> Fact is, labor costs money for the laborer to exist and show up for work.

Humans aren't like ec2 servers that can be spun down when they're needed. The cost for that person is paid whether or not he's employed. I agree there's an additional cost to show up to work, but that's nowhere near the minimum wage in most places.

The difference is an unemployed persons cost is not a subsidy for profit.

And are you arguing we simply must pay the costs for people to exist? I agree given not existing is very highly undesirable.

Employed people, getting a subsidy so their employer enjoys greater profit makes sense how? Should a for profit enterprise earn it? Why is our help required?

If they really cannot afford their labor, they are not a viable business.

Or, we all agree to not care, so we end all the fucking with people on assistance?

Which is it?

To be really clear, I'm OK either way here. What I am not OK with is so damn many people underpaid and struggling hard with assistance despite arguably too much labor otherwise.

> The difference is an unemployed persons cost is not a subsidy for profit.

I don't get it. Subsidizing someone's living is okay, but subsidizing someone's living, and then that person deciding to earn a little more money is not okay because profit is involved?

>And are you arguing we simply must pay the costs for people to exist? I agree given not existing is very highly undesirable.

Yes? If you don't want them to starve, then obviously somebody as to pay the cost to keep those people afloat.

>Employed people, getting a subsidy so their employer enjoys greater profit makes sense how? Should a for profit enterprise earn it? Why is our help required?

Would society be better off if those "Employed people, getting a subsidy" were unemployed instead? They'll still get the subsidy. If anything, they'll get more subsidy because welfare tends to be means tested. If anything the "for profit enterprise" has a negative effect on the amount of subsidy that needs to be paid.

> What I am not OK with is so damn many people underpaid and struggling hard with assistance

Underpaid? Maybe they're being paid fairly given the market conditions, and that prevailing wage isn't enough to sustain someone's first world existence so some sort of subsidy has to make up the rest.

> despite arguably too much labor otherwise.

can you reword this? I'm not understanding what you mean by this.

No company taking billions to the bank should be employing people who need subsidy to make it.

That is gaming the system, mooching off the public dime for profit.

Maybe that helps.

I am not going to respond on this topic again. It has been fun, but I do need to move on.

Cough cough Walmart....

Employees are working yet still they need government assistance to offset the low wages. Walmart knows this and one might argue they incorporate in their business planning. Why pay employees to work full time, when you can pay them part time, reduce your labor costs and have the state pick up the rest of the expenses (i.e. medicare, Foodstamps)

Walmart executive's know this is a win/win for them, they get the labor they need and pay little for it. This is not something that just happened overnight. It's corporate greed on a massive scale that hurts everyone but no one cares because Wallstreet see's the profits rolling in.

Deceptive businesses like Walmart are consistently fucking us all, and nothing is done about it. The tax breaks they receive are enabling this behavior.

End rant.

>Employees are working yet still they need government assistance to offset the low wages.[...] Why pay employees to work full time, when you can pay them part time, reduce your labor costs and have the state pick up the rest of the expenses (i.e. medicare, Foodstamps)

but the thing is, that person is going to be around regardless of he's working at walmart or not. unless you're okay with the guy starving to death because he's unemployed, you'll still need to pay foodstamps or whatever to keep him alive. I'm not sure why that person deciding to voluntarily work at walmart, suddenly makes the entirety of his living expenses walmart's problem.

Put another way, suppose someone is unemployed and living off government assistance. I learn about his predicament, and offer to pay him $10 (or whatever) to mow my lawn. What you basically want is for this transaction to be stopped, on the grounds that $10 isn't enough to keep him alive, and therefore I'm exploiting him. You'd rather the person stay unemployed, and have me keep that $10, even though that's worse off for everyone involved.

>Deceptive businesses like Walmart are consistently fucking us all

I fail to see how anyone is being deceived here. I can see why you might think this is bad, because walmart has a duty to their employees or whatever, but not really deception.

This seems to conflate moral worth and economic worth. People can have equal inherent moral value at the same time that some jobs have inherently disproportionate economic value.

I didn't make a moral argument.

What I did do is make an economic one, and suggest how we value things change. A whole bunch of Economics is rooted in a few basies that we all just take as givens. We don't have to.

I also didn't make an equal economic value argument, for that matter.

Sorry, maybe I misinterpreted your point.

>"how much does it cost people, who hold other positions in life, to perform basic labors themselves? And the answer is expensive!!"

What is the "expensive" assumption based on? Is it the opportunity cost? E.g., is the assumption that if I make $50/hr and I perform basic labor, I'm forgoing work that would otherwise be making money at that rate? Or is it that I don't have the skills for that basic labor and I would either have to get those skills or suffer the cost of doing the work unskillfully?

