The Biden Presidency - 2020

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

1977 was 44 years ago. If this were 1980, this would be the equivalent of saying "economic conditions sure have changed since 1936!" The conditions change over time continually. We have to adapt both as a society and as individuals. Part of changing as individuals is adjusting to the new reality that those jobs no longer can support a family. Part of changing as a society is helping create conditions where people can flourish. It's not as simply as raising the wage floor, nor is it as simple as telling people to get a better job. As someone has said here, we don't do complexity and nuance well.

Part of changing as a society is helping create harsh challenging conditions where only certain people can flourish if they are of a certain persuasion and background. The rest can go pound sand.

NOTE: I believe this is thematically the thought of both parties.

[larrymcg421]

I went to Burger King for lunch, but they were closed because it was during school hours.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

I went to Burger King for lunch, but they were closed because it was during school hours.

Seriously?

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

What about retail jobs? Is everyone working at Walmart at 10AM on a Tuesday in high school? Are they all managers? Maid services were another example from Nickel and Dimed. Yes, that's an upper-middle class thing, but it's more common than it used to be (/waves at Ben). Now that the real upper-middle doesn't have servants living with them, anyway. That job was starting at just above minimum wage too. There was one "manager" for that outfit. These jobs were making the same as flipping burgers. (Burgers aren't really a "treat" as far as lunches go either. How many people pack their lunches these days? How many high schoolers are available in March for a 12PM rush?)

(Aside: does any place have kids bagging groceries anymore? At any store I go to the person running the register also does the bagging. If there IS a person running the register, that is.)

I worked in grocery stores for almost a decade. By and large, the people working in grocery stores were middle-upper management (section or store management), kids, second income workers (usually wives/moms), older/elderly, and a number of people who drifted from job-to-job every several months or a year. The people I saw stay for over a few years were the managers and second income people. You're always going to have a portion who try to make a living out of it for various reasons, but the point is, it doesn't look like that's a viable option any more. 40-50 years ago, it might have been, unforced. Things change over time. Those jobs are not worth what it costs today to be viable long-term jobs.

I go through this quite often in terms of insurance licensing for retail clients. No one wants to pay to license individual agents to sell insurance because retail workers are, by and large, a transient job force. You can't spend 3 months and hundreds of dollars to license someone to sell insurance and then watch them walk away - with a license you paid for. That's one of the reasons the industry was so invested on getting portable electronics insurance licensing at an entity level, so that Best Buy can sell you lost/theft on your cellphone without investing in the worker selling it to you in the store.

And yes, our Kroger has a mix of kids, elderly and challenged folks who bag groceries.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

I went to Burger King for lunch, but they were closed because it was during school hours.

The dude flipping burgers today will likely not be there flipping burgers in 6 months.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Seriously?

No I was mocking the clichéd argument that retail/fast food workers don't deserve more money because they are just high school kids.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

What percentage of society actually wants this?

Heh. Who knows? I mean, maybe this is just where free market/capitalism just eventually ends. People will always be selfish and greedy. We'll never see the elites or even the upper middle accepting pay cuts en masse to help others. Maybe it has to get so bad that both the red and blue underclass--who, if combined, make up the overwhelming majority of our enlisted armed forces--are in such bad shape that they unite, revolt, and overthrow. I don't really see a path to political leaders fixing it.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Qwikshot

Part of changing as a society is helping create harsh challenging conditions where only certain people can flourish if they are of a certain persuasion and background. The rest can go pound sand.

NOTE: I believe this is thematically the thought of both parties.

DING DING DING! We have a WINNAH!

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

No I was mocking the clichéd argument that retail/fast food workers don't deserve more money because they are just high school kids.

Well, to bring this discussion full circle to present times, every fast food restaurant in my town has been shut down on multiple occasions due to lack of workers over the past 3-4 months. So your mocking post is actually quite true.

[Ben E Lou]

And to Ksyrup's comment, I do my grocery & other retail shopping almost exclusively from 6am-Noon on weekdays to avoid having to wait in line, and his characterization of that workforce does seem mostly accurate in my experience, though the one thing I would add to that would be college kids. I know a few of these personally, and there are plenty of others in that demographic that I see working weekly that I don't know. Maybe it's just unique to Greensboro/The Triad because we have an insane number of colleges/universities here, but it appears that the cost of higher ed has created a pool of college kids who are taking classes, living with their parents, and have availability to work during some weekdays.

