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Comment by bkmartin | Hacker News Reader

This is a really great study. I would be equally thrilled if someone did something similar in the United States to see how our poor and working poor make ends meet so that we can stop making crap up in our own prejudiced and biased minds.

<smallrant> - Equal pay isn't so much about the money as it is about the value and dignity of all people to have their time valued. Time is the most important resource for us all that we can't get more of. If you can't pay someone enough money to do a job for them to live, then maybe that job doesn't need done, or you need to reevaluate how you value people.</smallrant>

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> I would be equally thrilled if someone did something similar in the United States to see how our poor and working poor make ends meet so that we can stop making crap up in our own prejudiced and biased minds.

There's literally thousands of them.

http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/411382_surve.pdf

http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SpendingPatterns...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14690040

http://www.uctc.net/access/23/Access%2023%20-%2007%20-%20THE...

http://www.americaspower.org/sites/default/files/Trisko_2014...

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/~/media/publications/PDFs/nut...

http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/u/working_paper06-36.p...

Part of the problem is that you can find a huge corpus of studies that support pretty much whatever position you want to take.

- You think poor people are shiftless layabouts who spend all their money on trivial garbage? There's a whole series of think tanks putting out papers that agree with you.

- You think poor people are noble hard workers who through sheer bad luck or malice by the upper classes have ended up in a place where they can barely get by? I could get you a 1,000 pages of studies by Wednesday on that.

and so on.

Because the studies are so voluminous, you can also find almost impossibly fine-grained studies, like "A study on petroleum energy costs as a percent of net-income for single white mothers in non-coastal states" or whatever.

It takes almost impossibly focused and thorough critical thinking to assemble conclusions from this flood and it turns out taking meaningful action is even harder.

I guess we need a machine to sift through all of that and give us a clearer picture.

While I totally agree with your basic sentiment about finding data for a particular confirmation bias, I really just mean an objective study that tracks urban and rural patterns across different areas of the country. It would be even more awesome if each state would have one done since state laws can really effect what supplementary income programs are available and to whom. It would be great to have that comprehensive picture BEFORE trying to take meaningful action or for an opinion. I'm just looking for raw data without a prescribed hypothesis. The simple question, How do they do it?

I'm not looking to give answers as to reasons for their situation... I just want to know how they survive from one area to the next in that situation.

I would bet that there's some studies out there that are like that. I only have a passing interest in the topic, but I'm sure there's various journals and thinktanks where such a study must have been performed at some time.

Don't forget the folks using a study's results to justify a program directed at a totally separate demographic (inner city study tried to applied to rural area or vice versa).

One of the really interesting problems is scaling up pilot programs to large scale. There's no end of successful pilot programs. What's been found however, is that when you try to scale a pilot program, who's members are usually made up of highly motivated/qualified specialists, and try to incorporate people who aren't invested in the program/who aren't specialists (often because there simply aren't enough to populate large-scale programs), many pilot programs turn into failures.

It makes policy decisions, even at the state level, very difficult.

In addition, the best "do-ers" to execute pilot programs aren't always (perhaps even are rarely) good educators for the next round of specialists to scale up the program. They'd rather be on the ground than writing documents about best practices. So a lot of institutional knowledge from the pilot programs are lost.

There's probably a good opportunity for an app/service/startup that makes recording this institutional knowledge more seamless for the on-the-ground "do-ers," but I'm not sure what the business model would be.

> There's probably a good opportunity for an app/service/startup that makes recording this institutional knowledge more seamless for the on-the-ground "do-ers," but I'm not sure what the business model would be.

Most government social programs take bids for outside companies to do technical assistance or manage the grant's data. Get an office on K Street in Washington D.C. and bid on that part of the grant.

There is so much wrong with this way of thinking.

First, wages have nothing to do with the value of a person.

Second, getting rid of a job because it doesn't pay enough is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I hope, since this is the way you feel, that you don't patronize establishments that pay less than a livable wage or if you do that you personally make up the difference to those who are serving you.

</smallrantresponse>

A job exists so that surplus value can be extracted from labor.

If an owner will not pay a worker a fair wage, some might find profiting from their undervalued labor as morally abhorrent.

I hope that people would choose to support businesses that fell in line with their values.

"A job exists so that surplus value can be extracted from labor."

As the first rule of sociology tells us: "Some do, some don't."

I think one reason that taxes & government jobs exist is because this doesn't hold true for some things that need to get done.

Anyhow, (I'm sure it's been beaten to death), who decides what a fair wage is? If it's the consumer, then yes, he/she should take their business elsewhere.

I'd agree. There are some jobs which are not profitable and need supplementary funding to be done.

But in our modern capitalist system, if you're working for someone, you have a job because more value can be extracted from the work you do than what you're paid. The same holds true if the business you work for is being subsidized by the government. Your employer is still skimming off a profit from the subsidy.

The worker and employer should decide what fair wage is, but this means that they should have an equal ground to negotiate on. Large groups of organized well-funded and well-lawyered people are setting the compensation rules for an unorganized and financially desperate pool of labor. Negotiations for fair pay cannot happen in those circumstances. Labor has all the cards stacked against them. Laws that limit the ability of or outright ban organized labor need to be repealed to that end.

