Rate this argument about job creation

[Misaki]

The world needs more jobs.

Someone could say the world needs more of a lot of things. It needs more faster-than-light spaceships; it needs more fish in the ocean; it needs more fossil fuels. Unlike many things, jobs are an achievable goal with no drawbacks. For there to be more fish, we need to fish less. More fossil fuels would also mean more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and more global warming.

We worry when we can't do things that we think we should be able to, because it means something about the way we thought was wrong.

The way we talk about job creation is pretty simple. When we say that a specific number of jobs were created in a certain location, it's usually a factory. A politician convinced a company to open the factory here instead of somewhere else. We win, the other place loses.

This is not how to create jobs on a global scale. A job is when someone does work in exchange for value. There is plenty of value in the world; the problem is that the people without jobs are not able to do the right kind of work. (Some jobs are best done in certain locations, like next to a hydroelectric plant that provides cheap power, but people in bad locations can still do useful work, especially with the Internet.)

People without jobs have fewer skills. For them to have jobs, people need to buy things that require less skill to make. This can be hard: in many cultures, a "cheap" gift is seen as an insult. But this kind of thinking is only a sort of shortcut. A chef who works at a restaurant that charges $5000 per meal, more than the monthly salary of a typical worker, is certainly more skilled than the chef working at a restaurant that charges $5 per meal. These skills might be how to cook food, or how to arrange food in a colorful way, or what type of plate to put certain foods on, or how to speak to guests in a manner that conveys the chef's experience and skill without any food being tasted at all. But not everyone values these skills when deciding which restaurant to go to, and not everyone should.

The technical reason why buying from unskilled people increases the total number of jobs — instead of just putting skilled people out of work — is that unskilled people are more likely have low incomes, and people with low incomes are more likely to spend money as they earn it. Money flows through an economy instead of stagnating.

Plenty of people would buy the $5000 meal if only they could afford it. There has to be a reward for acting in a way that's best for the world. Otherwise, like with recycling, a lot of people won't do it. It might seem like the reward for not buying the $5000 meal is that you still have $5000, but that isn't really it. Just like a person has no need for money when they're dead, they've no real need for money if they're always working. The reward that many people need to convince them to buy from less skilled people is time.

Humans are natural optimizers. We cut across the grass when the sidewalk doesn't go the right direction. We spend more time working now, based on the understanding that this money will earn interest and save us from working more time later. We don't sweep the floor every time a few crumbs fall on it, because we know that we will sweep it tomorrow, or perhaps just before someone comes over. If the reward structure from work made it easier to accomplish goals if less time was spent working each week, or each month, or each year, some people would not work as much.

This is like a reverse overtime. You could call it various names, like "the accelerated work week", but the name doesn't matter. With overtime, pay is reduced before a certain point and increased after that point. With this system, pay is increased before a certain point and reduced after that point. Just like with overtime, the influence this has on how much people work is a sort of trick. For supervisory jobs that don't benefit from overtime, the unpaid work is accounted for in the salary for the job. For industries like construction where overtime is common, the base wage is lower to compensate. If someone provides more value through their work than would be expected based on their pay, their pay will eventually increase. If they provide less value, their pay will decrease.

What this system does is provide fairer compensation for a worker than they would get if their pay was directly proportional to the number of hours they worked. Highly-paid jobs usually require thinking. We can perform aerobic activities for a long time without getting tired, as opposed to anaerobic activities — like sprinting — that require more cellular respiration than our lungs can provide oxygen. Our hearts are continually active until we die. But our minds need sleep. Efficiency of thinking drops over time. There are also jobs where the demand for work is uneven, like a paid firefighting job.

Fair compensation when working less is important to convincing people in leadership positions, which require thinking, to do so. Having bosses work less is important for getting everyone else to do so.

There is no need for everyone to work less, or restrict people to a certain number of hours of work. But it helps if most people have the option of working less. People will often do something difficult in a sign of solidarity with others for whom this difficult action is not a choice.

The lack of jobs in the world, and the competition for what jobs do exist, is a problem that can be fixed. Other problems can be fixed as well. With each problem that is fixed, we can focus more attention on other problems that have not been solved. Among them are how to deal with depletion of resources such as minerals and sources of energy.

__

If you read all that, it was probably shared by someone you know. Now comes an important question: why should you share this? The answer depends on you who are.

