What's Wrong With A Living Wage?

[arkirk]

Jobs pay what they pay. There is no right that your job should pay you what you consider a living wage. There are federal minimums, countless ways to better your lot in life and many decisions you can make to improve or worsen things.

All a living wage (whatever that means outside a local context) does is distort the labor and housing market.

So that's why it is distorted out of all proportion now? I for one think the minimum wage should simply be distributed to all whether they work or not. It is not a matter of tying down some job. It is a matter of staying alive and healthy. The real estate bubble was and remains an abomination in my eyes...converting good usable property into garbage. Visit Detroit or Flint and tell me it would not be better if the homes had not been taken then allowed to fall into disrepair and become victims of the demolition crews. How much more distorted can anything get?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Labor is a business cost. The more costs per employee the less number of employees hired; making it harder for the an inexperienced person to get employment.

In terms of cutting off the ladder it's a matter that if labor is expensive companies will only hire the more productive workers.

The guys at the bottom have no path to get started. Normally you get experience at the low jobs so you can move into the high jobs. Remove those low jobs and what happens???

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hiring less employees is a choice made by the owner/manager - it is not an inherent and immutable truth of the universe.

just because you worship at the alter of maximal profit driven greed to the detriment of society and the species on the whole doesn't mean this is a law of nature.

Do you ever hire people (electricians, plumbers, barbers, take-away chefs etc) to do tasks for you? If the cost of these things go up, do you hire fewer of them?

Yes, you hire fewer of them. The more expensive they are the more likely you'll take the DIY route.

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Huh? So what you are saying is that workers will not accept a higher wage?

Labor is a business cost. The more costs per employee the less number of employees hired; making it harder for the an inexperienced person to get employment.

In terms of cutting off the ladder it's a matter that if labor is expensive companies will only hire the more productive workers.

The guys at the bottom have no path to get started. Normally you get experience at the low jobs so you can move into the high jobs. Remove those low jobs and what happens???

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hiring less employees is a choice made by the owner/manager - it is not an inherent and immutable truth of the universe.

just because you worship at the alter of maximal profit driven greed to the detriment of society and the species on the whole doesn't mean this is a law of nature.

Do you ever hire people (electricians, plumbers, barbers, take-away chefs etc) to do tasks for you? If the cost of these things go up, do you hire fewer of them?

Yes, you hire fewer of them. The more expensive they are the more likely you'll take the DIY route.

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A word on why raising the wages of workers works

http://www.alternet.org/economy/7-r...l-kill-jobs-bunk?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark

Alternet--no quality control and it shows.

This is one such example.

the author is Robert Reich.
Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock" and “The Work of Nations." His latest, "Beyond Outrage," is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

No matter where he is published, he is still Robert Reich.

And you, Loren, have not (and likely will not) disprove anything RR has said.

But if it makes you feel better, here is the same article, but in the Baltimore Sun
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/20...140304_1_minimum-wage-job-killers-u-s-chamber

And here it is again in the Chicago Tribune
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...140304_1_minimum-wage-job-killers-u-s-chamber

 

[SimpleDon]

I will try to answer these with, what is for me, uncharacteristic brevity.

So someone, living by themselves, should, whatever they do, earn enough to keep a family of 4 above the poverty line. As should their future spouse, I suppose. So every couple, eg a pair of 17 year olds in their first jobs, who both want to work, should earn enough between them to keep a family of 6 to 8 above the poverty line?

We don't want 17 year olds to trying to support themselves by working. We want them in school or apprentice programs.

We don't want businesses that can only survive by hiring teenagers at low wages. The vast majority that do pay the lower wages do it as way to increase their own profits, not as the only way that they can survive.

Why not distribute that living wage through a "citizen revenue" directly from the state. ...

Because our system works the best when people work. When you support working people with government programs you create friction with the people who don't receive the government benefits, friction that politicians line up to exploit. And in spite of all of the protests, you are subsidizing the businesses that pay the lower wages. The employers would be able to pay the lower wages without the government programs.

There's the argument that it would simply eliminate any reason to work, and people would become lazier. I haven't seen any evidence for that though.

People will still have to work to earn the living wage. This is another reason not to subsidize the lower paying jobs with a guaranteed national income. I would prefer a program of a guaranteed minimum wage job to do "good work" like volunteers do now.

