Why do most jobs pay so little?

[Kingofkings1992]

Have they seen the cost of housing? The cost of healthcare? The cost of groceries? The cost of gas? With where things are headed, minimum wage needs to be like $20/hour

[dynamicyandere]

Businesses aren’t charities. The more profit you help bring the business, the more you’ll be paid. It’s cutthroat — it’s harsh — but that’s the reality of business.


As long as the supply and demand makes sense to them (they are getting enough job applicants with the pay they offer) then they likely won’t raise their pay.


However, if they need a role to be filled and nobody is applying, that’s when they’ll likely raise the the pay they offer — because their profit is on the line.


Unless they’re a non-profit, they likely always think about profit when making business decisions.


For me personally, I’d rather have a tougher interviewing/screening process to hire high-quality employees and pay them well — instead of being lax with my interviewing/screening process and hire mediocre employees for mediocre pay.


If I’m hiring the best, I want to make sure they’re well taken care of.


But many companies don’t care about that — they just want good enough and will pay employees something that is just barely good enough for them to stay.

[dynamicyandere]

Nobody is forcing people to stay at their jobs. They can quit at any time.

There have been several times where I left an old job to be paid even more by a new job.

But, one needs to work on their skillset so that the marketplace sees them as a high-quality hire.

[dynamicyandere]

Another thing to consider is with higher pay, there will be fewer jobs — because employers will be more selective about who they will be paying so much.

One employer of mine fired half the staff before, so that he could pay the ones remaining more money.

So, lower wages = more jobs. (Less-picky employers.)

Higher wages = less jobs. (More-picky employers.)

[Kingofkings1992]

I know, there’s no perfect system unfortunately

[dynamicyandere]

True, true. Every system has its pros and cons.

[Kingofkings1992]

If we get rid of the concept of money, maybe that could help?

[dynamicyandere]

Like the barter system? Those were indeed simpler times, haha. 🥔🥬🐓

[BoopBoopBeep]

It doesn't matter how much you make it matters how much you spend. I can live quite comfortably on 40k/year with what I make over that going to charity or investments. Not to say I do that every year. Sometimes I treat myself or my rescue kittens to something special. Usually that is the same thing, actually, now that I think about it. That job at the local coffee shop doesn't pay enough for a villa in LA? Well guess where you don't get to live. There's still plenty of places in the country you can buy a home for under 100k, I took at 12% paycut when I left D. C. but my spending power is far greater than it was before, I'm happier spending less time in traffic and I don't have to deal with the idiots up there as much as when I was sleeping there. Plus they see me less, so there's less crying involved, so everybody wins.

[WindAtMyBack]

Yea, housing and food has gone way up, but wages have gone up even faster. Wages are too high right now (which is much of the reason housing is high). Once things stabilize and we get past labor shortages, wages will go back down to a more reasonable level.

In other words, jobs aren't paying too little, they are paying too much.

[NathanDavis]

because most people stay at the jobs for that little

[slatyb]

Minimum wage in Seattle is close to $20/hour. Jobs will pay as little as the employers can pay to get the staff they need.

[Anonymous]

Yeah. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living. If you work full time, you should be able to live comfortably instead of just getting by.

[Astarlessnightsky]

Rich people just want to get even richer.

[NamerOfStars]

Because profits are so low.

[Sonorous]

Greed.

[Joker_]

gotta be something to do with inflation