[Ben E Lou]

Oh, and if it isn't obvious--the *need* for workers in retail has to be far lower during the workday. When I'm returning home from taking the kids to school and stop at the grocery store at 7:55am, there are never more than 2 lanes open, and there's no one bagging groceries. The few times I've had to pick something up shortly before dinner time, it's 6-8 open lanes with grocery baggers in nearly all of them.

[Ksyrup]

And by the way, I'm not necessarily arguing against the facts but more the proposed solution, which will do nothing to encourage anyone from moving away from jobs no longer providing a sustainable income and expecting either the government to provide for them or for the government to force companies to pay them more. It seems to me that will just exacerbate the issue, even if it is the simplest attempted answer for a difficult issue. I'd make the same argument if we were talking about a 25 year old switchboard operator in 1980 who thought they'd make a 30+ year career out of it. The only constant is change.

Someone has to pay for it, and it will be a lot of people who may be marginally in a better place than those workers, but still living check-to-check and for whom the additional cost will simply make things worse for them. So then we'll have a larger pool of at-risk people. Great.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Oh, and if it isn't obvious--the *need* for workers in retail has to be far lower during the workday.

Weirdly, looking at the "popular times" Google lists for one of our Walmart Supercenters, it's a pretty symmetrical graph which is linear in ramp up from 7AM to 1PM, plateaus from 1PM to 5PM, and then falls off linearly again until 10PM. (For today anyway, there are variances from DTD.) The OTHER Supercenter does look back-weighted to peak at 5PM.

This is another change in the past 40 years, I'd imagine. I remember my mom carting us around to stores all morning and afternoon (or at least it seemed that way to me as a kid). Past that, she was home making dinner.

[larrymcg421]

I don't get why it matters if they're making a 30 year career out of it or just doing it to get by until something better comes along.

I mean, the other thing you guys are missing is the wage hikes don't just help the high school kid bagging groceries, they help the person who is a checkout cashier or running the floral stand or cashing checks or almost any other non-management job, as it shifts the pay scale up across the board.

I just don't value anyone's labor that low. I certainly wouldn't want to do any of those jobs, even if they paid much more than I currently make. If people at these jobs were paid more, most of them would still want to be looking for better jobs with better working conditions, but they'd have the means to get educated or trained at other skills that could serve them in the job market.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Heh. Who knows? I mean, maybe this is just where free market/capitalism just eventually ends. People will always be selfish and greedy. We'll never see the elites or even the upper middle accepting pay cuts en masse to help others. Maybe it has to get so bad that both the red and blue underclass--who, if combined, make up the overwhelming majority of our enlisted armed forces--are in such bad shape that they unite, revolt, and overthrow. I don't really see a path to political leaders fixing it.

And, well, right. Of course this was the idea behind unions -- the overwhelming underclass organizing to fight back against the elites -- but the elites can't stomach those, so perhaps something more violent it eventually will be.

I'd like to think that government is the appropriate apparatus to lean on the elites so that it doesn't get to that point, but there doesn't seem to be enough of an agreement on that to actually work.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

I don't get why it matters if they're making a 30 year career out of it or just doing it to get by until something better comes along.

I mean, the other thing you guys are missing is the wage hikes don't just help the high school kid bagging groceries, they help the person who is a checkout cashier or running the floral stand or cashing checks or almost any other non-management job, as it shifts the pay scale up across the board.

I just don't value anyone's labor that low. I certainly wouldn't want to do any of those jobs, even if they paid much more than I currently make. If people at these jobs were paid more, most of them would still want to be looking for better jobs with better working conditions, but they'd have the means to get educated or trained at other skills that could serve them in the job market.

You're focusing on who it helps as if that's all that matters. There's a bigger picture to be considered. Shifting the pay scale up across the board has ramifications if its artificially coerced.

[cuervo72]

Another aside - the idea of kids working is another thing entirely. As a parent looking to their futures, a lot of the time I didn't WANT my kids taking time to work, I wanted them to concentrate on their schoolwork and extracurriculars (because college). Of course we had the privilege ($$) to have that option.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

You're focusing on who it helps as if that's all that matters. There's a bigger picture to be considered. Shifting the pay scale up across the board has ramifications if its artificially coerced.

The options seem to be:

1. Shifting the pay scale higher
2. Shifting costs lower
3. Government support
4. A big eff-off

I'd like to know if there's a) something I'm missing or b) any evidence that one side's solution is not 100% #4.

[albionmoonlight]

[EDIT--yeah. This turned out to be untrue. Too bad. As nation-crippling boob jokes go, it wasn't bad]

[cuervo72]

Honestly that's what it is most of the time. It's not high-tech hacking methods that are the entry point (those come later), it's people clicking on stupid shit. Clicking on things they shouldn't, not changing default admin accounts/passwords. We try to train them, but people are gullible.

