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Comment by csallen | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but this seems arbitrary. Why is $150K great but $30K isn't? At what level of income for software engineers would you consider employers to be "debasing" the values of social stability? What's so unstable about a world in which software engineers don't make a ton of money?

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I guess it's expected in HN that someone would focus on the software engineer pay, but that largely misses the point. I don't think anyone was arguing that the SWE in this case was overpaid. Perhaps there's a case that, in the context of the moderators who make so much less, it can create a wealth inequality that leads to social instability, but I don't thinks there's enough information for that claim.

I would argue that there is a non-arbitrary point below which someone cannot meet the items that produce a stable society. Things like being able to raise a family, save for retirement, pay for healthcare etc. When those things are absent people become more reliant on a government/society has to fill in the gaps. When people live paycheck-to-paycheck, depending on government subsidies, it certainly can affect social stability.

So where is your outrage over the price of nearly all manual labor, fast food jobs, etc? $15/hr is pretty standard for unskilled work.

Who said I don't have similar outrage over those?

As an aside, $15/hr may be common but it's not necessarily "standard". If you look up the Davis-Bacon Act for non-skilled manual labor in the SV area, most rates are around $30/hr + $20/hr fringe (give or take, depending on the position).

> I guess it's expected in HN that someone would focus on the software engineer pay…

This branch of the comments is literally about software engineer pay. See four levels up: "If Facebook could get away with paying engineers $30K/year, no benefits, believe me, they would."

To which you replied, "It's potentially shortsighted to have that sort of myopic utility maximizing mindset…"

> I would argue that there is a non-arbitrary point below which someone cannot meet the items that produce a stable society. Things like being able to raise a family, save for retirement, pay for healthcare etc. When those things are absent people become more reliant on a government/society has to fill in the gaps.

I agree with this. But shouldn't we then be advocating for a government/society capable of filling in the gaps? Expecting individual citizens or corporations to do this out of benevolence seems like a poor strategy.

> But shouldn't we then be advocating for a government/society capable of filling in the gaps?

See my other comment above. There's reasons to believe both the state and the individual have a responsibility in fixing it for both ethical and practical reasons.

People at 30k are not "dependent" on government subsidies in any socially meaningful sense. They're likely paying more taxes than receiving subsidies - and even if they aren't, there's arbitrariness in that "zero" line in this accounting. E.g. you might call public transit subsidies in cities a subsidy, but... it's a social good, so who exactly is that subsidizing? These kind of workers have next to no leverage, so they're payed the minimum they (as a group) need. If you "subsidize" fixed costs, pay is likely to drop. Many of those subsidies might equally be called investments, or plain old payment. This isn't in this sense equivalent to charity, where people really can't take care of themselves.

I don't think you're wrong or anything - as individuals they're obviously relying on those subsidies, it's just the perspective is weird. These people are clearly adding value to society (of the monetary kind, I don't want to get sidetracked by the moral aspect here) - they're just not in a position to claim it for themselves. Being unable to make long term plans is destabilizing: yep! The fact that the government happens to "pay" you, largely from your own tax bill: why is that destabilizing? That must be due to stigma or something, because there doesn't seem to be any underlying mechanic that makes sense.

Am I missing something?

I know the $30k mark is germane to the original article but I deliberately refrained from putting a quantifiable value on where this "dependency" tipping point may be. For one, I don't know and two, it probably changes with other variables like location, number of dependents etc. In some areas, I imagine $30k is enough to need no assistance while in others life becomes unmanageable without it.

I would say that most/all subsidies are in place because they are viewed as a social good. I would also say regardless of where that subsidy qualification point is, it can be destabilizing in the fact that it moves people away from self-sufficiency. When people feel financially insecure, they tend to avoid the kinds of choices that may lead to a more stable society...buying a house, starting a family, starting a business, etc.

Maybe I'm 180 degrees off here. There's certainly been an argument that government subsidies make a society more stable and not less. I've heard some even refer to it as "revolution insurance" for that same reason.

Here's a different take on it: subsidies tend to help both the upper and lower ends of the economic strata. The lower benefits directly and, in cases of business elite, they may benefit from effectively being able to maintain lower wages. So who gets pinched? The middle class, which I think most would feel are necessary for a stable society. Some of our biggest gains as a country came from when the middle class made the largest strides. Not sure I know enough to make that claim, but it's one that's bandied about.

> Here's a different take on it: subsidies tend to help both the upper and lower ends of the economic strata. The lower benefits directly and, in cases of business elite, they may benefit from effectively being able to maintain lower wages. So who gets pinched? The middle class, which I think most would feel are necessary for a stable society. Some of our biggest gains as a country came from when the middle class made the largest strides. Not sure I know enough to make that claim, but it's one that's bandied about.

Makes a lot of sense - but like you, not sure whether sense implies truth.

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