Hacker News is impossible to please when it comes to Google recently. This is something that is virtually impossible to spin as a bad thing and somehow almost every comment is negative.
There's no denying that Google of today is no longer the same as Google of the past, however the values their services provide to society are still enormous and far greater than most other corporations out there.
We have learned that Facebook were indeed running various online campaigns to smear Google's reputation, just to take the public heat and focus off themselves. Many people fell for those traps during that time. I personally feel that those effects are still lasting, or at least still lingering around the community even until this day.
Not really surprising to some of us. Definers Public Affairs and a couple of other firms have been working hard for it. At some point the hacker news community might become more immune to paid-for opinion shaping, but that time is not now.
What about all of the contractors that they hire that are basically sole proprietorships?
I know a lot of former Googlers that do project based work for them. This will often include a former Googler that gets hired for a project, who then will hire a few freelancers that they know to work on the project with them. Are these small shops going to have to pay health benefits for their friends that come together to work on a short project?
From the friendly article: The benefits will not extend to independent contractors, who are self-employed, but they will extend to "vendors," employees that work for companies that are under contract with Google. "Vendors" include those who work in Google's cafes, transportation services and more."
Ooof, so all the research assistants and other people who work beside Googlers as Independent Contractors (most of the half of the company that is purposefully misclassified as 1099's) will continue to lack access to critical meetings about the project their working on, healthcare, retirement and IRS deduction split.
Sounds like Google doing the bare minimum to get some good PR, while avoiding fixing the real issues at hand.
FYI they did the same thing wrt Independent Contractors that get harassed by Googlers. The contractor is still screwed, Google has ensured they can fire or suppress the contractor's claim, forcing them to work with their harrasser. Considering most of these contractors are the bulk of the diversity on campus (women and/or non-white/non-asian) compared to Google's W-2 workforce, its likely they are experiencing the bulk of the harassment that occurs at Googleplexes.
Facebook does the same purposeful misclassification scheme to duck out on Benefits & ensure their abusive employees are protected.
I'm a bit confused here. The (vast) majority of the people who you are calling "Independent Contractors" are actually "Vendors", ie. employees of 3rd party contracting firms.
If you get paid straight from Google and you'd have to pay the insurance and leave yourself, it is not required.
If you get paid through a 3rd party which would have to absorb the cost of the insurance and paid leave, then it is required. The vendor will probably cut wages in order to make up the lost profit, so I'm fairly sure this will backfire and end up costing the employees too.
I tried to arrange my contract this way at eBay, and they insisted that I temp with an agency instead, because the vetting process for vendors was onerous. Google lets freelancers hang out a shingle and bill directly?
I'm too stupid to understand how raising the minimum wage to $15.00 won't increases prices to the point that someone who is earning $30.00 an hour (a pretty good mid-income wage)will no longer be able to afford to pay her bills.
Can someone explain to me how that will Not come to pass. I implore you to please use single syllable words and simple sentence structures, because as stated formerly; I must be a half-wit to not comprehend the incandescent brilliance of this economic revolution.
A few things that I can think of, off the top of my head (other posters: feel free to correct me if I've made a mistake):
1. Wages are a small portion of the total cost of everything. For example, for a place like Walmart, the bulk of their costs is the products themselves (a lot of which are not even manufactured in the US, and thus not affected by minimum wage changes). The costs of running the stores can't be all that low, either. Increasing wages to $15 wouldn't make a huge difference to prices. They might go up a slight bit, but... it's simply not going to be that much.
2. Only 2.3% of hourly workers are paid the minimum wage. [0] (Although obviously, if increased to $15, then everyone below $15 becomes a "minimum wage" worker, meaning the percentage will be a bit higher) When you talk about increasing the minimum wage, you have to realise you're not actually increasing wages for everyone, only a small portion of people. Increasing them will not increase prices all that much, since it doesn't affect that many people to begin with.
Some prices would go up a bit, yes. But a lot of companies wouldn't be affected in the slightest, and so their prices wouldn't change, meaning the overall effect wouldn't be all that pronounced.
