I have survived my second annual thinning of the herd

[Aeson]

My point still stands though (and actually is stronger because of it). KH's race doesn't have any real risk involved, and also is one where the vast majority of people in this world lost simply by being born without the IQ to compete in it (among other things).

[Dauphin]

From a UK job market perspective...
If you are willing to work below the market rate, and are equally competent, you are probably going to find a job in the market without needing to take someone else's directly. Maybe I am being naive.

I am talking about people for whom the market rate is at or below the minimum wage.

Apologies, I thought it was about people not being sacked without cause.

[Jon Miller]

2. His department is WAY over 135 average. You are probably well over a standard deviation short.

I severely doubt that the average is significantly above the physics professor average.

I expect it to be below the Harvard/MIT/etc average.

JM

[Provost Harrison]

I'm sure it's very difficult for the person making the decision. Unless either the guy firing or the guy being fired is a douche.

I've been laid off before, I didn't find it all that unpleasant. They stick a contract infront of you with a lot of zeros, you get to go home early and get paid for months while not working. Or in my case, I got a different job the next week and cashed two paycheques for months.

I'm sure the experience is quite different for me than it would be for a 30-year veteran assembly line worker at a Ford plant or whatever, though.

Similar here. Got laid off from the UK office because they were making a loss, got redundancy, etc. Turns out the German office still needs my skills. Hired me back as a freelancer as a considerably enhanced rate. Redundancy and significant pay rise

[Provost Harrison]

I am not sure whether I am in what you call an "at will" state but if at will means that employers can fire people freely then Virginia most likely is one. Which I think is a good thing, personally.

It's fantastic until you have a mortgage to pay and kids to feed and retards for management.

Asher is exactly right. I've been in this situation before where I have been in a pretty ****ty workplace and they've decided they don't like the look of my face and got rid of me. But they had to pay me off to get rid of me otherwise I'd have taken them to the cleaners.

But yeah, at will is a terrible idea, employees need some level of protection, especially as management are not always as scrupulous and squeaky clean as many of you naive types would believe.

[Kuciwalker]

I severely doubt that the average is significantly above the physics professor average.

I expect it to be below the Harvard/MIT/etc average.

JM

If his department's average IQ were that low I'd have no trouble getting a job there. In reality, there is very little chance I could ever be hired by them.

[Provost Harrison]

You OTOH hand never worked a day in your life and your parents have provided you with everything incuding a house with 7 bathrooms. It is easy to be a tough guy in your situation.

This.

[Provost Harrison]

MikeH still hasn't to #163, the most important point. If an unemployed person offers to do my job for less (pay or other benefits such as severance) why should my interest in the job be prioritized over theirs?

Minimum wage laws, etc. are regressive: they redistribute income from low earners to higher earners.

Then the employers have not appreciated the supply and demand of the employment they have entered into. If their employees are employed above market level then pay rises should be low. With inflation in place then wage rates will even out.

But I thought you knew about economics Kuci?

[Kuciwalker]

I don't think you understand supply and demand curves, PH.

[Kuciwalker]

Supply curve = F(wage) = the number of suppliers (employees) willing to provide the good (labor) at or below the given wage
Demand curve = G(wage) = the number of employees that would be hired by consumers (firms) for the given job at or above the given wage
At equilibrium absent constraints F(wage) = G(wage) = quantity traded (number of people employed).

In the hypothetical, that wage is below the minimum wage. Thus, the actual wage is the minimum wage, the supply of employees willing to be hired at that wage is F(minimum wage) > G(minimum wage) which is the number of employees that firms are willing to hire (in aggregate) at the minimum wage.
i.e. there are more people willing to work than will be hired, some of whom are willing to work for less than the minimum wage.
The people who don't find work are worse off than the people who do (obviously), and would be better off if the minimum wage were gone.

[Provost Harrison]

I understand perfectly well thankyou Kuci.

[Kuciwalker]

If you had, you would have realized your comment was nonsense.

edit: or maybe it's the minimum wage you don't understand

[Aeson]

Do you have any real examples of economies where there is unemployment due to minimum wages? Certainly at some point a minimum wage could destroy jobs, but when the minimum wage is less than a clueless high school kid makes chatting up the tellers at the grocery it's hard to argue that it's actually doing so. Even in perhaps the deepest recession we've had in our lifetimes there's still minimum wage jobs available to those who want them. (Though if there were no unemployment or welfare benefits, or emigration restrictions things could change drastically.)

Same deal when the value of a worker is many times the bowl of rice they get in exchange for their work. For instance, here a worker gets P120/day generally. Between 3 workers (and their pay) and about $1k a hectare of land could realistically produce $40k worth of vegetables in 3-4 months. (Actually it's about twice that right now because of spikes in prices.) In such a situation, P120/day is a farce. Even factoring the cost for an agricultural expert for that time frame you could increase wages several times over and still it would be hugely profitable. Now of course you can't do that when you have competitors that will undercut your labor prices... but that's what a minimum wage prevents.

Between those two types of situations, that's pretty much everything. First world with people making more than minimum wage, third world with people are paid a ~subsistence wage and obviously create much more value than what they receive in return. (Sometimes in the same countries as each other.) Even if it's not in some cases, the corporation can just move to areas without minimum wage or pass on the increased costs to consumers. Either way works to help the poorest classes reach a better standard of living. The only real difference is by having some worker protection (unions or laws), some of the workers have better lives than they otherwise would, can become consumers.

At best it's a discussion for where minimum wage laws should be set to provide an adequate level of protection without actually harming business (making it unprofitable to provide the jobs). We can't just go back to everyone working a low skilled job making ~subsistence and think that that would be a positive impact on the world economy. We already let half the world float out in economic limbo without the ability to be consumers, subtracting another 1/4 or so who can't buy our products and services isn't going to help anyone.

[Kuciwalker]

Do you have any real examples of economies where there is unemployment due to minimum wages? Certainly at some point a minimum wage could destroy jobs, but when the minimum wage is less than a clueless high school kid makes chatting up the tellers at the grocery it's hard to argue that it's actually doing so. Even in perhaps the deepest recession we've had in our lifetimes there's still minimum wage jobs available to those who want them. (Though if there were no unemployment or welfare benefits, or emigration restrictions things could change drastically.)

To the degree that a minimum wage law actually does anything, it has to create some unemployment (unless you make fairly extreme assumptions about labor illiquidity or monopsony power). If everyone is making more than the minimum wage, then obviously we could repeal it with no effect.

Regarding examples, my understanding is that the literature on the subject is controversial, in part because it's such an easily politicized issue.

[DanS]

But yeah, at will is a terrible idea, employees need some level of protection, especially as management are not always as scrupulous and squeaky clean as many of you naive types would believe.

So those of us who have good employers are saddled with colleagues who aren't up to grade so that you can double-dip on your lay-off?

It's all about perspective...