I do believe that it is a bit disingenuous to brand an entire group of people with the failings of a few.

Given a civilized society, set up for the benefit of all its members, the question of a living wage shouldn't even come up. It should be a universally accepted condition. Perhaps, given genetic diversity, with only a small percentage of 'deviants' howling their outrage at the fairness of it all....

Yes, it shouldn't. The fact that the US is the richest country in the world with the highest per capita income and yet we still tolerate the poverty of a substantial number of our people should tell us all that we need to know about our pro-poverty enthusiasts. They either see some personal benefit in supporting the continuation of poverty or they have been deluded by those who do.

Well I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a 17 year old couple with 8 kids, but if such a thing were to happen? Both of them working full time and able to keep those kids off of government assistance and out of poverty? Yes. I think they should earn that much.

Again, what's the problem?


The alternative is two 17 year old parents of 8 kids who live in subsidized housing, cash a shitload of food stamps every week, and the brats grow up not seeing their parents work hard, but learn to become dependent upon the state.

Third choice, we want 17 year olds in school, not married with children trying to earn a living. Isn't anything that prevents this desirable?

Well obviously I wasn't implying those 17 year olds have 8 children. I was pointing out that by your definition of living wage, most people, doing the most basic of jobs, would be earning 4 or 5 times what they need to live (and so presumably those more qualified would be earning even more, and so on).

You are talking about something other than a living wage, "4 or 5 times what they need to live (on)." Petty much I think that everyone here except you is defining a living wage as the minimum that someone needs to live on.

There will still be self selection. Most people want to earn much more than a living wage. A few maybe happy with it, even if it doesn't mean that they can have a family.Freedom to choose means that we have to live with some bad choices, in order to get the good. But first we have guarantee that most of the choices are good.

I trust the system to work it out. I don't trust the system to automatically provide a decent wage when powerful people profit from paying low wages. You can't get past the low ambitions of the few. I am concentrated on the low ambitions of our current system. It can do better distributing resources to all of the members of society than it does.

Now put yourself in the role of employer just starting a business. Do you really think you can afford to pay a 17 year-old school leaver with no experience enough that he could support a family of four, if all he is doing is eg photocopying, stuffing letters in envelopes and other such tasks - bearing in mind that you will need to pay people with more demanding tasks a commensuratedly higher wage? If so, I suggest you go and start a business right now, as in the current climate, with the current employment and wage laws, you could be a multi-millionaire in a few short years.

Another example of you accepting the sins of the many, the established businesses that pay substandard wages, to provide for the few, the startups that struggle to pay wages. This can be worked around much easier and cheaper than accepting the government programs that are currently required to support the lower wages. I would give graduates a bonus capitalization grant to use their education and enthusiasm to change the world, instead of saddling them with a huge college debt weighing them down when they are just starting out. Hey, that is just me.

if you are an employer and you can't pay a living wage, you shouldn't be an employer

Yes, we want to force the businesses making a profit by paying a substandard wage to have to servive by paying a decent wage. We don't want them to be put out of business, there is a demand for their products or they wouldn't be in business now. We just want them to carry their own weight.

This is the same thing that we have done repeatedly in our economic history. We told busineses that relied on slave labor and child labor, that polluted the air and water, that ran unsafe workplaces, that sold dangerous products or relied on unsupported claims about their products, we told all of them, no, you can't do that. And in spite of all of the people who told us that we would destroy the economy it survived.

And you also shouldn't set labor policy based on extreme hypotheticals.

Yes, economic policy acts on the average and it should be set that way. We have to trust the system to take care of the extremes, to eliminate them or to pull them closer to the center.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why are only wage-earners entitled to a living income?

In my never ending quest to argue with folks on the internet, I came across this gem tonight on Reddit while discussing the idea of a "living wage:"

You aren't supposed to be able to make a living off of literally any job.

I'm fairly certain that the entire idea of a "job" is "something that you're able to make a living doing," but apparently it turns out I'm wrong.


Is that is what we've come to? You can have a job, but you shouldn't expect to make a living from that job?

Suppose I decide I will make make mudpies as a job, and I sell my mudpies and can't earn enough to "make a living from that job"?

OK, a little more realistic: I'm an investor, a speculator in the stock market or in real estate and can't "make a living" from it. So this is what we've come to? I have a decent job that many are able to "make a living from" but I'm less skilled at it so I don't make much.