If it's the former, I think there's enough friction in markets to erode that argument. E.g., I can't just decide to get another $50 through my skilled labor once I hire someone to shovel snow in my driveway for an hour. If the latter case were true, it would be skilled labor by definition and generally command higher wages. Or is there another basis for the expense of performing basic labor that I'm not considering from your point?

> What is the "expensive" assumption based on? Is it the opportunity cost?

Yes, and the basic assumption of free markets that competition drives prices to the minimum sellers are willing to accept (equal to opportunity cost of the units actually traded), and that this value per unit increases, so that the next unit must have an opportunity cost to the seller higher than the average of the prior units.

Ok, say I can make $100 / hour or even $50, just for shits and giggles.

Our lives break down into thirds. One to work, one to sleep, one to do what we will and can as people.

If I must do those basic labors, they either consume my sleep or free time, and if not, carry an opportunity cost of $50 / hour.

My time is very valuable, both in a labor to income sense, and personally, in that I have plans for my time that must be balanced against basic labors being done.

Paying what it costs for laborers to exist and show up for work is a no brainer. Worth it to me, again based on my own costs.

There is "expensive"

We can always find cases where basic labors do not carry those costs, or are difficult to handle as a market. We do those ourselves.

However, making our own food, making our own shit and garbage dissappear, moving things, clean ups and all manner of basic labors combine to allow many of us the time freedom to earn more, do more.

The value in that is high enough to require enterprises fund their labor fully. This may mean their overall profit is less. It should be, they didn't earn it. They didn't fund the labor. We did!

Failure to do that comes with other costs, both real in the sense of the massive subsidies that end up unearned profit (our money goes into their bank account, funding labor they profit from on top of margin on goods and services rendered), and opportunity in that we see lower demand and that impacts many others who could earn more and or fund their labor as well.

Again, laborers have a cost to exist and show up for work, and when their labor does not pay enough for those things, someone else's labor does, or the labor does not exist and will not show up for work.

So which is it? Who pays and why?

How we value things can change those answers dramatically, which is the economic argument I made.

One last thing, and that is ignoring the cost of people for them to exist and show up for work, doesn't make those costs go away, it just hides them, and we end up paying them in all sorts of other ways that are expensive. That's another way to look at this.

When a business does not make enough to fund its operation it closes, or dies in other words. The same is true for people. So not fully funding labor is expensive to literally everyone else except for the people not fully funding the labor they require.

>my sleep or free time, and if not, carry an opportunity cost of $50 / hour.

This is the part I disagree with. The only time that is rated at $50/hr is the time you are producing something of economic value. Sleep and leisure do not warrant a $50/hr price tag in-and-of-themselves. In part, because of what I already mentioned: market friction prevents me from giving a 1-to-1 trade for sleep/leisure time to production. Just because I decide to wake up an hour early doesn't automatically mean an extra $50 worth of work is ready and waiting for me.

>we end up paying them in all sorts of other ways that are expensive.

I completely agree with this and think it's the governments job to ensure markets price these externalities appropriately.

You get to disagree. I personally value my time differently.

You are ignoring tons of labors saving you time and or providing a rich field in which to profit.

You are ignoring time value. I did not ever say 1:1 at whatever rate.

What I did, and continue to say is your work time would consume far more of your life sans basic labors you benefit from every day.

Cost it how you want, but when suddenly faced with half your personal time gone, having to choose less, or less sleep, or less income delivering work, and in all cases a lot more physical activity in your life will absolutely cost you far more than you are allowing for here.

>You are ignoring tons of labors saving you time

Please elaborate.

I mean, the market is exactly how we price that time value. Whether I pay for basic labor or decide to do it myself is exactly based on the price I place on my free time minus how much I value learning something new minus the risk of a bad contractor. If you're not advocating the basic market pricing principles we already operate under, I'm not sure what you're advocating. Are you saying Tom Brady should pay his landscaper $175,000/hour simply because that's what the market has priced Tom Brady's personal economic differential value at?

I'd be curious how you'd expect that to happen in practice. Even though you don't come outright and say it, it's beginning to come across as a Marxist ideal of "to each according to his ability", which I'm sure you already understand all the problems that poses. In the end, all it seems like you're saying is to factor in the externalities to get at a fair market price. If that's the case, I already said we agree. But the same point can be said with a lot more brevity.

The "market" is skills value based, and concludes basic labors are near worthless due to near infinite supply, despite the value of that labor being considerably greater when valued in terms of its benefit to others. Put another way, "the market" in it's current form very seriously undervalues basic labors.

Making extreme claims does not bolster your points here.

Tom Brady can definitely pay their landscaper enough to exist and show up for work same as McDees can pay their people enough to exist and show up for work.

I made no Marxist argument.

I did argue we need to recognize the inherent cost of people and value labor in ways that account for those costs.

Or!

Say we don't. Then we accept a large number of us require assistance to make it, right?

Which is it?

