I love how Americans just think there is no other country that might have, say, higher minimum wages or socialized medicine. It's just impossible they say. Not sense in comparing or seeing other places approach, America is just too exceptional.

Note that in Europe the economies are not as dynamic and has lower GDP growth on average. There are costs to higher taxes and more regulations. We're not exceptional, things are done differently.

I always have to remind myself of our glorious GDP growth as I use food stamps to buy groceries after clocking out of a 12 hour shift at Walmart.

Well, that GDP growth technically means you have a better opportunity to trade up in the USA than anywhere else in the world, if you apply yourself, get yourself trained, etc. you want to make people believe that these career choices are impossible to escape and they really aren’t.

> than in anywhere else the world

This is definitely not true.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_th...

It certainly is true, but academics who want to conduct sophistry can use the metric that gives them the answers they want. Comparing USA to Denmark using in-country income percentiles gives Denmark a much lower bar to hop over for this BS "social-mobility" as defined in the article.

You can also use whatever metrics you want, and you haven't even gone to the effort of defining them!

Here's one: use USA percentiles for both countries. Or use Denmark percentiles for both. Only when you use a high bar for US and low bar for Denmark do they come out on top.

This may have more to do with the US not getting blown up during WW2, and the US being the largest single market(in the sense that everyone speaks the same language, has same culture, comparable laws everywhere etc.). And less to do with good policies.

>This may have more to do with the US not getting blown up during WW2

It's been 80yr and Japan and Korea are doing fine.

The USSR basically force created a large single market over the course of its existence. If it was such a net win for prosperity the economic would have stuck around.

Nobody says it’s impossible, just that there are trade-offs. France has a monthly minimum wage that works out to under $12/hour on a 35 hour week. It also had 8.5-9.5% unemployment over the last few years before COVID, while the US was half that at 3.5-4.5%.

Same thing with socialized medicine. Nobody says that socialized medicine is impossible, just that it requires a level of taxes nobody wants to pay. Again to use France as an example, health insurance is paid for with a 20% tax split between employers and employees: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=924192.... America could easily pay for socialized medicine with such a tax. That’s not how any proponents of socialized medicine in America have proposed to pay for their proposal.

Ironically, that’s just a different form of American exceptionalism. “We can have high minimum wages and socialized medicine like Europe without having higher unemployment and higher middle class taxes like Europe.”

https://www.workforce.com/news/labor-and-benefits-expenses-i... If you doubled the employee wages the prices would increase less than 10%.

If minimum wage went up these businesses would not disappear; prices would just simply increase.

Most modest increases in minimum wage would simply result in income transfers from higher to lower.

If minimum wage goes up the stores will simply be replaced by Amazon- is that what you meant to say?

Raising minimum wage leads to efficiency gains, because companies automate their processes to remove labor from the equation.

We can take care of those people who cannot sell their labor at above minimum wage. It's not a law of the universe that they need to be exiled to starvation or eviction. (American corporations would love to have you think so!) Of course, this means that if you own a big company like McDonalds and put all your workers out of a job by automating, you need to do your part to take care of them.

When jobs are automated, overall revenue doesn't go down. It often goes up. It's a misallocation that the increased revenue doesn't go to displaced workers in the form of welfare.

Groceries are already adapting: they employ fewer people than they did prior, especially in high-cost areas. They already are removing cheap labor: self checkout. The increase in productivity goes to the worker who still remains, in the form of a higher wage.

It is just simply not true that we can maintain a huge portion of the population on unemployment for an indefinite period of time. It would come out to trillions of dollars per year, the math just doesn’t add up. And I should remind you that not every company is McDonalds or Amazon, but this kind of thinking supports their dominance rather than undermines it because their competition are less able to afford to comply with regulations. Wouldn’t you feel like a fool if you killed all small business in the US and ended up only with a few big players? Isn’t that the scenario everyone is afraid of? Stop making it a self fulfilling prophecy.

Nuking, how? Where do you think you are going to get your cheap bananas? Your bananas are going to go up from $0.29/lb to $0.39/lb and the grocery clerk is going to have a little more rent money.

You assume the store wouldn't replace the grocery clerk with self-checkout machines or install an amazon go like-system.

Robots & specialized technology solutions are year-over-year going down in cost. If labor continues the upwards cost trajectory we'd simply be accelerating the replacement of unskilled labor with robots.

