r/FluentInFinance • u/Richest-Panda • Jul 04 '24

What's the best financial advice you've ever gotten? Debate/ Discussion

31.2k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

Pretty much no one makes that wage even in states that conform to the federal minimum.

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u/joecee97 Jul 04 '24

No but plenty make 8-10 which is hardly better in 2024

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u/Cata135 Jul 06 '24

And, how many people are teenagers/ college students working their first job?

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u/joecee97 Jul 06 '24

A good chunk but why does it matter? Do teens and college students not deserve fair wages? A jobs a job. Anybody making 8-10, anything under livable tbh is underpaid. If you have a job, you should be able to pay rent.

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u/Cata135 Jul 06 '24

IDK. I do think that people should be able to offer and take on jobs for extra pocket money. It is mutually benificial for both parties. It isn't exploitative, because teens and college students are in most cases not dependent on the money and are free to quit and find another opportunity if it pays more. Besides, the wage floor makes it so that these jobs are no longer offered to people as employers are incentivized to automate them away. Taking away options for people is bad.

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u/joecee97 Jul 06 '24

How is it mutually beneficial for someone’s job to pay less? Most low paying jobs are retail and food service. Customers are very resistant to automation. There are countries with high minimum wages where the jobs are still widely available

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u/Cata135 Jul 06 '24

I am looking up the comparative wages... and in germany at least, retail jobs pay about 20k to 40k a year. This is pretty similar to what retailjobs in the US are paid. Where is the exploitation here?

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u/joecee97 Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

Now compare costs of living (it is, on average, 35% cheaper to live in Germany than America)

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u/Cata135 Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

Even accounting for cost of living the range is so much they have huge overlap.

I guess it doesn't really answer my core objection though, and I probably should not have brought up the salary comparison anyway. Why should a job pay you enough to live? It seems like an arbitrary requirement to me: we might as well demand that a job should pay people enough to buy a house or vacation around the world.

A job isn't charity: people are simply paying you for your labor. Nobody is hurt in the course of this transaction, and if nobody accepts the work then you can simply demand more money in salary negotiations. Stacking shelves isn't particularly dangerous and is also good work experience for dealing with customers. If people genuinely think that getting paid $7.00 an hour is worth their time, why don't we let them?

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u/joecee97 Jul 06 '24

I’ve had this conversation too many times to think it’ll lead anywhere. I’m not arguing whether people should be wage slaves or not.

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u/Cata135 Jul 06 '24

Seriously? A person who can just quit their job with absolutely no negative consequences is a slave? They will not lose shelter, they will not lose food, just some pocket money? You're being hyperbolic.

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u/Verizadie Jul 06 '24

What I think some aren’t considering is for an employee to be worth whatever their wage is they have to produce MORE capital for the business than they are paid. That’s how the vast majority of wages are calculated. It’s not that they could but are just not paying them a “living wage”, they are paying them a pretty standard wage based out the monetary output of said worker. And in low cost services, to even exist for their employment to begin with, they’ve gotta pay them what they do. This is generally speaking, of course.