> 1. Wages are a small portion of the total cost of everything. For example, for a place like Walmart, the bulk of their costs is the products themselves
The investment retail makes to obtain goods which will be sold for a profit, is Not comparable to doubling the cost of having those goods put onto the shelves.
> 2. Only 2.3% of hourly workers are paid the minimum wage.
My kids were paid about a dollar over minimum wage to scoop ice cream at their summer jobs, according to some estimates [0] this slight amount over minimum wage accounts for 30% of the workforce.
It kinda sucks for middle class workers. Now someone in retail is making 1/4 of what someone making 60$/hr vs 1/7 before. How come no one is advocating for us?
Usually competition pushes down costs, not the minimum wage. Some things might increase a little for scarce goods IF this increased wages causes more demand but many goods are not like that.
In terms of increasing the costs of goods because of increased labor cost, unless the human resource is the only cost, you're still better off. If you're paid $10 to make a $12 item, you need to work 1.2 hours to buy it. If you get paid $20 to make a now $22 item, you now only need to work 1.1 hours.
It is almost as if there isn't a single hourly wage that balances supply and demand for all types of jobs in all locations for all types of workers. Hmm.
I wish we could test it. I wish there was a way to build an economic area, and a very large one, to test such ideas. What if life is seriously better on the other side?
I certainly wish that there was a floor to poverty that is more than what our minimum wage offers today, even if you weren't working, and I believe it possible. Fortunately, in Scandinavia and Europe you are starting to see such ideas tested.
Living in WA, I'm excited with the increases in the minimum wage, and if they work out well, I hope that society is brave enough to test higher ones until the positive effects are lost.
The increase in minimum wage has definitely culled many under-performing restaurants and businesses in Seattle (essentially the death of middling Teriyaki shops). I appreciate the change, its refreshing to see room in the market that has allowed new & interesting businesses to fill the spaces said under-performing businesses used to fill, providing much needed variety.
So you are OK with all those employees losing their job because the government decided the minimum wage was too low? How do you justify calling those businesses "under-performing"? What is the limiting principle here? How do you intended to evaluate the next proposed government intervention? Is it enough for you that that there are good intentions regardless of the consequences?
I propose that we ban all fast food restaurants. They obviously aren't good for us. Let's make room for more interesting businesses. Think of all that valuable real estate that can be repurposed!
Next let's limit the amount of soda and alcohol you can purchase or maybe just ban them entirely since they are unhealthy.
And let's force all "under-performing" businesses to close shop. Those resources should be redirected to more healthy businesses! Obviously the business owners are incompetent since they are "under-performing". We need to make sure these people aren't burning through their life savings in their "under-performing" business.
Carbs are bad for you also, as is meat protein so let's ration the amounts you can purchase or maybe require producers of these products to be licensed and only allow them to produce the "right" quantity of these products as determined by the "government".
> So you are OK with all those employees losing their job because the government decided the minimum wage was too low?
With the lower end of the job market being flooded with work in Seattle, there isn't much reason to fear. There are many more job openings than workers offering full time as part of a union shop (Fred Meyer & QFC).
As to the rest of your whataboutism, I have no desire to interact with that. Its a crappy debate tactic :P
So I did get a little carried away, but the point is that once you've decided the it is OK for the government to regulate at this level, there is no room for complaining when government wants to intervene in anything else. We are in the realm of "trust the government, it knows what is best for us".
If it is rational for the government to have the power to set a minimum wage then wouldn't it also be reasonable for the government to decide that all software developers need to be licensed?
What is the limiting principle?
You accuse me of "whataboutism" as if I am ignoring some limiting principle that is obvious but I don't see any limiting principle being followed at all and I find that alarming.
> The point is that once you've decided the it is OK for the government to regulate at this level, there is no room for complaining when government wants to intervene in anything else.
As a society we have already decided that minimum wage is necessary. We have federal, state and now local minimum wages, considering the plethora of locals that actively fought to put these laws in place (and continue to fight to protect them), it stretches believability to call this a government overreach.
