posted
The free market is basically warmed over rational egoism. When a corporation or private business owner is confronted with an opportunity to profit, no matter how small the profit and no matter how great the humanitarian cost of their practice, the right decision is whatever the hell they decide to do for their next Maserati. Even if I'm dicking over hundreds of millions of people and leaving the economy a complete wreck for the entire next generation of people just to secure myself a slightly more posh retirement, even if I am doing so cruelly and callously and with full and complete knowledge of the outcome for the world, the 'moral and fair' decision is whatever I choose for me, and any system that would keep a person or a collective of aggregated large corporate powers from being able to fleece the world into poverty for the benefit of an excruciatingly tiny percentage of already advantaged is immoral and unfair.
It's seriously a system in which it's Moral for me to open up a store selling every hard drug in existence across the street from a school but Immoral to pass a law saying even that I should not be allowed to sell to the 5th graders or lower (which would require at least carding them, you filthy regulation-imposing statists)
I seriously wish there was a way to peer into universes where copies of earth are allowed to test-run inane crap like the Free Market just so that we could watch the result and go "haha wow, turns out it really was exactly as conceited and implausible an idea as it seemed! lol!"
we will never have the opportunity because even though this world has been dumb enough to try things like communism we at least have the barest minimum of good sense necessary to have prevented any country from trying out a free market, so all the strapping lil' freemarketeers of this world can idolize the system without ever having to face down or discuss any real life analogue demonstrating the failure of the theory when put into practice, like the communists do.
All this is profoundly relevant to when we are living in the real world where we haven't decided that the value of an executive is whatever they would be able to take for themselves if the system wasn't constraining them and/or what they get away with in today's system.
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quote:KoM was using your metic, Lyr. Without any one of them, the company loses three million. So they're worth three million each, aren't they?
That's certainly not a metric I established. Even if you're putting somewhat loose or arbitrary values on what someone contributes to a company that value can't exceed the actual sum total the company is worth. So no, they are not each worth three million, but if they all bring equal value to the table, then they're each worth an equal portion of what is available. So they're each worth a million. I think you have to engage in a fair amount of reductio ad absurdum to get from my point to his.
quote:Sure. I'm not stopping any company from doing that. So... Why aren't they? What's the advantage of doing so?
Because they're greedy and they don't have to.
If you can set your own pay, why wouldn't you set it as high as humanly possible? And why would you want to pay your workers more when you don't have to?
Why give away money you don't absolutely have to give away, especially when you live in a society where you've conditioned people to be thankful whatever small bit of remuneration for their service you deign to give them? Just fire them and let someone else do the job for the lowest possible wage. It doesn't even matter if they die, really, someone will replace them, and someone will replace that one. Any restrictions placed upon such a system are done for moral reasons from an outside force, such as a government regulation imposing a minimum wage. But without those forces? It doesn't matter if they die, if they can afford food, shelter or clothing, or any of that. That's their problem. And human beings in a very poor society will actually fight each other even to sustain THAT poor standard of living. Because living in a hovel with tattered clothes and scraps of wilted lettuce to eat is still better than the guy who no hovel, who is naked and starving. And that's what it takes to totally maximize profits for the few.
The advantage of paying people more is twofold. 1. More money in the hands of regular people is circulated more and creates more wealth for everyone, including that company. 2. It's the moral thing to do.
The first force might get a company to alter their behavior, as in the case of Henry Ford, who certainly didn't do it to be a nice guy. He did it to control people's lives by dictating their behavior to an extreme degree and he did it to gain them as customers.
The second force must be applied externally. The bottom line has no allowances for morality. We must enforce it as a society.
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posted
Unsurprisingly, it's showing us what we would expect of a free market under spotty, limited regulation: rampant corruption, public health problems, rampant pollution, quickly amassed fortunes, brisk growth, questions about its long-term sustainability...
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Unsurprisingly, it's showing us what we would expect of a free market under spotty, limited regulation: rampant corruption, public health problems, rampant pollution, quickly amassed fortunes, brisk growth, questions about its long-term sustainability...
So in other words, early industrial America. Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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posted
I honestly could care less what "Executives" make as long as their employees are getting a living wage, and not having to live on food stamps, etc.
They should also have health coverage and other basic necessities. BEFORE the Executives get their "Top talent pay" ...
posted
That's more or less where I'm at too. Targeting CEO pay is useless if you don't also fix pay at the lower end of the scale.
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posted
china isn't an unregulated free market. it's a "free" market regulated and commanded by an autocratic one-party state and forced to abide by an increasingly kleptocratic maze of favoritism and nepotism and service of the party.
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Industrial America wasn't a free market either. It was controlled by a cabal of business tycoons.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: How can their contributed value be greater than the sum total of value created? If each of them is equally necessary to create the three million, then each has an equal share in the three million. They each get a third.
