Fucking rich kids
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2022
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Antiwork
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I always use 2000 hours in a work year, because that's easier to do in my head. The correct number is supposed to be like 2082 or something. But I think that's all 52 weeks...
That'd be $21.61/hr.
If you use 2k straight, then it's $22.50/hr. Given that even minimum wage workers tend to get some holidays (those who aren't retail anyway), it's probably closer to this.
I'm not sure I understand the obsession with minimum wage laws. I suspect they result in more poverty not less. While it is true that the government can compel companies to pay some minimum rate, and that few if any attempt to pay lower unreported wages... short of a far larger set of constraints on behavior this will only create all sorts of bizarre and perverse incentives.
If a company pays five people at barely-livable wages with minimum wage A, they won't pay those same five people more-livable wages at (higher) minimum wage B. Instead, they'll fire two of them, and demand the other three do more work. You've just improved the scenario for those three, while making the other two more destitute. Large corporations will just eat the cost, likely (they can afford it), and doing so relives some pressure for unionization anyway, so it might be a bargain.
So we're talking about small (even tiny) businesses, for which unionization pressures are non-existent, or who will deal with it in such a way that the business is tanked and all five lose their jobs. Sure, maybe the owner of that small business is punished too, and if that's what you're going for then do a little victory dance, you've succeeded. But now we've even more who are destitute, not fewer.
By the same logic, why shouldn't people be able to sell themselves into indentured servitude, right?
Really, the abolition of slavery is continuing to hurt small businesses to this day. Won't someone think of the small business owners?! ๐คฎ
Uhmm, while I don't fully agree with the original comment, I would like to point out that most unions are also anti-minimum wage.
In general minimum wage does little good and is only worth it if the situation is so bad that unions can not negotiate at all.
I'm not really grasping this... as in they want no minimum wage?
I don't see the problem here, say minimum wage is 30 an hour (crazy excessive hypothetical one), The union can just as easilly negotiate that Much easier safer jobs are 30/hr, which means our guys aren't going to take a cent under 50/hr.
In reality, the state bureocrats have no idea what an appropriate wage should be per industry and individual companies. Even in the best (but still bad) case that they will settle on a rather high amount, political pressure will always ensure that this is inflated or otherwise regulated away ( for example by cutting employer health contributions or such) and as a result minimum wages always result in convenient excuses for employers to pay less then an honest negotiation with a union would have resulted in.