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WalterBright 3 minutes ago [-]
The paper only mentions total compensation as: "total compensation (base wages plus bonuses)"
Total compensation includes stock options, stock grants, health insurance premiums, 401k contributions, so-called "employer social security contributions", retirement contributions, time off with pay, etc. Total compensation averages 146% of wages.
This is not a triviality.
The paper doesn't cover this, and so the conclusions don't have merit.
kraken_cult 51 seconds ago [-]
Riding the boom times doesn't have merit either.
lotsofpulp 1 minutes ago [-]
Health insurance premium subsidies being the big one. 90% of US workers probably are not getting any or any increase in the other ones.
mikert89 35 minutes ago [-]
Would love to see this calculated in high cost of living areas (NY, CA), pretty sure some people have seen 20% wage declines since covid (in terms of how far your income goes)
culi 42 minutes ago [-]
The other interesting finding here is that only 57% of these "job stayers" beat or matched inflation, while 43% suffered a real wage cut. A huge chunk of the people who's wages beat inflation only did so due to job hopping
typ 23 minutes ago [-]
Saw a theory somewhere that, instead of raising the minimum wage, a policy that enables and incentivizes job hopping is what actually works for increasing the median wage level. The inverse implication of the theory is also interesting: any policy that makes job hopping harder than staying would suppress the wage level.
manlymuppet 16 minutes ago [-]
This is the standard in the Scandinavian social democracies. They have no minimum wage laws (though unions supplement that greatly) and a competitive labor market pushes wages up.
Much like housing, the best solution usually isn't government price controls. Better (if feasible) is abundance in the market.
999900000999 1 minutes ago [-]
They also have a much better safety net. Healthcare not being tied to employment is already massive.
I think a flat tax + UBI is the only way to go. The dream of AI should be a society where maybe 10% of people have to work. The nightmare is if the other 90% still need work but can’t find it.
12 minutes ago [-]
tangjurine 15 minutes ago [-]
I was thinking the time it takes to find a job is good indicator of how hard it is to switch jobs, if that was tracked and reduced that would be good for workers.
bushbaba 19 minutes ago [-]
The more turnover the more leadership wants to keep talent. The more turnover the more hiring leadership needs to keep headcount.
Greater turnover is good for all employees and worse for employers
testing22321 13 minutes ago [-]
> any policy that makes job hopping harder than staying would suppress the wage level
Like healthcare being tied to employment?
xp84 52 seconds ago [-]
Exactly like this.
Since a public option will never happen, maybe the most feasible fix we could do is to do a REAL version of the P in HIIPA - portability. Let employees stay in the group plan of any company, paying the full premium a la COBRA, but forever, and require companies to give a tax-deductible cash benefit equivalent to the premium subsidy they'd be entitled to in their new job, if they show proof they're in a COBRA plan (which for efficiency, should just be a flag in some government database since they're all up in our business now with the 1095 forms anyway, they ought to know).
Avicebron 10 minutes ago [-]
Or hiring practices that can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent?
applfanboysbgon 18 minutes ago [-]
And yet that has terrible implications. Job hopping is both extremely unsatisfying on an individual level (no place to belong; you're just an interchangeable cog in the machine being swapped around, giving you no sense of purpose in your work) and on the greater national economic level (it's insanely inefficient and completely irrational to churn employees because you're willing to pay new hires more than your veteran staff).
manlymuppet 10 minutes ago [-]
A competitive labor market doesn't automatically mean you switch jobs constantly though. You get choose which job you go to, and if you have better options available, and choose your optimal fit, that can give you more purpose, not less.
And while it is inefficient if a company has to constantly retrain employees, overall you can have a more efficient market when people are given options, since employees can find the best fit. If you're working a job that isn't the best possible fit (something that's harder to find when your limited by time and resources) that's worse overall for the economy.
Of course there's more nuance here, but this is the core debate of unemployment payments. More unemployment benefits incentivizes people to stay unemployed longer (bad), but when they do find eventually find employment, it's usually better employment (very good).
applfanboysbgon 3 minutes ago [-]
> A competitive labor market doesn't automatically mean you switch jobs constantly though.
Maybe "a competitive labor market" doesn't, but "job hopping" does. That is, in fact, the definitional meaning of job hopping. They specifically made the claim about "job hopping" as pertains to a mechanism for achieving wages. This is incompatible with finding an optimal fit -- even if you found your optimal fit, you would essentially be taking a massive wage cut to stay at your optimal fit job for more than a couple of years, if job hopping is the chosen mechanism for society-wide wage growth. I was responding to the claim that was made about job hopping, not some other claim about competitive labor markets.
skybrian 5 minutes ago [-]
Job-hopping doesn't seem to have those downsides in Silicon Valley though? I think the "feeling like a cog" aspect has more to do with company size. Can you get a meeting with the CEO?
applfanboysbgon 1 minutes ago [-]
I don't know why you think SV doesn't have those downsides. In fact the entire world suffers the price of SV driving away their own employees with institutional knowledge and massively diminishing the quality of their software as a result.
shimman 10 minutes ago [-]
Yeah no thanks, I rather have the government regulate some actual floors rather than hoping that the better angels of American corporations eventually do the right thing.