[NobodyHere]

I wonder if the above is true.

[QuikSand]

It has to be true. It's on the internet. Written in big letters and a clever typeface.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

It has to be true. It's on the internet. Written in big letters and a clever typeface.

I'm convinced.

[JPhillips]

I just saw a report that the company shut down the pipeline because they couldn't bill.

I really hope that isn't true.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

And things like doubling/tripling the minimum wage and UBI are only going to cause prices to go up, which are going to have the effect of bringing more people on the edges of lower/middle class down, not lifting more people in poverty up.

This is just not true. We actually know what life was like with a higher minimum wage and government supporting things like education. It happened to be the most prosperous eras in our nation's history for the middle class.

The idea that everyday items will suddenly become unobtainable is a myth perpetuated by special interest and lobbying groups. It has no basis in reality.

[NobodyHere]

I would love it if we could get a UBI and not have increased inflation. I would seriously consider retiring immediately.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

I would love it if we could get a UBI and not have increased inflation. I would seriously consider retiring immediately.

Depends on how much. $12k x 2 (me and wife), yeah I can see stop working and live on the $24k + savings/investments. I don't think it's good enough for a single person. But I can see a "group" pooling the $ together so basics are covered and not working.

There's bound to be a group that will stop working because it's "enough". A group that will keep on working regardless. Don't know what that % split is but will be different based on current status/income.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-basic-income-plan-would-pay-1320-per-month.html#:~:text=According%20to%20one%20estimate%2C%20Yang's,by%20a%20%2412%2C000%20yearly%20payment.

According to one estimate, Yang’s universal basic income would cost $2.8 trillion a year — an estimated 236 million adult citizens in the United States multiplied by a $12,000 yearly payment. (With Yang’s plan welfare and social program beneficiaries could choose to keep their benefits in lieu of receiving the cash payment, so number of adults receiving it could vary.)

Access Denied

Then there's the matter of enhanced unemployment benefits' disincentivizing work, a possibility many liberal Democrats refuse to even consider despite the disappointing jobs report. These benefits surpass the financial reward of working for nearly half the unemployed, and employers are telling journalists and survey takers that they are making it difficult to attract workers even when they raise wages. A survey by the National Federation of Independent Business, for example, found that 44 percent of the 10,000 small-business owners it polled were having trouble filling job openings.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

The dude flipping burgers today will likely not be there flipping burgers in 6 months.

Really? My sister has been working at Wendy's for ten years. She is not in management. It is just the only job she could get that gave her the flexibility to also watch her grandkids. You would be shocked at the number of older adults that work at fast food restaurants because they have no other choice.

[Edward64]

Not much info on where the Jobs/Infrastructure and the Families plans. Seems that Biden is losing momentum here so my prediction is he'll have to compromise for smaller $ than the $2T and $1.8T proposed.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

This is just not true. We actually know what life was like with a higher minimum wage and government supporting things like education. It happened to be the most prosperous eras in our nation's history for the middle class.

The idea that everyday items will suddenly become unobtainable is a myth perpetuated by special interest and lobbying groups. It has no basis in reality.

Exactly. It is not science fiction. Several states already have much higher minimum wages, and the cost of goods have not skyrocketed there. The most we are looking at is 5-10 % increases in some cheaper items, but we get a 5-10% increase in those every-time there is a shortage now.

[Jas_lov]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Not much info on where the Jobs/Infrastructure and the Families plans. Seems that Biden is losing momentum here so my prediction is he'll have to compromise for smaller $ than the $2T and $1.8T proposed.

If Rs will actually vote for something I think he should take a close to $1 trillion bipartisan bill on traditional infrastructure and then shove everything else he wants through a separate reconciliation bill.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Really? My sister has been working at Wendy's for ten years. She is not in management. It is just the only job she could get that gave her the flexibility to also watch her grandkids. You would be shocked at the number of older adults that work at fast food restaurants because they have no other choice.

So she doesn't have to work there, but is accepting the trade off of a flexible schedule for lower pay. That's what I hear you saying. That's not "no choice." That IS the choice. It sounds like she is willing to sacrifice her personal situation to help her kid with childcare for her grandkids.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

The options seem to be:

1. Shifting the pay scale higher
2. Shifting costs lower
3. Government support
4. A big eff-off

I'd like to know if there's a) something I'm missing or b) any evidence that one side's solution is not 100% #4.