Voting with your wallet might have a small effect, but that requires consumers to be well versed in how each business runs and compensates their workers. When the trend is that the majority of workers and yourself have been consistently given the shaft for decades, it is difficult to enact change solely through educated consumption.

> Laws that limit the ability of or outright ban organized labor

Are you talking about "Right to work" laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law), which seem pretty benign to me, or something more extreme?

> If an owner will not pay a worker a fair wage, some might find profiting from their undervalued labor as morally abhorrent.

What if the surplus value extracted does not exceed a fair wage? If a fair wage - however you define that - is still required, then the likely result is that the value goes entirely unextracted.

This brings us to a basic philosophical question: is a laborer who is unemployed better off than one being exploited for an "unfair" wage?

Workers create value.

If the value created is not enough to pay a living wage then the job can probably be done without. Though, if the value created is high, but market conations allow for less than a living wage by exploiting workers then raising the minimum wage rises worker pay without costing a job.

In the end this is only a problem is the US because society subsidizes companies employing low pay workers. The might be created plenty of value, but companies get to extract it not just from workers but also from welfare programs.

I've enjoyed reading the "U.S. Financial Diaries": http://www.usfinancialdiaries.org/. I build online and mobile banking for credit unions and have been using the stories they've collected as a gut check to make sure we're keeping the low- to moderate-income households in mind.

Great link, thank you for sharing. This is pretty much what I was looking for.

W/r/t <smallrant> it seems that the gender pay gap is one problem nestled into the bigger problem of stagnating wages for most Americans over the past half-century or so.

I think that the gender pay gap is a social bias whereas the minimum wage is an even deeper devaluing of people and recognizing the value and dignity of someone's time. Even if you eliminated the pay gap today wages would still be stagnated. Once people are paid a respectable wage for a full day's work, we'll truly see what our society values... what are we willing to pay increased prices for? (Not that raising the minimum wage to a respectable number would really have much of an effect on the consumer price index anyway)

Just a little link on the minimum wage. http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm (this thread is starting to drift a bit, sorry)

I think there is a natural downward pressure on wages, and it takes real effort to fight it. Unfortunately, people have these unfounded fears that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs when in fact there's no evidence that places with higher minimum wages suffer job losses as a result of the increase.

They should just make increases to the minimum automatic and then congress doesn't have to worry about appearing to harm businesses when they are actually not.

It's a good example of lawmakers doing something stupid that harms real people just to "appear" to be pro-business or fiscal conservative.

Change wages, there's always a period of adjustment. Some jobs do disappear. Others get more work to do. Then prices adjust, and things settle down.

I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof? It's common sense that if you wage the price of something you buy less of it. Unfortunately for the poor, minimum wage jobs are rather elastic. In France, with a relatively high minimum wage, unemployment is double digits and places like McDonald's have gone to digital order machines as opposed to hiring more cashiers. While that might increase demand for computer machine manufacturing and services, the minimum wage students and unskilled persons aren't likely to have the skills needed to gain those jobs.

You also have the chronically unemployed in both the U.S. as well as places like France where it's livable to simply collect the government check.

Minimum wage shouldn't be a career. I have little sympathy for those who haves worked minimum wage for ten years or more. That suggests a lack of ambition, intelligence or both. Even the pimple faced 16 year old at Chick fil'a eventually gets promoted to team leader potentially in a matter of months or a year. Those who have worked minimum wage for 5 years or more, I'd be very interested in their work history, their criminal record, their tardiness, their productivity.

At a place like McDonalds, if you just show up on time consistently, you get raises. If you're a hard worker and express the desire there are plenty of assistant manager trainee tracks available.

Raising minimum wage isn't the answer -- taking away the incentive to be lazy would do more than throwing people an extra $2 per hour. The same bad decisions that got them in that situation are still the same bad decisions that they will keep making; unless there is incentive to stop.

Someone right now could go to North Dakota and get a job doing local truck deliveries paying up to $100k per year, some positions will even train. Working in the oil patch down in Texas and Louisiana offers high paying entry level positions that quickly end up paying over $100k.

My point is that there is always a way out of a minimum wage existence, the problem is that many people are content getting their free Medicaid, EBT cards and subsidized housing; so there is less incentive to move across the country or take a class somewhere or join a union apprentice program.

I am not saying end welfare or anything like that, but a safety net ought not become a way of life as it has for millions of people.

>I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof?

Sure there are some studies that say it doesn't. http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf

But it's a point of contention with economists.

In any case your examples are a gross simplification based on anectodes and reduced to typical republican/libertarian talking points.

There's plenty of evidence for what I said if you look.[1]

France is basically a socialist country, so there is a lot more going on there other than minimum wage. It's difficult to compare with other countries, because there are different tax rates and other social programs like free health Universal care that make the costs of being poor less.