And if we go the assistance route, then we also need to quit fucking with people simply doing as we compel them to do. Getting assistance while also laboring a reasonable time at a wage below what it costs to exist and show up for work should be an ordinary, accepted thing. No shame, no hassles, just ordinary and it's not.

What we currently do is push people off assistance hard, and frequently, while also underpaying them, expecting magic to happen and they suddenly are just doing OK when we know too many of them won't be.

Unacceptable.

Let's say this too:

We need either:

A floor for labor price

, or

Subsidies (assistance)

, or

We accept that some people are just not going to exist and or show up for work because they are not viable economically.

Which is it?

People laboring and getting enough to exist and show up for work can make skills and other arguments to further improve on their value, sell their labor, whatever.

This is about the nearly half of us who labor and do not receive enough to fund their labor, exist and show up for work basically.

I don't care how we solve this, and proposed one idea where we value things differently, change the basies the economy depends on. We could do that, it may be a great idea, and it would eliminate a big problem with the overly simple supply / demand theory of labor value in play today.

Say we do agree to a subsidy. Great! Then we also need to agree people need that and quit fucking with them about getting it too. No shame, etc... just an ordinary condition where we don't value their labor high enough, yet we need them economically viable, able to exist, show up for work, etc...

Re: Free time

Right now, one third of my life, approximately, coupled with another third for sleep, together provide for "my" remaining third which is the third where I get to do what I want.

I may invest some of that third. Did for many years, which made my labor third a hell of a lot more valuable. Not everyone can do this. We don't even have the jobs available if everyone were to do this!

I may fuck that third right off too. Rest, play, fuck, whatever right? No worries, as adults, it's our third! Yay!

Now, when I must eat into that third to exist and show up for work?

Nope. That's extremely high value time.

Here's one cost, investment. If one's labor does not fund existing and showing up for work, the solution is often more labor, right? Well, now that eats into either sleep, or our personal third of time. Often both.

That costs a person investment time! That investment time is extremely high value time. I would be worth one hell of a lot less had I repeated how I lived my life in the labor markets today. Seriously. Not sure I would make it in the same way. Some of my kids really struggle in ways I did not.

Same root cause: Labor failing to deliver enough income to exist and show up for work.

I tossed some dollar figure out there when I probably should not have. This is another way to get at that value.

And finally, food for thought:

What defines wealth?

The basic definition involves time. Wealthy people can self purpose far more of their time. This speaks right to what I'm getting at, and it's subtle!

A person making a ton of money, yet who is enslaved to it, unable to purpose their time, is as poor as someone laboring a ton, lacking income needed to even purpose their time. Both cannot make use of their time beyond labor, and or sleep.

A trust fund baby, or someone who just sold a company, having fuck you money is quite wealthy in the time sense. So is the person living lean, requiring very little to live and do what they will.

Hope this helps. I'm not going to respond on this further, and thanks to those of you being good discussion partners. I enjoyed this.

I'm not arguing against a living wage. Mine is more a practical discussion about how is that determined. I don't think there should be any room for the idea of "working poor." Your point seems to be rooted in the differential economic value of ones time as a means to alleviate that. Which means Tom Brady will pay much, much more for basic labor than I will because his differential economic value is higher. Here's my problem with that: it won't play out well for those who are in the lower economic strata. Brady can pay 10,000X what I can pay for basic labor, which means the labor will all funnel towards him. Leaving people in the lower end to perform basic labor themselves, eroding, you guessed it, their time. That will make things worse, not better.

>Which is it?

Right now, in the U.S., it's a mixture of the first two. We have a minimum wage covering #1 and a host of social safety nets that effectively subsidize living standards covering #2. There's certainly room to argue the best levels for each. Personally, I think there's room for improvement so taxpayers aren't essentially subsidizing the profits of companies who pay a wage low enough that require workers to rely on a safety net while the companies simultaneously post ever increasing profit margins.

>Personally, I think there's room for improvement so taxpayers aren't essentially subsidizing the profits of companies who pay a wage low enough that require workers to rely on a safety net while the companies simultaneously post ever increasing profit margins.

Yes. These companies are keeping too much for themselves. There isn't any nicer way to say it. At the same time, the labor creating all that wealth isn't able to keep enough of it to continue to exist and show up for work without someone, somewhere paying for those things to happen.

Re: The mix

#2 is a problem in that we don't just grant the subsidy. It comes with a lot of hassles, checks to limit qualifications, more checks to reduce it should the laborer make a little extra here and there, and of course, a LOT of blame and shame.

Somehow, we've arrived at a place where important, basic labor is seen as a negative, despite the fact that someone is definitely going to be doing it, and we need those people doing that work! This does not sit well with me at all.

Those people have families (well, large numbers of them do), needs, and are in general people same as any of us are, and should be doing that work with the basic dignity and respect any of us would expect when doing our work.

