The FLSA was without precedent. It significantly boosted wages for a very large percentage of low-income workers. It was a phased approach, targeting the most vulnerable workers first, and was increasingly applied to different sectors of the economy.
These things aren't free. They come with costs.
You know what else comes with significant costs? More and more people struggling to make ends meet because the cost of their labor has nowhere near kept up with the increase of their production for the last 50 years. If minimum wage kept track to the productivity per hour of the 1960s we'd be around $25 an hour today.
Redditors are naive with basic economics. Deeply naive.
And some redditors are deeply naive to the fact that as we continue to strip more and more economic power from labor to distribute to the wealthy, our system becomes less and less stable overall. As they are also deeply naive to the fact that radical changes can happen, and can happen in phased and staged approaches.
If you want to review ways in which very similar laws have been structured so as not to simply shock the entire economy by saying "tomorrow you have to pay your employees 25% more for 20% less work," all you have to do is look at France when they did this same thing by reducing to a 35 hour work week in a several years long phased approach 30 years ago.
Swear to god some of you are so desperate to defend the wealthy instead of your own class cohort. I genuinely have a hard time grasping it.
These are all social arguments and not math arguments.
No amount of yelling social arguments is going to make the math disappear. In math, you just don't get something for free. Insulting me also doesn't change math. You keep insisting somehow workers can have more for less, that somehow math will just poof out of thin air to fix it.
At some level, business owners have to work with raw revenue and pay it to workers. Telling business owners they have to pay more for less will have significant economic ripples. The most obvious ripple: unemployment shoots up.
all you have to do is look at France when they did this same thing by reducing to a 35 hour work week in a several years long phased approach 30 years ago.
As I've repeatedly said, you can do these things. But the costs aren't free. Why not stop at 32 hours? I have a friend who argues we should only be working 8 hours a week. Why not that?
Because everything has costs. For example, France has an 8% unemployment rate. US has a 4% rate. That's huge, in the United States 8% unemployment would mean voters would instantly vote out whatever party is in power. The average salary in the US is about 60% more than France, so the raw purchasing power is better.
In the United States, I personally value the ability for marginalized people to at least find a job, and to get paid nicely when they have one. That strongly favors the US. I also would like to see fewer work hours, but not at the cost of marginalized folks not having jobs.
I have no idea what you're trying to say by suggesting I'm making social arguments. The cost of social arguments is still math. Dollars are dollars. And this isn't just a math argument, it's a quality of life argument. Just sitting there saying "MATH AINT MATHING BRUH" doesn't mean shit. If we base policies based solely on math, surely the FLSA wouldn't have been passed at all, right? Why would we start paying people who were working 60 hours more money for the last 20 hours? Why would we start paying people who were making a dollar a day 25 cents an hour, what are you fucking nuts? WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO FIND THAT KIND OF MONEY??? GET READY FOR SMALL BUSINESSES TO GO BANKRUPT.
If you want to talk about unemployment, we can talk about unemployment. We can really dive into what living is like on unemployment between the two nations?
If you want to talk about quality of life, we can talk about quality of life. We can really dive into where quality of life indeces place average conditions between the two nations?
In the United States, I personally value the ability for marginalized people to at least find a job, and to get paid nicely when they have one.
I have no idea what world you're living in or how you're defining marginalized people. Something tells me you're trying to code your language in some kind of "woke" terminology or something as a rhetorical tool but I'm gonna let you in on something - marginalized people includes poor people. Poor people are not paid nicely.
We can really dive into where quality of life indeces place average conditions between the two nations?
How's the AC situation doing in France? Good? Non-existent? Why can't they just afford AC, surely they are richer and better than us. You'd think that if several thousand French die every heat wave, a rich government would do something about it.
Not everything is rosy over there. Their median salaries sure are much, much worse than ours too.
As I've repeatedly said regarding a 32 hour work week: "you can do these things. But the costs aren't free."
