Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

Re:Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp? by adolph on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @07:39PM (#29411093)

The stealth taxation of inflation affects the lowest 30 in the 100 the most in order to pay the lowest 10. The change in purchase power is not like taxing everyone $1. Whether it’s like taxing on a sliding scale from low to high income that is $1 to $.5 or $1 to $0, I don’t know, just $1 across the board isn’t right. There are probably second order confounders as well, for example since federal gas ax is not inflation indexed, inflation acts as a tax cut.

“It isn’t the sum you get, it's how much you can buy with it, that's the important thing; and it's that that tells whether your wages are high in fact or only high in name.”

Mark Twain A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)[0]

0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221480431...

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Re:Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp? by vkou on Thursday December 02, 2021 @01:51AM (#29413275)

$1 across the board is, indeed, not right. In reality, people higher up on the wealth scale would pay more (as they consume more goods and services - just not 1:1 proportionately more.)

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Re:Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp? by adolph on Thursday December 02, 2021 @08:59AM (#29416149)

A change in real dollars still affects lower income folks more because a higher percentage of income is devoted towards basics. Inflation reduces purchasing power for all, but some categories of spending cannot be substituted or eliminated.

U.S. households with higher incomes spend more money on food, but the amount spent represents a smaller overall portion of their budgets. In 2020, households in the lowest income quintile spent an average of $4,099 on food (representing 27 percent of income), while households in the highest income quintile spent an average of $12,245 on food (representing 7 percent of income).

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...

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Re:Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp? by vkou on Thursday December 02, 2021 @06:08PM (#29424185)

So, you're saying that for every dollar taken from the poor (to be redistributed to the working poor), we'd be taking three dollars from the rich (to again, be redistributed to the working poor)?

That seems to support my point that raising the minimum wage disproportionately helps the working poor.

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Re:Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp? by adolph on Saturday December 04, 2021 @11:34AM (#29441907)

Key word is proportionate. Inflation disproportionately affects those with low income. The affects are not linear—look at the difference in pct income to food in lowest quintile compared to others. A dollar from the lowest quintile is objectively more valuable in purchasing power than three dollars is to the highest.

It’s akin to the company town giving a buck more in wages but charging 2 more in groceries. Sure you make “more,” but since you can buy less of what you need, you are effectively making less.

https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/HighSchool/RealvsNomi...

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