So, what's wrong with instituting a "living wage" for investors to guarantee that they receive at least enough income from their hard work (which it sometimes is -- I knew a guy who worked hard at it, staying up late at nights crunching the numbers with his computer, studying hard, researching, etc., and he was able to make some profit, but didn't get rich at it -- maybe he should have been guaranteed a minimum income from all his hard work).

So why are only wage-earners entitled to a livable income? Why should they be so privileged? There are plenty of poor people who work hard, like independent contractors and investors and entrepreneurs who deserve a better shake than they're getting.

Wage-earners are a privileged class who had the good fortune to be able to impress a job-interviewer or others that they should be hired instead of the other poor schmuck out there who also applied but was passed over because he didn't have the right connections or was too ugly or the wrong skin color or was nervous at the interview or whatever. So why should this select group (wage-earners) be singled out for special treatment that is denied to all other working people?

 

[Ford]

Wage-earners are a privileged class

Ha ha. That's funny. Got any more jokes you've written?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What's wrong with a living wage?

Nothing.

As long as this right is extended to ALL workers, including independent contractors etc., and not restricted to only wage-earners, as if they were the only ones who work hard and are struggling to survive.

But it's wrong if it is denied to other hard-working people. Because all of society has to pay for this "living" wage or income that is granted to some but denied to others. And hard-working poor people like independent contractors have to pay the cost of the higher incomes to the privileged wage-earners who are privileged to receive this "living" income that others do not receive.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why shouldn't the price (wage) decline if the value of the worker has declined?

What's wrong with a living wage?

Nothing.

And yet we've devalued labor to the point where it is taken as gospel that if you labor for a living, you should not be paid enough to live.

Many commodities in the market are worth less than their earlier price/value. Like calculators -- the first ones cost $500 or so.

"we've devalued labor" is false for some jobs that have increased in value and wage level. But other jobs have decreased in value.

"we've devalued" only the labor that has become less valuable in the market. What's wrong with the price of something (wages) declining as its real value declines?

Shouldn't calculators be lower-priced today than they were in 1970? What's wrong with something being "devalued" if its real value has declined?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Pack off the "deviants" who oppose "living wage" to re-education camps to be reprogrammed.

Given a civilized society, set up for the benefit of all its members, the question of a living wage shouldn't even come up. It should be a universally accepted condition. Perhaps, given genetic diversity, with only a small percentage of 'deviants' howling their outrage at the fairness of it all.

Right, "deviants" like poor unemployed people, especially the chronically unemployed, who will share the cost for the higher wages to the privileged wage-earners who are given this "living wage" subsidy from society, which is passed on to all consumers who have to pay the cost for it.

These "deviants" who suffer the consequences are non-entities, scum, who can be ignored, because they have so little clout, and most of them don't understand what's happening, and they've been programmed to blame the rich for everything, plus we can put some of them on welfare and make parasites out of them, or we can give some of them makework charity "jobs" to pacify them.

Plus also some of the "deviants" are the greedy employers who are to blame for everything and need to be punished for not showing the generosity to provide "good-paying jobs" to everyone. There is no economic problem that cannot be remedied by heaping more and more punishment onto the evil employer class and increasing their cost of business and then bashing them even harder when it forces them to increase their prices.

 

[Ford]

So, Lumpy...what is it you do for a living?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

More important: SERVE YOUR CUSTOMERS!

But there's really no reason for workers to be on food stamps when corporate is raking in record profits. Pay your people.

Why should a company making "record profits" have to pay its workers any more than a company barely surviving?

How is the worker worth more if the company is making more profit? Those workers can try to angle for higher pay, if they're really worth it, but what if they're not worth more? If that job at a WalMart is the same as another job at Bill's doughnut shop that is struggling to survive, why is WalMart obligated to pay a wage level higher than Bill, who is about to fold?

Maybe one reason that company making "record profits" is doing so well is that it has found ways to cut costs that competing companies have not found, and is therefore serving its customers with lower prices. So why isn't it good for that company to continue its low-cost practices for the benefit of consumers, such as paying lower wages?

 

[DBT]

But there's really no reason for workers to be on food stamps when corporate is raking in record profits. Pay your people.

Why should a company making "record profits" have to pay its workers any more than a company barely surviving?

What is your time worth? Time as a substantial portion of your life, time you'll never get to live again?