Going off on your wild tangent about licensed, skilled labor, there has been no movement to have a group like the Bar (licensing lawyers), Engineering Boards (licensing engineers), or even a state license like Cosmetology: https://www.dol.wa.gov/business/cosmetology/get_school.html
Attempts by state engineering boards thus far have seen few apply for a Professional Engineering license and sit for the requisite exam, to the point that few states offer it anymore (IIRC there are only a few dozen licensed PEs of Software in the states that did have boards that offered it). In this context, what you suggest would be an industry wrecking move that would likely never happen.
> As a society we have already decided that minimum wage is necessary
I'm suggesting that the laws are misguided. You can't counter my argument by simply stating "but those are the laws". In particular there is a movement to increase minimum wages and I'm arguing against these proposed changes. When you point to the "plethora ... that put these laws in place" (past decisions) as some sort of proscription on discussion of future decisions you've completely lost me.
It's a start, but really fixing the problem would be correcting a mis-regulated market with regulations and encouragements that create many kinds of housing, retail, office, and production (Industrial zones) to regulate market price from the supply side.
Regulating the demand requires making more cities worth living in; same basic ideas (create useful civil infrastructure), but harder since the money has to come from outside. Well, or we could do WWIII, an pandemic, etc, to constrain population in less pleasant ways.
15 USD/hour SHOULD be a livable wage, and the fact that it isn't reflects the insane rent-seeking, regulatory capture in all sorts of forms, and unhealthy market dynamics leading to inflation outpacing economic prosperity increases (for a majority of the population).
Says who? These numbers are arbitrary if we're slaves to inflation. $15 now seems like a goal, but the same amount a century ago was unthinkable. How long will it be before $15/hr isn't enough for even the most basic needs?
I think they are making an argument about the efficiency of the modern economy more than they are making an argument that people should be able to live on $15 given current prices.
Looking at what it costs to produce the material goods required to maintain a decent (but minimal) standard of living, $15 an hour probably should be enough.
That $15 isn't sufficient can then be taken as a prompt to look at the impacts of existing policies and who they benefit and so on.
If you look at other countries then $15 an hour is a crazy high amount for a minimum wage. 6 years ago I had a full time software development job where I made $600 a month net. If you look at countries like Ukraine or Bulgaria you'll see even lower earnings. And it's not like average people in those countries are starving or dirt poor. They have cars, homes, computers, smartphones etc.
Computers and smartphones don't really matter when looking at a total-cost-of-living calculation in today's economy. In the US, they are vanishingly cheap compared to housing, health care and education (aka, servicing student debt). Cars cost a bit more (last I checked, some years ago, about $6k/year - base cost + gas + insurance).
Rent is >$500 just about everywhere these days... https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/mo/sa... ). The US relies on employer-provided health insurance, but, as a result, employers keep people working multiple part time jobs to avoid footing the insurance costs. And since most people pay for education with loans, the lowest wage workers are often also left paying for years for failed attempts to get out of the lowest economic class.
Also, lets say we wave a want and everyone making less than 15 USD suddenly does.
What would happen in today's climate? What has happened where I live as that has come closer to reality?
The cost of __everything__ but particularly rent and other less elastic items have risen to match and overtake any gains. The true effect is to decrease the wealth of the middle class and only the "nobles" who own more than their own living abodes benefit.
I would argue that only the most inelastic items (aka, rent) would see a long-term price increase. Production of other things can increase to meet the demand, and, in fact, you'll end up with a more vibrant economy overall. One can argue that this is the post WW2 US boom in a nutshell.
It seems strange to say that Google is the "authority" here. They are making a choice on how to run their business. There is no "authority" involved in that decision.
But what makes you think the government should decide either? What makes you think that the government is capable of discerning the correct number? What makes you think there must be a single number? And if you think there should be a single number, why should it be $15/hr vs $10, $20, $50, or $100?
How is it possible for a federal minimum wage to magically be "correct" for all combinations of:
* geographic location and local economic conditions
* experience of worker (e.g. teenagers 1st job vs young-adult vs senior citizen)
* part time vs full time
* no training required, some training required, lots of training required?
* time-of-day (1st, 2nd, 3rd shift)
* time-of-week (5x8, 4x10, 6x6)
* intangible benefits (think internships to gain experience/skills/networks)
I'm sure there are many more variables that could be added to that list.
