McDonalds: "What, my peon, you don't work two full time jobs?"

[merithyn]

Is someone seriously claiming that ringing up fast food is hard? 

No. Someone is claiming that minimum wage jobs today aren't any easier than they were 50 years ago, despite computers. They're just different.

[garbon]

So you want to play CC now? I never said the jobs were now simple and easy, I said that computers have made many jobs easier.

Besides, I would say that if they are the only jobs that an individual can get and can never ever advance at said job or get another job (but is not an actual slave and by rules not allowed to seek other employment) then yes they might be easy positions.

That was aimed at grumbler, not you.

The actual minimum-wage jobs probably are easier now than in the past, in retail.

But keep spinning the strawman.

[garbon]

Is someone seriously claiming that ringing up fast food is hard? 

No. Someone is claiming that minimum wage jobs today aren't any easier than they were 50 years ago, despite computers. They're just different.

Yeah and I think that person hasn't shown anything except that at one point in the past, she found computers difficult.

[DGuller]

Is someone seriously claiming that ringing up fast food is hard? 

No. Someone is claiming that minimum wage jobs today aren't any easier than they were 50 years ago, despite computers. They're just different.

Yeah and I think that person hasn't shown anything except that at one point in the past, she found computers difficult.

Nice job safeguarding the anonymity of that person.

[merithyn]

Yeah and I think that person hasn't shown anything except that at one point in the past, she found computers difficult.

I never said that I found them hard. I said that the computers used in fast food and retail are not as simple as you and grumbler are trying to make them sound. We were, as I recall, talking very specifically about people who more than likely had not graduated from high school, and how learning the nuances of the machines are more difficult than you may know or understand.

But hey, you feel like spinning it another way, go for it. I'm kind of done with this, so you can spin it however you feel you need to. I'm not even sure what point you were going for.

[derspiess]

I did my time as a fast food cashier in high school, around 1989 & 1990.  Was not difficult then, and it doesn't appear to be difficult now.  I hated it-- it was the most demeaning thing I ever did-- but it was not hard.

[merithyn]

That was aimed at grumbler, not you.

The actual minimum-wage jobs probably are easier now than in the past, in retail.

But keep spinning the strawman.

They are so simple that customers can use them, with no training at all.  I've used them as a custom,er, and found no problems at all.  While you may find them challenging, that is a statement about you, and not the equipment.

[garbon]

But hey, you feel like spinning it another way, go for it. I'm kind of done with this, so you can spin it however you feel you need to. I'm not even sure what point you were going for.

Whatever. You constantly accuse CC of dishonesty and then do exactly the same. You apparently though are free to do so and make up claims like "everyone knows that it's simple and easy to work minimum wage jobs now that computers are there to help".

Maybe we can chat again when you stop being a hypocrite. Though do old dogs actually learn new tricks?

[merithyn]

I did my time as a fast food cashier in high school, around 1989 & 1990.  Was not difficult then, and it doesn't appear to be difficult now.  I hated it-- it was the most demeaning thing I ever did-- but it was not hard.

And 25 years later, you're a college grad making well into the middle-class range for pay.

We're not talking about people like you or me. We're talking about career minimum wage slaves.

[Syt]

Though I'll point out to Meri et al that POS systems are in fact extremely simple applications.

Then why do the workers always screw something up and need to call a manager?

Yep. I wish I had a Euro for every time a cashier (who had been at the place for months if not years) made an error (as can happen) and then helplessly prodded various buttons on the cash register, hoping to fix things before a manager or senior employee had to come and walk them through the steps.

[merithyn]

But hey, you feel like spinning it another way, go for it. I'm kind of done with this, so you can spin it however you feel you need to. I'm not even sure what point you were going for.

Whatever. You constantly accuse CC of dishonesty and then do exactly the same. You apparently though are free to do so and make up claims like "everyone knows that it's simple and easy to work minimum wage jobs now that computers are there to help".

Maybe we can chat again when you stop being a hypocrite. Though do old dogs actually learn new tricks?

What the fuck are you even talking about? You made the claim that it's easier, mentally, to do minimum wage jobs today than it was before computers. I said that, if anything, computers probably made it harder, mentally, for the people who work their whole lives in minimum wage jobs.

I have no idea where you're even going with any of this. I lost track ages ago, which is why I said to go ahead and spin it (as in making it about my supposedly having a hard time with computers) anyway you feel the need.

[garbon]

We're done, dear. You want to create strawman arguments and then accuse others of spin. Might have been fun at first but when you continue to do it, I am going to label you a liar and move on. Night!

[Ideologue]

Though I'll point out to Meri et al that POS systems are in fact extremely simple applications.

Then why do the workers always screw something up and need to call a manager?

Yep. I wish I had a Euro for every time a cashier (who had been at the place for months if not years) made an error (as can happen) and then helplessly prodded various buttons on the cash register, hoping to fix things before a manager or senior employee had to come and walk them through the steps.

Really?  I guess you get what you pay f--wait a minute.