If you're a politician, you should share this, and propose laws that remove any legal obstacles to this system being used, because people who are not politicians are probably not going to share or discuss it.

If you work for a politician, you should share it because politicians depend on other people to filter information for them.

If you work in the news industry, you should share it because it would improve the world and you have an audience, but I know you won't unless a lot of other people are already talking about it.

If you're a normal person who has never been the subject of a news story or elected to public office, you should share it because politicians will not. If we fix a problem like unemployment, we can also fix problems like global warming or, more broadly, situations where there are no consequences for doing things that hurt the world, like dumping plastic trash into the ocean. Lots of people say that climate change is a problem, but no one expects Random Politician From A Town You've Never Heard Of to offer a solution. Politicians think that the big problems aren't their responsibility; all they have to worry about is whether people are violating the law by having a barbecue at a local park.

If you're someone who spends all their free time playing video games, you should share it because in 30 years you might want to go see a rhinoceros, and you wouldn't want them to be extinct by then.

If you're someone who's debating whether to jump off a cliff, you should share it because what do you have to lose, eh? There was a comic about this.

If you're five years old, you should share it because you're quite smart.

 

[Jomama]

Rating = C- for lack of focus, unclear direction and rambling thoughts.

Please summarize with a clear, definitive statement if possible.

 

[Misaki]

Rating = C- for lack of focus, unclear direction and rambling thoughts.

Please summarize with a clear, definitive statement if possible.

I surmise that it has convinced you that it would create jobs, but it didn't convince you that people should use it (response 2 in the poll).

 

[Jomama]

What would create jobs? 1,353 words and I have no idea what your point is.

Clearly you can summarize the concept. If not, then it will never work anyways.

 

[Misaki]

What would create jobs? 1,353 words and I have no idea what your point is.

Clearly you can summarize the concept. If not, then it will never work anyways.

The argument has a logical train. Unemployed people are less skilled. If we buy from less skilled people, they become employed. Then,
>The reward that many people need to convince them to buy from less skilled people is time.
>If the reward structure from work made it easier to accomplish goals if less time was spent working each week, or each month, or each year, some people would not work as much.
>With this system, pay is increased before a certain point and reduced after that point.
>What this system does is provide fairer compensation for a worker than they would get if their pay was directly proportional to the number of hours they worked.
>Fair compensation when working less is important to convincing people in leadership positions, which require thinking, to do so. Having bosses work less is important for getting everyone else to do so.

If people work less time, they buy more from unskilled people. The amount of goods and services they purchase might be less, but this is more than made up for by other people buying more, including the poor people who now have jobs.

Is there a certain point where the connection between the steps is not clear, or is too hard to discern this chain in the rest of the text?

I guess in some sense, the result ("jobs are created") is stated at the start, when people might be used to the result being at the end.

Consider the argument as including the following section; I can't edit the original post anymore as too much time has elapsed:

The proposal summarized: we can create enough jobs for everyone by paying people a higher rate when they work less time. For example, 1.2x their normal pay rate for the first 24 hours of work each week, and 0.7x their normal pay rate for all hours after that, including hours beyond 40. People would work less and buy from less skilled people, instead of working longer so they can afford to buy from more skilled people.

This would also fix the decline in intelligence caused by stupid people having more babies than smart people and natural genetic drift. But intelligence is of no use if it doesn't lead to people fixing problems they are able to understand. Whether people support this solution is a test of whether intelligence has any value, or whether it's an evolutionary dead end.​

 

[Dekster]

As a 5 year old, I am worried about those blacks folks having a cook out in the park. All those fumes are killing the planet,

As for your argument, people can choose to work less. Most prefer material stuff over free time though so won't.

 

[Jomama]

The proposal summarized: we can create enough jobs for everyone by paying people a higher rate when they work less time. For example, 1.2x their normal pay rate for the first 24 hours of work each week, and 0.7x their normal pay rate for all hours after that, including hours beyond 40. People would work less and buy from less skilled people, instead of working longer so they can afford to buy from more skilled people.​

Got it. Well, I understand the words but what's the point? Who benefits and why?

My grandfather said he was never rich enough to afford poor quality products. He needed things that would last. So for the life of me, why the hell would I want to buy something from unskilled labor? It's hard to get past that point.

