The vast majority of employers can't pay the minimum rate, because their employees wouldn't be able to do basic shit like travel to the jobsite or afford to eat. Wages have been rising (particularly post-COVID, after a few million Americans dropped out of the labor force for some mysterious reason) as demand eclipses supply.

And a big reason AI has caught on as a techno-panacea is business analysts are looking at the median age and size of the labor force, the stark hostility to immigration, and the perpetually increasing need for technical work, then realizing this is going to put huge upward pressure on wages unless much of that workforce can be automated away.

But market forces are happening even in absence of legislative action. Union activity is reemerging as a socio-economic force. Not everything rests on a federal majority manually raising the wage floor.

[–] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You know, something always feels a little off with an underpantsweevil comment. I could never put my finger on it though, always seems so close to being factual but for some reason skewed. I think it's the declarative statements which turn out to be more of an opinion or editorial piece that's only backed up by other vague references much like a matt walsh or tim (can't remember his last name) might make.

Wages have been rising...as demand eclipses supply.

This is a weird general statement that reinforces that "supply & demand" is a worth-while endeavor that has worked out for everyone economically and socially. Of course wages have been rising.... it would be beyond a depression if the average salary went down for the past couple of years. The important caveats are completely missed though...

While salaries are up, salary growth is down — the increase in average earnings is lower compared to the 7.3% rise between 2021 and 2022. The gender pay gap, while shrinking by 1% over the last 10 years, was only cut by 0.7% between 2022 and 2023. This means the average male makes $63,960, while their female counterparts make an average of $53,404

The average white male earns $64,636, while the average Hispanic or Latino male makes $47,996 annually.

With the annual inflation rate for 2023 at 3.4% for the year — up from 3.1% previously — salaries aren’t keeping up. A Smart Asset report based on MIT’s Living Wage data found that the average salary required to live comfortably in the U.S. is $68,499 after taxes.10 This is nearly $10,000 higher than what the average salary currently is. link

AI..... are you talking about like a general AI or chatgpt? What right-wing or doomscrolling blog are you reading about AI from? All these companies trying to cram some type of "AI" into their program is a problem for sure, but it's just a fad which only the most useful implementations will stick around. If anything, the companies are spending more trying to make it work (which it doesn't).

Amazon Fresh kills “Just Walk Out” shopping tech—it never really worked - "AI" checkout was actually powered by 1,000 human video reviewers in India.

Here is an article by the Mckinsey Global Institute.

One of the biggest questions of recent months is whether generative AI might wipe out jobs. Our research does not lead us to that conclusion, although we cannot definitively rule out job losses, at least in the short term. Technological advances often cause disruption, but historically, they eventually fuel economic and employment growth.

This research does not predict aggregated future employment levels; instead, we model various drivers of labor demand to look at how the mix of jobs might change—and those results yield some gains and some losses.9 In fact, the occupational categories most exposed to generative AI could continue to add jobs through 2030 (Exhibit 4), although its adoption may slow their rate of growth. And even as automation takes hold, investment and structural drivers will support employment. The biggest impact for knowledge workers that we can state with certainty is that generative AI is likely to significantly change their mix of work activities.

"But market forces are happening even in absence of legislative action. Union activity is reemerging as a socio-economic force. Not everything rests on a federal majority manually raising the wage floor."

Interesting you've again promoted "market forces" (reminds me of trickle-down economics). Union activity has been beaten down by a war being waged for decades, proper legislation and officials protecting the rights of Unions are the only way they will continue to have a chance. The recent changes in the Biden administration shows that unions can stand a chance if the branches of government would actually support it.

Wouldn't having a federal majority, manually raising the wage floor, protect future workers when the AI revolution comes? If the market determines the wage minimum, won't your points become moot when there is no more demand? I'm just still flabbergasted that you believe "employers can’t pay the minimum rate, because their employees wouldn’t be able to do basic shit like travel to the jobsite or afford to eat." I don't know what social circles you are in, but this isn't the reality most lower income people are facing.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is a weird general statement that reinforces that “supply & demand” is a worth-while endeavor

It's a fundamental pricing mechanism. Low supply pushes demand up.

