Re:The brave new world of robots and lost jobs
by yummyfajitas on Friday August 12, 2016 @10:22AM
(#12275857)
This is an interesting hypothesis - a culturally imposed minimum wage. I'm a bit suspicious because I don't see much evidence of a floor. For example, people seem quite willing to hire Mexicans outside home depo for relatively low wages.
The common solution to sticky nominal wages is economic stimulus; inflate away real wages to trick people into hiring at lower real wages. Do you think that would fix this issue?
In many cases Americans refuse to hire them, for cultural reasons that may be the flip side of Americans refusing to do them. Child care is one that there seems to be a lot of (at least, one hears about it a lot), but maid, cook, butler, and even general handyman are positions that many Americans won't consider hiring someone for, in any stable, ongoing way.
I have no problem hiring an electrician to come in and rewire parts of my (1950s era) house, because the maximum I'm willing to pay is above the minimum I would need to pay to avoid feeling like I was cheating them. For full-time cook or maid or general laborer, the willing-max is below the fair-min.