Employers are usually in a position of power, especially if there is pool of unemployed to draw from, and with the central business interest in mind (maximizing profit) tend to value their own time and interests above an beyond the real value and contribution of their employees, who make running the business and its profits a possibility. Often no matter what the profit margins, Firms do not want to pay more than they need to.

The question is: why should any employee, doing essential work for a company, expend a large portion of their own time and effort for substandard pay?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

But why are only wage-earners entitled to this living income? Who pays for it?

What is a "living wage"?

At a bare minimum, it should be enough to keep an individual working a 40 hour week above the poverty line.

Fine, so it should include most independent contractors and entrepreneurs. And yet you want to restrict it to wage-earners only.

Why? Why shouldn't other hard-working people also be entitled to this guaranteed income?

Personally, I think it should be enough to keep a family of 3 or perhaps 4 with one breadwinner working a 40 hour week above the poverty line.

Why not a family of 5 or 6? Are you going to cut these ones off? Have you no heart? No concern for their children who are hungry? How is a child's hunger any less important if it's a family of 6 than a family of 4? A child becomes less human if s/he is in a larger family?

But if a person gets a full time job and manages to keep it, they should in short order be making enough money that they don't have to depend on charity or subsidies to make it through the week.

But to make this possible, you drive up the cost of business and thus the prices consumers have to pay, and so the cost of living increases. And so the cost "to make it through the week" increases, and then the wages have to be raised even higher. How is this a net benefit?

They should be able to make a living. Maybe they take that money and squander it. Maybe they squirrel it away. What they do with their just-above-poverty largesse isn't the issue. The issue is that if someone works full time they shouldn't be forced (due to institutionally low wages) to depend on assistance in order to keep living.

But what about institutionally low profits to small businesses struggling to survive? small independent contractors? small investors? Aren't these people also entitled to an income above the poverty level? Why not? Why is it OK for their children to go hungry and only the children of wage-earners are entitled to a decent living?

 

[Ford]

Again, Lumpy...what is it you do for a living?


Do you earn a wage by the hour, or are you one of those captains of industry known as the "job creators?"

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Punishing producers and driving up their costs is not a solution, makes us all poorer.

Timothy Leary brought this up in the 60's. The idea of a wage need not be associated with any particular amount of production.

Including zero production?

This is really just an argument for a basic minimum income to every individual whether s/he works or not. If such an entitlement should be introduced, then at that point there would be no more need for any minimum wage or "living" wage of any kind. Any wage, no matter how low, would be just extra, above what is needed for survival.

This really perverts the meaning of "wage" which is payment for some kind of production. If nothing is accomplished in return for which the "wage" is paid, then it's not really a "wage" at all but just an entitlement or subsidy given unconditionally to anyone just because they exist.

As long as the production needs of society are being met, it should not matter that much that some produce more and some produce less.

But what does "As long as the production needs of society are being met" mean? As long there are some needs going unmet in society, then isn't this condition still not met? As long as there is work to do, or needs/wants going unmet that should be satisfied, isn't it still the case that the "production needs of society" or not being met?

Only in a utopian paradise can there be a world where "the production needs of society" are all being met. So until then, it still matters that some produce more and some produce less, and the system should be one which rewards those who produce more and penalizes those who produce less.

Distribution of the necessities of life to all members of society should be a goal.

Perhaps, but it matters HOW they are distributed. They should not be distributed in a way that drives up the cost of production of the necessities. This causes a reduction in the production of the necessities, which is bad for everyone. Find a way to distribute the necessities which does not put penalties on the producers.

Those who continually invent ways to interfere with fair distribution of wealth are a drag on society.

But a much greater drag on society are those who consume more than they produce, or leech off those who produce. A greater drag is to punish those who produce more in order to give a free ride to those who produce less. And especially to preach self-righteously to those who produce more and to shame them into feeling guilty because they are doing better than those who produce less, and into giving free subsidies to the latter and making parasites out of them instead of requiring them to contribute to the production.

It matters not whether they are Madoffs or lay-abouts. Both types of people place unnecessary burdens on the productive capabilities of society and on the environment.

But those who place by far the greatest unnecessary burdens on the productive capabilities of society and the environment are those who artificially drive up the cost of production, by punishing employers and other producers and directing rewards to those who produce less and who perform at a low level of benefit to society. Rewarding failure and punishing success and high performance are destroying the productive capabilities of society and thus increasing the total suffering in the world.