I've said several times I don't have the answers. But I don't see 4 options up there. I see 2. The first 3 are all government support. What I see is an all or nothing ultimatum and nothing in between. Prices have continually risen over time due to a variety of factors. They will rise when another of those factors (wages) change. Or maybe it manifests itself in other ways, like fewer workers meaning poorer/less service, hours, etc.

Either way, what I'm really reacting to in all of this is the way everyone in this thread acts as if there will be no consequences for artificially raising pay or providing a living allowance, that it's all upside and no downside. I strongly disagree with that.

[JPhillips]

Pay rates are currently artificial. We don't have a fully market based system at either the bottom or the top of the pay scale.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I've said several times I don't have the answers. But I don't see 4 options up there. I see 2. The first 3 are all government support. What I see is an all or nothing ultimatum and nothing in between. Prices have continually risen over time due to a variety of factors. They will rise when another of those factors (wages) change. Or maybe it manifests itself in other ways, like fewer workers meaning poorer/less service, hours, etc.

Either way, what I'm really reacting to in all of this is the way everyone in this thread acts as if there will be no consequences for artificially raising pay or providing a living allowance, that it's all upside and no downside. I strongly disagree with that.

Aren't you arguing the all or nothing with your "you deserve shit wages because you're just a college kid, or you want to watch your grandkids, or you need motivation to get a job somewhere else" arguments?

I'm fully in favor of plans to help businesses deal with sudden wage hikes. In fact, I'd argue the minimum wage shouldn't be set in stone, but instead adjusted with inflation. That way businesses wouldn't be absorbing a several dollar an hour increase all at once, but incremental changes over the years. But I'll never be in favor of telling people they deserve to live on $14,500 a year so I can get a cheaper value burger at McDonald's.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I've said several times I don't have the answers. But I don't see 4 options up there. I see 2. The first 3 are all government support. What I see is an all or nothing ultimatum and nothing in between. Prices have continually risen over time due to a variety of factors. They will rise when another of those factors (wages) change. Or maybe it manifests itself in other ways, like fewer workers meaning poorer/less service, hours, etc.

Either way, what I'm really reacting to in all of this is the way everyone in this thread acts as if there will be no consequences for artificially raising pay or providing a living allowance, that it's all upside and no downside. I strongly disagree with that.

We literally know what the consequences are because we have states that do it and a federal government that did it in the past. It was a prosperous time for the middle-class in this country with higher minimum wages.

There are trade-offs with everything. A higher wage doesn't mean less profits. A company hiring less workers and offering poor service means competitors can beat them out.

Executives and shareholders have made a killing over the past couple decades. I don't know why it is so far-fetched to believe that any raises would come out of those totals.

[GrantDawg]

Yes, my sister made the choice. She chose to have a baby thirty years ago. And that baby chose to have two boys with a man that abandoned her right after the second child was born. Then my niece chose to work in a restaurant to make ends meet, and my sister chose to work a job that could alternate shiftsl so that her daughter would not have to give all her earnings for child care. So I guess they chose to be poor, and do not deserve a living wage.
I have another sister that has worked for Walmart as cashier for 15 years. She chose to have mental health problems that caused her to have a hard time holding jobs. I guess she also chose to not earn a living wage.
I think it is the height of privilege that someone that I am sure is making six figures can look down on poor wage earners, and think they just chose to be poor. We must make sure those people who chose to be in that position should never make a living wage because my cheeseburger might cost me an extra 25 cents.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I think it is the height of privilege that someone that I am sure is making six figures can look down on poor wage earners, and think they just chose to be poor. We must make sure those people who chose to be in that position should never make a living wage because my cheeseburger might cost me an extra 25 cents.

I don't disagree with you conceptually. I'm okay paying an extra $1 for a BigMac or an extra $2 for a Red Robin burger etc. And I'm okay with my taxes going up overall to support healthcare, reducing deficit etc.

But let's define living wage. Googling tells me minimum wage in GA is $7.25 x 2080 hours = $15,000.

Living wage in GA for single adult is $15.36 x 2080 hours = $32,000 so approx double.

Living wage for family of 4, 1 adult working is $32.23 x 2080 = $67,000.

https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/13

Regardless of all the good intentions, I just don't see companies with a large portion of minimum wage workforce, able to pay living wage.

And how does it work? Single adult making living wage of $32,000 gets married, have 2 kids in 4-6 years. Is the company obligated to pay him $67,000 in 4-6 years time?