As an employer, I need progressive pay to incentivize overtime hours when needed. The economy needs that flexibility, especially in expansionary phases to work.

 

[danielpalos]

We need a simple and market friendly solution to Capitalism's natural rate of unemployment in our at-will employment States.

 

[Misaki]

As a 5 year old, I am worried about those blacks folks having a cook out in the park. All those fumes are killing the planet,

As for your argument, people can choose to work less. Most prefer material stuff over free time though so won't.

Afraid to vote? Or do people just not see the poll at the start?

Got it. Well, I understand the words but what's the point? Who benefits and why?

Everyone is supposed to benefit. It's just hard to see that with the way many people seem to be content with their little diversions, including probably many people that all of us know, and the resistance that people naturally have to any type of change.

For one thing, if there are more jobs, then the government doesn't have to spend money to create questionable jobs and doesn't have to give people welfare. It can be hard to identify who benefits financially here because rich people pay most taxes, but income and wealth inequality would decrease, but if there are less people on welfare, at some point "people who do work" benefit.

Military is one huge, and sometimes overlooked, way that the US government creates jobs (this being the US message board). This is hardly the first version of this argument; a much earlier one, from 2012, cited this article: To Romney, the Military Isn’t Just a Job. It’s a Jobs Program.

Future generations will definitely benefit if the current generation better manages the world's resources, both living (endangered species) and nonliving.

People who are threatened by crime, with a relatively low or high probability, will benefit. The ~20 (edit: 38) children who die each year in hot cars, unattended by their parents, would benefit, because people could pay more attention to fixing that problem instead of talking about the latest political controversy.

My grandfather said he was never rich enough to afford poor quality products. He needed things that would last. So for the life of me, why the hell would I want to buy something from unskilled labor? It's hard to get past that point.

Compared to top-ranked universities, educators at community colleges are unskilled. It costs much less to go to a community college. But did you know that Jill Biden, wife of Joe Biden, one of the major contenders in the US 2020 presidential election, teaches at a community college?

Why would you want to buy a Google Pixel . . . ok, I don't know smartphones, but a lot of people don't buy iPhones in India and China. I've heard that the whole "selfie" thing started off as just a way to show off the fact that you owned an iPhone. One male in China even sold his kidney to be able to afford an iPhone. The things people do for money, right?

And how long do iPhones last? Would your grandfather have bought one?

As an employer, I need progressive pay to incentivize overtime hours when needed. The economy needs that flexibility, especially in expansionary phases to work.

Your employees wouldn't work more if you just asked them to? That's what people with salaries do.

I would think that this system would end spikes in unemployment. Consistently higher unemployment, as in 2009~201?, is due in large part to people thinking "the nation is poor, we don't have any money, so we need to work hard to earn as much money as we can." Then they spend less as well, because they don't want to be seen as wasting money when there are unemployed people, which keeps unemployed people unemployed.

But in the original version of the idea, I suggested that the point at which you start earning less money could be controlled by Congress or something, if people don't think that's "unreasonable government interference with the free market". So if an economy really needs everyone who can to work 40 hours each week, or 50 hours each week, you change the critical point. People would work more not because they need the money, but because they understand that the country requires them to and everyone else is.

We need a simple and market friendly solution to Capitalism's natural rate of unemployment in our at-will employment States.

Please vote in the poll at the top!

This IS a simple and market-friendly solution. The basic system can be described in one paragraph, even though why this solution is a good one can be a bit longer (the original post does not even cover everything). This is not "reduce the work week to 35 hours and force employers to give everyone paid time off" as in France, or "raise the minimum wage even though it will put some people out of work".

As for "natural rate of unemployment", economists can't agree on what it is. They just say, "oh, unemployment has gone down and inflation hasn't gone up. This means the natural rate of unemployment must be pretty low right now, even though it was higher in the past."

There's nothing that says it can't be low enough so that even felons can get jobs, so that they can be functional parts of society instead of being forced to commit crime again to pay for basic needs (or child support).

Natural Rate of Unemployment (Long-Term) Oh look, it's gone down. This article might explain why, or maybe not: The Fed’s Confusion Over the "Natural Rate" of Unemployment and Inflation | Frank Shostak

"The NAIRU however, is an arbitrary measure; it is derived from a statistical correlation between changes in the consumer price index and the unemployment rate." The point here, is that if people care more about price, for everything from the grocery store to cars to homes to colleges for themselves or their children, then there is less or no inflation even at very low levels of unemployment.