Also who wrote this theory? Sounds like the wet dream of some neoliberal econ grad.
manlymuppet 2 minutes ago [-]
You're not simply hoping that corporations do the right thing though. Rather, you're making it more economically unfeasible for them to pay workers less.
That's good because you don't have to rely on corporations acting morally, and corporations who do act good out of moral obligation aren't punished fiscally for it.
And although the idea is sexy, it's far from a wet dream. It's actually the standard in the Scandinvan social democracies.
So 63% didn't. I wonder what the average netted out to. Increase or decrease and how much?
hatthew 17 minutes ago [-]
This thought occurred to me too, but then I realized even 37% is very high. In a reasonable society, most individuals' earnings should go up all the time. The downward pressure that should exist is high earners retiring and low earners just starting their career. A mildly idealized society should probably have 3% go from unemployed to employed, 3% go from employed to (voluntarily) unemployed, and the remaining 94% increase their earnings.
tqi 48 minutes ago [-]
Its interesting, I thought it was pretty well established that COVID era stimulus helped lower earners make real gains, even adjusted for inflation, while higher earners who did not get stimulus checks lost ground?
From page 36 of the paper: All deciles during this earlier period experienced annual real wage growth, with the growth being the largest for the bottom two deciles of the wage distribution.
LPisGood 44 minutes ago [-]
I’m pretty confused where you’re coming from. Stimulus checks were a one or two time payment of a couple thousand dollars, but stocks and corporate profits went absolutely parabolic.
The stimulus was not just the checks, it was also pretty generous unemployment, and the discussion was about incomes of workers, not wealth.
LPisGood 12 minutes ago [-]
Unemployment almost by definition means they’re not getting as much money as they were before.
We can focus strictly on wages, but for higher earners, it doesn’t tell the entire story, especially if we’re focusing on my new detail details like a couple thousand dollars per person.
reilly3000 29 minutes ago [-]
Don’t forget about the PPP loans.
lr4444lr 49 minutes ago [-]
I don't think the "average" is a good metric for the social impact of this. Everyone (or almost everyone) being at a standstill would be the minimum that governments should worry about. When even a sizable minority loses ground, that could create unrest.
gchamonlive 14 minutes ago [-]
That's indicative of a growing economic inequality though, which in any orthodox economic book is bad
cyansands 22 minutes ago [-]
What does that have to do with anything?
jplusequalt 1 hours ago [-]
The median worker saw a small wage growth, on the scale of ~.5% a year.
However, it does says that 58% of all workers failed to keep up with the real wage growth trend we saw in the years leading up to the pandemic.
>So 63% didn't.
But more than a third of Americans did. You can't "glass two-thirds full" tens of millions of people seeing their actual purchasing power decrease.
Dylan16807 28 minutes ago [-]
You can't glass one third empty it either. It's complicated and needs more numbers.
jplusequalt 9 minutes ago [-]
For that 1/3 of Americans, that's a very real statistic to be frowning over.
tokai 19 minutes ago [-]
Anything below 100% seems like a potential warning sign in a growing economy.
Avicebron 12 minutes ago [-]
Turns out rising tides don't lift all boats.
Flameancer 43 minutes ago [-]
Mine increased 2.75x. If you count bonuses and other benefits it definitely increased more than 3x.
yonaguska 14 minutes ago [-]
good for you
ChrisArchitect 11 minutes ago [-]
Title is: Sticky Wage Norms and the Real Wage Cost of Unexpected Inflation
These youngsters talking about 2020s have no idea!
luckydata 32 minutes ago [-]
Me for example.
unnamed76ri 1 hours ago [-]
That was bound to happen with the 8-9% inflation we had during the Biden years. 2026 will likely see a similar decline thanks to Trump’s war in Iran.
cma 52 minutes ago [-]
How much of inflation during Biden years was from Trump? For instance, Trump agreements to restrict oil production after covid lasted deep into Biden's term. The US still did better on inflation than most comparable peers in the aftermath of covid.
culi 40 minutes ago [-]
The inflation was obviously mostly due to Covid and the invasion of Ukraine. Gas prices reached their highest points in 2022.
