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Comment by kansface | Hacker News Reader

> In western societies, no job should pay less than a living wage...

Pay is determined chiefly by supply and demand in the labor market. Jobs that are more fun pay less because the supply of workers is higher. Fairness is literally not part of this equation.

> On the other side of the ledger, you have immigrants with medical degrees, who are driving cabs for minimum wage.

Medical licenses are controlled by the government, not the free market.

> [The free market] is subject to all the same tribal impulses and inequalities that have persisted in humans throughout history.

... and also the Civil Rights Act of 1964. All snark aside, why should we pay a high school paperboy a living wage? What does a living wage even mean - the ability to live in a single bedroom apartment? That runs ~3K/month in SF which is roughly commensurate to $50/hour.

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> What does a living wage even mean..

The definition of living wage is fairly established. It is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. Needs are defined to include food, housing, and other essentials such as clothing. This definition is why, in the United States, at least, every few years Minimum Wage (used interchangeably here with Living Wage) would be raised, to keep up with inflation. It allowed the average American to start saving for a down-payment for a house even if all they had was a high school education and nothing else (so, the paperboy you mention). Until, for some reason, we stopped doing that as much.

Instead of looking at one of the most inflated rental markets in the country (SF), let's look at somewhere like Idaho - you'll find that inflation has still affected that place, but minimum wage (living wage) to be able to provide those basic needs has not kept up. This is why, countrywide, 40% of non-elderly adults report difficulty meeting basic needs such as food, housing, health care and utilities [1].

But let's consider that paperboy, for a minute. Do you really believe that the only people who deserve the most basic income to be able to live (living wage) are those that are capable of getting a higher education? What about all the other members of a functional society that we rely on?

[1] - https://www.urban.org/research/publication/well-being-and-ba...

Maybe a functional society doesn't necessarily rely on jobs with below-living wages? Point is, the question of whether you should pay living wages to every worker is basically equivalent to whether you should provide living income to every person, employed or not. When you enforce a living wage, some jobs would disappear and you have to answer question 2 to people who lost their jobs. I don't have an answer for question 2 but I think recognizing the theoretical equivalency here would make the discussion much more straightforward.

I am quite on the left I would say (not from or in the US), so

>why should we pay a high school paperboy a living wage?

My opinion is that it is everyone responsibility to create a society were were abject poverty and marginalization is minimized. There are many tools to our disposal, paying a living wage is one.

The point is do you have a problem of people working as paperboy and not being able to live properly? Then you either pay them more or try to make other jobs possible for them. We should be careful not to do it immorally, we should not just "give" to the poor, but we should make sure that they have always a chance to rise.

I do not think of this as a moral obligation to help other, it is simply my answer to the question: Do you want an entire demographic to be hopeless and disillusioned? I do not and I believe sorta high living wages are a good tool often.

ps: this is not meant to be an argumentation for anything, there are no proof or facts in this comments, just heartfelt personal opinions. I find those pretty useful sometimes and hope mines can help too.

edit: the parent was referring to non-adults paperboy, my answer completely ignores the very important concept of families which are particularly important for non-adults

"Pay is determined chiefly by supply and demand in the labor market. Jobs that are more fun pay less because the supply of workers is higher. Fairness is literally not part of this equation."

I think the implication is that society and technology have advanced to the point where, ostensibly, work that can't be automated away should be work that would demand a living wage. If it's tenable for my job to still exist, it's tenable for it to pay me enough to live. If it doesn't... well, that would be less a function of higher level characterizations of the economy or any individual job and more a function of the basic availability of food and housing, anyway. If there isn't enough food and housing, people start dying, but since there does seem to be enough of those, what is happening?

I work retail full-time. It's definitely not "fun," and I definitely can't afford to carry my own weight; I have to rely on family to make ends meet, and I know people who rely on welfare. In regards to the time and opportunity cost of working that job in relation to compensation, it is unfair (imbalanced), but the situation emerges from a context defined by labor's complete lack of leverage, juxtaposed with the, perhaps, overcompensation of the people who support us, encompassed by our mutual desire for society to not collapse.

I think it's funny that you mention $50/hr for delivering papers as if we should be aghast at the mere thought. If it's a job that needs to be done to secure the solvency of the overall business, and that's what it costs to live in the area where whoever holds that job must live, then... that's the going rate. If someone can live on less, they get the job and are paid less. If the business can't afford to pay a full time wage for a full-time paperboy (or a commensurate wage for a part-time one), maybe we don't need or can't afford paperboys. But as a society, at some point it would be prudent to look around and see whether the way people are living is sustainable, or if, say, the inopportune removal of a welfare or familial wealth Jenga brick would cause the entire tower to collapse into, like, tent cities or whatever.

> I think it's funny that you mention $50/hr for delivering papers as if we should be aghast at the mere thought.

$50/hr for delivering papers would most likely cause the prompt and total collapse of the local economy. If you think otherwise, why stop at merely $50/hour? I'm only aghast that the proposed cure is actually much worse than the disease!

> But as a society, at some point it would be prudent to look around and see whether the way people are living is sustainable, or if, say, the inopportune removal of a welfare or familial wealth Jenga brick would cause the entire tower to collapse into, like, tent cities or whatever.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I'd guess we probably disagree on the remedy. I'd defer to the market which would of course require a free market to exist in the first place for things like housing.

So it's okay for banks and large corporations to collapse the national economy, but not for paperboys to collapse the local economy?

Can you expand further on the logical basis for that belief?

What's the "logical basis" for concluding that they think it's good for anyone to collapse economies?

I don't think this weak "gotcha" rhetoric is conducive to good discussion. You're trying to disarm their point by putting words in their mouth. And you're taking it off topic.

For example, since you only mention banks and large corporations, can we assume you're okay with every other possible way economies can be collapsed? No, that would have no "logical basis."

>$50/hr for delivering papers would most likely cause the prompt and total collapse of the local economy.

I imagine it would merely cause the prompt and total collapse of the paperboy position, until efficiencies were created to support it (e.x., there's only one paperboy for n square miles, they oversee a swarm of paper-delivering drones, and the number of papers they deliver justifies a $50/hr salary); people simply decided that physical paper delivery wasn't worth the cost; or they decided that it was worth it, and had their pay and expenses adjusted commensurately.

>I'm only aghast that the proposed cure is actually much worse than the disease!

I'm not sure you've proven that.

>I agree wholeheartedly, but I'd guess we probably disagree on the remedy. I'd defer to the market which would of course require a free market to exist in the first place for things like housing.

The laissez-faire approach to market management is what "innovated" tent cities into existence in the first place, man.

All snark aside, why should we pay a high school paperboy a living wage?

Because we, as a society, are paying that paperboy* a living wage one way or another. The alternative is to let him starve to freeze to death. So, we build robust safety nets to catch these people - food stamps, housing assistance, etc.

Wouldn't it be more efficient to simply pay the person a living wage vs pumping the money through government programs?

* I'm assuming we're talking about an adult employee here, and not a literal paperboy as in the video game. I haven't seen one of those in decades.

Truthfully, they're probably not an employee unless there's a union involved. Independent contractor, most likely.

“Medical licenses are controlled by the government, not the free market.”

Yes. Thankfully. Somewhat irrelevant though.

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