What right-wing or doomscrolling blog are you reading about AI from? All these companies trying to cram some type of “AI” into their program is a problem for sure, but it’s just a fad which only the most useful implementations will stick around.

Efforts to shoehorn AI into daily business activity aren't just at the retail end. We're seeing it show up in doctor's offices, to replace transcription services, and legal offices, to replace paralegals, and in IT to replace developers.

The implementation is routinely worse than the human labor it replaces, but the cost is so much lower that business owners will justify the transition.

Union activity has been beaten down by a war being waged for decades, proper legislation and officials protecting the rights of Unions are the only way they will continue to have a chance.

Union organizers who wait on corporately captured politicians to save them are fucked. You build the union first and you get the legislation later, when politicians recognize the union as a force worth pandering to.

By contrast, the Wildcat Strike and the Slow Down... hell, the very act of collectively bargaining, leveraged market force to exert pressure on employers.

Depriving businesses of their labor supply compels them to increase their compensation. That's Econ 101 tier material analysis.

Wouldn’t having a federal majority, manually raising the wage floor, protect future workers when the AI revolution comes?

Sure. But you need a movement large enough to obtain the corruptive force of private capital first. Where do you get that movement?

By the time you have a coalition big enough to compel the federal government to change, you've already built a union big enough to force private industry to capitulate independent of a legislative fix.

[–] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Again, just baseless conjuncture that sounds "almost right". You have the general principles, you even reference Econ 101, but analysis and expert opinion goes further (why there's so many armchair champions out there, unfortunately). Please cite some actual sources that have analyzed the systems and what your perspective has been formed by. This just seems like base-level pandering that gets no where like a "group chat" on one of the mainstream news outlets.

Things do not happen in a sterile chamber. You can't create union movements when they're getting destroyed by officials

For approximately 150 years, union organizing efforts and strikes have been periodically opposed by police, security forces, National Guard units, special police forces such as the Coal and Iron Police, and/or use of the United States Army. Significant incidents have included the Haymarket Riot and the Ludlow massacre. The Homestead struggle of 1892, the Pullman walkout of 1894, and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903 are examples of unions destroyed or significantly damaged by the deployment of military force. In all three examples, a strike became the triggering event. (link)

Your AI argument is fear mongering, as I stated above, with sources, a net increase in jobs is projected. This is the telephone/computer technology fear now for the 2020's. You've yet to provide an actual argument for why technology shouldn't proceed. Should oil and gas not go through the same transition? God forbid we have less administration and more skilled workers, as my sources concluded would be the outcome.

Yes, supply-demand is a fundamental pricing mechanism, as econ 101 will teach. Unfortunately the subsequent classes that economists take after also include the million different factors with changes that mechanisms output. For further understandings, I would suggest Unlearning Economics (here is one of his videos going over a Sabine Hossenfelder's video on capitalism). He comes with credentials,

My background is as an economist who specialises in behavioural economics. I did my PhD in economics at the University of Manchester and from 2019-23 was a Fellow at the Psychological and Behavioural Science Department at the London School of Economics. I remain affiliated as a Visiting Fellow.

I have quantitative skills including mathematics, statistics, and coding which are illustrated by my PhD and current research. I am also a published author, with my book The Econocracy selling 15,000+ copies and having over 200 citations on Google Scholar. I also have excellent communication skills and have presented both my research and book at numerous conferences and universities.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Please cite some actual sources that have analyzed the systems and what your perspective has been formed by

Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century is a solid one.

Richard Wolff also has a great podcast on the subject

Your AI argument is fear mongering

That is part of the strategy to depress wages, certainly. But substandard substitution is also a standard business strategy.