Should we go back to the days of mandated government work programs? What is your actual recommendation here?

At some point we have to accept that people should be able to make free choices, and will typically make sub-optimal choices. We can increase the burden on employers but then that means less overall jobs - which then leads to that starvation outcome you mention.

My only recommendation is to not base your moral code on market forces. Not everything the market allows is good.

And maybe think a little about the people involved in the products you consume.

So we should stop shopping at Amazon so their workforce is laid off?

Or we should force Amazon to raise their prices which affects low income consumers the most?

I'm not judging conclusions but the logic used to arrive at them.

Regardless of the market, there's very little actual functional value exchanged in simply following rote labor processes that don't inherently require skilled decision making or craftsmanship. The value tends to come from the design of the labor process itself; the rest is fungible.

Obviously we don't want the societal cost of unhealthy labor exploitation, but it is an incredibly difficult minefield to create mandates which imbalance individual value exchanges. One long tail of this is the loss of labor markets (physical labor as well as mental labor) in favor of automation even at the limited levels of AI we're currently at. Offshoring is another.

It is not difficult to avoid abusing power imbalances in your favor, nor is it difficult to set fair wages and labor practices.

It is also, apparently, not difficult to devalue people in a lesser position by reasoning that market forces have moral authority.

A society based on individuals devaluing everyone below them in the hierarchy has consequences.

> It is not difficult to avoid abusing power imbalances in your favor,

I think that's being naively idealistic, looking at everything both currently and throughout history. The Stanford Prison Experiment has a lot to say about this, too.

> nor is it difficult to set fair wages and labor practices.

Theoretically, yes. But one issue with the USA in particular is its sheer size and variety. A fair wage in New York City and a fair wage in Podunk are not the same thing. Nor are manual labor practices equivalent across varying climates and population densities. The federal level of governance is wildly disconnected from the populace in both distance and levels of hierarchy. They deal with passing laws most of which arise from local issues that 99% of people (and even lawmakers) don't have a connection to, yet end up affecting everybody. Even at the state level, Californians and New Yorkers are still burdened by laws that tend to originate from the high density centers that might not make any sense outside there.

It's relatively easy to look at a single instance of a job and consider what's fair practice and fair pay in that specific environment, but to do so as a legally enforceable blanket policy is not.

> moral authority ... individuals devaluing everyone ...

There isn't a "devaluation" happening; there's little real value exchanged in the actual work to begin with. This has nothing to do with any notion of "moral authority", which themselves manifest in externalities added to work environments for societal benefit. But the ratio of expense between those externalities and the work itself can get overwhelming for low-end labor, hence automation and offshoring.

I really have no idea what you're talking about besides disagreeing in order to disagree.

If you don't know what I'm saying, then that's a pretty prejudiced assumption on your part to instantly jump to effectively an accusation of trolling. This is a complex issue where "it's bad for no reason and should be easy to fix!" doesn't suffice.

If the government were to offer PTO for employees below a certain income threshold to learn new work-related skills, would that help lift people out of these situations?

Or would such a system be 1. too invasive and 2. abused, either by companies or the employees.

That's a weird way to do it, and would tend to subsidize employers for questionable benefits. Tax incentives for employer tuition reimbursement makes more sense.

Instead there should be programs to pay people minimum wage + tuition to attend community college for in-demand-career related degrees.

>Instead there should be programs to pay people minimum wage + tuition to attend community college for in-demand-career related degrees.

Amazon has a program like that. Unfortunately, it's only for AAS, and they only pay partial tuition.

What Amazon doesn't seem to have is a program to help people grow within Amazon, beyond FC work. There are tons of in-house resources, video tutorials, etc for training that employees simply can never access because they don't have the time.

> Tax incentives for employer tuition reimbursement makes more sense.

Just when you thought tuition costs couldn't go any higher...

Perhaps large employers could negotiate better rates?

Sounds like a great way to increase offer acceptance rates too.