And there is the moral argument you suggested I was making, made here now.

I am making it now because it does tend to complicate the overall discussion. This negativity biases the value perception of both the work and the people doing it away from the objective value it clearly has when one views our society, sans that labor being done for hire. What does getting it done even look like?

We are still somewhere apart on the economic argument.

I said this basic labor could be valued differently, and suggested we value it in terms of what that work being done is worth to others who hold other stations in life, often at higher, can be very considerably higher income. Doing it that way does suggest Tom Brady could pay his basic labor at a very high rate, creating a basic problem you identified easily. Fair enough.

But that really was not my intent. After some thought, maybe this gets at my intent better:

Who pays for the laborer to exist and show up for work?

And by exist, I mean the laborer has a reasonable, though spartan place to live, can see the doctor, has food, and can afford to get to work somehow, and the amount of labor leaves them free to follow other pursuits as any of us may be inclined to do with our leisure time. Put simply, a modest, reasonable, respectable life. And we avoid the live to work, work to live case for the unreasonable life it is.

Having set that up, just because Brady could pay that amount does not mean he should. And that's not really inclusive. We all benefit from the basic labors being done all the time.

The value comes from the fact that when we do have people performing these labors, others do not have to do them, and given labor is valued in a way that provides for life to be broken down into thirds as I suggested earlier in the discussion, this dynamic allows for our leisure third to be ours, generally speaking.

One third is for sleep. One third is for whatever labor we do for income and together that provides the machinery of society to exist and operate as it does today. The remaining third is our time. Family, hobbies, research, whatever we want to do, are inclined to do, and can afford to do.

At another point in the discussion, I also took a look at wealth:

Anthropologists define wealth in terms of time. Poor people have most of their time purposed for them, with slavery being an extreme example of profound poverty. Ordinary people of modest means generally live by the thirds I talked about here, and wealthy people can purpose the majority of their time as they please.

Someone can have a lot of money and it may occupy the majority of their time. The demands related to having or earning that large amount of money can be stiff, largely directing their time. Put simply, they do not purpose much of their time and are living in poverty, despite having considerable spending power.

The same thing is true for someone who makes so little that they basically work to live, and live to work. They purpose very little of their time as well.

An example of a wealthy person might be one who requires little, labors a little to meet those needs, and can purpose a majority of their time. Another example might be someone who has inherited income, or is in possession of a resource of some kind such that it takes very little of their time to labor, and they too can purpose a majority of their time how they please.

And just for shits and giggles, "labor" is generally time spent that is purposed by someone else other than the person doing labor.

People who love to work do present confusion, and that's related to the basic idea of loving what one does for work so that more of life is pleasurable, and or self purposable in that the labor is the purpose... I am just going to ignore this and keep to the basic definition of labor and leisure.

Leisure time is time one can purpose any way they want to. Hobbies, laying out in nature, art, whatever.

When we have many basic labors performed for us, our wealth as a people is very considerably improved! This is why there is wealth in numbers, generally speaking. As there are more of us, so can the basic labors needed to live a life and have a society be well distributed, creating more leisure time. Such an arrangement does provide for advancement in technology, the arts and more, due to some people choosing to invest their time in these ways.

And there is the value I suggested expressed in a way largely ignoring money.

To that end, what is required is basic labors yield enough economically to allow those performing basic labors to live a reasonable, modest life of thirds as I've defined above.

So, who pays?

We could continue subsidies. And if we took this route more formally, recognizing the value backing that idea as defined above, we should also then eliminate the blame and shame. Getting that subsidy should be a rather ordinary, common transaction and those doing the labor should feel no shame related to their contributions to society and the value those have.

Personally, I feel that's something like UBI, and I feel it could work, depending. I dislike the idea of the likes of Walmart and McDees banking billions when they could very clearly afford to pay their labor well enough to live that modest and reasonable life of thirds and still put billions in the bank, just fewer billions. And I would suggest, enough billions with obvious expansions and innovations able to increase the billions they find it possible to bank every year.

For anything like these kinds of value changes to really stick and transform market dynamics, we've got to use law. The likes of Dan Price can successfully model what things can look like, and that's great, but likely seen as a threat and expensive (to them) way to move the discussion forward.

Requiring employers fully fund their labor is an option.

Allowing for that mix, subsidy and employer wages.

We could require neither of those be true, and basically turn charity into a sort of tax with real teeth. (this would be undesirable state of affairs, if you ask me)

Or, nobody pays, and we accept that people will just cease to exist and or show up for work where the costs of doing that simply are not paid.

Who pays?

What basis do they use for understanding whether their people are able to make it?

Finally, I don't have complete answers here. Am just really trying to suggest how we value things could be done differently and provide a basis for ending poverty and or ending the negatives associated with it as we face it today.