🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@Mr_Teatime

> I know that too-low minimum wage can serve as an excuse to pay people less than they actually need. I also think that not having minimum wage can get some people taken advantage of (if you're desparate enough you'll work for any amount).

This is certainly true, if you have no minimum wage some people will be paid far below a living wage. But its important to understand that it isnt a companies obligation to pay you a living wage, its the governments responsibility to keep the markets and populace in a state where people earn a living wage. More importantly it isnt even about "who is responsible" so much as it is about what the reality is. As we covered when you raise minimum wage these people dont just get paid more, they just become unhirable. Have you solved anything by taking the people who would not earn a living wage and only earn, lets say, a nickle an hour, and now just forcing them to be fired and have no job at all? A nickle an hour is better than 0. Thats the problem, you arent actually making anyone get a living wage, your just making sure the people who cant get a living wage now have no job at all, how is that a step in the right direction?

> So some of those extra employed with low MW are probably flippin' miserable.

Less miserable than they would be without a job at all.

> Hypothesis: removing MW *while also providing means to meet basic needs for everyone* should make for a better solution. Removing MW *with no further support* may well create a (not so) new type of slavery.

We obviously agree the only real answer is ensuring people have good welfare before removing MW. However removing MW with no further support means now you have people who make 0 making **something**, sure its a shitty something, but something means they eat, nothing means they die. It may not be a great scenario but it is absolutely better than having minimum wage, or do you think just letting those people make 0 and starving to death is osmehow an improvement over a nickle an hour wage?

@aiono @rootfake @MikeDunnAuthor

@rootfake

> didn't mean you believed in that part, you obviously didn't

Then its not the exact thing im espousing is it?

> the modern iteration is about believing, effectively, that hard work brings good fortune

Yet my stance is, again, the exact opposite of the mentality you keep trying mental gymnastics to fit me into.

Low-skilled workers are the hardest workers there are, they get paid very little, work huge number of hours, and usually do very hard work. You really think I'm claiming a mathematician, or an engineer is a harder worker than someone who cleans hotel rooms? Nothing I ever said had **anything** to do with hard work and in fact my stance, when considered with common sense, is the obvious, that people shoulder **not** work as hard as they do, they should work smarter (education) not harder. What matters is the value of your skill, not how much energy you put into your job.

You are trying so desperately to fit me into a mold so you can apply your same talking points you are so comfortable using, and its not working. If you want to have a productive conversation your going to have to stop trying to apply the same template you use when arguing this with any generic person and actually start addressing what I've actually said, and recognize my actual standpoint.

@aiono @MikeDunnAuthor

@rootfake

I never claimed minimum wage jobs dont need to be done. No one is claiming those jobs should be abolished. The problem is when you have far too many low-skilled people then the laws of supply and demand dictate low-wage, everyone wants to to do it. When you have high skilled people most of them wont want to do low-skilled work, so the demand for doing the work goes down, and thus the pay goes up.

No one is suggesting **everyone** needs to be "upskill", only the people who are capable of it until you drive the wages up enough to not need to "upskill" people further.

No one is suggesting all people need to be coders and plumbers and engineers, just that more people need to be.

@aiono @MikeDunnAuthor

@rootfake @aiono @MikeDunnAuthor

So when I said you should bother to understand a persons viewpoint before making statements you just double down...

You said:

> the exact ideology you're espousing. It grew out of the "if you don't work, you don't eat" shit

And yet despite your claim it is the "exact ideology you're espousing" My own words explicitly say the exact opposite of that. My own words at multiple times. For example my exact words (in a response I tagged you) was:

> The next step is to ensure people have access to high quality welfare programs that 1) keep them fed and healthy in the interim

Funny that, the exact **opposite** your claiming my stance is.

Again, before you start slinging accusations or judgements bother reading the basics of a conversation first, otherwise your just wasting everyones time with faux offense over fantasies of arguments I never made.

@skoombidoombis

> do you have the peer reviewed data for no minimum wage policies? What does the data show in an economy like for example the US without workers rights laws and minimum wage and such?

Since I would never promote the idea that we should abolish all workers rights of any kind, and honestly thats an odd ask, I do not have such data, nor have any real reason to aquire it since I would never promote that scenario and think it is rather obvious we wouldnt want such a thing.

> And how education funding affects workers skill?

My stance is that we provide all sorts of worker training, that includes trade school, higher education, and simple work training and other education.

but sure, if you'd like some data on how this kind of training can improve ones wages without invoking minimum wage, I can certainly get some for you. But that seems like quite the odd thing to question, are you trying to claim that training and skills has no effect on ones wage?

> Stop using numbers like a cudgel.