 

[Dekster]

As a 5 year old, I am worried about those blacks folks having a cook out in the park. All those fumes are killing the planet,

As for your argument, people can choose to work less. Most prefer material stuff over free time though so won't.

Afraid to vote?

Not as afraid as I am of those barbecuing black folks killing our planet, but I don't see an alleged "system" hidden among all that hyperbole and absurd comparison making. Some of it leads me to believe you or whoever wrote it is rather naive. For instance it is declared that, "People without jobs have fewer skills." I often find the opposite is true. They just use those wide variety of skills not to have a recognized job. They get by working odd jobs when they need to, converting trash to treasure, and all sorts of other things.

Or do people just not see the poll at the start?

I am not the spokesperson for "the people", but my guess is most of them are thinking, "We should have a cook out in the back yard" after reading the article.

 

[danielpalos]

As a 5 year old, I am worried about those blacks folks having a cook out in the park. All those fumes are killing the planet,

As for your argument, people can choose to work less. Most prefer material stuff over free time though so won't.

Afraid to vote? Or do people just not see the poll at the start?

Got it. Well, I understand the words but what's the point? Who benefits and why?

Everyone is supposed to benefit. It's just hard to see that with the way many people seem to be content with their little diversions, including probably many people that all of us know, and the resistance that people naturally have to any type of change.

For one thing, if there are more jobs, then the government doesn't have to spend money to create questionable jobs and doesn't have to give people welfare. It can be hard to identify who benefits financially here because rich people pay most taxes, but income and wealth inequality would decrease, but if there are less people on welfare, at some point "people who do work" benefit.

Military is one huge, and sometimes overlooked, way that the US government creates jobs (this being the US message board). This is hardly the first version of this argument; a much earlier one, from 2012, cited this article: To Romney, the Military Isn’t Just a Job. It’s a Jobs Program.

Future generations will definitely benefit if the current generation better manages the world's resources, both living (endangered species) and nonliving.

People who are threatened by crime, with a relatively low or high probability, will benefit. The ~20 (edit: 38) children who die each year in hot cars, unattended by their parents, would benefit, because people could pay more attention to fixing that problem instead of talking about the latest political controversy.

My grandfather said he was never rich enough to afford poor quality products. He needed things that would last. So for the life of me, why the hell would I want to buy something from unskilled labor? It's hard to get past that point.

Compared to top-ranked universities, educators at community colleges are unskilled. It costs much less to go to a community college. But did you know that Jill Biden, wife of Joe Biden, one of the major contenders in the US 2020 presidential election, teaches at a community college?

Why would you want to buy a Google Pixel . . . ok, I don't know smartphones, but a lot of people don't buy iPhones in India and China. I've heard that the whole "selfie" thing started off as just a way to show off the fact that you owned an iPhone. One male in China even sold his kidney to be able to afford an iPhone. The things people do for money, right?

And how long do iPhones last? Would your grandfather have bought one?

As an employer, I need progressive pay to incentivize overtime hours when needed. The economy needs that flexibility, especially in expansionary phases to work.

Your employees wouldn't work more if you just asked them to? That's what people with salaries do.

I would think that this system would end spikes in unemployment. Consistently higher unemployment, as in 2009~201?, is due in large part to people thinking "the nation is poor, we don't have any money, so we need to work hard to earn as much money as we can." Then they spend less as well, because they don't want to be seen as wasting money when there are unemployed people, which keeps unemployed people unemployed.

But in the original version of the idea, I suggested that the point at which you start earning less money could be controlled by Congress or something, if people don't think that's "unreasonable government interference with the free market". So if an economy really needs everyone who can to work 40 hours each week, or 50 hours each week, you change the critical point. People would work more not because they need the money, but because they understand that the country requires them to and everyone else is.

We need a simple and market friendly solution to Capitalism's natural rate of unemployment in our at-will employment States.

Please vote in the poll at the top!

This IS a simple and market-friendly solution. The basic system can be described in one paragraph, even though why this solution is a good one can be a bit longer (the original post does not even cover everything). This is not "reduce the work week to 35 hours and force employers to give everyone paid time off" as in France, or "raise the minimum wage even though it will put some people out of work".

