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Socrates92
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Interesting article. I’ll respond once I’ve had time to re-read it without skimming and form an reasoned opinion.
What Is a Just Wage?
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blackforest
Well-known member
THANK YOU!!! My favorite CAF answer! 
blackforest
Well-known member
Have you read Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich?
The author goes “undercover” working various working-poor jobs and documents how she makes ends meet . . . or doesn’t. It’s a few years old but still relevant.
Read that first, then we can start the roast.
The author goes “undercover” working various working-poor jobs and documents how she makes ends meet . . . or doesn’t. It’s a few years old but still relevant.
Read that first, then we can start the roast.
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RandomAlias
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My definition also mentioned dignity, for which reason a person who has no material need may still require fair compensation. Nevertheless some wealthy people perform works of service to others for free (philanthropy by giving their time rather than their money).
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Eric_Hyom
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At some point we shall all have to stand before God, so a just wage will be judged by God and not man. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is a terrifying story if you are rich.
Poverty and justice Bible.
The Bible Society have produced a version of the Bible which highlights in vivid orange the 3000 verses in the Bible that relate to poverty and justice. Flick through The Poverty and Justice Bible and there are highlighted verses on almost every page – only a spattering in books such as 1 & 2 Samuel and Chronicles but the orange highlights grow in density into Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah. When it comes to books such as Amos or James, the majority of the page turns orange.
Poverty and justice Bible.
The Bible Society have produced a version of the Bible which highlights in vivid orange the 3000 verses in the Bible that relate to poverty and justice. Flick through The Poverty and Justice Bible and there are highlighted verses on almost every page – only a spattering in books such as 1 & 2 Samuel and Chronicles but the orange highlights grow in density into Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah. When it comes to books such as Amos or James, the majority of the page turns orange.
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Holly3278
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I personally like the concept of a living wage. In other words, workers should be paid a wage which is sufficient for them to have a decent standard of living in the local economy in which they live. That’s the minimum standard though. The wage would be higher depending on the skills and experience of the worker. However, ALL people regardless of skills or experience should be paid a decent enough wage to maintain a decent standard of living in their area. In determining the wage, factors such as the cost of living would have to be taken into account.
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Theo520
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So you want a minimum wage that varies by your zip code.
It’s a nice thought, but people in certain zip codes just won’t be hired for jobs. The employer will instead select someone from a cheaper zip code.
If you think it’s the location of the business and not the employee that determines the wage, you are simply pushing shops to relocate a mile down the road, in a cheaper zip code.
It’s a nice thought, but people in certain zip codes just won’t be hired for jobs. The employer will instead select someone from a cheaper zip code.
If you think it’s the location of the business and not the employee that determines the wage, you are simply pushing shops to relocate a mile down the road, in a cheaper zip code.
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Socrates92
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Ok, but now you have to define “fair compensation”. Is this equal to the market price of labour, or do you have some other fairness metric in mind?
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Socrates92
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Not yet. I’ll put in on my list. I actually have a week off work, so some free time.
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Eric_Hyom
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Will God understand; that people in the western world deserve a far higher standard of living; than those living in any slum town.
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Socrates92
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Yes, zip-code specific wage floors would be a great way to kill jobs in high-cost-of-living areas.
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RandomAlias
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That is a good question. The market is a funny thing, and sometimes seeking the “market value” too aggressively defined as bottom dollar leads to low quality and weak performance.
A personal anecdote: One summer I worked as a seasonal groundskeeper, cutting grass and weeds at a medium size company. The previous summer they had employed about 12 workers at minimum wage. That’s the market value of labor, right? The results weren’t that good. For minimum wage, the workers did the minimum job that they could do and still keep the job.
The summer they hired me, they tried something different. They hired 4 laborers for about 1.5 times minimum wage. If you do the math, they reduced their labor costs by half. We kept the grounds in much better condition than the previous summer’s crew, needed less supervision and direction, gained the trust of the company, had a good time, and honestly we weren’t working close to 100 percent. We were working at a comfortable pace, neither slack nor stressed.
That summer, what was fair compensation?
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RandomAlias
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(continued from above) Seeking the bottom similarly leads to inferior merchandise. If customers weren’t so obsessed with low prices, they might spend less overall by paying a little more for better quality, longer lasting, better functioning goods.
This is a cultural thing. When we are all obsessed with lowest prices and lowest wages, it leads to inefficiency, dissatisfaction, lackluster performance, and a weak economy. I don’t see an easy fix because the attitude is everywhere at every level.
This is a cultural thing. When we are all obsessed with lowest prices and lowest wages, it leads to inefficiency, dissatisfaction, lackluster performance, and a weak economy. I don’t see an easy fix because the attitude is everywhere at every level.
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Eric_Hyom
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It sounds like you are searching for a just wage in America. A just wage would overlook American zip codes, and search for a just wage for people all over the world.
A toilet cleaner in America will earn several times the amount of a toilet cleaner doing the same job in the slums of India.