Its only a crudgel when they disagree with your world view. I am using numbers to describe reality, not a curdgel to promote a world view. Most of my life I strongly supported minimum wage until I bothered to look and see if it actually helped (the numbers), and they dont. When I see people suffering I care far more about ending their suffering than selling some agenda about how I think the world should work.

@aiono

@aiono @rootfake @MikeDunnAuthor

Absolutely, the underlying problem of having low-skill individuals whose skills are not marketable to sustain a living wage is a real problem. We know minimum wage makes this problem worse, so we can of course easily argue to abolish it, but while that wont make the problem worse, it also wont fix it.

As I stated elsewhere to truly address the problem then abolishing minimum wage is only the first step. The next step is to ensure people have access to high quality welfare programs that 1) keep them fed and healthy in the interim, and 2) provide good training programs to ensure their skill sets are marketable so they can make a living wage.

You cant start fixing a problem until you stop doing the things that contribute to the problem, so we cant really fix the problem until we take the minimal first step of abolishing minimum wage, though I absolutely support the fact that it isnt the only step that needs to be taken.

@skoombidoombis @aiono

And yet the peer reviewed scientific evidence clearly shows the exact opposite is true, that as minimum wage increases, those at or below minimum wage (those with the lowest education) **lose** work and pay.

The difference here is I am speaking from clear evidence, regardless of my personal views of how it would work. The evidence clearly shows us already what happens, we cant just make up our own fantasy and pretend thats the reality.

@skoombidoombis

Whatever you might say doesnt change the undeniable fact. Minimum wages causes the least skilled people to become unemployed, and the higher minimum wage is, the more rampant the unemployment that explicitly effects these low-skilled workers happens to be.

inb4: I am not claiming the **overall** unemployment rate goes down, only the unemployment among the poorest and least skilled people, which is completely contrary to the purpose.

You can argue whatever mental gymnastics you want to try to make minimum wage sound like a good thing. But when all is said and done the undeniable fact is more minimum wage means the poorest least skilled people suffer more. We have the data that proves that.

@aiono

@skoombidoombis @aiono

A vacuum? I presented peer reviewed data/chart that shows clearly that it isnt "in the budget" and that actual real world harm occurs to the poorest and least skilled as minimum wage increases. Thats pretty much the exact opposite of arguing from a vacuum.

@aiono

Because we already know from the data that minimum wage causes the poorest least skilled to not be able to find work, typically replaced by more skilled individuals. You can see the attached graph from a peer reviewed journal demonstrating this.

In addition to the data clearly showing this fact, its also common sense. Companies hire people based on the value they provide. If you dont provide enough value to be worth your wage, you wont get a job. Setting a minimum wage just makes it illegal to hire people who do not produce value great enough to be worth their hourly rate. The end result is you effectively make it illegal to hire the least skilled in society, forcing people who are already desperate and need work, and who dont make enough to loose their job entirely and be unhirable, effectively causing them to starve to death.

Obviously that is not a solution, it only makes their situation worse. Both the established scientific data, as well as just basic common sense clearly shows this.

Now how do you actually solve the problem, easy, the state pays to get these people an education or training to actually make their value high enough they are hireable at a living wage.

@rootfake @MikeDunnAuthor

@rootfake

> Minimum wage is supposed to be a living wage

and it shouldn't be, thats the point. It disproportionately harms the poorest least skilled of the work force, it shouldnt exist at all, let alone act as a living wage.

> Frankly, food and housing should be freely available to all

Absolutely agree it should be, and minimum wage should also be abolished.

> but at an absolute fucking minimum, a person working full time should be able to afford their own place and decent food

Only if that full time is **worth** decent food and your own place. People deserve food and an education to be able to gaint he skills to be worth a home and decent food, it is not the obligation of anyone paying someone money to do a task to provide that. It is the governments responsibility to create a healthy economy and valuable workers through access to free education, training, and sometimes welfare.

> which is completely impossible at min wage in the US right now

Entirely possible, for people who are skilled enough to be worth the income needed to afford these things. The fact that many people exist who do not have sufficiently marketable skills is the problem needing solving, not minimum wage.

> Fuck the protestant work ethic and the religious fanatics it rode in on.

Has nothing to do with work ethic, bother understanding a persons position first.

@MikeDunnAuthor

@freeschool

In 2019 the account was marked as sensative. It seems it was because they were posting automated posts without monitoring their account. I reached out to them, they never answered, so it got marked as sensitive to ensure it doesnt pollute public timelines with spam.

@TTOR

@admitsWrongIfProven We caught it and fixed it relatively quickly I think.

@admitsWrongIfProven

We had a weird slowdown from a config issue. Should be fixed now, is anyone still experiencing slowdown? We can always increase the resources.

@light