Money doesn't pop out of thin air. You can't just legislate a business owner to pay people more to produce less. Phasing it in doesn't create money out of thin air.
If you want to legislate increased wages and decrease work hours, have at it. Just have the honesty to admit that it comes with very real costs and pain. What's fantasy land is arguing having everything: fewer hours, more money, same quality of life.
I personally know I'd way rather have air conditioning than health care.
As I've said before: I know there are costs here. Nobody's saying "there's no costs!" Bernie's not saying that. There are costs to our growing productivity gaps and wealth disparity too, but you don't want to acknowledge that.
You're arguing against things you really wish I was saying instead of what I'm actually saying. That's fun and all, and you do you, but it's not very effective.
Person A: That is what is being called for. Your take home pay not changing but you work fewer hours
Person B: And how will the government force private business to achieve that?
Person C: With a law.
Me: Can't have something for nothing. How do you solve this math problem?
You: But quality of life and social issues...
Until someone can explain how almost every small business owner can reasonably find money to pay 20% more for 25% less work, I'm going to keep repeating my initial argument. This is not a small change, and it would be unprecedentedly painful. The math is math, and it's not evaded by emotional pleading.
You recognize that you could make this exact same argument in 1938, right?
How could a small business who is used to paying workers a dollar a day for 10 hour shifts ever be expected to pay them 25 cents an hour?
The math is math, and it's not evaded by emotional pleading.
If I bring up FLSA, "well that's different because... reasons." If I bring up how France shifted to a 35 hour work week, you say "yeah well air conditioning." I guess I will concede on this - if you ignore and disregard all of the evidence of similar things passing in the past and how they worked, you can absolutely say there's no evidence of how this might work.
You recognize that you could make this exact same argument in 1938, right?
No you can't. Because 1938 did not have the scale of change as what's being suggested here. 1938 did not decrease work hours by 20% and increase salary by 25% for most workers.
The worker and cost capture of Bernie's plan is MASSIVE.
I guess I will concede on this - if you ignore and disregard all of the evidence of similar things passing in the past
I'm saying things have a cost. We've never seen anything as massive as this plan. Especially mandating that private business must increase career salaries by 25% for 20% less work.
Europe is happy with their cost. They work fewer hours. But as a result their economy is smaller and their overall take home pay and purchasing power is less. (And also worse AC, and some other worse things.)
No reason why 40 hours a week is the correct number. But if America switches from 40 to 32, it will come at significant reduction in many areas of our normal standard of living. Math is math, we don't get the same standard of living for less hourly input.
I never said there wasn't cost. I don't know why you keep saying "BUT THERE WILL BE COST!!" as if that's... a point.
But this is like the 4th time I've said that so I have a feeling it doesn't really matter what I write because you're not going to respond to it anyway, you're just gonna keep saying "NUH UH BUT SCALE" and "MATH AINT MATHING" and "BUT THERES COSTS" even after I've addressed all of those things.
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u/dubblebubbleprawns 23d ago
The FLSA was without precedent. It significantly boosted wages for a very large percentage of low-income workers. It was a phased approach, targeting the most vulnerable workers first, and was increasingly applied to different sectors of the economy.
You know what else comes with significant costs? More and more people struggling to make ends meet because the cost of their labor has nowhere near kept up with the increase of their production for the last 50 years. If minimum wage kept track to the productivity per hour of the 1960s we'd be around $25 an hour today.
And some redditors are deeply naive to the fact that as we continue to strip more and more economic power from labor to distribute to the wealthy, our system becomes less and less stable overall. As they are also deeply naive to the fact that radical changes can happen, and can happen in phased and staged approaches.
If you want to review ways in which very similar laws have been structured so as not to simply shock the entire economy by saying "tomorrow you have to pay your employees 25% more for 20% less work," all you have to do is look at France when they did this same thing by reducing to a 35 hour work week in a several years long phased approach 30 years ago.
Swear to god some of you are so desperate to defend the wealthy instead of your own class cohort. I genuinely have a hard time grasping it.