Do Americans Have Leverage In Job Market

A listener points out that maybe employers who won't pay their employees a living wage shouldn't be in business anymore. Sam counters with programs that would dramatically increase employment. Universal Pre-K, Medicare-For-All, housing subsidies, etc. If we really want people to go back to work, maybe we should make it suck a lot less.

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Sam: Notice that the business owners and employers do complain about not getting enough workers back are acting like they're entitled to continue to be business owners. I thought the free market was about allowing businesses to succeed or fail? if a business can't pay employees well it shouldn't continue to exist. They don't think it's fair to compete against the government. Incidentally, we've already talked about there's no data that showed that uh states that cut back on their unemployment had an increase in employment. People are afraid to go back to work or they realize that job sucks. and I don't want to go back to work at that place. I'm going to hold out and find a better job. And then if you feel like that's the problem with government largesse that it's empowering people to not get a job that they don't hate. then maybe we need to start thinking about that dynamic a little bit.

Matt: yeah why that sort of latent coercion through deprivation is required to make the system work.

Sam: If 300 bucks a month or excuse me 300 bucks extra a week. and that's on the high end right? It making people think like hey I don't want to work at that crappy job anymore and maybe we need to reevaluate the system in which that three hundred dollar a week makes that much of a difference. like are you sitting here administrating all these people enough over twelve hundred dollars a month? We could eliminate those expenses pretty easily. you don't have to give them that money we just uh decommodify healthcare. for children, we give help out and provide UPK for everybody. Maybe free daycare. and we subsidize housing in a couple of different ways. bingo bingo. then we'll have then I mean this is the invisible hand to the market, isn't it? people just you know they have a different baseline. There's a baseline. The question is what it's going to be? How much deprivation are we going to ensure that people have in our society? That's just a choice we make. That's all. It's just a choice.

Matt: I just love to live in a society where I go out to get food and I know that the person serving me is there because they absolutely need to. And they actually hate their job. They wouldn't be there except if they need that money. To eat. And to live their life. I love that.