The real minimum wage is always 0, for the workers that didn't get hired. Minimum wage laws are ultimately restrictions an individual's right to enter into a contract.
> Minimum wage laws are ultimately restrictions an individual's right to enter into a contract.
This, 100%. If I have some menial task that doesn't justify paying minimum wage, and I have a person interested in this contract, then the government's intervention is violating our rights.
We don't stand a chance bringing the homeless population back into the workforce with a high minimum wage, it's just not going to happen. People who support higher minimum wage don't seem to realize that it has negative side effects, like pushing lower-ranking employees out of the market.
The point of a minimum wage is exactly to stop the those desperate for work to work for less than a living wage. This is due to the thought that allowing people to be hired for less than a living wage is essentially condemning those people to work for hours that are not healthy for mind or body in order to make ends meet.
If a minimum wage is too high, then sure, its a bad thing because companies can't afford to hire workers for menial tasks which stops workers from working.
But simultaneously, if it's too low, it leads to dangerous precedents exactly like you've described - menial tasks being farmed out to people desperate for any kind of cash, leading to them having to work inordinate number of hours to make a living wage - this is not a society I want to live in, and having to work exceedingly large hours due to my job not giving me enough money is also a "violation" of my human rights - that of a "just and favourable condition of work".
The trick is of course balancing the minimum wage with it's downsides of being too high - and there is fair argument that the US has let this slip below livable wage.
>This, 100%. If I have some menial task that doesn't justify paying minimum wage, and I have a person interested in this contract, then the government's intervention is violating our rights.
USA already has a problem with wealth inequality, and in the current system, removing minimum wage entirely would overall exacerbate this, not help, as now you're having minimum wage workers compete with no income workers - and the argument is that - increasingly - minimum wage workers already have trouble making ends meet. Minimum wage in this context is as much a Violation of rights as the context you are suggesting - and in my opinion, an odd choice of words to use in this context.
Edit - Can you explain why I'm being downvoted? I don't think I've broken any rules here.
> menial tasks being farmed out to people desperate for any kind of cash, leading to them having to work inordinate number of hours to make a living wage
Your point of view is that people who are willing to work for less are being exploited, but you fail entirely to see how real legally legitimate paid work would actually help underprivileged populations obtain success, as opposed to their current $0/hr wage.
> now you're having minimum wage workers compete with no income workers
You've said it yourself, dropping minimum wage would allow underprivileged workers the ability to compete for jobs. Maybe minimum-wage workers are scared that they'll lose their job to someone who's actually desperate for work.
No I totally get it, but my belief is that there would be more exploitation occurring than net benefit gained from being able to hire people and pay them extremely low wages.
I don't want to return to the days where people would have to work 60+ hours to keep a roof over their head with bare necessities. We are closer to that reality than that of wealthy menial workforce in my view.
> The point of a minimum wage is exactly to stop the those desperate for work to work for less than a living wage.
I'm fascinated that people can see this far, but can't see that if you stop people's best way out of this¹, they're in an even more desperate position.
¹ The sub minimum wage job that they'd take if allowed
France has sky-high minimum wages (and, just as importantly, labor market regulations), and the French labor market also has huge issues with low-skilled workers being essentially shut out of it. Coincidence? Germany had the same issue, and they had to introduce special "Minijobs" that don't pay minimum wage, to address it. Who are you going to believe, the professional economists who are actually researching the matter, or your lying eyes?
I don't know about French poverty stats, but in the US the typical stats regarding poverty are terrible misleading.
The basic problem is the highly publicized poverty rate from the Census bureau excludes huge amounts of assistance (trillions of $$). Which leads to this perverse cycle:
1) observe poverty rate based on income is x%
2) argue successfully to increase assistance that won't be counted as income
3) observe that the poverty rate based on income hasn't changed
4) GOTO 2
Here is a good summary of this dysfunctional situation:
That article is clearly biased as it calls the topic a “scam” with no evidence (and includes basically zero data citations). This argument is nothing new and it still doesn’t make sense. Of course we want to measure how people are doing before government assistance, how else would we know who needs assistance?
