SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Marketwatch brings good news for the USA: American workers are finally reaping the benefits of the lowest unemployment rate and best jobs market in decades: Wages and benefits are rising at the fastest pace in a decade. Firms have sought to fill openings by offering better benefits such as more vacation time or flexible hours. When push comes to shove, they are offering higher pay. While bigger paychecks are great for workers, the US Federal Reserve is watching closely to see if rising compensation is stoking inflation. The Federal Reserve could increase U.S. interest rates if it becomes a big worry, but so far inflation remains relatively mild.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Wages and Benefits are Rising at the Fastest Pace in a Decade
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 100 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Madness takes its toll.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:14AM (4 children)
Or we could not have tariffs, let the low wage countries produce the low value stuff as they currently do, and instead employ our high cost people in the many opportunities that exist for businesses in the developed world? Comparative advantage is a thing.
I get the feeling you're like some little psychopath with a torturer's kit. Have a tooth ache? Relationship problems? I got thumb screws!
Before we use tariffs, shouldn't we have some evidence that they work first? Same with high minimum wages and the other economic quackery that's been put forth in this whole discussion.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:32PM (3 children)
> instead employ our high cost people in the many opportunities that exist for businesses in the developed world?
Turns out we have plenty of low-skilled American Citizen neighbors, and the rising costs of education in the US is producing more of them every day.
Either there are jobs they can do, or we pay higher taxes to keep them fed and/or jailed, whichever prevents them from storming our Gated Communities.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @11:45PM (2 children)
Maybe we should stop doing that then. Tariffs won't help here, of course. Education that spends more efficiently on education would help. This is one of the reasons I'm interested in school vouchers, the traditional public schools have become disinterested in their primary purpose and are more interested in raising costs of education.
We could get out of the way of business, for example. As I've already implied, I think any level of minimum wage is too high because the most minimal such laws require businesses to shuffle paper instead of employing more people gainfully (and by gainfully, I mean in a way that would produce goods and services that encourage employment of more people gainfully).
I too believe we should create jobs that they can do. I just don't buy that tariffs will do that.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)
> the traditional public schools have become disinterested in their primary purpose and are more interested in raising costs of education
* citation needed *
While private colleges are raising their rates well above inflation levels because they can, they can because some politicians are defunding their competitors, while other politicians/administrators are agreeing to excessive raises instead of standing for our tax dollars.
It sucks, but I don't like the "more interested in" loaded formulation.
> This is one of the reasons I'm interested in school vouchers
I fail to see how the vouchers address the problem. The Almighty Market Dynamics don't apply here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:58AM
I do like that formulation because I think it's more accurate. First, let us note that moving costs of college education from state to student doesn't actually change the cost of education, it just changes who pays. And needless to say, I have no trouble with college students paying the actual cost of their education.
What does change cost of education is overhead that doesn't contribute to the education, such as much of the administrative costs and building construction. That's a common failing of public schools, particularly K-12 level. I've heard many stories over the years of science teachers who have to buy their own supplies while their school system upgrades the local sports infrastructure (such as football stadiums) without a second thought. And a school system like the LA Unified School District has massive bureaucratic overhead.
A second indication is the phenomena of "teaching to the test". This is a common complaint of top-down testing standards. But if a school system suddenly shifts to obsessing over test scores on a standard test, it demonstrates that the school system didn't have education as a priority then or in the past. Because education wouldn't be so easily sacrificed to a test otherwise.
There's the inflated educational costs of classroom materials such as textbooks, lab materials, etc (which is something a school system can easily deal), but too often it's just not a priority to reduce costs of education for their students.
There are teacher unions which are notorious for opposite performance based measures and removing bad teachers from the classroom.
Market dynamics work well at the college level actually. You get a fair bit of inefficiency still and we all hear of the students who borrow way too much (usually via a non-market dynamic, of course). But there is an amazing variety out there and a lot of people getting something relatively useful out of their education. Meanwhile how many public schools, particularly in the heavily urbanized parts of the US, would still exist, if they had to compete? I'm all for getting rid of bad public schools outright. And school vouchers provide a tool for making that happen.