But within the U.S., minimum wage varies by state, right? So PA has a $7.25 minimum while CA has $9.00. What is the unemployment rate difference between those two states?

Minimum wage has been increased dozens of times over the past few decades. There is ample history of what happens when it's increased, and I don't think there were massive layoffs every time it was increased in the past.

Raising the minimum wage is an answer, because without a legal lower limit, there will always be an incentive for employers to pay less and less. It's like gravity. You need a floor to stop the fall. And then you can build up from there.

If I can say, I don't think your statements about how easy it is to get a higher salary than minimum wage is correct for a lot of people. Perhaps you can't see yourself living at that level for too long, but there are plenty of people who work 2 and 3 jobs, hardly see their kids, are ruining their health, just to make ends meet. Can't call those people lazy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#Criticism_of_the_n...

There is ample history of what happens when it's increased, and I don't think there were massive layoffs every time it was increased in the past.

You have to remember than increasing the minimum wages won't necessarily have an impact if current wages are already higher than the new minimum wage.

I remember reading that the new $15/hr minimum wage in Seattle (which is being phased in) will have almost no impact at first since very few folks are paid less than the new minimum.

Actually the oil-patch job bonanza ended with the fall in oil prices and the bust phase is kicking in for the "boom-bust" economy here. Layoffs abound.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/20/us-baker-hughe-res...

Where did this notion come from that wages equal the value of a person? If this were true, shouldn't every single person make the same amount, regardless of age, experience, knowledge, or ability?

About minimum wage: do you know who really lobbies the hardest for increased minimum wage? Unions. Because they peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage. If they can succeed in getting the minimum wage raised, they can raise the pay for all of their workers who are already making 3 to 5 times the minimum wage.

What's with the union hate? Unions are corporations for workers. They are trying to maximize their compensation from the amount of value that their workers create, just as business owners are trying to maximize the profit they scrape off their workers.

They are fighting for a fairer wage for their constituents, and if such organizations existed for the majority of laborers, we wouldn't need a minimum wage.

But that's beside the point. A fair minimum wage is important because in 2013, 88.7% of American workers did not have a union to negotiate just compensation for them.

There was no union hate in my comment. There were facts about unions who lobby to have minimum wage increased because it affects their bottom line.

The value of a person is not equal to their wage. That is exactly my point! All people, in my belief, have AT LEAST the right to earn enough money to live off of without government assistance if they work 40 hours a week. They should have a safe place to live, clothes, enough quality food to eat, and enough to afford their other basic living expenses. It would be tight. But I'm not advocating everyone should have 10s of thousands in disposable income, just that they shouldn't need any government assistance to get by. That is simply valuing them as a person. That means stop exploiting people. There is a difference between free market and exploitation. And guess what... the exploited are tired, very tired... and that is why minimum wage reform is becoming an issue... because the problem is REAL. Try living it sometime... helps add perspective.

What amazes me is that previously women didn't need to work in the 70's, 80's, AFAIR, and the dad earned enough to keep 8 kids!

Now, both have to work just to keep a minimun living standard, and can only keep 1 kid... in daycare.

Also, families having only 1 kid were way too rare in the 80's, today, that's the norm.

Yes, because the "minimum living standard" has risen due to the extra income. If everyone's income doubled (adjusted for inflation), that then so would what society considers a minimum living.

This sentiment also seems to gloss over the contribution of stay at home partners. Just because they don't get paid, doesn't mean they aren't producing anything. Thus, the jump in resources from moving to double income is not the full amount of the second income.

Look at the lifestyles of folks back in the 1970's. Houses were smaller, people had just one car, etc.

The reason households "need" two incomes is because people want stuff.

Real estate costs have risen - thats a huge undercounted cost. I remember reading that at one point the avg house price was 3-4 times annual household income. In many economic hotspots around the West today that seems like a fable from a mythical past.

I think in Kansas you can get a house very cheap

The big reason was that from 1945 until the late 70s, America had a huge wealth gap compared the rest of the world. Half of Europe was communist, the other half recovering from a major war. Asia was still poor and technological backwards AND was recovering from war.

Western Europe's heavy handed socialism wasn't as competitive as their light socialism is now.

America was the undisputed leader of the economically free world.

All the sudden by the 1970's, the US had to start competing more and more with the rest of the world. Our super high wages for unskilled labor just weren't competitive on a global scale.

Also, women moving in the job market actually lowers wages because the worker supply expanded greatly.

whats the solution? less workforce?

china wont stop, and capitalism will ruthlessly choose the cheapest route.

I definitely understand what you are saying. But I would rather compare families of 4 since that is close to the norm today. Houses are bigger, real estate is more expensive, shopping is not often walkable (in suburbia/rural areas). So for the stay at home parent they are stuck if you only have 1 car. This isn't very good for when the kids need to visit a doctor or the homemaker needs to shop for groceries, etc. We live in a much faster paced world. How many people come home from work today and put on slippers and a sweater. Then eat their dinner and read the paper or watch the news? The Norman Rockwell version of American life has mostly disappeared. The Joneses are fast, keeping up takes lots of time and money.

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