Comment by Aurornis
1 hour ago
> there are too many jobs that do not pay enough to live on.
I know this is argued as a reason for high unemployment on the internet, but it does not match my experience in the real world at all. Having a job that pays a little is more income than no job at all. People stuck with low paying jobs often have multiple jobs as a result.
Many jobs require additional expenses: car, commute, babysitting, living in expensive city, no insurance for work related injuries...
So "not enough to live on" often means, it does not even pay job related expenses! Employees are subsidizing their employers!
My partner had a good job offer, but is at home! Buying extra car, petrol, child care... We would loose 150euro a month...
Just because the job doesn’t pay your expenses doesn’t mean someone else out there won’t take it and be happy they have it.
You seem to be confused about the point people are making. The point is that from about 1945 until around 2000 in the USA there really wasn't such a thing as "a job that doesn't pay enough to live on".
People owned houses and cars by working at grocery stores. A single income from any white collar job supported a stay-at-home spouse. Teenagers bought cars by working part time. College kids paid their tuition and living expenses for the full year by working summers.
That today's below-poverty-line job still leaves someone better off than being completely destitute is beside the point.
I understand that argument, but what does it have to do with the unemployment rate?
You seem to be confused about the point I'm making, which is that low-paying jobs drive people to take on more employment, not less.
But "employment" is tracked as a binary, not as a "number of jobs someone is working".
So if person A takes 3 jobs just to get by, there are fewer jobs left for person B. (Not quite 2 jobs less, because it's not perfectly zero-sum, but generally at least 1 job less.)
So while I certainly wouldn't make the claim strongly, as I don't have any data, it would at least make sense for the lack of living-wage jobs to increase unemployment rates.
You're just cherry-picking though. Things were massively different in 1945 in tons of ways. For example Jim Crow was still active for one. Food prices were MASSIVELY higher for another.