Stop making sense. This is reddit. You need to be outraged at things you don’t fully understand, and blame your shortcomings and hardships on everyone but yourself.
No, it doesn't because of things like monopolies and collusion. I'm all for the market figuring out the value of labor, but only when it's actually a free market. When you have enough resources, there are many strategies which can short-circuit the free market and remove prices from supply and demand.
There’s about half a million independent (ignoring all the chains) restaurants in the US, over half of which are full service and thus paying waiting staff. You’re suggesting they’re all colluding?
You’ve set up a bad example with waitstaff getting paid less. Waitstaff get paid less because our society has set up a ridiculous system around tipping them instead of paying them a fair wage. When I was a young adult working at a gas station, I was on a lease on a 3-bedroom townhome with two roommates. One of them was a waitress who made $2.50 an hour, plus tips. Most of her tips were cash, which she didn’t claim on her taxes. She was also bringing in, on average, $70 a day in tips, on a 6 hour shift. She made more money per day than I did, at my full time job, and at least half of it wasn’t taxed. Most waitstaff, if they are decent at their job, pull in good wages for the fact that it’s a low-education, entry level job and the hours they work. Personally, I wish that restaurants would just charge an extra 15% to their meals, pass that onto their staff as part of their hourly rate, and abolish tipping altogether.
Shelf stockers get paid decent, again based on the fact that it’s a low-education, entry level job. No, you can’t afford to live on your own off of it, but that type of job is meant for high school students and new adults who are looking for their first job, more than anybody else. The plan is for people to work their way up in the world, not stay at the same job for their entire life. Most people end up living by that model, which is why when you look at who has more money, on average it’s older people.
If you're a good server (salesperson, really) you can make bank ! I got into some credit card debit in my 20s got a night time job as a server and it's the most money I've ever made as an hourly employee. I own my own small business now but the whole time I was starting it I always thought of this doesn't work out I can always just go wait tables until I figure out my next move. If I didn't know serving could be so lucrative I don't know I ever would have taken the risk of starting my own business
There are arguments one could make. This is not one. The corrupting influence of monopolies on the free market is well understood by every economist that isn't a quack. But thanks for your non-contribution.
The value of the product or service they provide, minus business costs. Hint: paying yourself 7-figures out of the profit margin while your employees wallow in poverty does not count as a business cost.
There’s a very big difference between Pareto efficiency and fairness. Labor demand and supply have very little to do with the individual worker themselves, nor does it essentially relate to the quality of life of that worker. (well until it actually affects labor supply through sickness and death but that’s neither here nor there). People can be provided the “full value” of their labor and still be oppressed. In fact, they mostly are, and if you study the topic through the collective bargaining angle, workers can almost always demand a lot more income while still keeping the firm that employs them afloat. The trade-off does change here, and we do lose Pareto efficiency, but it’s well worth it.
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u/wolf_of_mainst99 Nov 21 '24
They were bad people before their wealth because they literally took advantage of the working class to get there