Current Events > if you want to help the economy, take a pay cut

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-23/take-a-pay-cut-help-the-economy
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This is so disingenuous. How can you ask this of employees and not top level company executives, whose salaries dwarf their lower level support and blue collar staff by several powers of ten?

EDIT: And in the wake of decades of wage depression. This person is so fixated on simply filling seats, but doesn't understand that decreasing wages are more responsible for the anemic middle class spending than finding employment. And their suggestion is to further decrease those wages?

Even if it is an editorial, why is this getting published as it is? Surely the editor can see the issues and anticipate the gut reaction. If there's some hidden merit here, wouldn't you start by addressing the obvious problems and then getting people to look at potential benefits? But they're not even handwaving it. Who is this written for, because it's blatantly not me.
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damn those entitled millenials wanting a fair wage
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hollow_shrine posted...

This is so disingenuous. How can you ask this of employees and not top level company executives, whose salaries dwarf their lower level support and blue collar staff by several powers of ten?

Also it doesn't even make sense. Taking a pay cut means you have less money to spend which means you won't actually be able to help move the economy forward.
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hollow_shrine posted...

This is so disingenuous. How can you ask this of employees and not top level company executives, whose salaries dwarf their lower level support and blue collar staff by several powers of ten?

EDIT: And in the wake of decades of wage depression. This person is so fixated on simply filling seats, but doesn't understand that decreasing wages are more responsible for the anemic middle class spending than finding employment. And their suggestion is to further decrease those wages?

AlephZero posted...

damn those entitled millenials wanting a fair wage

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Do you really believe someone is "waiting on the sidelines" for a $60K job to appear?

How would a reduction of consumer spending help the economy?
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if i take a pay cut how am i supposed to afford avocado toast three times a day
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Tmaster148 posted...

hollow_shrine posted...

This is so disingenuous. How can you ask this of employees and not top level company executives, whose salaries dwarf their lower level support and blue collar staff by several powers of ten?

Also it doesn't even make sense. Taking a pay cut means you have less money to spend which means you won't actually be able to help move the economy forward.

Yeah this. Taking a pay cut doesn't make any sense at all for helping the economy. Spending more money however, does help.
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The article isn't about having a job and taking a paycut, it's about people who aren't employed taking jobs for less than they are holding out for.
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SK8T3R215 posted...

The article isn't about having a job and taking a paycut, it's about people who aren't employed and currently working taking jobs for less than they are holding out for.

So they should earn less than they're worth so business owners can profit more than they deserve?

Why does conservative economics always come down to "fuck labor" instead of "labor has a legitimate right to negotiate their pay for their own interests"?
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

So they should earn less than they're worth so business owners can profit more than they deserve?

You can read the actual opinion piece yourself and see what they say to this question hth
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

"labor has a legitimate right to negotiate their pay for their own interests"

"60K or fuck off" is not negotiating.

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

How would a reduction of consumer spending help the economy?

Some money is still more than no money, assuming these "holdouts" are NEETs.
Closer to reality is that these people are currently working in crap jobs for crap pay (McDonalds, Walmart, etc) or still haven't exhausted unemployment yet, and are holding out because of hubris or something.

What's really going on is a standoff between employers and potential workers.

If workers give a little, employers might do the same.

real message:

Workers should just give in and let capital win this battle, as it has all past battles, because I want my investments to resume going up!

Questionmarktarius posted...

"60K or f*** off" is not negotiating.

it most certainly is.

SK8T3R215 posted...

You can read the actual opinion piece yourself and see what they say to this question hth

The answer given to that question is incredibly dishonest. The level of presented blind optimism is so far off the charts that there's no way for the author to actually be such a fool.

It runs against all historical trends, as well.

Really, the message here is that workers have started to realize that 'growth and jobs' doesn't necessarily mean 'good for me.'
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it's hilarious when people bash capital for withholding money from labor but don't also give a rip when corruption and bloat in government keep on taking tax dollars out of pay checks

SK8T3R215 posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

So they should earn less than they're worth so business owners can profit more than they deserve?

You can read the actual opinion piece yourself and see what they say to this question hth

I read it. I believe this is the answer you're referencing. The emphasis and parenthesis is mine:

If workers give a little, employers might do the same. Suppose (why? On what grounds?) white-collar professionals decide they're willing to come off the sidelines at an annual wage of $55,000 instead of $60,000. As all the new white-collar workers start dining out more, maybe restaurant owners will raise hourly wages for dish washers to $14 from $12 to help meet the added demand.

Look at that language. Why should you trust this? Ask your parents or people who got laid off during the depression at the turn of century the value of this kind of speculation. How often do we see executives lift a finger to protect anyone but themselves?
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Questionmarktarius posted...

because of hubris or something.

