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> I think an alternative to raising minimum wage is to require all companies to offer a lot of paid vacation, like 3 or 4 months of paid vacation every year.

> If people need more money, they can use their paid vacation time to work a second job. They'd be working the same 40-hours a week, but would receive double pay, thus increasing their income.

I’m sorry to jump out at your comment with this but where do you think companies take the money to pay salaries from? Because they don’t print it.

This trend of “we want money and don’t want to work” was magnified during covid and now it spirals out to a completely grotesque level.

If people think it’s so easy to find paying customers to pay for “no work”, why don’t they all just go solo?

No, instead everyone wants to have safety of not having to think where to get paying work from but also get paid for not having to do much.

Eat a cookie and have a cookie.

That's why I propose it as an alternative to raising minimum wage. Iff we're going to force employers to give more, I'd rather see it done through more paid vacation.

If you're going to force employers to give more, a lot of them will just close shop and you'll end up with massive unemployment.

You can propose all you want, but if you want it to have the desired effect, you actually need to think through it and consult experts.

> If you're going to force employers to give more, a lot of them will just close shop and you'll end up with massive unemployment.

Strawman argument. See: countries that already have said 30+days of paid vacation -- without "massive unemployment" (read: France, Germany).

> You can propose all you want, but if you want it to have the desired effect, you actually need to think through it

I'd say the GP has done this and explained it well... but you have avoided its main proposals.

> and consult experts.

Of which, you are definitely not one (read: an expert).

> See: countries that already have said 30+days of paid vacation -- without "massive unemployment" (read: France, Germany).

That’s not how it works, don’t know about France but for sure not in Germany.

In Germany, an employee gets a minimum of 20 days paid vacation AND there are 11 days (most of the country, varies by Bundesland) national public holidays. That accounts to a minimum of 31 days off but it is not 31 days of paid vacation.

Your employer pays you 100% salary for your PTO and pays 100% salary for any bank holiday on the calendar. How do you imagine requiring an employer to pay for your “vacation” only so you go shop around and work somewhere else. Do you even need “vacation“?

I see technical issues: Every day off has a direct cost to it, where does the employer get a person to replace you while you are on your “vacation“? Who foots the bill for the search and training of your replacement? Who’s paying the health insurance? Who’s paying the accident insurance? What happens if you have an accident while on another job during your PTO? If you have a company car, are you going to use it to get to the other job? An employer has a right to request you back to work in exceptional circumstances. What if you are on the other job and the employer requests you back? Are you going to come back rested after your “vacation”? Is it even beneficial for you to work more from the tax perspective? Who gets to decide which PTO is the “real vacation”, and which is the “I go shop around vacation”?

If you’re on minimum wage, how much are you going to make more in those 5 or 10 days? In the US $7.25 x 80? How much will you take home after tax? How many people on a minimum wage work full time and have full time PTO so that they could really benefit from having even more PTO to do some extra work?

I didn't downvote, but something which is spectacularly disruptive to companies and means low paid workers don't get any more money unless they find someone that wants to hire them for only 3 months at a time seems like a complete non-starter.

That's fair. Also some people might not want two jobs.

The companies employing them for their primary job might be interested, in order to fill their 3-month vacancy…

So your proposal is: if one consenting adult wants to pay another consenting adult for working more than 8-9 months out of the year, then one (or both) of them should be kidnapped and sent to prison?[1]

Yeah, that sounds insane.

[1] The logical consequence of breaking your proposal, were it codified into law.

Your point seems to be that regulating employers is insane.

Do you oppose all employer regulations then? What do you think should happen if two consenting adults, one of which is desperate for food, agree to an arrangement where one is paid 3 dollars per hour in exchange for hard work?

> Do you oppose all employer regulations then?

Yes.

> What do you think should happen if two consenting adults, one of which is desperate for food, agree to an arrangement where one is paid 3 dollars per hour in exchange for work?

I think this should be legal, for if it were illegal, then someone would be getting paid $0/hour (which is less than $3/hour) for no work being done at all.

To cut to the chase: you should just ask me what should happen if someone has exhausted all avenues for sustenance, and failed. Then what should they do? Should they starve?

My answer is: no, it would be morally justified for them to steal resources (i.e. food) from other non-consenting adults in order for them not to die under extreme circumstances like this. But notice that we'd still deem it as "justified theft" (where the theft is still intrinsically wrong, but justified under the extreme circumstances).

Fortunately, "extreme circumstances" are not the conditions we're living under in developed Western countries, where even the poorest people live fabulously wealthy in comparison to almost everyone in human history.

In particular, there doesn't seem to be any need to mandate (under literal threat of kidnap & imprisonment) that people not work more than 9 months per year. That sounds totally insane, especially since no one is forcing anyone to work 12 months per year anyway.

I see where you're coming from. I proposed it as an idea, and specifically an alternative idea to forever raising minimum wage over the decades. In that regard your counter argument of "eliminate minimum wage and all regulations" is outside the realm I was arguing in.