Most of the cashier fuck-ups I've experienced are usually honest errors that any competent operator could make, and if it takes a long time to fix, it's just because not enough responsibility has been delegated to the $8/hr serf to fix it due to shrinkage concerns.

[Sheilbh]

I can't be arsed to lengthily, Glenn Greenwaldily quote and rebut everything that I disagree with in this thread so I'll just make a few points.

Part of the problem I have with this is what welfare's meant for. I've got a bit more expansive a view than most of you, but I've always thought the common view was that it's a safety net. I can't understand how it can be right that people in full-time work are in need of a safety net. I've no issue with low-paid jobs but if they're so low-paid that you need the state to pick up your food bill or your housing then that's a problem. No doubt low-paid jobs will not be anywhere near an average wage, that's not the issue, it's that a minimum wage isn't even a sustenance level wage. That the state has to step in is offensive because work should be enough to live on but also because it's a waste of welfare resources that should be going for those who need a safety net: the elderly, the infirm and those who can't work or are temporarily out of work.

That's distinct in my view from welfare in work schemes like the EITC. I've no strong view on it but that's just income redistribution. If the big objection here were income inequality then that'd be a useful (but probably expensive solution) but it's not it's government money topping up the wages of low-paying employers. Similarly I think you can have legitimate welfare for the employed even up to relative high earners. But that's if you're trying to level out the labour market. So people with kids or disabilities are probably going to have higher costs. It's better that's paid for socially, by us all, than that cost being imposed on employers (who'd be reluctant to hire disabled people or parents) or on the individuals themselves who might just opt out of the job market. All of those schemes seem totally different in purpose and nature than housing or nutritional assistance.

So for all of the hyperventilating about the state getting involved, I want them to do the opposite. If the alternative is a wage that can't be lived on or welfare then that wage will soon increase, unless people do it for charity or fun.

Having said that I do think there can be an argument for raising the minimum wage, I think there is in this country and that state intervention doesn't bother me. We didn't have a minimum wage until 1997 and its introduction had literally no negative effects. And I think philosophically it can be justified because it seems to me the labour markets almost monopolistic in behaviour. Instead of having a single seller who can then fix the market you have, especially in low-wage jobs (especially given immigration levels here) a market with single buyers and numerous sellers. Employers are in a very powerful position. I've worked in the sector and there's never been a shortage of people needing work coming to hand in their CVs.

Also, and again, this may be different in the US but a lot of these jobs are more less immune to international competitiveness worries. The overwhelming majority of minimum wages jobs here are in wholesale and retail, hotels and catering, care work and some low-skilled manufacturing. The jobs exist because of domestic demand, so they can't really be off-shored away. There's worries about automation for sure but that affects every sector and wage point - I imagine we'll need shop assistants long after we do away with the 20% of lawyers who do domestic conveyancing. That's a broader social issue. I mean the automated supermarkets scanners are very common here, from what I understand they haven't actually replaced that many staff and I don't think they will.

More broadly I think what's happened here is a symptom of what's got fucked in our economy to begin with. We've replaced income - tied to economic activity and production - with welfare and cheap credit. I'd suggest wage stagnation is a large part of the high household and government debt we have in the UK and in the US. For low-paid workers especially it's caused some real problems with pay-day loan companies and the like. Similarly I think this is a symptom of record corporate profits and profit-hoarding. The money isn't being recycled through the economy in the way it should, wealth accumulation should trickle down that's part of the system. Obviously its companies rights to hoard their money and that shouldn't be touched lightly. But I think there's a problem when corporate profits are at records high, wages are at a post-war low and investment is, I believe, at a historically low level too. That's a system that's not quite functioning.

So I don't see this as a terribly liberal argument. I don't necessarily think the minimum wage has to rise, I think the welfare available should be cut and the market would fix it. To me it's the flip-side of the idea that you shouldn't be able to live comfortably on benefits that you should always be better off going into work.

Aside from that I'd just say I've not seen any argument about how this isn't a subsidy for the employers and how that's a justified use of state money. And globalisation and free trade are great, they're not part of the problem.

The difference I have with what I see out of most of the left though is that I think we should base what level of social spending we want to engage in on the principles of what we can actually afford, what actually works, and what reasoned and careful *economic* evaluation of the factors involved will allow.

So let's cut it. Get rid of welfare for people in work and tax their wages so they're contributing like everyone else. I don't get the problem here.

Can someone provide some actual arguments from actual economists stating that the state really should have a part in deciding how much private business pay private individuals at the macro level, and that this will HELP the problem of not enough median income jobs?

From what I've read the overwhelming view of modern economists falls into two camps. Raising the minimum wage makes no significant difference to employment levels and trends or it makes a minor difference.

Doubling the minimum wage is rather too rich for my blood but in the UK the minimum wage is currently £6.19 an hour. The living wage supporters - myself included - would like to see that raised to £7.20 an hour and £8.55 an hour in London. I'd keep the current differential for younger workers too.

Similarly I think you could graduate a raise in the US, withdrawing welfare along with it and if you don't desperately need those savings to cut the deficit (which you don't) I'd cut company or payroll taxes.

Didn't the US at one point have a 90% marginal tax rate at the upper end or something like that?

