Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

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"So many entitled people arguing for an economic caste system…"

I don't see that anywhere in my argument.

"Arguing that your wage should always match or beat inflation is arguing for defacto permanent income inequality."

Do you have an alternative approach? I have not heard any mainstream argument for setting all salaries/wages to be equal.

You have to define income inequality and then determine what level of inequality is acceptable. Should a CEO make more than a worker? In my opinion, probably. Should they make 100x more? I don't think so. If I could make the same money flipping burgers as I can working as a dev (let's say around the median salary of $40k), I'd quit today and most other devs would too. Why should I go to college? Why should I endure the longer hours/on-call? Why deal with the frustration and office BS?

Different jobs make different money because the work carries different value. We should protect those at the bottom and try to make it fair. But fair doesn't mean literal income equality with everyone making $20/hr regardless of job, performance, etc (ie equal and equitable are different).

The fact that workers are seeing real wages decline since the 70s is the problem. If you adjusted them for inflation, then income inequality is not as much of an issue. (You'd still have to adjust capital gains taxes and the real increase in things like executive pay, but at least indexing wages to inflation would have benefited things on the worker side.)

"You’re literally saying your work is always the same amount more valuable than the average labor cost increase incorporated into inflation numbers"

Not if everyone gets the inflation adjustment as they do in that other country - Denmark maybe? The discrepancy can be adjusted by increasing the floor, as that impact will raise the lower end more than the rest of the market (eg the people that need the raise most get the biggest impact while those not at the bottom see minimal effect upto a certain level).

You're literally arguing against yourself. You're saying that workers should not get inflation adjustments. Where do you think that money goes? It goes into the pockets of the executives and the investors (capital instead of labor).

On top of all this, you wrongly assume I'm some high earning person. I make less than $100k and live in a moderately high cost of living area.

Ok, time to put your money where your mouth is. In-N-Out pays its store managers over $100K/year. Their workers make around $25/hour which scales out to $50k/year for a full-time employee.

And trust me, most devs I know couldn't handle flipping burgers. Dealing with customers, dealing with managers, dealing with cleaning restrooms, dealing with late nights/early mornings.

So don't shit on burger flippers...

"So don't shit on burger flippers..."

I'm not. I'm saying if everything paid the same (true income "equality", really equity), then why wouldn't I want to do a job, that is stereotyped as easy and typically low paid? There are tons of burnt out devs who want to quit and do something else.

There aren't any In-N-Out in my state. If I could get a manager position, then I'd consider it (although the range starts below $100k, especially outside of CA).

"And trust me, most devs I know couldn't handle flipping burgers."

Maybe. Many of the devs I know seem like the could (or have). But there are some that seem like they would struggle. I've worked in a warehouse, I've worked in billing, I've worked as a janitor, I've worked retail sales, and I've worked as a house painter. I've even done a weekend gig as a good worker at a BBQ stand. Food service is not my main choice (I'd take that over painting though), but your example pays much better than any of these did. Every job has tough stuff and everyone likes to assume others couldn't do it because they don't have as much grit or whatever, including devs. I think this is mostly just bias.

I switched careers from fast food and restaurant ownership to IT. Almost every dev/engineer/sysadmin I know would last about a week before walking out. We whine about having to do daily standups. Try standing on your feet for 8 hour shifts. I think the people who are stereotyping these jobs as easy are idiots who don't know what they're talking about. The work is tedious, usually hot, with few breaks, with crappy uniforms, with bosses that generally are bad, and with few or crappy benefits.

I brought up In-N-Out because while the job is hot, and probably tedious, the employees seem to genuinely enjoy their jobs. Either that or the management has done an incredible job of brainwashing them.

But for other places, it's not that the employees are any worse than in IT. When I worked fast food in high school, one of my coworkers was the valedictorian in my class who became a doctor on the Navy's dime. Another scored a perfect SAT (in 1982) and got a full ride to Caltech. One guy was so smart, he reverse engineered the displays on some of the kitchen computers to mock the management. We had a real mix of people, both economically and socially diverse. Times have changed, and the US doesn't have as much social or economic mobility, but it was an interesting time.

The only difference I see between the people I work with now, and the people I worked with in my previous life is how much we're paid, and the working conditions. There are assholes in my current company, and assholes in fast food.

Some stores are evening paying store managers $200k per year now (read it in an article about a month ago).

I'm saying that if you give everyone a raise matching inflation (all things being equal), the people's wages who rose naturally (and contributed to CPI by virtue of raising labor cost of goods) are no better off than they were before.

My software engineering salary buying less of car/house/food than it did last year is a reflection (in an abstract sense) that my total share of "value" is relatively smaller by comparison to the factory worker, farmer, etc.

In other words: the economy is putting more of a premium on people who make things that everyone buys than it did the year prior. My take is that this is totally ok. The value of goods, services, and labor relative to one another change over time. Raising my salary in precise lockstep with the increase in cost of goods will only lead (indirectly) to more inflation.

Put another way: The company isn't compensating you in Abstract Adjusted-for-Buying-Power Compensation Units. They aren't guaranteeing your work entitles you to the same lifestyle every year, year after year.

They're compensating you in dollars. If your best argument for an 11% raise is that "stuff is more expensive", it's a lot less convincing than "I'm 11% more productive".

It sucks that things are more expensive, but if the alternative is freezing everyone's relative buying power where it's at right now, I'd prefer not to do so. Because I think that people growing my food and making things in factories deserve to get ahead, but in order for that to happen, (all things being equal, even if you drove profits and executive pay down to some "acceptable" level) costs of things might have to increase.

All that is a super abstract and hand-wavy argument ignoring really important factors over the past several decades. Now of course, the reality of the situation is that a lot of productivity increase went straight to the top instead of improving compensation. But wage-inflation for all doesn't solve that.

But in my abstract hypothetical scenario: - where the only relevant factors to CPI are labor cost - and we've effectively max'd out productivity per worker - so wage increases aren't offset by output

then I'll take increase costs relative to my personal lifestyle if it means less people with essential jobs living paycheck to paycheck. I don't want everyone on the same salary, but in a scenario where vampire squids aren't sucking all excess wealth out of the system, I'm ok with my tech salary being relatively closer to farmers and factory workers. (or really arriving at whatever unmolested market price makes sense)

"My software engineering salary buying less of car/house/food than it did last year is a reflection (in an abstract sense) that my total share of "value" is relatively smaller by comparison to the factory worker, farmer, etc"

That's true if that factory worker or farmer is also getting a raise. It can still be true if those workers are getting raises higher than inflation even if you as a dev gets an inflation adjustment. The thing I was saying is that I should get inflation adjusted and those other people should be getting more than inflation adjusted by moving up the floor.

"it's a lot less convincing than "I'm 11% more productive"."

It can still be convincing if the company is able to charge 11% more for the same output you are producing.

"Now of course, the reality of the situation is that a lot of productivity increase went straight to the top instead of improving compensation. But wage-inflation for all doesn't solve that."

Not entirely, but maybe a little. The fact that the top are absorbing the increases while the workers absorb inflation is the problem. If wages are inflating as they are now, the at least puts pressure on the top to stop sucking up the extra to stay competitive. Maybe. I can't imagine how good life could have been if real wages hadn't decreased for the past 50 years.

"I'll take increase costs relative to my personal lifestyle if it means less people with essential jobs living paycheck to paycheck."

I'd rather make the top pay. I don't make all that much.

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