American Workers make Part-Time Living.

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Which is why my view is limited to "certain classes of part-time workers." I think the employers total labour force is relevant, since small businesses cannot be expected to respond with the same flexibility as an employer with a larger work force. I think tenure is relevant, because I see no problem in a reasonable probationary period (say three months) during which the employer has lesser obligations to employees who might or might not be retained. I think seasonality is relevant.

But the basic principle on which the government should expect business to operate is that a person who works a full-time job should be able to live off their earning, and a person who chooses to work part-time, or who cannot find more than part time work should not face disincentives to part-time work beyond the lower earnings.

There is, indeed, a reaonable argument that in some cases no job is preferable to a bad job. When people have to work multiple jobs to support their families, those are bad jobs. When people have to rely on food stamps, even though they work, that's a bad job. Employers are still making money off their employees' labour--otherwise they wouldn't hire and retain them. But employees can't live on their earnings. Those are bad jobs.

But since these count as "jobs", business and government get to proclaim how good the employment numbers are (or how they're improving; or how they're not sinking as badly as we feared; or how they're better than Canad... oh, wait.) If government cannot hide behind employers' creation of bad jobs, then government is forced to step in and ensure that people have access to food, clothing and shelter. So, yes, there are circumstances in which no jobs at all are preferable to jobs that don't meet certain basic standards.

Bottom line is that right now the job market is skewed heavily in favor of employers. In an employee-friendly job market that is more competitive for employers, employers could not get away with this without loosing employees that they rely on to other companies.

What is needed, I think, to start, is a rule that compensates employees for their availability, even if they aren't actually working. No, someone should not be paid full wages if they aren't working, but they also should be compensated for keeping their time available rather than use it to earn money elsewhere.

Second, a lot of these things are all about not letting anyone have enough weekly hours so that the employer has to pay benefits to them. That's why you end up with 20 employeers working 20 hours each instead of 10 employees working 40 hours each. Their should be some sort of proportional benefit - work 40 hours, get full benefits. Work 20 hours, get 50% benefits, etc. That way the cost to the employer per employee hour is constant and it actually becomes better for the employer to have fewer workers who work full time instead of a bunch of part time people - as the full time worker accumulates experience faster which benefits the employer.

The problem really isn't with the small businesses though. Even if they do have an advantage most are not making huge profits for themselves and are being squeezed like everyone else. The problem is higher up on the chain.

Two things:

This:

is utterly meaningless. So what if people you don't care for are expressing similar issues? That says nothing about the material truth of my statements. If you're trying to call me something in a veiled sort of way, just come out and say what you mean, don't just try and associate my opinions with some phantom bogeyman and call that a refutation.



That only answers one of my questions, the other being "have you ever owned, operated or started a business?".

You start out pretty good here Visa, showing some understanding about the reality of the job market and flexibility for various business types.



Ok, still pretty good.



Now we're getting sketchy. I'm not sure what jobs in particular you are talking about, but I've had a lot of experience with part time work where there are only so many hours available, and that's made clear up front during the hiring process. Are you arguing that business owners should somehow be penalized for not supplying enough hours for their employees to live on? Last I checked, people get into business to make money, not to lift up others through providing wages (pretty basic Adam Smith here), so I'm not entirely sure where you're going with this. The only reason to hire someone is because it benefits you monetarily, otherwise you're not running a business but a charity, hence your dig their doesn't exactly make sense.

To use a personal example, I'm currently cooking at a very small Italian bistro with an extremely unpredictable customer base. Sometimes we're slammed from the moment we open at 3:30 until we close at 11:00 and beyond, sometimes it's so dead we pack up the make line by 8:00 and the owner mans the place himself the rest of the night. On the busiest days we need 3 cooks in the kitchen to keep up with the orders, but on the slowest even one is overkill, and we can't accurately predict when a busy night is going to come. So, we have 3 part time cooks, who all work on days when we anticipate business, but who are sent home sequentially if it fails to manifest. For me, this means sometimes my shift is 7.5 hrs, sometimes it's 2 hours, which isn't great, but I know that if my employer were forced to give us all full time hours, not only would he have gone bankrupt months ago (my employer is my age and bought a restaurant on credit pursuing a dream), but likely would never have opened the place in the first place. All of us either have multiple jobs or working spouses, it's just how the industry works, and all the regulations people like the OP want would do would be to reduce the industry to chains and fast food joints, it's just the nature of the beast. Independent retail is much the same, if slightly less volatile than restaurants.



Now you've completely lost me. So in your opinion, low end jobs are bad because they allow politicians to claim credit for better employment numbers? You know, of all the reasons I've ever seen an employer give for less than ideal job conditions, and I've seen a lot of thm, making the politicians look good and/or cooking the unemployment numbers has never come up once. All due respect Visa, I think it's been a long time since you've worked outside the professional sector, and might just be failing to get what goes into running a business these days.

No, I am not trying to call you anything. I am making a point about SOCIAL JUSTICE. It seems that Small business owners feel that they are entitled to exploit the people at the bottom of the economic food chain.
Small business owners should not get to starve people so that their business can be a success. Pay living wages or higher taxes for social programs your underpaid employees will need. There's no free lunch here.