As for "natural rate of unemployment", economists can't agree on what it is. They just say, "oh, unemployment has gone down and inflation hasn't gone up. This means the natural rate of unemployment must be pretty low right now, even though it was higher in the past."

There's nothing that says it can't be low enough so that even felons can get jobs, so that they can be functional parts of society instead of being forced to commit crime again to pay for basic needs (or child support).

Natural Rate of Unemployment (Long-Term) Oh look, it's gone down. This article might explain why, or maybe not: The Fed’s Confusion Over the "Natural Rate" of Unemployment and Inflation | Frank Shostak

"The NAIRU however, is an arbitrary measure; it is derived from a statistical correlation between changes in the consumer price index and the unemployment rate." The point here, is that if people care more about price, for everything from the grocery store to cars to homes to colleges for themselves or their children, then there is less or no inflation even at very low levels of unemployment.

Equal protection of the law regarding employment at the will of either party could solve for capitalism's natural rate of unemployment in a market friendly manner.

 

[Misaki]

Not as afraid as I am of those barbecuing black folks killing our planet, but I don't see an alleged "system" hidden among all that hyperbole and absurd comparison making. Some of it leads me to believe you or whoever wrote it is rather naive. For instance it is declared that, "People without jobs have fewer skills." I often find the opposite is true. They just use those wide variety of skills not to have a recognized job. They get by working odd jobs when they need to, converting trash to treasure, and all sorts of other things.

I appreciate you giving an example. It is so easy to say things like that without being specific.

For hundreds, or possibly thousands of years, government posts in China were based on taking an examination. Anyone could get the post, probably; it wasn't restricted to being related to, or a friend of, whoever was in power. Passing a test isn't sufficient to get most jobs (it is actually required for the US military, which doesn't accept stupid people by law), but the general idea still holds.

Imagine I'm pointing to the area under the line for the unemployment rate of Greece or Spain:
Unemployment Rate: Aged 15-64: All Persons for Greece
Unemployment Rate: Aged 15-64: All Persons for Spain

You don't think that the people under this line are less skilled than the people 'over' it? You don't think that the ~26% of the labor force who couldn't find a job a few years ago would have liked to get a job if only they could beat out the hundreds of other people applying for the same job opening?

These countries aren't affected by war (other than refugees), so war doesn't discourage companies from making investments; and they aren't the US, so someone from the US would feel more comfortable saying that unemployed people there lack skills.

Edit: and regarding converting trash to treasure: National Sword - 99% Invisible

National Sword was China’s ban on foreign recyclables.

No one is sure exactly why this shift in policy happened, but some experts point to one particular turning point: a documentary film.

The main character is the employee’s daughter, who never gets sent to school because she is helping her parents watch her younger siblings and sort through mountains of shredded plastic.

The little girl washes her face in the gray plastic-polluted water and eats fish that have choked on bits of plastic.​

Or do people just not see the poll at the start?

I am not the spokesperson for "the people", but my guess is most of them are thinking, "We should have a cook out in the back yard" after reading the article.

I would hope doing so is more legal than at the local park. Making a camp fire in your back yard isn't legal in some cities, but I don't know about barbecues.

Equal protection of the law regarding employment at the will of either party could solve for capitalism's natural rate of unemployment in a market friendly manner.

No, it would not, any more than having millions of surplus homes in the US a few years ago caused the US homeless population to move into those homes.

You can't pay people $1 per hour (which is what I assume you mean by "at will employment") when their rent is $1000 per month, or according to one politician $1600 per month (first search result), even if it would only cost $50 per month to live in China or something.

"People who seek profits" can do the math and realize it's cheaper to just pay poor people to stay unemployed than it is to lower prices so they can survive on $1 per hour.

 

[Dekster]

Not as afraid as I am of those barbecuing black folks killing our planet, but I don't see an alleged "system" hidden among all that hyperbole and absurd comparison making. Some of it leads me to believe you or whoever wrote it is rather naive. For instance it is declared that, "People without jobs have fewer skills." I often find the opposite is true. They just use those wide variety of skills not to have a recognized job. They get by working odd jobs when they need to, converting trash to treasure, and all sorts of other things.

