Comment by SamReidHughes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SamReidHughes | Hacker News Reader

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If we're to take the minimum wage example seriously, we'd also have to treat the act of employing people at minimum wage, in a state with lower minimum wage, the same way -- in both cases the person has less compensation per time occupied than the given baseline minimum wage, whatever that is. Likewise, if the minimum wage were lower but downtown rent more affordable, we'd have to treat equivalent longer work hours at the lower minimum wage -- which gives the same effective conditions -- to be a form of "wage theft." So I think you would say that if the minimum wage is too low, paying people at that wage is a form of wage theft. Or simply, paying people at low wages is a form of wage theft.

Minimum wage works because it improves some workers' negotiation positions so that they can capture more of their job's economic surplus -- likewise, somebody sprung with surprise business travel, or surprise retail job responsibilities, is in a poor position to negotiate just compensation for this change in situation. So the presence of some sort of weakness of negotiation position might be what characterizes your generalized notion of wage theft. The minimum wage example is distinct from the others though because it doesn't spring any surprises on the employee.

Minimum wage works because it improves some workers' negotiation positions so that they can capture more of their job's economic surplus

That's great, if the job has enough economic benefit to the employer to cover minimum wage. Once upon a time, it was common for early teens to get their feet wet in the job market by e.g. sweeping a gas station parking lot or washing windows. These were activities that provided some marginal value to the employer, but not enough to cover the current minimum wage. Those jobs don't exist any more.

Instead, kids have to convince an employer that they can provide a much larger return, but with no work history. They also have no way to gradually "ramp up" into the work force. My older kids struggled to get started in the workforce as a result.

Big whoop. I'm not here to enumerate all the pros and cons of the policy.

> Those jobs don't exist any more.

Sure they do. My first few jobs were paid under the table for less than minimum wage in the late 90's. Those businesses are still around and still employing youngsters at that age. They keep it quiet because it's illegal; you have to know someone.

At those first jobs, I received secretarial and retail training and experience. This didn't help me at all when I applied to actual paid positions at retail stores. Nobody gave a damn about my retail experience when I was interviewing because they see it as "unskilled labor". They can hire anybody off the street and teach them to use a register. It also didn't matter when transitioning to programming since they didn't care about anything other than if I could program.

I struggled just as much as your kids did at getting started in the workforce. There's a huge gap between skilled and unskilled labor. The unskilled labor positions are also few and far between. There are too many applicants and not enough positions. For skilled labor, there's a huge gap between what you're taught in college and what's valuable to an employer, but that's another conversation.

In some jurisdictions, minors have a lower min wage and fewer max hours,by law. Exemptions to min wage law (internships) are in place when the employee is doing more watching and learning than doing work.

The average 35, yr old min wage employee isn't impressed that her wage is governed by a law intended to apply to a mythical teen that could be doing her job.

Right. I kind of disclaim the term 'wage theft' because it brings in all sorts of legal connotations like breach of contract etc. It basically says that the law is the only thing that matters.

It makes much more sense to simply reason about what is morally correct (assuming we accept capitalism and the idea that employers deserve to dictate to employees to some degree).

In the full blown Marxist world view any appropriation of surplus value is essentially 'wage theft'. Of course, if that were completely returned to workers, there would be no point in bothering with employees.

Instead, we can consider that if a worker has a wage low enough that their quality of life is really bad (e.g. complete inability to build capital as 100% of wage goes on absolute essentials), if there exists any more surplus value with which they could be paid more, it is reasonable for the employer to do so and unreasonable for them not to.

Is it 'theft' not to? Well... no. In the same way that my landlord doesn't 'steal' my labour by exploiting the fact that buying property is difficult. It's still not great though.

Yep.

> if there exists any more surplus value with which they could be paid more, it is reasonable for the employer to do so and unreasonable for them not to.

The one problem in practice with this is that typically, in a retail setting, employers are in a race to the bottom, and those that don't squeeze their workers get beaten in the market by those that do. It's really the evil customers capturing everything.

Of course, in the technology industry it's par for the course -- it's basically how the patent system and certain aspects of immigration law are designed.

Sam Walton's billionare heirs are confused by your claims.

Walmart is subject to the same effects as every other company. That's why their net profit margin is 3-4%, not 100%.

You are confusing a contract agreement with fraud and rationalizing the latter with a capitalist/marxist rant. Exploitative wages are not illegal and not wage theft. Not paying wage owed as per the contract, by whatever means of deception and coercion however is fraud or theft. It's as simple as that!

I'm trying to find the part of your post that disagrees with the parent. It's hard.

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