Ohh go fuck yourself. Hubris? Have you ever applied for a job in the tech industry, they want a fucking pile of credentials for a entry level job paying mail clerk wages. The hubris here is from capital trying to take advantage because so many have entered these fields.
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FLUFFYGERM posted...

it's hilarious when people bash capital for withholding money from labor but don't also give a rip when corruption and bloat in government keep on taking tax dollars out of pay checks

it's much more hilarious when every effort to cut the 'bloat and corruption' results in a wide public outcry because most of it is spent on programs that people want.

on the other hand, capital enjoying growth of productivity from workers while keeping wages stagnant (as adjusted for inflation) is essentially the primary driver of the stock market's growth over the past 40 years.
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

because of hubris or something.

Ohh go fuck yourself. Hubris? Have you ever applied for a job in the tech industry, they want a fucking pile of credentials for a entry level job paying mail clerk wages. The hubris here is from capital trying to take advantage because so many have entered these fields.

Go apply for a tech job, but undercut Monster's average for the "desired wage". Watch what happens.

JustMyOpinion posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

SK8T3R215 posted...

The article isn't about having a job and taking a paycut, it's about people who aren't employed and currently working taking jobs for less than they are holding out for.

So they should earn less than they're worth so business owners can profit more than they deserve?

Why does conservative economics always come down to "fuck labor" instead of "labor has a legitimate right to negotiate their pay for their own interests"?

The value of something is whatever someone's willing to pay. So, if you're not getting the offers you want at the pay you want that should tell you something.

Yes it's a 2 way street but this is being penned as yet another "fuck millennials" story.

edit: This isn't someone complaining about not being able to find a job, this is someone complaining that the proles aren't working for cheaper.
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JustMyOpinion posted...

The value of something is whatever someone's willing to pay. So, if you're not getting the offers you want at the pay you want that should tell you something.

this is equally true for capital as it is for labor. we are discussing a trade in which neither party is willing to budge on their terms.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

because of hubris or something.

Ohh go fuck yourself. Hubris? Have you ever applied for a job in the tech industry, they want a fucking pile of credentials for a entry level job paying mail clerk wages. The hubris here is from capital trying to take advantage because so many have entered these fields.

Go apply for a tech job, but undercut Monster's average for the "desired wage". Watch what happens.

actually i know what happens because i've seen it in real time: you get a lower counter offer because you are perceived to have no concept of your own value. you get hired, but your avenues for later salary growth are undermined. you are placed in the programs no one wants to work, because management thinks you'll do anything.

when you abandon all hubris, you are also abandoning all self respect, and your employer is not your friend.
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JustMyOpinion posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

SK8T3R215 posted...

The article isn't about having a job and taking a paycut, it's about people who aren't employed and currently working taking jobs for less than they are holding out for.

So they should earn less than they're worth so business owners can profit more than they deserve?

Why does conservative economics always come down to "fuck labor" instead of "labor has a legitimate right to negotiate their pay for their own interests"?

The value of something is whatever someone's willing to pay. So, if you're not getting the offers you want at the pay you want that should tell you something.

You may be confused. What's being described in that article is that experienced professionals are not willing to apply to the jobs these companies are offering at the current salaries, and because they're not actively seeking a job they're not showing up in unemployment stats.

These people know they're being short changed on wages and aren't willing to apply unless businesses put more on the table.
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hollow_shrine posted...

TLDR: These people know they're being short changed on wages and aren't willing to apply unless businesses put more on the table.

These people must have fucktons of savings or something, to afford not being listed as unemployed.

Questionmarktarius posted...

hollow_shrine posted...

TLDR: These people know they're being short changed on wages and aren't willing to apply unless businesses put more on the table.

These people must have fucktons of savings or something, to afford not being listed as unemployed.

Or cheap living arrangements, or family who are supportive of their decisions.

What does it matter their reason? It's their choice.
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Darkman124 posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

it's hilarious when people bash capital for withholding money from labor but don't also give a rip when corruption and bloat in government keep on taking tax dollars out of pay checks

it's much more hilarious when every effort to cut the 'bloat and corruption' results in a wide public outcry because most of it is spent on programs that people want.

on the other hand, capital enjoying growth of productivity from workers while keeping wages stagnant (as adjusted for inflation) is essentially the primary driver of the stock market's growth over the past 40 years.

people would have more leverage to negotiate better pay if they chose less consumer debt and if labor market participation was less. there's too many people going after too few jobs, and they're not able to negotiate for more pay because they need what they can get in order to pay for their financed BMWs

FLUFFYGERM posted...

people would have more leverage to negotiate better pay if they chose less consumer debt and if labor market participation was less. there's too many people going after too few jobs, and they're not able to negotiate for more pay because they need what they can get in order to pay for their financed BMWs

Unfortunately, the principal driver of debt among the present generation of job-seekers is typically not consumer debt, but student loans.