I appreciate you giving an example. It is so easy to say things like that without being specific.

For hundreds, or possibly thousands of years, government posts in China were based on taking an examination. Anyone could get the post, probably; it wasn't restricted to being related to, or a friend of, whoever was in power. Passing a test isn't sufficient to get most jobs (it is actually required for the US military, which doesn't accept stupid people by law), but the general idea still holds.

Imagine I'm pointing to the area under the line for the unemployment rate of Greece or Spain:
Unemployment Rate: Aged 15-64: All Persons for Greece
Unemployment Rate: Aged 15-64: All Persons for Spain

You don't think that the people under this line are less skilled than the people 'over' it? You don't think that the ~26% of the labor force who couldn't find a job a few years ago would have liked to get a job if only they could beat out the hundreds of other people applying for the same job opening?

These countries aren't affected by war (other than refugees), so war doesn't discourage companies from making investments; and they aren't the US, so someone from the US would feel more comfortable saying that unemployed people there lack skills.

Or do people just not see the poll at the start?

I am not the spokesperson for "the people", but my guess is most of them are thinking, "We should have a cook out in the back yard" after reading the article.

I would hope doing so is more legal than at the local park. Making a camp fire in your back yard isn't legal in some cities, but I don't know about barbecues.

Equal protection of the law regarding employment at the will of either party could solve for capitalism's natural rate of unemployment in a market friendly manner.

No, it would not, any more than having millions of surplus homes in the US a few years ago caused the US homeless population to move into those homes.

You can't pay people $1 per hour (which is what I assume you mean by "at will employment") when their rent is $1000 per month, or according to one politician $1600 per month (first search result), even if it would only cost $50 per month to live in China or something.

"People who seek profits" can do the math and realize it's cheaper to just pay poor people to stay unemployed than it is to lower prices so they can survive on $1 per hour.

I think you are trying to reduce a complex issue down to a simple do or don't. I don't have a link and it is too late and I am too tired to look for it, but I recall seeing that some surveys looking at people who were in the U-6 stats that discovered that many of them simply were not going to work because they either had health issues making it too difficult or because they were taking care of others like elderly relatives, children, etc and couldn't realistically work and continue to provide that care. As for your math, of course you cannot pay people $1/hr and expect them to pay $1K per month rent, but at the same time, if most people made $1 per hour then rents would plummet to like $50/month

 

[Crepitus]

The world needs more jobs.

Someone could say the world needs more of a lot of things. It needs more faster-than-light spaceships; it needs more fish in the ocean; it needs more fossil fuels. Unlike many things, jobs are an achievable goal with no drawbacks. For there to be more fish, we need to fish less. More fossil fuels would also mean more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and more global warming.

We worry when we can't do things that we think we should be able to, because it means something about the way we thought was wrong.

The way we talk about job creation is pretty simple. When we say that a specific number of jobs were created in a certain location, it's usually a factory. A politician convinced a company to open the factory here instead of somewhere else. We win, the other place loses.

This is not how to create jobs on a global scale. A job is when someone does work in exchange for value. There is plenty of value in the world; the problem is that the people without jobs are not able to do the right kind of work. (Some jobs are best done in certain locations, like next to a hydroelectric plant that provides cheap power, but people in bad locations can still do useful work, especially with the Internet.)

People without jobs have fewer skills. For them to have jobs, people need to buy things that require less skill to make. This can be hard: in many cultures, a "cheap" gift is seen as an insult. But this kind of thinking is only a sort of shortcut. A chef who works at a restaurant that charges $5000 per meal, more than the monthly salary of a typical worker, is certainly more skilled than the chef working at a restaurant that charges $5 per meal. These skills might be how to cook food, or how to arrange food in a colorful way, or what type of plate to put certain foods on, or how to speak to guests in a manner that conveys the chef's experience and skill without any food being tasted at all. But not everyone values these skills when deciding which restaurant to go to, and not everyone should.

The technical reason why buying from unskilled people increases the total number of jobs — instead of just putting skilled people out of work — is that unskilled people are more likely have low incomes, and people with low incomes are more likely to spend money as they earn it. Money flows through an economy instead of stagnating.

