A statute without a penalty is just advice. So too the deferred rent.
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Oh… I didn’t realize that the requirement to apply for jobs during unemployment had been suspended.
I have heard about employers paying $16/hour struggling to find workers. It seems especially bad in tourist towns trying to ramp up to return of business.
The gov’t isn’t subsidizing any wage by having a minimum wage set.
It’s subsidizing all who are working and not making enough to cover housing, food, and health care - therefore giving breaks to the companies who don’t have to pay more for labor, because workers can exist at lower pay with the gov’t help.
There’s a far cry between $7.25/hr and a livable wage, and as someone stated before - a person could be making $8/hr and not be classified as minimum wage, but can someone live on $16,640 per year without being subsidized by the gov’t? What about $10/hr or $20,800? In some LCOL areas it might be possible, but rent of 750 per month will already eat 9K of that not leaving much left over for food, commuting, and everything else, much less retirement or saving for a house or whatever.
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For “whatever”, do you mean mean saving for their kids’ college costs, which (according to these forums) is a difficult task even at 15 times that income?
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My point was that minimum wage jobs should he for entry level workers and the government shouldn’t need to provide extra money to those workers, like my teenage son. That should just be an entry point. If he wants more he needs to make himself more valuable by working hard, learning to do his job and similar ones well and or getting more training/education. What did everyone here do? Did we just stay at a minimum wage job?
Why aren’t some workers moving up in salary, position or moving on to a better job? What’s holding them back? Is it the easy federal money that makes it possible to barely live at these wage levels? Perhaps the government “subsidy” to low income workers via it’s social programs actually serves to “trap” people in poverty. Many are given just enough to get by so they have little incentive to grow. If the federal money got out of the way wages would rise as employers would have to pay more to find employees. If the government subsidizes something there’s no incentive to pay more as people will work for those salaries and can can still “get by”.
That’s the biggest issue now with enhanced federal payments for unemployment with no requirement to look for a job. It’s easy money to just sit back and not work. Many are taking full advantage of that. If the government would get out of the way and stop giving a financial incentive to not work then people would get back in the workforce and this problem would solve itself.
If you’re going to pay people to sit home while making it impossible to evict them while giving them assistance in other areas too then many are going to ride that train as long as it’s available. In the end this really doesn’t improve those people’s lives, help the businesses looking for workers, help the landlords needing rent money, etc. What it does do is continue to grow our countries deficit with extra spending that will need to be paid for eventually by our children and grandchildren all while not helping our current economy.
Everyone out there is capable of more. If we take away the incentive to be more then many will do the bare minimum. We’re not really helping those people in the long run by giving them just enough to get by. We’re actually trapping them right at the bottom.
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My guess is you haven’t seen our lower academic classes. No, not everyone is capable of more. Several can be decent workers if the work isn’t too involved, but they’ll never be management material. They might not make minimum forever, but as I pointed out before, going up to $10 or $12/hour isn’t really enough either.
It’s not “easy money” keeping them there. Many will start at those jobs, realize they want more, and move on, but they’re also capable of more. Not everyone is.
If you want to see life without safety nets, travel to third world countries and don’t stay at the resorts. Getting rid of nets doesn’t improve lives of the poor.
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People often like to talk about concepts without ever defining what they actually are. What is “fair share” other than “more?” What is a livable wage without a dollar amount (again other than more)?
Pick a level. Should it be national?
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The federal minimum wage should not be $15 an hour because the COL and the cost of doing business isn’t standardized across the country. The COL in San Francisco isn’t close to the COL in Baton Rouge, LA. And the businesses hurt by a $15/hr minimum wage aren’t Walmart and Target, it’s the smaller businesses who can’t utilize economies of scale to reduce costs. If you’ve never run a business, it’s easy to throw the concept of increasing wages around because that’s the most visible cost. There plenty of others that businesses incur that also come out of revenue.
Be careful what you push for. The lowest minimum wage is actually $0 because when you’re laid off your unemployment benefits don’t last forever. And if you’re replaced by automation your job is gone forever: no sick employees, no benefits required, no theft, no slackers, no attitude.
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H has run his business now for 22 years and never paid minimum wage even when he needs rod holders for doing engineering surveying. (Person just has to stand and hold a rod so he can take measurements.)
Our actions match our beliefs.
But I agree that only a smaller amount needs to be federal minimum. As it already stands, many states or areas have raised their own above that to fit local areas. I don’t think $7.25 is a livable wage for a single person anywhere though.
