

You avoid any clear and explicit delineation of agreement, all of which have previously been addressed to satisfaction. IOW, you have nothing more to offer and concede defeat.

BUT, in the spirit of Christmas ... you win. Whatever it is was you were pursuing, however in defiant of global economic model, I concede.

Great argument. Thank you for your time.

ah you just wanted a way out, claiming like i "need to present my arguments" like they aren't already in the posts i made, so now you're just running away and claiming victory.

typical and expected.

 

[Two Crows]

ah you just wanted a way out, claiming like i "need to present my arguments" like they aren't already in the posts i made, so now you're just running away and claiming victory.

typical and expected.

Fox, what are you trying to accomplish?

I ask you for specific point you want answered, and you refuse.

I give concession to whatever point you are trying to make, and you object.

What do you want, friend?

You are seeing this the wrong way. This isn't an opportunity to establish some form of credential in defiance. It is an opportunity to discover some unknowns in your model/perception. I have not posted in SherDog in months because I've been busy with class (and I mostly only post here when I'm drinking, lol.). My time would cost you real money outside this forum. I am someone you can refine your arguments with.

If "the US just does not pay workers enough!" is your default, it has a lot of room for improvement. The US isn't a economic powerhouse because it is stupid and does everything wrong. There is more room to grow. Let me know what your real questions are, and I might (no guarantees, because the higher you go in Econ, the more disagreement there is ...) be able to contribute in a meaningful, understandable way.


P.S. This isn't pure virtue. The more clearly I can explain economic models, the more clearly I understand them. This is why grad students are often required to teach.

P.P.S. I've never voted for a conservative candidate in my life, though I could see myself doing so. Not because I am generally socially "conservative", but rather because I am through-and-through economically liberal (which is Right, not Left, in the US. I didn't make the rules.)

 

[Siver!]

Solution. COOK YOURSELF

But then you'll be dead