Either way, this is besides the point anyone was making. We can look at French poverty rates, healthcare costs, or income distribution and see that they are outperforming the US in many areas. Their labor regulations are likely one of the reasons.
>But what makes you think the government should decide either?
The default position in the US system is that the government does decide these things - you're arguing against the status quo here, which is fine, but the way you are positioning this seems like you think this is an aberration from the norm.
>What makes you think that the government is capable of discerning the correct number?
The economists and advisers they (hopefully) listen to, they don't pluck it out of the air, they base it on a significant body of research that they deem to be the most correct (at least in a perfect world, ideology and the complexity of it complicates this of course).
>And if you think there should be a single number, why should it be $15/hr vs $10, $20, $50, or $100?
>How is it possible for a federal minimum wage to magically be "correct" for all combinations of: <snip>
This is a fair point, a living wage in NY is very different to a living wage out in the middle of nowhere.
You could argue that if people are so desperate for work they should be willing to move across the country for jobs in a cheaper place to live, but life is usually not that simple of course.
Ultimately, one minimum wage that is deemed a living wage across the USA is better than the alternative in my view. But I'd definitely be amenable to arguments as to how better to base the living wage depending on the area. (Though no doubt that'd have its own difficulties).
>The real minimum wage is always 0, for the workers that didn't get hired. Minimum wage laws are ultimately restrictions an individual's right to enter into a contract.
I mean, sure, contracts have laws around them based on what is legal, what is regulated etc. That's par the course for a government/legal system.
I can't just add arbitrary things into a contract that have been deemed to be illegal. Positioning it as a "restriction" does not make this particularly negative. I'm not sure I get the point here.
I'm arguing that minimum wage restrictions are an unwise restriction on contracts and you in turn are objecting to that argument by pointing to the fact that we do indeed have restrictions/regulation of contract terms and therefore my criticism is invalid. At least that seems what you are saying towards the end of your message.
Accepting that there are proper reasons to regulate contracts does not mean that any particular constraint is proper.
Well, I just chose not to tackle all your points but...
* the default position in the US is that the government should stay out of things (limited government), not that the government should regulate things (although we are rapidly moving away from the former and towards the latter)
* believing that "economists" and "advisors" can discern an hourly wage number that balances supply and demand across all variables is just wrong as there is no way for the central authorities to have as much information as the market has (the collective group of buyers and sellers), distributive decision making trumps centralized decision making in this regard
* Your belief that a centralized decision making process is "better than the alternative" suggests no limit to the scope of this power, this is dangerous. You also provide no justification for your preference for the centralized approach. You agree that there can't be a single number that works in all cases and yet refuse to give up on the idea that there still needs to be a single number. Why?
> the default position in the US is that the government should stay out of things (limited government)
Limited government means that the government stays within prescribed bounds, not that it stays out of things by default. How that applies to minimum wage depends on whether we’re talking about state or federal minimums, and the provisions (and one's interpretation of them) of the applicable constitution.
Of course it means that it stays out of the way by default.
We have a legal system based on blacklisting things that aren't permitted not a legal system based on whitelisting things that are allowed. And furthermore we have a meta-blacklist of things the government isn't allowed to blacklist (i.e. government can't add prohibitions that infringe on individual rights and liberty, broadly speaking)
Setting a minimum wage and enforcing it has always been a government's job. And when I say government I not necessarily mean federal government. It can be a state government (like California) or city government (like San Francisco).
A single company can enforce it in a limited manner and that doesn't have any discernable impact on the society.
As a leftie, I don't care that much about the right to enter into a contract (we already ban it for plenty of other stuff - e.g. you can't sell yourself into slavery).
My problem with the minimum wage is that it's essentially UBI for the working population, that is funded via a regressive tax. Min wage workers produce cheaper products and services, and thus the cost gets passed to those who buy them, rather than those who buy more luxury goods - it's basically taxing the poor to pay the poorest. We might as well just raise the income tax - which is at least progressive (and could be much more so), and cut the paychecks from that directly.
The usual objection to that is that it's subsidizing employers, who can now pay much less because the employees already get UBI. Sure, so let's tax them as well - corporate income and/or capital gains.
