Comments on: The Distressed Labor Market

By: Chad W. Richardson

Chad W. Richardson — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:29:00 +0000

Unless you’re old or sick you won’t die of exposure, and nobody needs those people anyway. Sleep in your god damn car. If the cops arrest you, it’s probably because you’re antisocial, and you should be in jail anyway. As for clothing, I said NEW. There are plenty of places to pick up things second hand, even for free, often donated by people like me out of the goodness of our own hearts. In reality, though, most people complaining of poverty are nowhere near needing to do any of this, so it’s pretty much a moot point.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:19:00 +0000

Since most urban areas now do not allow us to use wood-burning stoves, I’d argue that “electricity” or “gas” would in fact be necessities, especially in the upper Midwest. Not even prehistorically did people manage to live in these latitudes without fire. And, without the money to buy land to build a shanty on, how do you propose we get by without rent? The homeless are arrested in many cities. New clothing? Okay, well maybe strictly not NEW. But most employers expect you to come to work with very few holes in your clothes, and most clothing today (particularly women’s clothing if my experience is anything to go by) does not last more than a couple of years. Since I don’t have my own goats or the knowledge of how to spend fiber, how do you expect me to clothe myself?

Seriously though – many shirts I’m finding now develop holes after one or two wearings.

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Possibly true. It would be useful to know more about these older workers. How many of them are part of a married couple whose children are more grown up? In previous culture, a mother wouldn’t necessarily go to work out of the home in that situation.

Unionization *is* a possible interpretation of that graph, but we need to know more of how many of those people are the primary wage-earners for their households, I feel.

By: Chad W. Richardson

Chad W. Richardson — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:10:00 +0000

This “living wage” stuff is really a misnomer since it factors in electricity, rent, new clothing, gas etc. when people don’t actually need most of this stuff to survive, or even meet a standard of living acceptable in many other societies.

By: Alison

Alison — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 03:50:00 +0000

You are right in your interpretation of the first graph, but I think the union remark has more to do with the second graph. The two biggest changes were a loss of 16-19 year olds and a gain of 35-65 year olds. This implies that there are more people trying to make a “career” out of <$10 and hour and fewer people doing it as a way to make a little extra cash after school. These older people trying to make a living off their low paying job could unioinize to get paid a living wage without having to take a second job (something that is not address in this particular article, but is more and more common in the US)

By: Harlequin

Harlequin — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:28:00 +0000

High earning, sorry, predictive text problem

By: Harlequinastronomy

Harlequinastronomy — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:26:00 +0000

Do they compute these numbers for other age groups? The workforce as a whole has gotten older and more educated; I’m wondering if this change is more or less than that experienced by thought-earning groups.

By: Saba

Saba — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:20:00 +0000

You know what I find kind of awful? Jobs that make anything more than $10/hr are not considered “low wage”. I have yet to live in a city where less than about $18/hr would give me the capacity to cover food, clothing, rent, healthcare, etc. and actually save anything.

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:50:00 +0000

Odd, this seems to me a natural consequence of subsidizing liberal arts degrees. You have an increased population of people (college and high school attainment has increased significantly since 1979, with most of the increase coming from the lower and middle classes) who would have been working lower income jobs before, but now have a degree… that doesn’t train them to do anything more profitable.

By: decius

decius — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:43:00 +0000

Because the author of the charts is abusing the scientific method to support an agenda.

You don’t use science to show that you’re right, you use science to become right

By: decius

decius — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:40:00 +0000

Tax-subsidy schemes are direct government intervention. Period.

I do agree that trying to treat the entire country as homogeneous (especially in terms of a ‘living wage’) will not give reasonable results.

By: Ted_Howard

Ted_Howard — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:42:00 +0000

Alternatively, you could just do the sensible thing. Almost every “problem” is best resolved by some tax-subsidy scheme, rather than direct government intervention. Markets do a fantastic job of allocating resources efficiently, but we may want to intervene on distributional issues. If we believe that wages are too low from what we view as reasonable, then we should have an after-tax minimum wage (i.e. the employer’s pay whatever the employees marginal product is and we redistribute money to them via some optimal non-linear income tax). This policy minimizes distortions, but you still get the redistribution.

Also, I hate the term “living wage.” It’s basically just a rhetoric tool that has no meaning. What if I decided tomorrow that $150 per hour is a living wage. Should we mandate employers pay $150 an hour? Why is $15 or $10 reasonable, but not $150? Or is $150 reasonable? At least make a coherent argument for why some number is desirable, preferably through a fully-specific, general equilibrium model with a utilitarian social planner, otherwise I don’t take much of these numbers seriously.

By: THE DISTRESSED LABOR MARKET | Welcome to the Doctor's Office

THE DISTRESSED LABOR MARKET | Welcome to the Doctor's Office — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:01:08 +0000

[…] from SocImages […]

By: Mr. S

Mr. S — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:48:00 +0000

How are these charts proof that unions need strengthening or the minimum wage needs to be raised? That is a complete non-sequitor.

By: garrison5555

garrison5555 — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:33:00 +0000

You’re probably right, especially if there was a sharp drop in the share of 16-19 year olds in the low-wage workforce recently.