Also, it's not really that there's too many Americans going after too few jobs. There are plenty of jobs. But many employers create massively mismatched requirement/salary requirements in order to deliberately get no viable applications, and then turn around and use this as justification to seek foreign visa hires.

Globalization hurts that specific subset of the workforce. Harvard's elephant chart does a fine job of illustrating it.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

hollow_shrine posted...

TLDR: These people know they're being short changed on wages and aren't willing to apply unless businesses put more on the table.

These people must have fucktons of savings or something, to afford not being listed as unemployed.

Suppose they do, so? If they need* they'll do what it takes, they're not the ones with the whiny article on bloomberg. Telling them to suck it up and work for shit pay because it's "better for the economy" isn't a fucking argument.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Closer to reality is that these people are currently working in crap jobs for crap pay (McDonalds, Walmart, etc) or still haven't exhausted unemployment yet, and are holding out because of hubris or something.

the reality is that they surveyed everyone, including people who currently have jobs, and unsurprisingly the median wage people would accept was higher for people who make more

https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/microeconomics/interactive/downloads/sce-labor-questionnaire.pdf

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/sce/labor#/expectations-job-search20

on that second link if you look at reservation wages by income, you can see the obvious fact that people who make more than 60k currently want more, and people who make less than 60k want less, than the average value reported -- 37k and 74k respectively
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JustMyOpinion posted...

How do they know they're being short changed?

because it is no longer difficult to find data on the market rate for people with your level of skills and qualifications

companies like glassdoor and salary.com make it readily apparent.

this new availability of data is also driving why millenials typically bail on their employers after 5 years. because employers deliberately do not keep up raises with their employees' market worth, even if they pay new employees the market rate.

fundamentally: employers are fucking their workers to improve bottom line, and the difference now is workers know it and are acting in their own self interest.

people respond to incentives.
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

because of hubris or something.

Ohh go fuck yourself. Hubris? Have you ever applied for a job in the tech industry, they want a fucking pile of credentials for a entry level job paying mail clerk wages. The hubris here is from capital trying to take advantage because so many have entered these fields.

I saw this the other day: https://twitter.com/kevinkaywho/status/898622008019124224
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Darkman124 posted...

Unfortunately, the principal driver of debt among the present generation of job-seekers is typically not consumer debt, but student loans.

Also, it's not really that there's too many Americans going after too few jobs. There are plenty of jobs. But many employers create massively mismatched requirement/salary requirements in order to deliberately get no viable applications, and then turn around and use this as justification to seek foreign visa hires.

Globalization hurts that specific subset of the workforce. Harvard's elephant chart does a fine job of illustrating it.

I think this is a decent paper, I like this economist too: https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/public-policy-brief/2013/a-decomposition-of-shifts-of-the-beveridge-curve.aspx

basically the relationship between job opening and unemployment has broken down largely because those who are unemployed long-term are being treated by employers as not being in the labor market at all. Businesses are super-risk averse, and as more of the short-term unemployed gain steady employment as the economy levels off, they're having to turn to potential employees whose credentials they don't like. If they hire them at all, they're certainly underpaying them
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JustMyOpinion posted...

hollow_shrine posted...

JustMyOpinion posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

SK8T3R215 posted...

The article isn't about having a job and taking a paycut, it's about people who aren't employed and currently working taking jobs for less than they are holding out for.

So they should earn less than they're worth so business owners can profit more than they deserve?

Why does conservative economics always come down to "fuck labor" instead of "labor has a legitimate right to negotiate their pay for their own interests"?

The value of something is whatever someone's willing to pay. So, if you're not getting the offers you want at the pay you want that should tell you something.

You may be confused. What's being described in that article is that experienced professionals are not willing to apply to the jobs these companies are offering at the current salaries, and because they're not actively seeking a job they're not showing up in unemployment stats.

These people know they're being short changed on wages and aren't willing to apply unless businesses put more on the table.

How do they know they're being short changed? If the market moves, their value moves. Why is their willingness to accept a job at a certain income worth more weight than what a company's willing to pay?

Because they're not working for the vague idea of the economy, they're working for themselves and for their families. They know what they paid for their schooling, what those jobs paid, what kind of work they'll be doing. They can look at all of that, and look at the historical wages, look at their own financial needs and outstanding education debts, what it costs to live near these businesses, and calculate from all that what they need, and what competitive rates from their employment should be. They have enough information to bargain. And clearly they should, they should covert what power they have, because they've been losing it since the 70s.