Production merely for the sake of increased output burdens our environment unnecessarily...with pollution, destruction of living systems that provide ecological services, and depletion of resources.

Yes, like bailouts to GM and other corporate welfare, and bridges to nowhere and other "jobs" programs whose basic goal is "jobs! jobs! jobs!" just for the sake of meaningless "jobs" and lowering the unemployment numbers. All of which perverts the economy into destructive makework and contradicts the above Timothy Leary quote, "The idea of a wage need not be associated with any particular amount of production," because it DOES matter what and how much value is produced and whether it's worth the cost, and it matters for the wage to be made lower if the value is low.

If we are ever to mature as a species and form a stable relationship to our environment, something like a living wage must eventually come to be . . .

But not something that divorces the wage from the work/production performed or which singles out employers for punishment or rewards workers based on pity for them instead of on their merit or performance. There is nothing "mature" or "stable" about a system that makes parasites out of people and demonizes or punishes those who are productive.

The portion of society that feels it is its place to sequester large portions of the country's resources for personal purposes simply is misguided.

Isn't food production a "large" portion of the country's resources? So food should not be for "personal uses"?

 

[untermensche]

If people were just paid the true value of their work we would have a much smaller problem.

But most people don't get paid in any relation to their work. They get paid a market wage. Which is just another way of saying lowest possible wage.

So most are paid the lowest possible wage. That is the worst way to create a vibrant economy. The way you create the most vibrant economy is to pay workers as much as possible.

But who really gives a shit about the economy. Things are working out so well for those at the top even without much of one.

 

[SimpleDon]

...

Fine, so it should include most independent contractors and entrepreneurs. And yet you want to restrict it to wage-earners only.

Why? Why shouldn't other hard-working people also be entitled to this guaranteed income?

Lumpkin,

We aren't talking about a guaranteed income. We are talking about an increase in the minimum wage.

If you raise the minimum wage, the lowest wage that can be paid to an employee, competition will drive the wages up of independent contractors.

Competition is one of the basic driving forces of capitalism. It will raise the wages of workers not covered by the minimum wage law. It will, for example, raise the wages of workers who currently earn even more than the increase in the wage. It is a ripple effect, forcing up wages that are higher than the new minimum wage. Each higher level of wages will go up a little less than the one below until the effect no longer increases wages.

... to make this possible, you drive up the cost of business and thus the prices consumers have to pay, and so the cost of living increases. And so the cost "to make it through the week" increases, and then the wages have to be raised even higher. How is this a net benefit?

Because prices will go up for everybody, not just minimum wage workers. For them, prices wouldn't go up as much as their wages go up.

But the main impact we know won't be on prices, it will be on profits, which will go down. Prices will only go up in so far as businesses are not currently maximizing their profits, but who decide to maximize their profits after an increase in the minimum wage. This will be a very small number of businesses.

They should be able to make a living. Maybe they take that money and squander it. Maybe they squirrel it away. What they do with their just-above-poverty largesse isn't the issue. The issue is that if someone works full time they shouldn't be forced (due to institutionally low wages) to depend on assistance in order to keep living.

But what about institutionally low profits to small businesses struggling to survive? small independent contractors? small investors? Aren't these people also entitled to an income above the poverty level? Why not? Why is it OK for their children to go hungry and only the children of wage-earners are entitled to a decent living?

They will be able to earn above poverty level wages, just like anyone else. They are free to choose the lower level of profits from their own business, that won't change from the way that it is now, just that the minimum wage that they are able to pay will be higher.

This brings up the question of how desirable businesses that pay substandard wages are. We are saying that they aren't. Just like we in the past said that businesses that could only stay in business if they employed child labor or if they were allowed to pollute the environment aren't desirable. It turned out of course, that there were few if any businesses that failed because of the environmental laws or the laws against employing child labor.

Or how desirable businesses are who generate so little profit that their owners are below the poverty level. Certainly if an business owner is willing to run a business that pays him poverty level of profits he is free to do it. But he isn't able to pay someone else poverty level wages today.

You are falling into the trap that so many of the others here are, you are suggesting that we run our economy based on its effects on a very small number of exceptions in it. That we forgo the obvious economy wide advantages in order to preserve a small number of frankly undesirable businesses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If people were just paid the true value of their work we would have a much smaller problem.

