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Comment by rad_gruchalski | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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?

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