Businesses should bargain as well, but they don't get to feel entitled when people aren't willing to take a predatory deal. And being the ones with more power, businesses are in a far better position to give a little and extend the olive branch.
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JustMyOpinion posted...

They don't set the market.

as sellers, they are equally responsible for setting the market as the buyers of their labor
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JustMyOpinion posted...

I can agree that they're not getting what they want, but I still don't see how that equates to as you described not earning what they're worth. They're worth whatever the highest income they can get from a company. That's it. They don't set the market. Their families, their debts, and their personal feelings count exactly zero towards that. If jobs were struggling that much they'd pay more for those jobs and if they didn't they'd screw themselves over and possibly go bankrupt. Your sense of "fair" and what one's actually worth don't seem to line up.

Perhaps. That's fair. I think you're using a more rigid and more clearly defined idea of worth than I am where you equate it to actual money value. I'm looking at it from the perspective someone weighing a demanding yet underpaying professional career, against comparably paid underemployment or something else entirely, and in that calculus money is only part of the equation.

Questions of fairness come into play when you look at patterns of wage depression and employee advocacy and realize the power imbalance between wage earners and their employees. That needs to be rectified, and voluntarily offering to lower ones wages in the hope that your bosses will do the same not only has no basis in reality, but is pretty backwards moving.
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Balrog0 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Closer to reality is that these people are currently working in crap jobs for crap pay (McDonalds, Walmart, etc) or still haven't exhausted unemployment yet, and are holding out because of hubris or something.

the reality is that they surveyed everyone, including people who currently have jobs, and unsurprisingly the median wage people would accept was higher for people who make more

https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/microeconomics/interactive/downloads/sce-labor-questionnaire.pdf

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/sce/labor#/expectations-job-search20

on that second link if you look at reservation wages by income, you can see the obvious fact that people who make more than 60k currently want more, and people who make less than 60k want less, than the average value reported -- 37k and 74k respectively

So... the bloomberg article is half-truths and bullshit?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Balrog0 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Closer to reality is that these people are currently working in crap jobs for crap pay (McDonalds, Walmart, etc) or still haven't exhausted unemployment yet, and are holding out because of hubris or something.

the reality is that they surveyed everyone, including people who currently have jobs, and unsurprisingly the median wage people would accept was higher for people who make more

https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/microeconomics/interactive/downloads/sce-labor-questionnaire.pdf

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/sce/labor#/expectations-job-search20

on that second link if you look at reservation wages by income, you can see the obvious fact that people who make more than 60k currently want more, and people who make less than 60k want less, than the average value reported -- 37k and 74k respectively

So... the bloomberg article is half-truths and bullshit?

What I'm reading here, is that the first group is potentially willing to give in the interest of helping everyone and the second group is only too eager to take while giving nothing in return. This suggests to me that the hypothetical altruism of corporate execs that opinion piece wants us to imagine has no basis in corporate or human behaviors.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

So... the bloomberg article is half-truths and bullshit?

p. much unless I'm way off base about what those lines mean

also, research into reservation wages has shown people are willing to accept less than they want if they get an actual offer around 50% of the time anyway
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I disagree with the article in the sense that it's not because people are holding out for a higher wage. It's because they're under-qualified.

I know some unemployed people who would jump at the chance to get a job, even if it pays below market. People out of the labor force for more than 6 months are not desirable to employers and many companies pass over those people unless the hiatus was voluntary or the candidate has good credentials.

The reason why a lot of jobs aren't filled is because people don't have the skills to do them. That's why employers are willing to pay 6 figures for some positions without hesitation. They need qualified people and there aren't enough of it. Supply and demand.
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Darkman124 posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

people would have more leverage to negotiate better pay if they chose less consumer debt and if labor market participation was less. there's too many people going after too few jobs, and they're not able to negotiate for more pay because they need what they can get in order to pay for their financed BMWs

Unfortunately, the principal driver of debt among the present generation of job-seekers is typically not consumer debt, but student loans.

Also, it's not really that there's too many Americans going after too few jobs. There are plenty of jobs. But many employers create massively mismatched requirement/salary requirements in order to deliberately get no viable applications, and then turn around and use this as justification to seek foreign visa hires.

Globalization hurts that specific subset of the workforce. Harvard's elephant chart does a fine job of illustrating it.

This. You have IT jobs looking for the requirement of bachelors degrees and up, and years of experience......but then the salary is like less than 12 an hour.
Be real, who is going to jump for that? My current easy job is an office job that requires no skill at all pays considerably more than the jobs I would like to apply to.

Fuck off

^^ triggered AF
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