Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation
by what_is_orcas on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:49PM
(#29598163)
Yeah, I think this speaks to a much broader problem with how we attribute value in our society.
Monetary value has no bearing on actual value. For example, a smartphone is only $1000 because some people were paid $0 to produce it. Did those people not produce value? Take a fast food hamburger, it only costs $1 because it's not real meat (mostly), and the person who heated it up is being paid a wage with which they cannot afford reasonable housing and healthy food.
Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation
by sokoloff on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:58PM
(#29598270)
Monetary value is the value to the business, though. If Pat can only serve enough customers to create $10 in value (above COGS) that customers are willing to pay for, a business can't pay Pat $15 for that work on a sustainable basis.
I think substantial increases in the minimum wages force those people into a lottery where some are made better off and others are made worse off, but where the ones made worse off are made much worse off (out of work, higher barrier than today to finding work, everyone around them has more money and everything is more expensive than today).