> As a leftie, I don't care that much about the right to enter into a contract
What is your limiting principle then? Our social contract is based on the idea that government does not have unlimited power and that there are individual rights that can not be discarded even via majority rule. Are you unwilling to apply any sort of value metric on laws?
I'm not sure I follow your chain of reasoning on wage/UBI/taxes, but there is a part of what you say that I think I would agree with: That if we want to provide a social safety net it should be done explicitly via general taxes and a redistribution mechanism rather than micro-managing commerce.
To clarify, it's not that I don't recognize the right, I just don't think it's as important as e.g. freedom of speech (nor is it a subset). And clearly the society we live in agrees, because we have numerous laws that regulate contracts, e.g. bans on non-competes, right-to-work laws etc.
The chain of reasoning wrt wages is simple: when you raise min wage, it is factored into the cost of goods, proportionally to the amount of min wage labor that went into their creation. In other words, cheaper goods and services get more expensive, and people who buy them end up footing the bill. So when you raise min wage, it's subsidized more by McDonald's customers than by Starbucks customers. So we're basically providing guaranteed income for employed - that's the basic income part - but we pay for it using an implicit regressive sales tax.
We also have numerous laws regarding speech (fraud, libel, slander, threats, incitement, etc).
I'm not sure it is useful to attempt to "rank" individual rights. I think it could be argued that the freedom to enter into contracts is just a special case of freedom of association, which I'm guessing you would agree is pretty important.
I'm not sure that is true (all laws are about contracts), but your comment suggests an indifference
to the notion that laws should be evaluated based on how burdensome they are to individual liberty.
My comment was intended to illustrate that minimum wage laws not only restrict employers but they also restrict workers. The rationale for these laws is necessarily built upon the assumption that individuals are incapable of determining what is in their own best interest and must be forcibly prevented from making unwise decisions regarding their own employment. The government's centralized one-size-fits-all solution represents an infringement on individual liberty and individual rights, the exact opposite of the proper role for government.
> I'm not sure that is true (all laws are about contracts)
Whether they are about contracts are not, laws restrict the right to enter contracts, because contracts that involve violations of the law are prohibited for that reason. (And, in the case of criminal law, the contracts themselves are not merely restricted but criminalized.)
> but your comment suggests an indifference to the notion that laws should be evaluated based on how burdensome they are to individual liberty.
No, it suggests that I find the observation that a law restricts the ability to enter contracts to be something that doesn't say anything meaningful about the degree or manner in which it burdens individual liberty, since it is true of most laws, no matter how much or how little they burden individual liberty.
> The rationale for these laws is necessarily built upon the assumption that individuals are incapable of determining what is in their own best interest
I disagree; the laws are adopted precisely because individuals are perceived as very capable of optimizing for their own self-interest in a way which is perceived as harmful to the general interest. It's seen as a collective action problem; in game theory terms a multiplayer generalization of prisoners dilemma with workers as the participants.
So you think that if I find someone willing to do data entry for $10/hour that there is some danger to the "general interest"? Where does that end? How does $15/hour protect the general interest but $14.50 doesn't? Does $20 provide more "protection"?
The proper role for government is to protect individual rights not to manufacture collective rights that are more important. You are arguing that the individual rights need to be subservient to the "general interest" collective rights and I don't like where that argument leads.
There are lot of things that should be the government's job, but aren't. In lieu of that, Google is responsible for its own actions, and Google is the one who is deciding to pay some contractors $15/hr.
As someone who was born into a low-income family, it's definitely livable. Is it do-able for everyone? Definitely, not. It really depends on how your family spends your money. Luckily for me, my mother happened to be an accountant so we had no trouble with our finances and budgeting.
When you're making minimum wage, you're actually afforded other benefits. The kids get to eat school lunch for free and we also get free transportation. This goes all the way throughout high school. That's a lot of savings over time! On top of that, colleges offer financial aid packages that reduce the cost of college significantly. In fact, some colleges will even go as far as to give you money for going to their college.