And to answer your second question, yes, I did have a small retail/internet business for a while... I stopped it, not because of government "red tape" (all I needed was a business license and a tax permit) but because it was too much work and risk for very little reward. And I got tired of haggling with people all the time.

You do understand that without businesses to tax, there won't be any lunch for anyone, right?



And you want to make it even less reward... See above.

And the fact that we have huge deficits speaks to the fact that businesses are not paying enough.

If businesses create jobs with living wages government will not need tax money for social programs.

PS
There is plenty of money stuck at the top. One way or another, that money needs to get back into the economy.

OOH! But that's class envy! We can't demand that the demigods who are the engine of our economy to part with a single penny!
(Please note, I'm being sarcastic, lest any other Aspie think me serious )

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

It's no use arguing. Libertarians have faith that the "the market" and random voluntary acts of charity will in all cases provide for the needs of all. Even when it appears that the standard of living keeps falling for one group while another group becomes increasingly more wealthy over time (even though the first group has not decreased it's level of effort or productivity one bit) no one should ever attempt to make note of it or look for a systemic flaw. To do so is to engage in class warfare and demonize the rich. It seems some people are asking people to resign to the inevitable down-slide into poverty, debt, and dependence on government "handouts" they would rather not have to rely on for the scorn and shame it brings upon them. It's a no win situation and there's not a damn thing one can do to solve the problem.

Get a better job you say? Well, that only solves one individuals problem. You get a better job, someone else replaces your previous inadequate job and they are now in the same boat. That's no solution. It's the musical chairs fallacy. No matter how much you tell certain people they have to work and pull themselves up, there's going to be someone left standing. No matter how much business owners scream "it's not my job to provide charity, my only obligation is to make money, and don't you dare tax me!" there's still someone left standing. I suppose the conservative/libertarian answer is they should just put a bullet through their skull. Only there's not just one person stuck standing. There are millions still underemployed.

I guess you won't be happy until everyone gets a Free Ride and a Free Lunch.

By the way, who is going to pay for it. There is not enough "one percenters" to pay for the Free Ride even if they were taxed at one hundred percent of income.

ruveyn

It's hilarious how I say one thing and what goes into your head is something completely different. Now get this through your thick skull: People want jobs they can live on. People do not want to be dependent on government. People do not want a "free lunch". They just want the dignity to be able to exist without being hated on by a**hole right-wing capitalists who see their dependence on tax dollars as a hit on their bottom line. Capitalists have no solution to the problem of involuntary unemployment so they have to either deny its existence or find some convoluted way to blame government for it. Capitalists irrationally refuse to see that employment is a game of musical chairs and use it to justify blaming the people left standing for not fighting hard enough to get a seat. Their beliefs are a flimsy house of cards yet they refuse to see them as such. To see reality turns their illusion of capitalist "meritocracy" completely upside down. There is only one solution then...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpa7wEAz7I[/youtube]

^^^ W O R D !

I've said this before and I’ll say it again.

I live in an area with 6.1% unemployment and 20% poverty rate. Children with EMPLOYED PARENTS go to bed hungry around here every night.

These people are not lazy welfare sponges. These people are victims of bottom feeding employers like Wal-Mart and the other companies listed above....

Why should Wal-Mart make billions in profits while their employees burden the Medicaid, earned income tax credits (47%ers) and food stamp system?

Who is the real welfare mooch here?

If you cannot run a profitable business, and create jobs without also causing a burden on the system, you need to fold-up and make room for someone who can...

Or, we could all agree that some job is better than no job and continue to subsidize Small (and big) Businesses by helping their workers with social programs....

But if we do that, it's gonna mean higher taxes for those at the top.... This was the idea when Reagan was pushing it in the 80s. But then the people on the right decided they wanted to keep the subsidies (like the earned income tax credit) that let them pay low wages but they did not want to pay for it anymore....

Now, with the budget deficit out of control, they want to cut out all the tax credits and social programs for the working poor too.

It seems that somebody here does want a free lunch, but it is not the working poor.

We can have good, high wage jobs and lower taxes. Or, we can have sh***y, low wage jobs and higher taxes to pay for food stamps, Medicaid, earned income tax credits, etc.

Take your pick, JOB CREATORS.

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug...

They would rather pull a John Galt. The problem is small business owners don't have the option to just quit because they need income themselves. They don't have an inherited fortune or a giant stock portfolio to fall back on.

That said, I partially agree with Dox47. True small businesses (such as restaurant owners) aren't really to blame as they are being squeezed as well in the current economy. They are gravely mistaken to place themselves on the same side as overpaid CEO's of major corporations or people like Romney who exploit cheap labor overseas. Libertarians can defend outsourcing as a legitimate free choice all they want, but the fact of the matter is it has hurt the poor here in America and there is no way to run away from this fact. It simply isn't possible to live on Chinese wages here in America. The trade deficit impacts everything as few small businesses aren't reliant on goods manufactured by giant multinational corporations.

^^^ Yes, I agree small businesses really aren't the problem, but they aren't a solution either.

I do understand the problems facing small business owners... The thing is, they don't produce good jobs, and we should not, as a matter of public policy, count on them to create jobs for breadwinners...

In the 70s, 80s and 90s there was a name for guys who tried to support their families by working in pizza joints... We called them failures. Those jobs were for moonlighters, teenagers, and students.

I'm not against small business, but I see no real reason to kiss their asses.