Plenty of people would buy the $5000 meal if only they could afford it. There has to be a reward for acting in a way that's best for the world. Otherwise, like with recycling, a lot of people won't do it. It might seem like the reward for not buying the $5000 meal is that you still have $5000, but that isn't really it. Just like a person has no need for money when they're dead, they've no real need for money if they're always working. The reward that many people need to convince them to buy from less skilled people is time.

Humans are natural optimizers. We cut across the grass when the sidewalk doesn't go the right direction. We spend more time working now, based on the understanding that this money will earn interest and save us from working more time later. We don't sweep the floor every time a few crumbs fall on it, because we know that we will sweep it tomorrow, or perhaps just before someone comes over. If the reward structure from work made it easier to accomplish goals if less time was spent working each week, or each month, or each year, some people would not work as much.

This is like a reverse overtime. You could call it various names, like "the accelerated work week", but the name doesn't matter. With overtime, pay is reduced before a certain point and increased after that point. With this system, pay is increased before a certain point and reduced after that point. Just like with overtime, the influence this has on how much people work is a sort of trick. For supervisory jobs that don't benefit from overtime, the unpaid work is accounted for in the salary for the job. For industries like construction where overtime is common, the base wage is lower to compensate. If someone provides more value through their work than would be expected based on their pay, their pay will eventually increase. If they provide less value, their pay will decrease.

What this system does is provide fairer compensation for a worker than they would get if their pay was directly proportional to the number of hours they worked. Highly-paid jobs usually require thinking. We can perform aerobic activities for a long time without getting tired, as opposed to anaerobic activities — like sprinting — that require more cellular respiration than our lungs can provide oxygen. Our hearts are continually active until we die. But our minds need sleep. Efficiency of thinking drops over time. There are also jobs where the demand for work is uneven, like a paid firefighting job.

Fair compensation when working less is important to convincing people in leadership positions, which require thinking, to do so. Having bosses work less is important for getting everyone else to do so.

There is no need for everyone to work less, or restrict people to a certain number of hours of work. But it helps if most people have the option of working less. People will often do something difficult in a sign of solidarity with others for whom this difficult action is not a choice.

The lack of jobs in the world, and the competition for what jobs do exist, is a problem that can be fixed. Other problems can be fixed as well. With each problem that is fixed, we can focus more attention on other problems that have not been solved. Among them are how to deal with depletion of resources such as minerals and sources of energy.

__

If you read all that, it was probably shared by someone you know. Now comes an important question: why should you share this? The answer depends on you who are.

If you're a politician, you should share this, and propose laws that remove any legal obstacles to this system being used, because people who are not politicians are probably not going to share or discuss it.

If you work for a politician, you should share it because politicians depend on other people to filter information for them.

If you work in the news industry, you should share it because it would improve the world and you have an audience, but I know you won't unless a lot of other people are already talking about it.

If you're a normal person who has never been the subject of a news story or elected to public office, you should share it because politicians will not. If we fix a problem like unemployment, we can also fix problems like global warming or, more broadly, situations where there are no consequences for doing things that hurt the world, like dumping plastic trash into the ocean. Lots of people say that climate change is a problem, but no one expects Random Politician From A Town You've Never Heard Of to offer a solution. Politicians think that the big problems aren't their responsibility; all they have to worry about is whether people are violating the law by having a barbecue at a local park.

If you're someone who spends all their free time playing video games, you should share it because in 30 years you might want to go see a rhinoceros, and you wouldn't want them to be extinct by then.

If you're someone who's debating whether to jump off a cliff, you should share it because what do you have to lose, eh? There was a comic about this.

If you're five years old, you should share it because you're quite smart.

I don't see a proposal in that mess. What do you propose to do to create more jobs?

 

[Misaki]

I think you are trying to reduce a complex issue down to a simple do or don't. I don't have a link and it is too late and I am too tired to look for it, but I recall seeing that some surveys looking at people who were in the U-6 stats that discovered that many of them simply were not going to work because they either had health issues making it too difficult or because they were taking care of others like elderly relatives, children, etc and couldn't realistically work and continue to provide that care. As for your math, of course you cannot pay people $1/hr and expect them to pay $1K per month rent, but at the same time, if most people made $1 per hour then rents would plummet to like $50/month

(Note late edit, re: National Sword)

In the general sense, you can just think of health issues as "lacking the capability to stay healthy or energetic while doing work". Substitute "lacking capabilities" in for "lacking skills" and the argument is unchanged, although people might think of it differently. Some people have more challenges to overcome than others, but you still find that if someone is unemployed, they cannot (or are not willing to) offer the same as a competitor for the same price.

