Re:Restaurant workers quit at record rate
by munificent on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @04:17PM
(#27898735)
> If the owners could simply raise prices by 20% and suffer no economic consequences, I have little doubt they would.
If all the restaurants did at the same time, they could. But if only some do, then the restaurants that underpay their workers will have lower prices and outcompete them out of business.
You can look at this an yet another example of the core problem where consumers don't have visibility into the externalities of the purchasing choices. When picking a restaurant, you see the food prices, but you don't see that one restaurant is more expensive because it treats its workers better. That's an encapsulated abstraction. So we choose based on price, which inadvertently incentivizes restaurants to treat employees like crap.
If all the restaurants did at the same time, they could. But if only some do, then the restaurants that underpay their workers will have lower prices and outcompete them out of business.
You can look at this an yet another example of the core problem where consumers don't have visibility into the externalities of the purchasing choices. When picking a restaurant, you see the food prices, but you don't see that one restaurant is more expensive because it treats its workers better. That's an encapsulated abstraction. So we choose based on price, which inadvertently incentivizes restaurants to treat employees like crap.