Great example is Knightscope. It's able to meet security guard compliance & insurance needs at an hourly rate cheaper than humans. And given enough time, I'm sure it'll end up more reliable. https://www.knightscope.com/

Indeed, this is a great argument for UBI, since it will not be possible to maintain a job supply which can provide everyone with a life. :)

That's a pretty terrible reason for UBI imo. If UBI is built to offset the lack of jobs, more people will choose not to work. If people choose not to work, the price of labor will go up. If the price of labor goes up, more and more labor will be outsourced to countries without UBI. It will create an underclass of non-citizens who don't get the luxury of UBI but live in an economy built for people who do.

People just choosing not to work in a thread about about ever-increasing numbers of workers with multiple jobs. Really??

If you're working 3 jobs to pay the bills, and then someone starts paying the bills for you, you're probably not going to continue working those 3 jobs. I don't see anything remotely controversial about that logic.

The reason people work minimum wage jobs is because they require that minimum wage to live.

The incremental cost of labor is not going to slow the arrival of a robotic Aldi. Fortunately, I have other grocery stores in the area and can spend my money at the one with the best quality AND service.

> The incremental cost of labor is not going to slow the arrival of a robotic Aldi.

No but it could speed it up. I'm certain plenty of big enough retail operation has a spreadsheet somewhere tracking the ROI on potential automation endeavors.

> Fortunately, I have other grocery stores in the area and can spend my money at the one with the best quality AND service.

Agreed, but are you in the majority with that? There's people who don't care about the long term impacts of, say, buying from an online retailer versus a local bike shop, but there's also a decent portion who's incomes mean it's either take the choice that's a little destructive to society, or not have any even-close-to-nice things for yourself.

If you want to know what a race to the bottom looks like in the US grocery biz, just ask Tesco.[0] At the end, they were practically giving food away with ridiculous coupons and it still wasn't enough to keep people coming to their "fresh & sleazy" stores.

[0]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-did-tesco-fail-in-the-us/

The automation in ordering at fast food places was visible immediately after several cities uped the minimum wage. Hurt the workers but my orders accuracy has gone up compared to the previous human system

They would raise prices? Which would disproportionately affect me, who makes a good bit more than minimum wage, since I still buy from those vendors but my wage is not increasing.

While lower income workers would have the prices raise on them, but less than by the amount that their page is rising (because the cost is also spread on people who won't have their wages increased).

Which is fine by me. It can present a problem to positions like, say, academic adjunct, since those are budgetary and can't simply increase prices. But for the most part I don't see anything apocalyptic about a minimum wage increase.

They would raise prices, and be immediately replaced by Amazon, who can outprice them with scale and robotics. All this time you are complaining about a society dominated by a few large players, but every policy you advocate favors the dominance by a few large players.

Maybe going on a tangent here, but it's really the idea of a federal minimum wage that doesn't make sense to me. Cost of living can literally be an order of magnitude apart between 2 given states.

Because it’s literally the minimum wage. States are free to raise it higher if their cost of living is higher, but it makes sense for the federal government to say “there is nowhere in the country where you can support a family on less than this dollar amount so everyone should have to pay at least this”

And differences can be a magnitude apart living in different parts of the state! I live in a major east coast city, where a small rowhome in my neighborhood is 200k+ in good condition.

new houses in the state capitol 2 hours away? No problem coming in under 100K.

So COL varies wildy even within a state, as is no surprise.

I don't disagree, this is just making my point even more :) And reinforces the original comment that a minimum wage that doesn't take these disparities into account may simply be a death blow for a lot of small businesses in low CoL areas.

Except it would increase demand and therefore profit

not if total payrolls stay constant.

I think you make a good point here that a lot of people miss: we have things like cheap groceries because as a society we prey on vulnerable people. When do we accept that the reason we get to have avacados and limes year round everywhere in the country is because we are all collectively taking advantage of people? And we have to accept that if we want to take advantage of people less, our day to day will be more expensive.

I suggest to decrease the minimum wage to 1 USD/h like in Mexico. Other option is that the bosses may give the employees a tract of land in rent as payment, they can keep a small portion of their production for themselves.

What’s the point of doing that? That’s $2000 a year at full time. No American can even come close to living on that and frankly I would rather be unemployed

Sarcasm

Some Nordic countries, which usually come up at some point when discussing employment dynamics, do not have a minimum wage and yet no one earns only $1/h.

Correlation not causation. They don’t have minimum wage because they don’t need minimum wage. This is like saying that antibiotics give you an infection because only people with an infection have antibiotics.