A big part of it was like $5T in covid stimulus, most of which happened under Trump. Biden piled some more on, probably unnecessarily. It felt like we were balancing on a razor's edge and maybe starting to come out of it by the end of 2024. A lot of inflationary policies since then.
jacobolus 35 minutes ago [-]
The biggest problems were various supply shocks associated with the pandemic and its aftermath and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Biden admin brought down inflation much faster than even optimistic economists predicted, while maintaining full employment and avoiding a recession. The US economy during that period significantly outperformed most other wealthy countries. (As one indicative example, the cover story of The Economist from October 2024 was titled The American economy: The envy of the world.)
Since then we've had a wide range of completely self-inflicted policy faceplants, including notably several rounds of illegal tariffs and a war with Iran.
energy123 17 minutes ago [-]
Biden's ARP independently caused inflation according to multiple central bank analyses.
However, you are also correct that Trump pressuring OPEC to cut oil production at the end of his first term did cause additional inflation in Biden's term.
hparadiz 7 minutes ago [-]
All of it. lol
smallmancontrov 46 minutes ago [-]
We let Trump print $4T in an election year and Biden print $2T in four years. Trump was going 40mph in the parking lot, Biden slowed down to 5mph, and while there is a legitimate discussion to be had about whether or not the latter was too fast when someone is spazzing out about the 5mph and ignoring the 40mph, it's because they have an agenda.
Total compensation includes stock options, stock grants, health insurance premiums, 401k contributions, so-called "employer social security contributions", retirement contributions, time off with pay, etc. Total compensation averages 146% of wages.
This is not a triviality.
The paper doesn't cover this, and so the conclusions don't have merit.
Much like housing, the best solution usually isn't government price controls. Better (if feasible) is abundance in the market.
I think a flat tax + UBI is the only way to go. The dream of AI should be a society where maybe 10% of people have to work. The nightmare is if the other 90% still need work but can’t find it.
Greater turnover is good for all employees and worse for employers
Like healthcare being tied to employment?
Since a public option will never happen, maybe the most feasible fix we could do is to do a REAL version of the P in HIIPA - portability. Let employees stay in the group plan of any company, paying the full premium a la COBRA, but forever, and require companies to give a tax-deductible cash benefit equivalent to the premium subsidy they'd be entitled to in their new job, if they show proof they're in a COBRA plan (which for efficiency, should just be a flag in some government database since they're all up in our business now with the 1095 forms anyway, they ought to know).
And while it is inefficient if a company has to constantly retrain employees, overall you can have a more efficient market when people are given options, since employees can find the best fit. If you're working a job that isn't the best possible fit (something that's harder to find when your limited by time and resources) that's worse overall for the economy.
Of course there's more nuance here, but this is the core debate of unemployment payments. More unemployment benefits incentivizes people to stay unemployed longer (bad), but when they do find eventually find employment, it's usually better employment (very good).
Maybe "a competitive labor market" doesn't, but "job hopping" does. That is, in fact, the definitional meaning of job hopping. They specifically made the claim about "job hopping" as pertains to a mechanism for achieving wages. This is incompatible with finding an optimal fit -- even if you found your optimal fit, you would essentially be taking a massive wage cut to stay at your optimal fit job for more than a couple of years, if job hopping is the chosen mechanism for society-wide wage growth. I was responding to the claim that was made about job hopping, not some other claim about competitive labor markets.
Also who wrote this theory? Sounds like the wet dream of some neoliberal econ grad.
That's good because you don't have to rely on corporations acting morally, and corporations who do act good out of moral obligation aren't punished fiscally for it.
And although the idea is sexy, it's far from a wet dream. It's actually the standard in the Scandinvan social democracies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity
From page 36 of the paper: All deciles during this earlier period experienced annual real wage growth, with the growth being the largest for the bottom two deciles of the wage distribution.
The share of wealth owned by the richest people went up far more than the bottom 90 (or even 99) percent. The data absolutely supports this perspective as well: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
We can focus strictly on wages, but for higher earners, it doesn’t tell the entire story, especially if we’re focusing on my new detail details like a couple thousand dollars per person.
However, it does says that 58% of all workers failed to keep up with the real wage growth trend we saw in the years leading up to the pandemic.
>So 63% didn't.
But more than a third of Americans did. You can't "glass two-thirds full" tens of millions of people seeing their actual purchasing power decrease.
Interactive brief: https://bfidatastudio.org/project/sticky-wage-norms-and-the-...
These youngsters talking about 2020s have no idea!
https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts
The Biden admin brought down inflation much faster than even optimistic economists predicted, while maintaining full employment and avoiding a recession. The US economy during that period significantly outperformed most other wealthy countries. (As one indicative example, the cover story of The Economist from October 2024 was titled The American economy: The envy of the world.)
Since then we've had a wide range of completely self-inflicted policy faceplants, including notably several rounds of illegal tariffs and a war with Iran.
However, you are also correct that Trump pressuring OPEC to cut oil production at the end of his first term did cause additional inflation in Biden's term.
Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL
LOL