Bottom line to me is - yup, increase minimum wages. And for those companies that make enough profit want to increase their pay to living wage to attract and retain the best talent, sure go for it. But for those companies making small margins and are willing to live with any average talent, I don't see increasing to living wage working.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Either way, what I'm really reacting to in all of this is the way everyone in this thread acts as if there will be no consequences for artificially raising pay or providing a living allowance, that it's all upside and no downside. I strongly disagree with that.

Yup, agree on this.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Jas_lov

If Rs will actually vote for something I think he should take a close to $1 trillion bipartisan bill on traditional infrastructure and then shove everything else he wants through a separate reconciliation bill.

I agree with this. I may be incorrect but remember Jobs/Infrastructure bill was really the Infrastructure bill early on before Biden did some rebranding. There are obviously some pork in there.

I don't know if it's $2T - $1T = $1T worth of pork but yeah, let's do infrastructure (which IMO includes the internet, electrical grid stuff) and push the rest to the catch all Families (and Jobs) plan.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Living wage in GA for single adult is $15.36 x 2080 hours = $32,000 so approx double.

The answer is you start there. Pretty simple, isn't it?

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Executives and shareholders have made a killing over the past couple decades. I don't know why it is so far-fetched to believe that any raises would come out of those totals.

Because there isn't nearly enough money there. There are, I'm sure, specific corporations for whom this isn't the case, but I've crunched the numbers in plenty of these discussions in the past with companies I'm familiar with. Typically the way it comes out is this; if you took 100% of profits - forget just executive compensation, but all profits - and divided it amongst the employees, their wage rate would be able to be increased by 10-15 cents per hour. It's easy to forget when looking at 'wow, look at all that CEO cash' how little you could actually do with it when spreading it among the large number of employees that work at a given company.

[thesloppy]

Why are you accounting for executive compensation as profits?

[QuikSand]

Looking ahead to ‘22 and ‘24, what do Republicans think the party’s strategy should be?

53% say the party needs to focus on message and ideas to win over more voters, but 47% say the GOP already has enough voters and should focus on pushing for changes to voting rules instead. pic.twitter.com/azXjAAKkq4

— CBS News Poll (@CBSNewsPoll) May 16, 2021

Assuming this is more or less the wording of the question posed... I know I need to give up on "them" more rapidly, but i guess I had naively been holding out hope that the whole movement to disenfranchise voters who don't support our guys/views was mostly top-down, borne of leaders who can do the math... but this suggests that it's at least close to a majority view among the GOP rank and file, set alongside an awfully generic and reasonable sounding alternative. Fun. And yikes.

[JPhillips]

I know we all "knew" this and nothing matters, etc, but the fact that the previous president has now admitted that the plan was to overthrow the election results should be a much bigger deal.

[Ben E Lou]

I would have thought the second group would be higher. Have there been changes in the numbers of GOP voters who believe the election was stolen? I thought I remembered it being higher than 47%. I mean, if you think this last election was stolen, then wouldn’t it make sense (within that closed system) that the right course of action is to keep them from stealing it again? Why would you bother with better messenging if you think 10 million dead people and illegal aliens are gonna vote or that Dominion machines are going to rig the election. You gotta deal with the real problem!

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I would have thought the second group would be higher. Have there been changes in the numbers of GOP voters who believe the election was stolen? I thought I remembered it being higher than 47%. I mean, if you think this last election was stolen, then wouldn’t it make sense (within that closed system) that the right course of action is to keep them from stealing it again? Why would you bother with better messenging if you think 10 million dead people and illegal aliens are gonna vote or that Dominion machines are going to rig the election. You gotta deal with the real problem!

The data I've seen has shown that the "do you believe the election was stolen" question has become more of a "do you support the republican party" question in the eyes of many GOP supporters. They may not necessarily believe it was stolen, but they answer yes to the question when it's presented black and white because it's how they feel they should answer.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Why are you accounting for executive compensation as profits?

I'm not? The point is that profits are a much higher amount than executive compensation.

[GrantDawg]

But, but, but, this is impossible! You can't sell burgers at an affordable price and pay a living wage!

Aggressively share this with those who think paying burger flippers a living wage will somehow result in $20 Big Macs or whatever. pic.twitter.com/sE9QDZAjBI

— What's Bothering Me Today �� �� (@BotheredBoy) May 8, 2021

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

But, but, but, this is impossible! You can't sell burgers at an affordable price and pay a living wage!

Aggressively share this with those who think paying burger flippers a living wage will somehow result in $20 Big Macs or whatever. pic.twitter.com/sE9QDZAjBI

— What's Bothering Me Today �� �� (@BotheredBoy) May 8, 2021

I'm not paying $8.55 for that value meal.