No, they earn substantially more than in America, which is exactly the opposite of what OP is proposing.

No, they do not. Norway is the only Nordic country that has a higher median adult income, and it's not by a whole lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

These numbers are after taxes and transfers, so they encode all of the welfare programs in the respective countries.

I was talking about minimum-wage earners, the difference is day and night. So,yes they do.

You'll have to provide some citations.

Here's one study, reviewed jointly by Dr. Henrique Schneider, professor of economics at Nordakademie University in Germany and the chief economist of the Swiss Federation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: https://fee.org/articles/the-poorest-20-of-americans-are-ric...

In the US, we have welfare programs that target the poor (yes, some slip through the cracks unfortunately). Once you account for all taxes, transfers, and non-welfare benefits, the poorest 20% are on average richer than most European nations. This is measured by looking at annual per capita consumption among the bottom 20%.

The article you provided are from the same people who deny global warming(The Heartland Institute). Dr. Henrique Schneider is a conservative Austrian (as in the school) economist with loony ideas about science: https://ecaef.org/the-anthropocene-fallacy-learning-from-wro...

So allow me to be quite skeptic about the quality and validity of his "research"

Presented without comment: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Those same countries have very expansive social safety nets that are non-existent in the US.

You mean like universal healthcare for low income people (Medicaid)? Or retirement security for low income people (Social security)? What exactly are you referring to?

Free college education

4-6 weeks of mandated paid vacation

Substantial paid parental leave

Option to opt in for half-time working and the companies are mandated to comply

Universal healthcare not related to your job situation nor to the whims of the coverage of your health policy

Option to join an union with no repercussion

Any other question?

Nobody doubts that Nordic countries have generous social safety nets, but I think rayiner is scoffing at the notion that the US's social safety net is "non-existent", which is laughable.

The US spends close to 80% of its Federal budget on social programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, EITC, SNAP/EBT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...

And that's not even including State-level welfare. Each State has its own unemployment insurance, welfare programs, and subsidized state university. In Georgia (where my alma mater is), university is essentially free if you can maintain a GPA > 3.5.

On top of all that, the government is currently debating another big round of welfare and stimulus. A Republican has proposed a massive overhaul of welfare to provide up to $15,000 a year in cash for parents: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22264520/mitt-romney-chec...

I can see how you may read it that way, but I did not state that the US does not have any social safety nets - that would be as you pointed out, obviously false. To re-iterate, my point was that the US lacks very expansive social safety nets such as those present in Nordic countries, some of which were enumerated by cambalache. Were the US to adopt some of those policies, perhaps the minimum wage would be less important.

> In Georgia (where my alma mater is), university is essentially free if you can maintain a GPA > 3.5.

Why do I always see that the GA Tech OMSCS is ~$10,000? This is a serious question. If it's essentially free with a good GPA I might actually enroll.

The Georgia program (HOPE) is for in-state high-school students getting their undergraduate degree, not people getting graduate degrees.

Interesting. Guess it would be cheaper to go to an in person graduate program in Europe: https://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees

I was referring to the more generous Zell-Miller scholarship. You get HOPE if you can maintain a GPA > 3.0.

> Free college education

Is free college part of the "safety net" given that the majority of people in Scandinavian countries don't go to college? How is this relevant to a discussion of minimum wage workers?

> 4-6 weeks of mandated paid vacation > Substantial paid parental leave

Paid vacation and parental leave are good examples of social benefits that exist in Scandinavia but not in the U.S.

> Option to opt in for half-time working and the companies are mandated to comply

Is working half hours a problem minimum wage workers actually face? This sounds more like a benefit for more skilled workers, who

> Universal healthcare not related to your job situation nor to the whims of the coverage of your health policy

For minimum wage workers, the same exists in the U.S. A full-time minimum wage job where I live in Maryland pays $21,000. Through the Affordable Care Act, someone my age (36) at that income level can buy a "Gold" plan with low deductibles for $75/month. That works out to about 4.2% of income, basically the same as the higher income taxes you'd pay in Sweden on that same income. Except in Maryland your sales tax is 6% rather than the 25% VAT in Sweden.

> Option to join an union with no repercussion

Same thing in the U.S.

> Is free college part of the "safety net" given that the majority of people in Scandinavian countries don't go to college?

Half of the people have tertiary education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...

> How is this relevant to a discussion of minimum wage workers?