We rarely if ever went to eat out, all our meals were homecooked. Snacks, candy, soda were rare in our house. We didn't have cable tv, just broadcast TV. We had a home with heat and air conditioning, but we were very frugal with turning it on. We didn't waste electricity if we didn't have to; if no one was in the room, don't turn on the lights. Don't leave the fan or TV on if no one was using it, etc. Despite being in the low-income bracket, we still went on an annual vacation once a year. We would join those tour buses and visit other states. The rest of the money went toward education.
Why are you figuring 33% on $30? Standard deduction is $12k, then it's 10-12% federal tax on the rest. A bit for state tax, sure, but it's going to be well less than 33%.
(Still hard to make ends meet on $30k, not disagreeing there.)
I don't expect someone with a 30k salary to pay anywhere near 33% tax.
Federal: 12k standard deduction for an individual, looks like $1969 in taxes on the remaining.
New York State: 8k standard deduction, roughly $1100 tax on the rest (eyeballing it).
FICA: 7.65% tax on 30k is 2295.
$1050 per month after rent instead of $675. Not saying it's comfortable... in fact I think I'd still agree with your "barely livable" description.
Cite a source please. I have heard this but have never seen a source.
I believe Roosevelt said something along the lines of business that depend on paying less than a living wage do not have the right to exist or something. A simple search brought that up. Can you cite a source that is contemporary to when minimum wage was established?
If 8 hours a week, then 1/5 of a livable wage. If 20 hours a week, then half of a livable wage. There's no reason a 16 year old making pizza should get less than a 26 year old making pizza.
This is not a good argument, since most people in restaurants are not 16 year olds and their friends making extra cash. Most restaurant and fast food workers are not teenagers, they are open during the day afterall. The average age is in the 30s.
Well let me restate, how much should anyone get paid for flipping burgers?
There was an article posted recently that that the average income of a 7-11 owner was less than $40K a year and just to get that most owners are working in their stores.
Small business owners are not getting rich.
The other argument I hear is if they can’t afford to pay more the store shouldn’t exist. Which is funny coming from a site where many of the posters work for non profitable VC backed companies.
At least enough to pay for food, transport and a roof over their head with enough left over to cover emergencies etc. Are you trying to imply that they shouldn't make that?
And if the company can’t afford to do that and stay in business should they not exist? If so, what does that say about all of the VC funded money losing companies?
Reading you it looks like Google does not hire anyone.
Google is a tech company, it is perfectly natural for them to have contractors when it comes to people working in the cafes for example, because training or interviewing cooks will be done better in a company actually focused on training and interviewing cooks.
It hasn’t always been that way. Companies use to hire their own janitors and cooks. If a school system can figure out how to hire teachers, principals, custodians, electricians, bus drivers, cooks, etc. I’m sure all of the smart people at Google can.
I don't know how long ago you are talking about, but I am pretty sure nowadays most schools go through contractors too for cooks and janitors (I actually did not go to school in the US so correct me if I am wrong)
but its not just cooks. It is software test engineers, Devops engineers, front end developers, ux designers, desktop support, technical recruiters, receptionists, admins, content moderators, search raters, map verification specialists, language translators - many of these are core to any tech company- the only thing common is that they are available more easily and can be paid less as contractors or h1b consultants
Hi. I've done (software engineering) contract work for Google. Sure they can replace me; and I can replace them. I like this situation just fine. I don't want to be an employee.
Those companies could be subsidiaries of Google. It could operate independently with its own P&L.It could share services such as Payroll, IT and Finance.
This is essentially Google saying, these companies are operating too efficiently and must increase costs to continue operating inside of Google.
Why is it okay when they're hired using a subcontractor company?
Is it investors being stupid (unlikely?)
Is subcontractor headcount/cost not public information?
Are contractors actually good?
Are contractors instead of employees good for google, but detrimental to society as whole? (something investors aren't known to care about, so it makes sense).
At a guess: If the economy goes down the drain and Google needs to cut costs asap, they could kick out the contractors with a moments notice and tell the software people "no more perks for you". And the SWE's couldn't easily leave over the lost perks if all other places were struggling at the same time. So in that sense it's less risky.
Google? I'm sure there's some way they could, but I don't think it would be easy. A large part of their employees' compensation is stock, which if they can't sell it on the public market is not very useful.
