Distorted…quite the term. Some of individuals in the first decile may have moved up into the second decile because they received too big an increase to stay in the first.
I totally agree it’s not the same as a seriatim measure, but let’s not infer the effect is one way. Migration can work both ways. So fuzzy might be a more accurate description. And I’ll grant you that the lay offs in hospitality and retail staff surely meant more left than right. Just a lot of noise in these sort of things.
But that’s my point. Making it seem black and white, all cut and dried, is a fools errand. The world of economics is complicated. Toss in subjective terms like “hurt the most”, and the statements are pretty lame.
So . . . of the one’s who “drop out” in that first decile, where does the “replacements” come from?
Of the ones that “move up” . . . where do those replacements come from?
As I understand it, of those lower-earners who left the work-force, very few (if any) were replaced. I wonder just how many of those that were in the 1st decile are agricultural migrant workers–and due to the immigration situation, these jobs were not “filled” by replacements. (I don’t think the article had anything to say about this situation.)
Note that I’m not expecting a 1 for 1 trade off here; but for that first decile, the “effect” is one-way.
And unless you’re also going to assume that those who were in the 2nd decile had their wages decreased, then my estimate of the impact of this one-way movement is a reasonable one to start from. Might be better to see what influences would negate this particular assumption (e.g., the “lost” 1st decile worker was replaced by a new entrant to the work-force starting at the “new” min. wage).
I agree that migration “works both ways” for the middle deciles and assessing effects will be murky (at best).
But to this particular article, I would also point out (after some more reflection), that looking at the “hourly” wage for assessing whether or not the lowest-wage-earners are “keeping up with inflation” isn’t the right figure to look at, IMO. Total income (either monthly or annual) would be a better gauge as this is the money that the individual (or family) has to live off of. It would also make the comparison between hourly and salaried workers more on an apples-to-apples basis.
I think one thing that is difficult to capture is that nearly every low skill job I know of is offering better wages and benefits than they were 2 years ago. That includes everything from Taco Bell to Amazon Distribution.
Let’s not get lost too much in the details here as the opportunity to significantly increase personal income exists for those on the bottom of the pay scale. Does everyone agree that the opportunity to make higher wages exists? If we agree on that than the opportunity to totally mitigate and even surpass the effects of 5% inflation exists as well.
That may not exist for the middle or upper middle income worker however, but my gut feeling based on my own attempts at hiring and retaining staff in health insurance is that in our line of work a chance to level up is certainly available right now if someone wants to. And by level up I mean the broad definition of wages and/or things like finding more flexible and remote work.
Agree. It will be interesting to see where things shake up. I really wish they had some basket of 1000 workers or so of different backgrounds, ages, locations, etc and they followed them from year to year to get a detailed look at how individuals really progress through these bands over time. My problem with income percentiles has always been that the bottom quartile is not the same people every year. It’s largely made up of people who entered the workforce recently and just started their climb. My anecdotal evidence is myself. I hit the workforce as a server in 2000. I was in the bottom quartile. I have basically climbed one quartile every five years where I now sit in the top quartile. I know everyone doesn’t climb that far, but everyone climbs some through their career.
Anecdotally, everywhere around me seems to be trying to here at near $15 an hour and most places do not have enough workers. In 2019, $12 seemed to be the going rate.
Total population statistics say we have about 3 million more retirees today than we would have had if we had stayed on the pre-covid trendline.
The 0.92 percent difference between the two can be interpreted as the excess retirements. Based on that number, as of August 2021, there were slightly over 3 million excess retirements due to COVID-19, which is more than half of the 5.25 million people who left the labor force from the beginning of the pandemic to the second quarter of 2021
I would have thought 3 million excess retirements would have only added about 2.5 million more retirees today than we would have had we stayed on the pre-covid trendline.
With regards to your point number 1, having one spouse stay at home can be surprisingly inexpensive. I asked an actuary how he could afford for his spouse to stay at home and he whips out the numbers. After tax take home means they’re not losing their full gross income. Reduce expenses by doable amount. And because of marginal tax rates they can earn some money on the side almost tqc free. The final number is small enough compared to a big lifestyle change.
That’s what convinced us to have my SO quit and work from home.
Related, she was working for a research group associated with uwaterloo, as the office admin. On her last day, she calls me to take her out for lunch. She figured the office would do something, but nope, the office was empty. Yep, they went out for lunch for her last day and never invited her.
A fully qualified actuarial salary should be plenty to provide for a family in most areas. It really comes down to lifestyle expectations and willingness of both to live within that single paycheck. I suspect that is more broadly true for many families - maybe not so much for a younger couple starting off, but if you have been settled into a house for a period of time, your income could have risen considerably compared to your expenses (house being #1 but mostly fixed). .
Wow, when I saw the title I assumed it meant that customers would select their orders the same way they do in store: by pushing buttons on a machine. I’m not sure that “listening” to them is the right way to go. Seems more prone to errors. Why not take the existing technology, make whatever adaptations are necessary to weather-proof it, and stick it in the drive-thru lane with a cover over it so that customers aren’t getting rained and snowed on in bad weather? Similar to a drive-up ATM.
Seems like that would work a lot better.
But yeah, if they come up with something, anything, that works it will mean fewer employees.
I think a push button drive through would be a problem just because of the diversity of vehicle types. That’s before you get into possible drivers with disabilities. A speech based system at least is consistent with existing conventions and laws.
Drive-Thru ATMs have been a thing for a long time. They work for most vehicles. Sometimes you have to get out of the car. I don’t know what people with disabilities do at drive-up ATMs, but I imagine that McDonalds could have a real person take their order, similar to how a self-serve only gas station will send someone out to pump a disabled person’s gas.
Republicans for years have argued for this against changing the minimum wage. Now with that market rate having gone up due to the pandemic, it seems they are threatening workers with automation, something they had already been doing for years before the pandemic.
Regarding drive thru fast food - most places seem to already have an app that can be used for ordering and you just drive through and pick it up.