Rents would plummet, yes. But eliminating minimum wage would not cause wages to drop to $1 for most people. There might still be people willing to work for $1 per hour, just as there are people who work for free in unpaid internships where it's legal (and sometimes when it isn't), but not enough to change rents.

Look at something like finance. Profits from finance are often based off of advising people with lots of money where to invest that money. If wealth becomes even more concentrated (that is, the current trend in the US continues), then the potential profit from getting good advice increases as well. As the potential profit increases, so does the willingness to pay a lot for good advice.

It's the same with other professions that sell things that rich people buy, like medical or dental care. "Gentrification" exists as a phenomenon — as inequality increases, enough people benefit from it so that property prices, and therefore rent, increases enough to affect poor people and force them out.

If there were 10 people and the first nine earned $1 per hour, and the last one earned $100 per hour, MAYBE rent prices would stay low. But if it's $1, $1, $2, $2, $3, $5, $10, $15, $20, $50, . . . it's harder for the people making $1 to pay for housing. Maybe they get free housing from the government, which in the US is based on a waiting list and rules. Or they're homeless even though they work.

I don't see a proposal in that mess. What do you propose to do to create more jobs?

See summary at the end of post #5.

It's a "mess" to encourage the reader to think of how it affects other problems. With the standard "But think of the children!", I mentioned the 38 children who die in hot cars in the US each year because their parents forgot about them (or, rarely, because they thought the air conditioner was on when it wasn't). This is just one problem. Some people might say it isn't important — a lot more young people probably die in traffic accidents. But if there's a problem you do think is important, you should understand that problems that people SAY are important, like unemployment, crowd out discussions about your particular problem, whatever it is.

("Your" problem might even be a problem that affects only you, so of course other people aren't going to talk about it; something like "my girlfriend or boyfriend did something that made me unhappy and I don't think I did anything wrong to deserve it".)

 

[Dekster]

I think you are trying to reduce a complex issue down to a simple do or don't. I don't have a link and it is too late and I am too tired to look for it, but I recall seeing that some surveys looking at people who were in the U-6 stats that discovered that many of them simply were not going to work because they either had health issues making it too difficult or because they were taking care of others like elderly relatives, children, etc and couldn't realistically work and continue to provide that care. As for your math, of course you cannot pay people $1/hr and expect them to pay $1K per month rent, but at the same time, if most people made $1 per hour then rents would plummet to like $50/month

(Note late edit, re: National Sword)

In the general sense, you can just think of health issues as "lacking the capability to stay healthy or energetic while doing work". Substitute "lacking capabilities" in for "lacking skills" and the argument is unchanged, although people might think of it differently. Some people have more challenges to overcome than others, but you still find that if someone is unemployed, they cannot (or are not willing to) offer the same as a competitor for the same price.

Rents would plummet, yes. But eliminating minimum wage would not cause wages to drop to $1 for most people. There might still be people willing to work for $1 per hour, just as there are people who work for free in unpaid internships where it's legal (and sometimes when it isn't), but not enough to change rents.

Look at something like finance. Profits from finance are often based off of advising people with lots of money where to invest that money. If wealth becomes even more concentrated (that is, the current trend in the US continues), then the potential profit from getting good advice increases as well. As the potential profit increases, so does the willingness to pay a lot for good advice.

It's the same with other professions that sell things that rich people buy, like medical or dental care. "Gentrification" exists as a phenomenon — as inequality increases, enough people benefit from it so that property prices, and therefore rent, increases enough to affect poor people and force them out.

If there were 10 people and the first nine earned $1 per hour, and the last one earned $100 per hour, MAYBE rent prices would stay low. But if it's $1, $1, $2, $2, $3, $5, $10, $15, $20, $50, . . . it's harder for the people making $1 to pay for housing. Maybe they get free housing from the government, which in the US is based on a waiting list and rules. Or they're homeless even though they work.

It is not the same though. If you can't work you can't work. You can learn new skills. You cannot learn a new healthy body. Your original position seems a rather contrived system that would more likely end up with people working 2 24 hours jobs instead of 1 40 hour job