But most people don't get paid in any relation to their work. They get paid a market wage. Which is just another way of saying lowest possible wage.

So most are paid the lowest possible wage. That is the worst way to create a vibrant economy. The way you create the most vibrant economy is to pay workers as much as possible.

But who really gives a shit about the economy. Things are working out so well for those at the top even without much of one.

It's impossible to measure the true value of work because there's no way to resolve what share goes to each input when you are dealing with a synergy situation (and you almost always are.)

Your notion that the worker gets 100% is obviously flawed--it doesn't pay for the equipment, thus there will be no new equipment.

 

[arkirk]

If people were just paid the true value of their work we would have a much smaller problem.

But most people don't get paid in any relation to their work. They get paid a market wage. Which is just another way of saying lowest possible wage.

So most are paid the lowest possible wage. That is the worst way to create a vibrant economy. The way you create the most vibrant economy is to pay workers as much as possible.

But who really gives a shit about the economy. Things are working out so well for those at the top even without much of one.

It's impossible to measure the true value of work because there's no way to resolve what share goes to each input when you are dealing with a synergy situation (and you almost always are.)

Your notion that the worker gets 100% is obviously flawed--it doesn't pay for the equipment, thus there will be no new equipment.

This system produces plenty of luxury items. Wow ain't Capitalism great? Plenty of yachts, plenty of penthouses, private jet planes, and plenty of miserly rich people who are always simply seeking more. It is what we produce that is as important as what we pay people to produce. Items we all must buy...food, clothing, transportation, (items even the poor must buy to survive) are all produced by the lowest cost labor the oligarchs can find. There is a different standard of pay for people who service production for direct consumption by the oligarchs...no price is too high for the ornate palaces they reside in, or the chefs who cook the food they eat, or make the clothes they wear, or manage the supercomputers they use to manipulate the stock market.

The pay people receive is dependent on who is to consume the goods produced...the quality demanded, and the whim of the rich. Now a poor guy who can only afford a McDonalds hamburger...the server there cannot be paid a lot because this business, one of the most profitable in the world must pay itself inordinately, so its oligarchs and investors can buy the yachts, etc.

The story gets even more grim in the energy sector and the consumer electronics sector where sweat shop labor, mostly in Asia produces these things and pollution is rampant. There definitely is enough demand in our economy if the production and production standards and pays were more equal and paid everybody a living wage. The arguments against a minimum wage I have seen here are so spurious as to not warrant consideration. They never take into account that more money in the hands of the workers would also bring a demand for increased quality in all the products our society produces. They also never take into account the environmental costs of our current business system. They treat our environment and our working people as something that can be jettisoned at any time when magical market indicators say it would bring more profit. They treat our society and our environment as something that can be exploited endlessly without business consequences. They are right in that our current economic models seem to find nothing particularly onerous about the production of massive amounts of trash and massive poverty.

 

[untermensche]

If people were just paid the true value of their work we would have a much smaller problem.

But most people don't get paid in any relation to their work. They get paid a market wage. Which is just another way of saying lowest possible wage.

So most are paid the lowest possible wage. That is the worst way to create a vibrant economy. The way you create the most vibrant economy is to pay workers as much as possible.

But who really gives a shit about the economy. Things are working out so well for those at the top even without much of one.

It's impossible to measure the true value of work because there's no way to resolve what share goes to each input when you are dealing with a synergy situation (and you almost always are.)

Your notion that the worker gets 100% is obviously flawed--it doesn't pay for the equipment, thus there will be no new equipment.

If worker justice was any part of capitalism, by now we would have all kinds of methods of trying to determine the value of labor.

But capitalists don't give a shit about worker justice. They pay workers a market wage with is nothing but theft.

 

[dockeen]

At a bare minimum, it should be enough to keep an individual working a 40 hour week above the poverty line.

Personally, I think it should be enough to keep a family of 3 or perhaps 4 with one breadwinner working a 40 hour week above the poverty line.

So someone, living by themselves, should, whatever they do, earn enough to keep a family of 4 above the poverty line. As should their future spouse, I suppose. So every couple, eg a pair of 17 year olds in their first jobs, who both want to work, should earn enough between them to keep a family of 6 to 8 above the poverty line?

Before ringing the egregious alarm, how much money would that be?