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I would love to see that. I know a good number of people that are more than happy to collect unemployment right now, even as businesses are scrambling to find help as the pandemic restrictions loosen. Many of them make more in unemployment than they did working, which doesn’t make much sense to me. But it definitely takes away the incentive to find work if that’s truly the case.
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This is where a basic minimum income will have to come into play at some point - when there truly are no jobs for those not capable of doing more. Right now I don’t think we’re there yet, but I can foresee it happening sometime in the future. I prefer it to housing and food subsidies I think.
Countries have been trying it in places, though I haven’t seen much data yet in how it has worked out.
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How much were they earning when they worked - and for what jobs? I hear this being stated all the time, but I haven’t seen any “concrete math” examples. Around me I haven’t heard of one single case where they’ve earned more, but I do know some who aren’t yet back to work due to Covid fears or taking care of family members (older or younger).
I also know some who have totally changed jobs and have no intention of returning to retail.
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I’ve had this conversation with many of my S’s friends who are going into robotics. It’s a thorny issue to be sure.
I think UBI has been tried in smallish samples in many countries including the US but the biggest issue ends up being the funding stream. You also have the COL issue as well in determining what constitutes UBI but that’s for another thread.
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In my area, many schools that are back in session have shortened hours and alternating virtual days. Those that are back full time have gone virtual off & on due to outbreaks. Parents in minimum wage jobs don’t get to take time off to meet their kids’ needs and still get to keep their jobs. This is just one reason people may not be working. It’s not necessarily that they don’t want to work … it’s more that the current situation is making it very difficult to do so.
Heck, I might not mind working a few hours a week. But I am not putting myself out in the wide world until the virus is better under control. I don’t collect unemployment, so my choice doesn’t cost taxpayers, of course. But there are still many people afraid to go back out there at this point in the game.
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When S3 was called back to his restaurant from unemployment they only offered him 1 day of part time on a day they already knew he couldn’t work due to classes. When they reported to the state he was kicked off unemployment completely. It was impossible to get thru to appeal. We figure they were trying to cut their own unemployment insurance liability. He will never go back into that business. The whole industry is ripe for change.
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I don’t know if other see it where they are but here in Southern California some restaurants don’t open for indoor dining not because they afraid of Covid but because they can’t find workers. Same with Uber drivers, landscape design jobs, etc. Small business can’t complete with unemployment benefits and ability not to work.
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This might actually be a big factor in the difficulty finding people to take traditionally low paid jobs. Given the opportunity to search for alternative jobs and/or retrain without the immediate need to take the first job that is offered, some people in the traditionally low paid jobs are now completely out of that job category due to finding better jobs.
Also, lower paid people suffered death and disability from COVID-19 more than higher paid people. That might have some small effect of reducing the actual number of people in that part of the labor market, but it may have had a larger effect on willingness to take those jobs, either due to fear of COVID-19 or due to distrust of management. Hence, people who had those low paid jobs may have been more willing to look for other jobs or try to retrain for other jobs in order to get out of the low paid jobs that had higher risk of COVID-19 (restaurants, retail, etc.).
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Another possible reason for the shortage: the restaurant and hotel industries have a relatively high number of unauthorized immigrant employees. When those industries lost business and dismissed many employees, could it be that many of those who were unauthorized immigrants left the country, due to lack of work? If so, then it is not like they will come back to fill low paid job vacancies that are now opening up as easily and quickly as US citizens and permanent residents, who are now in short supply for those jobs and also may have been looking and retraining for other better jobs.
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In Ohio, your state unemployment benefits are 50% of your average weekly wage. Max benefits (for someone without dependents) is $498. $300 federal benefit equates to $7.50/hour (based on 40 hour work week – more if its less than that). So someone working 40 hours/week earning $15/hr or less would make the same or more on unemployment (without giving effect to any tax differences, cost of getting to work such as gas $$, bus fare, etc). And when you look at the non-monetary costs of work (time at work, getting to/from work, etc) some people making a little more than $15/hr may prefer to get unemployment payments.
I don’t think the extra unemployment payments are the sole reason some employers are having a tough time finding employment. But I think they are a factor. There are others as well. Though I think its important to understand that when you look at surveys about reasons people are not going back to work, there will often be differences between stated and atual reasons.
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The one I was specifically thinking of said she was getting around $800 a week in unemployment and made less than that working as a bartender. Granted, she might have been fudging the numbers when she applied or something, but she definitely had an attitude of “I’m getting away with this so I’m riding it as long as I can.”