Isn't that the whole point of jobs -- making a living?

Your assertion makes no sense to me. I feel like I'm missing something.

Yes. That's not the whole point of all jobs.

No. I’ve probably had 20+ jobs in my lifetime and only expected to make enough to live with maybe half of them . The idea that working fast food, which I’ve done and anyone with a pulse could do, should pay enough to pay all of an adults living expenses is preposterous and makes no economic sense at all.

There are plenty of other jobs that anyone with a pulse could do and make more than fast food. But of course those jobs make total economic sense, right?

Not sure what those jobs are - generally the less skill needed the lower the compensation. If there are some easy jobs like you say that pay better and employer and employee are both in agreement that’s great.

I'm not arguing the OP's point but...

A fair wage represents an exchange of equal value. This does not speak to the viability of repeating that exchange as profession; only that reasonable compensation has been given for a reasonable amount of work.

Are you suggesting a massive expansion of government assistance or of homelessness? I don’t see a fourth option.

I’d suggest simply reminding people that if they don’t want to be homeless they need to learn a skill that pays a living wage. This is how it’s been forever.

So this is just a roundabout way of getting to the original post’s conclusion, right? A nice little coffeeshop may not be possible.

A coffee shop is absolutely possible as long as nobody is interfering in the wage agreed on between employer and employee. We’ve had coffee shops forever and they have done fine. It’s only the modern expectation that they should pay more that is threatening that model.

If you want to work for leas then a living wage, your living will have to be subsidized somehow I guess, do you agree?

No. How to choose to support yourself is up to you to figure out. 3 bad jobs, one good job, you’ll have to figure that out.

Yes, but it gets to the same conclusion in a more condescending way.

I think the idea is that these jobs will be taken by teenagers whose parents will provide most of the cost-of-living.

Or people working two jobs.

The former seems OK, although there’s clearly a lot of demand for coffee shops workers, and a thin slice of the population (what, like 16-20 year olds or so) can’t serve all of it (and also they should really be prioritizing education at that age, so their overall availability should be very low).

Having a bunch of people work two jobs is just failure of society.

I don’t really buy the teenager theory. In that case, it’s just their parents subsidizing below-cost business operations. I don’t think it’s all that different from government subsidies at the macro scale.

I don’t buy the theory itself, but I’m pretty sure that this is what people are thinking of when they say that below living wage jobs should exist. At least — when people say “below living wage jobs should not exist” I think they are not arguing for massive expansion of the social safety net, but for some more cutthroat version of capitalism, consequences be damned.

The needs of a single teenager or young adult are different than those of a middle aged adult with a house to maintain and dependents.

If a teenager has a job, are they paying rent to their parents and paying for meals at the family table?

This is already subsidized - job or no. The average teenager's job supports the things they want beyond that basic level of support that parents are expected to provide.

This really boils down to the set of questions:

1. What value can a company realize with an unskilled worker?

2. What are the financial needs of an unskilled worker without dependents?

3. What are the financial needs of an unskilled worker that needs to support a household?

2 & 3 are likely not the same. And 1 will more closely match 2 than 3... and a lot of the arguments about a living wage are about case 3.

Which is all fair and well and good… but how would you feel if your employer calibrated your wages to what they think you need, rather than the value you bring?

So unless we’re going to a “…to each according to their needs” society, which I think most of us oppose, we have to decide whether we want jobs that don’t pay enough for an average person to live. Calibrating wages for everyone to the needs of teenagers doesn’t seem terribly sustainable.

An employer will attempt to pay as little as possible to an employee and then move the potential wage up to the value that an employee in that position would bring.

This is further adjusted to the cost to train an employee in that spot as they'd need to spend that again if they are to replace that employee.

For unskilled works, working in a coffee shop, where training can be done in an afternoon... the teenager has very little bargaining power to move the wage closer to "value they bring".

And that's where the minus wage gets in (I support raising the minimum wage though note that this will have second order effects of making some local coffee shops that are staffed by teenagers unprofitable).

The existing subsidies that are in place regardless of a teenager's employment by virtue of having parents with a place where you can eat and live... and health care (can be on parents' plan until 26) enables the low margin service sector to take advantage of / give employment to people who teenagers and young adults who lack skills to get other jobs (and desire flexibility for school or being a care free young adult).

If you take those subsides away, the service sector won't be able to bargain down / offer jobs at those levels anymore.

The overall unemployment rate is 3.6% which is shockingly low and has been enabling people to get higher wages. The youth unemployment rate, however, is closer to 10% ( https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/youth.pdf and https://www.statista.com/statistics/217429/seasonally-adjust... ) . There are lots of teenagers out there looking for those unskilled jobs - and thus they have less ability to negotiate for better wages.

If you were to calibrate the amount you need to pay to someone at a coffee shop to the living wage needed by the person who brings in the majority of the income for a household... very few service sector companies could afford that.

The less than living wage, unskilled work, bringing in supplemental income for an individual or household is something that is needed in the overall economy.

What is the alternative?

They should do, or they should be automated so you don't need as many employees.

Or, as many Silicon Valley startups have shown, there are lots of services that people want but it turns out that a critical mass of mainstream consumers aren't willing to pay the cost of providing them.