Why Increasing Minimum Wage is Meaningless

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where we're heading is a case of too many people and not enough jobs. overpopulation.

The tradesman where I work are laughing all the way to the bank if they put 50+ hours a week in.

One is 25 and bought a large new 4 bedroom house (an impressive feat at that age), another in his 20s owns his own farm, one drives into work in a BMW M4 and another has ironically bought a house in the Cardiff while also keeping his old one in a town several miles away.

You stand a better chance of moving into an expensive city by saving up money outside first. Almost all the tradesmen I work with can reasonably buy their own home in London now if they wanted to.

Towns well outside of the big, flash cities are paved with gold if you plan on buying a house in them and pick wisely. Cheaper prices for food, cheaper mortgage, more disposal income and climbing the socioeconomic ladder is a lot easier. Smash away at a smaller mortgage in a rural town and you'll quickly find yourself paying little for the roof over your head.

Trades make higher pay here, too, than most office/service jobs, but it's still not nearly enough to buy a house anymore. That's why so many tradesmen are leaving - what's the point in staying if they can't afford a home for their family? This place is whack.

housing inflation is so crazy in my neck of the woods, it previously was the last affordable place in washington state but now it is just as crazy-expensive as seattle. it is hopeless unless one basically is either rich in the first place, or in the top rank of intelligence and the highest of high-functionality, to be in the upper-middle class socioeconomic status to easily be able to afford to buy a house nowadays, anywhere where there are any jobs at all within a day's drive.

Yes there seems to be a push to create "clever" innovative economies in western countries because we can't compete with cheaper unskilled labor in developing countries where you find most of the manufacturing jobs. It becomes an excuse for governments to close down technical colleges where tradesmen and vocational training is offered for staff in areas like hospitality.

There is a huge demand for trades and (yes) even in Australia they get paid (depending on the trade) better than doctors. One thing to consider is the physical toll. For example I have a cousin who was employed as a welder working in a mining site who experienced physical burnout but the pay was usually enough to retire early so long as you are sensible and put away your savings toward land/property.

If people can't live in expensive areas then how do you expect to have labor workers in the expensive area? Who will clean the floors and restrooms and empty the trashcans? Who will serve you coffee? Who will stock the shelves at the super market and who will do inventory to make sure they have enough supplies for people who will need it? Who will serve you your food if you want to eat at a Burger King?

Mexicans? Actually in Australia almost all those jobs no local wants to do was given (prior to COVID) to people on 457 visas from the Asia pacific region.

Okay, let's try a different approach.

If I want someone to mow my lawn for me, do I set the priced based on how much not having to cut my own grass is worth to me, or do I have to pay according to some calculation as to what is a "fair" price for the job? If the latter answer, why, and who sets the price?

Even an illegal immigrant has to live reasonable commute distance to where the work is, and figure out how to pay the rent. But most illegal immigrants do come from places where what they expect from that housing is less, and are willing to live with a lot more people per square foot - if their landlords will let them (which landlords usually don't). Which raises another issue: occupancy standards that don't allow affordable living.

It is worth pushing around the question that has arisen in this thread: whose problem is it?

The best answer is going to be that the issues have multiple facets.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 17 Jan 2022, 10:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

In my experience, its more the later. You propose the work you want done, and ask what the price would be. You accept their price or you don't; some potential employers counter. Some service providers take the counter. It all depends.

If the job of cutting the grass is only worth $5/hr to you and that is all you are willing to pay, unless you can find a tween with little understanding of the market, you will have to go without your grass getting cut. We aren't inherently entitled to the services of others; if we can't afford to pay them what they think they are worth, we don't get the service.

Unless you are the only employer in town and take advantage of that leverage. Which is how we get things like unions and minimum wage laws ...

Obviously there is a whole lot in between. Supply, demand, relative power, agency ...

You know, there's another interesting facet there that I came up against in the restaurant business, in that many of my local competitors were small immigrant run places where they actually were living on premises (legally or otherwise) and had the whole family working at the business without anyone taking a salary, grandparents to little kids, and thus were able to offer highly labor intensive dishes at a price that I couldn't match, sub $1 tacos, $3 banh mi, stuff like that. I didn't begrudge them that, being willing to work harder for less money is their competitive advantage, what I did resent the hell out of was people complaining about my prices and then pointing to these shops as evidence that I must be raking it in and ripping them off, when the only reason I was even keeping my head above water at my price point was that I was barely paying myself and getting a bunch of free labor from my family. I can tell you, since a lot of this happened over social media where I could see post histories, an awful lot of "fight for $15!" types also love cheap ethnic food, and it never seems to occur to them that there is a contradiction there.

That's the thing though, if I don't have any takers at my price, I can raise it, decide to do the work myself, or maybe buy one of those Roomba like robomowers if I really hate doing it and the locals want too much, there isn't some agency arbitrarily setting the price, the market determines what the job is worth.

But it is. The fewer people with good paying jobs, the less money businesses will make. But the business community has been focusing on short range gain rather than investing in the economy by paying good wages and providing affordable services. Eventually, when the rest of us are destitute, business people will wonder why they can't make any more money. But a business' only thought is how to make more money fast, they won't be able to grasp that and make needed changes till it's long past too late.

need a lot more henry fords and a lot fewer al dunlaps.

Or is it just the landlords seeing this as a pretext to price gouge?

landlords should be licensed and subject to license suspension/revocation should they misbehave.