Yeah, we had confiscatory tax rates too. The French football league are going on strike this week over a new 75% tax on earnings over €1 million

Personally I think as much as the whole 1% issue a real problem is generational.

Edit: Here's an article in favour it by someone from the right and according to rumours both the Tories and Labour are planning to increase the minimum wage significantly because they're both worried about work not paying:

A living wage, or a much higher minimum wage, is worth paying
As City profits soar, the low-skilled, service areas of the economy continue to suffer a fall in income. Radical action might avoid a social catastrophe
By Jeremy Warner7:53PM GMT 17 Jan 2013Comments747 Comments

When Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, this week criticised Goldman Sachs for delaying bonus payments so as to take advantage of April's reduction in the top rate of tax, it had the sort of impact of which he could usually only dream. Would that the Bank of England was so effective when it comes to the economy. Within hours, Goldman had run up the white flag.

That Goldman, supposedly home to some of the cleverest brains on the planet, could have allowed itself to become embroiled in such a public relations disaster is perhaps the most surprising thing about the episode. Sometimes it seems that bankers must actively be seeking ways of ensuring that they stay public enemy number one.

Notwithstanding the governor's strictures, investment bankers are very much back in the game. Both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan this week announced profits that smashed all expectations, and for some this is going to be a record bonus season.
It is small wonder that Sir Mervyn should side so strongly with popular opinion. Much of the rest of society is still suffering badly from the financial crisis. For many bankers, it seems as if nothing really happened. It's back to business as usual.

Yet there is something of a paradox here. One of the reasons Goldman's profits are soaring is that it has put the brakes on remuneration, which fell to "just" 21 per cent of revenues in the final quarter, one of the lowest ratios ever for the Wall Street stalwart. Much of this fall was achieved through headcount reduction, with many of those that are left being paid even more – a kind of survivor-takes-all syndrome. Even so, the renewed surge in banking profits is as good an indicator as any of a fast-recovering financial system, and on a number of levels is precisely what public policy in advanced economies is trying to achieve: allowing capital to be rebuilt and credit expansion to resume.

Some of the wider, macroeconomic benefits of this are already apparent in the US, where the debilitating process of post-crisis private-sector "deleveraging" seems to be essentially over. Bad debts have been largely cleared and, goaded into action by very low interest rates, investors are recovering their appetite for risk. It's too early to be certain, but advanced economies may at last be spluttering back to life.

As for delaying City bonus payments until the tax rate is cut, the fault, it might reasonably be argued, lies not with Goldman Sachs but with George Osborne, the Chancellor. If you believe in the merits of low taxes as an important driver of wealth creation, and ultimately of government revenues, then you can hardly complain when companies and individuals take advantage of them. So as ever, the big picture is more nuanced and complicated than the populist soundbites suggest.

Where Goldman went wrong was in its failure to keep up with public opinion. Ten years ago, virtually every bank and company in the land would have come up with a similar wheeze (and it's a fair bet that many we don't yet know about are still planning to). Yet most publicly accountable companies are avoiding this kind of thing, if only because they recognise the risk to their reputation of being found out. Some banks and businesses are simply failing to move with the times. And they wonder why there is such an extreme regulatory and political backlash.

One of the most startling facts about the Great Recession is that although it has profoundly hit the living standards of millions of people, after-tax corporate profits have continued to surge – save for a brief plunge in the midst of the crisis – and in the US are now at their highest in history as a share of GDP.

Good news, you might think, if only the blighters would invest and spend their gains. Unfortunately, wages have failed to experience the same bounce-back, and are now at their lowest ever share of US GDP. The read-across to Britain and Europe is not precise, but the trend is much the same. This has to be as much a matter of concern to the Right as it is to the Left, for we know from experience that when capital takes too much, it's riding for a fall. Eventually, society will find ways of hemming it in, with potentially catastrophic consequences for everyone.

Which is why I have become persuaded of the case for a "living wage", or at least a much higher minimum wage. The potential negatives from such a policy are almost too numerous to list – surging inflation, higher immigration, rising unemployment, a growing black economy, and so on. These alone might appear to kill the idea stone dead. Yet all these adverse consequences could quite easily be countered, and it is a fact that the great bulk of internationally competitive business in Britain already pays living wages. It is in the low-skilled, service areas of the economy that the problem largely lies.

Set high enough, a living wage would obviate the need for in-work benefits – one of the biggest areas of growth in welfare spending; it would significantly add to demand in the economy; and it would substantially boost tax receipts, enabling the Government partially to compensate business for the extra costs through reductions in payroll taxes and/or corporation tax.

For the moment, the concept is too "out there" to be taken seriously on anything more than a voluntary basis. Yet the banking crisis has turned much conventional thinking on its head. This may be an idea whose time will yet come.

[Ideologue]

So I don't see this as a terribly liberal argument. I don't necessarily think the minimum wage has to rise, I think the welfare available should be cut and the market would fix it. To me it's the flip-side of the idea that you shouldn't be able to live comfortably on benefits that you should always be better off going into work.

It's Leninist.  I like it.