Gee, I dont know, maybe becuase college students with no degrees has a higher probability of a minimum wage. But he can study and work, not to choose between both or a life-enslaving credit.

> Is working half hours a problem minimum wage workers actually face?

Minimum-wage earners are people too, not mindless drones. You have there colleges students, second-income parents, people trying to create their own business, people working in the arts, volunteers.

> For minimum wage workers, the same exists in the U.S.

In a gold plan you still have to co-pay 20% of your costs, so good luck with an unforseen 30k medical bill.

https://www.healthcare.gov/choose-a-plan/plans-categories/

> Option to join an union with no repercussion

>Same thing in the U.S.

LOL, you must live a very sheltered life.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/coronavirus-unio...

https://news.yahoo.com/nearly-20-of-workers-illegally-fired-...

> Half of the people have tertiary education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...

Here is the latest data in one chart: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/figures/images/figure-cac-3.... In the U.S. 47% of people have a post-secondary degree. It's 43% in Sweden and 38% in Denmark. I'd imagine vanishingly small numbers of low-wage workers have college debt, or would qualify to get into college.

> Gee, I don't know, maybe becuase college students with no degrees has a higher probability of a minimum wage. But he can study and work, not to choose between both or a life-enslaving credit.

The vast majority of workers earning minimum wage aren't qualified to go to college. If they are, they can get government-guaranteed student loans, which are repaid based on income levels after college.

And it's not like college is actually free in Scandinavia. You still have the opportunity cost and cost of living. Student debt levels in Sweden are actually similar to those in the United States, $20,000-25,000: https://qz.com/85017/college-in-sweden-is-free-but-students-...

Student debt in the U.S. is also not "life enslaving." To go back to my example of someone making minimum wage in Maryland. If that person somehow has a college degree and the average $25,000 of debt, they'll pay only $24/month on their student loans: https://studentloanhero.com/calculators/pay-as-you-earn-calc.... This is for federal student loans, but more than 90% of all student debt is federal loans.

> Minimum-wage earners are people too, not mindless drones. You have there colleges students, second-income parents, people trying to create their own business, people working in the arts, volunteers.

I mean do minimum wage workers actually have trouble getting their employers to give them half-hours, such that they need a law that forces their employer to accept that? In the U.S., it's so easy to hire and fire workers that employers are very flexible about low-skill, hourly workers only wanting to work say 20 hours a week. They just hire more workers.

> In a gold plan you still have to co-pay 20% of your costs, so good luck with an unforseen 30k medical bill. https://www.healthcare.gov/choose-a-plan/plans-categories/

Yes, but the co-insurance is subject to Cost Sharing Reduction: https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/cost-sharing-reduction. If you actually get sick on the Gold plan that I was looking at, your maximum out-of-pocket costs is $6,500. Which is a significant amount, no doubt, but most people making minimum wage are young and will not get sick.

> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/coronavirus-unio... > https://news.yahoo.com/nearly-20-of-workers-illegally-fired-...

Firing workers for trying to unionize is illegal under U.S. law. I'm sure employers in Scandinavian countries never violate labor laws?

> In the U.S. 47% of people have a post-secondary degree. It's 43% in Sweden and 38% in Denmark.

You guys are missing the point; social mobility for all. Also, if so called low-skilled jobs still provides a comfortable living in Scandinavia, it will obviously skew those numbers.

> And it's not like college is actually free in Scandinavia. You still have the opportunity cost and cost of living.

Yes, you can choose to remote or on-site education. There's also a cultural thing where young adults are encouraged to move out from their parents sooner rather than later.

The loan is taken from a government agency, that means non-profit. The current interests rate for student debt in Sweden is 0.05%. This is surely a major difference from the US?

> but most people making minimum wage are young and will not get sick

This seem very optimistic, bordering cynical. I wonder how long the Uber waiting times would be if there's only healthy young people driving (and some even like to assume that it's only part timers at that).

> The loan is taken from a government agency, that means non-profit. The current interests rate for student debt in Sweden is 0.05%. This is surely a major difference from the US?

Interest rates in the US are higher, but unlike Sweden your repayment is based on income. If you make less money, your monthly payment will be much less, and the debt will be forgiven after 20 years.

If you have to put a qualifier in front of “universal healthcare” it’s not universal healthcare

Aren't those the same things conservatives continually talking about and trying as Republicans to cut and get rid of?

They have strong unions with sectoral bargaining