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Socrates92
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Well, still depends how you look at it. Technically, the previous years’ workers seem to have been paid much more “fairly” than you were. (They did 1/3 of the work, but still got 2/3s of the pay). If they had a personal preference for laziness and mediocrity, I wouldn’t necessarily argue that they were treated unfairly. In fact, I could argue that the employer received quite the “unfair” deal in the prior instance. However, it sounds like a safe assumption that all four of you subsequently employed preferred your deal.
I think we still have to define market value a little better as well. The market value of a groundskeeper is roughly the average value of all the individual wages of groundskeepers in a given market. How are your units of labour defined? We usually think of labour in terms of man-hours - something which I consider to have major flaws for many industries, landscaping included. Assuming a given task needs to get done, workers are paid, within limits, according to how much they can drag it out. For landscaping, I’d argue that it makes more sense to define labour according to a certain quantity of work to be completed. Because different workers are going to have different productivity, this could lead to one worker being paid $13/hr, while another is paid $18/hr for exactly the same type of work, both of these wages being based on the same market value for grounds-keeping labour.
The place you worked made a smart business decision motivated by market considerations, and was rewarded for it.
I think we still have to define market value a little better as well. The market value of a groundskeeper is roughly the average value of all the individual wages of groundskeepers in a given market. How are your units of labour defined? We usually think of labour in terms of man-hours - something which I consider to have major flaws for many industries, landscaping included. Assuming a given task needs to get done, workers are paid, within limits, according to how much they can drag it out. For landscaping, I’d argue that it makes more sense to define labour according to a certain quantity of work to be completed. Because different workers are going to have different productivity, this could lead to one worker being paid $13/hr, while another is paid $18/hr for exactly the same type of work, both of these wages being based on the same market value for grounds-keeping labour.
The place you worked made a smart business decision motivated by market considerations, and was rewarded for it.
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Socrates92
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I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
Employees in general within America can demand a much higher wage than those equivalent ones in the slums of India. Does this mean that those American workers have an absolute need for those proportionately higher wages (as opposed to psychological or social need because we’re used to better conditions)? To an extent - bare bones cost-of-living is more expensive - I’ll grant. But probably not to the extent that most of us think.
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Socrates92
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To elaborate on my argument, I’ll agree with this with one qualification. Seeking the market value tends to hurt a business in-so-far as this market value is poorly defined and measured. The company you worked at first bought an inferior “product” (as much as I hate using that term to refer to human labour), probably thinking that they were buying a superior product. They acknowledge that they miscalculated and subsequently bought a “product” of superior value, in effect getting a big discount on the market.
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DarkLight
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I think that’s actually a real issue. I know a lot of our cheap products are obtained by denying just treatment to those working abroad to produce goods for us. Unfortunately it’s almost impossible in this day and age to completely avoid that.
(Really once you go international it needs to be broadened from talking about wages. The amount of the wage doesn’t matter - it’s what you get for it.)
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Socrates92
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So, I found an online version, read the first two chapters, and skimmed a bit of the rest. I think I got a pretty good idea what it was about. As interesting as it was, the author was addressing purely the lowest end of the wage scale. I won’t argue that trying to get by on min-wage-level jobs is difficult, but that wasn’t really what my post was about. I was addressing the average worker, making the point that, as he is undeniably better off than the average worker of 50yrs ago, one would expect that we’d see significantly more ownership of the economy by the average guy relative to the 1% or whoever stereotypically ran the economy before. Instead, this is not what we see, as the average American also has drastically more debt, and still a dismal savings rate.
As a result, the average middle-class person is himself on a basically subsistence level (meaning that he’s not becoming more independent from his boss). This hurts his bargaining power, reducing what he can command in pay (he needs the next week’s pay, and can’t walk away if a raise is too low), probably severely affects morale (chained to the same job for years to maintain relatively expensive lifestyle), and makes the average guy much less likely to start his own enterprise. This last point is what is most likely to hurt the countries poorest, in terms of lost competition for their labour.
I realize that there are a lot of complicating factors (mostly gov’t induced), but I’ll stand by my point that the problem is largely cultural.
As a result, the average middle-class person is himself on a basically subsistence level (meaning that he’s not becoming more independent from his boss). This hurts his bargaining power, reducing what he can command in pay (he needs the next week’s pay, and can’t walk away if a raise is too low), probably severely affects morale (chained to the same job for years to maintain relatively expensive lifestyle), and makes the average guy much less likely to start his own enterprise. This last point is what is most likely to hurt the countries poorest, in terms of lost competition for their labour.
I realize that there are a lot of complicating factors (mostly gov’t induced), but I’ll stand by my point that the problem is largely cultural.
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Eric_Hyom
Guest
It is not just Americans who are entitled to a just wage. About half the world population lives on less than 2.5 dollars a day. I doubt if people living on less than 2.5 dollars a day can get into debt.
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