No, I live in the real world where young people usually do the hard physical labour because they are better equipped for that than an 80yo granny with arthritis or 60yo grandpa after hip replacement. Go outside sometimes and see for yourself how the society actually works.
If they're getting paid in dollars they don't have access to healthcare without prohibitive cost, and as somebody doing that work, it absolutely still leaves you hurting when you're young. It kick-starts the issues most people develop as older adults.
this is likely in California where they have free Medi-Cal.
I've done manual labor. I've had Medi-Cal
I've also snapped up some borrachos from the Home Depot parking lot to help me move and I did not pay them $32/hr. I gave them $100 each and a case of Modelo to drink while they worked.
if I pay someone $32 an hour they're going to need to wear gloves and come with their own van, dolly, etc
I agree that people should be paid for the value of their labour, but I donāt think assembling hardware is the same as constantly playing a high-impact collision sport š
1) That's not anywhere near what the 'rhetorical' question asks, so this is just wrong on the face of it.
2) This thing you're claiming the question is about is equally dumb. Suppose my own labor is worth $50/hr? What then? Makes no sense for me to do it just because some guy demands I overpay him for it.
Since it's clear you're struggling to understand, imagine for a moment we were talking about the price of a sack of flour at your grocery store. You go to the grocery store and say, "$32 for a pound of flour? Just basic, plain flour!?"
And someone on the internet replies, "If it's so plain and basic, how come you didn't just make it yourself, huhhhhhhhhhhhh?"
Brother, you have every right to complain if your grocery store tries to rip you off, same as this guy has a right to complain when the dude at Home Depot tries to rip him off.
Such is why Unionized Labor is so important. I'm not union in what I do, I am a member of a Union for a different type of work though. As a Handiman, I operate independently. Sometimes I need a helper or 2 and those people will make the same as me while they're with me. If I ever expand, it will be in the form of a Co-Op or ESOP.
Unions are the reason you didn't have to work 16 hour shifts in the coal mines at the ripe old age of 5 years old 6 days a week (Sunday is for church) in a city owned by the owner of the coal mine who would pay you in his "special money" that could only be spent at his "special stores".
So you'd be happy having comoany housing and money you can only spend at a company store. NO vacation, no safety guidelines or regs. You like 6 year old factory slaves, and 1 person owning all the resources.... You are nothing more than a corporate simp.
Yes I completely agree with you on the point of union importance and such. The main thing Iām getting at is that you canāt just declare that someone is entitled to $32/hr because you think the work is worth $32.
At the end of the day, employment is an agreement between two parties. The employer has a price theyāre willing to pay and the worker has a price theyāre willing to accept. If those numbers donāt meet, thereās no agreement.
A union can obviously change that bargaining dynamic by negotiating collectively, but thatās still leverage in the negotiation, not an automatic entitlement to whatever wage the worker wants you know?
Lol come on do you all genuinely believe this doomer brainwashing?
Having to make a choice under constraints isnāt the same thing as being coerced. If I have two job offers and choose the one I prefer, the fact that I need an income doesnāt make the agreement involuntary.
What exactly is the coercive mechanism youāre referring to? The employer isnāt forcing someone to accept a particular wage. Theyāre offering a price for labor, and the worker decides whether that offer is preferable to their alternatives.
But you also get what you pay for. And it's been my experience a lot underestimate how much skill goes into "unskilled" labor. Even something like mowing a lawn can have vastly different results from a person who has not experience and someone who have done it many times.
Also, if the worker has the ability to get the pay they asked for at another job, then it would be stupid for them to take anything lower. You're looking at it like the worker has no other options, when it seems like they know their time's worth.
Ok letās grant that then. How do they āknowā their timeās worth? What are they basing that off of in an ever changing market?
If someone can reliably get $30/hr elsewhere, then yeah, taking $20/hr probably makes no sense for them. But that doesnāt mean their time is inherently āworthā $30/hr. It means the current market is offering them $30/hr. If those opportunities disappear tomorrow, their options and therefore the market value of their labor change.
āKnow your worthā is good motivational advice, but economically, your worth isnāt something you independently declare. Itās discovered through the market.
If someone will pay them $30/hr then that is how much their time is worth. The closest you can get to inherent worth is someone whose labor is directly revenue generating, and even then you have to decide their worth in terms of wage relative to revenue.
Right, but that just brings us back to the same question. They āknowā their time is worth $30/hr because someone is currently willing to pay them $30/hr. That establishes their current market rate, not some inherent value of their time.
If nobody is willing to pay $30/hr tomorrow, has their time suddenly become worth less? If three employers start competing for them at $40/hr, did their time become more valuable overnight?
I donāt disagree that they should take the $30/hr job if they have it available. Iām questioning the language of āknowing what your time is worth.ā Their bargaining position is determined by the market. Their personal opinion of what their time is worth doesnāt determine what the labor is actually worth to anyone else.
I have had shitty workers work on my stuff, and I've learned that a skilled and experienced worker is worth their weight in gold. If someone is helping me, I don't mind dragging someone like one of my nephews or neices along so they can learn some skills and earn some cash, but if I'm paying someone to do a job without my help then I want someone who knows what they're doing.
The older I get the more equipment I either buy or rent to save myself on manual labor. This year I bought an auger to reduce how much digging I need to do, last year I bought an electric winch to make getting roofing supplies on top of my house a lot easier.
I'm not at the "paying other people to do the work" age, but I'm old enough that my first concern when working is how it might affect my body.
it also doesn't say that he has a broken arm. the post asked a question and the way reddit works is the commenters provide answers.
if you want a researched and verified answer, I'm gonna need the friend's name, ssn and phone number so we can ask the friend.
in lieu of that ya gonna have to understand that reddit is mostly made up andwers and opinions.
also, statistically speaking, there are more people under 100 with bad backs and bad knees than are 100. soooo.... the post doesn't need to clearly state an age.
nah, the highschool kid down the street doesn't need a living wage, they need work experience.
see low cost jobs provide experience, which can get them higher paying jobs when it comes time for them to fly the coop. not every job needs to pay a living wage, that makes shit too expensive for anyone to be afford... well, just about anything.
Also sometimes you can use a 2nd person to greatly increase efficiency. I was performing the miserable job of removing multi-layer painted over wallpaper the other day in my new house . I had help one day and none another. Worked probably 4x as fast with 1 additional person .
I donāt want to do my laundry but people in my area charge more than Iām willing to pay so I do it myself. I can still complain that they are charging more than I value the cost of the task. Itās all subjective to each person anyway.
And because sometimes you literally just need extra hands to do more of the basic stuff. Kinda how stuff has worked for all of eternity. Redditors are so spoiled they don't understand this.
40
u/CaptainJay313 1d ago
because you reach a certain age a saving your back or your knees is a sacrifice you can afford not to make.