Ok. Now, what if it's the case that Alice and Beatrice are genuinely that important to the company, but Charlene isn't so crucial as all that? If Charlene quits, the company revenue dips until they can hire Darla; so they make 2.5 million that year instead of three million. Now, how much should Charlene and Darla be paid?
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Are the three individuals necessary for the three million, or are their roles necessary for it?
Alice is the engineer who came up with the design for the Improved Widget and knows how to make them. Beatrice is the marketing person who acquires the startup capital for the venture and maintains the relationships with investors and clients. Charlene is the delivery driver who ensures the Improved Widgets make it to those clients. .
Without any one of them their entire revenue is lost. So they all share it equally? Even though each of them have very different individual value to the company? Why?
What is the argument for this sort of system? I'm still not getting how anyone can genuinely think this is reasonable.
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posted
I think we're in danger of losing the principle by quibbling over the details.
We agree that large modern corporations pay their executives too much, yes, and that this pay does not correspond to executive performance or direct value to the company?
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Industrial America wasn't a free market either. It was controlled by a cabal of business tycoons.
It was controlled by a brutally overbearing regulatory state enforced by laughably corrupt government officials.
I'm always really baffled by conservatives and leftists who view the industrial revolution as a wonderful/terrible example of a more free market. It wasn't more free than ours. Some areas were. Many more weren't. The government backed cartels, the so-ridiculous-they're-hard-to-believe railroad regulations, the lack of basic rights for all citizens... Things are unequivocally better, and more free, today.
It's bizarre that this is a myth both sides largely accept. I guess it serves their respective purposes well and that's their primary concern.
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I think you're missing the part where it wasn't government that got that ball rolling, it was those cartels themselves-the point of that 'myth' is that that's what *happens* in an unrestrained or even limited-restrained free market.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think we're in danger of losing the principle by quibbling over the details.
We agree that large modern corporations pay their executives too much, yes, and that this pay does not correspond to executive performance or direct value to the company?
Eh. I think the example is interesting. I'd like to see what Lyr thinks. Anyway, as to your question...
I'm confident that many people might be paid too much for the work they do, at every level of income. Different reasons. At low wage levels, despite what some people have said here, I think most companies tend to set any given wage low enough to get a reasonable profit margin, and not worry much if the particular person they hired would be willing to work for less. Especially in mass employment situations. Same way they typically set prices of goods high enough to get a decent profit margin and not worry if maybe a significant subset of customers would happily pay more. These things are often not extremely precise.
At the high end I wouldn't be surprised if many CEOs were also overpaid, for different reasons.
But in both cases... So what? Why is it our problem or responsibility to screw with what free people consent to?
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Industrial America wasn't a free market either. It was controlled by a cabal of business tycoons.
It was controlled by a brutally overbearing regulatory state enforced by laughably corrupt government officials.
I'm always really baffled by conservatives and leftists who view the industrial revolution as a wonderful/terrible example of a more free market. It wasn't more free than ours. Some areas were. Many more weren't. The government backed cartels, the so-ridiculous-they're-hard-to-believe railroad regulations, the lack of basic rights for all citizens... Things are unequivocally better, and more free, today.
It's bizarre that this is a myth both sides largely accept. I guess it serves their respective purposes well and that's their primary concern.
It was a nightmare for workers and a time of historic inequality unrivaled by any period except what we're approaching today. "Brutal regulatory state" seems melodramatic for the railroads considering all the giveaways they got from the government.
And it doesn't at all reflect the relationship between big business and government in most major industrial areas.
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quote:I think the example is interesting. I'd like to see what Lyr thinks.
I don't think the example is interesting, because I think a huge reason for the pay disparity is that executives do not think of their line workers as peers, or even coworkers; they think of them as obstacles to perfect productivity, necessary labor devices that, in an ideal world, could be eliminated. In our hypothetical three-person company, this is less likely to happen -- although if either Alice or Beatrice is a sociopath, they might well recognize that they can optimize personal profit by not rehiring the third position.
quote: Why is it our problem or responsibility to screw with what free people consent to?
Because protecting free people from the consequences of "consent" under duress -- which is basically what low-level employment is, Dan -- is one of the functions of society.
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quote: although if either Alice or Beatrice is a sociopath, they might well recognize that they can optimize personal profit by not rehiring the third position.
No; the 2.5 million is contingent on hiring Darla as soon as possible. If they don't hire anyone, the company collapses and profit goes to zero.
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quote:I think the example is interesting. I'd like to see what Lyr thinks.
I don't think the example is interesting, because I think a huge reason for the pay disparity is that executives do not think of their line workers as peers, or even coworkers; they think of them as obstacles to perfect productivity, necessary labor devices that, in an ideal world, could be eliminated.
Well, yeah. That's an accurate description of most low-skill jobs. As society improves, these jobs have been and will be replaced by automation. The best jobs are the ones that can't be automated, and require human creativity. Is this a controversial idea?
But the idea that executives dehumanize their employees to this extent, that they think of them as if the job has already been automated, is silly. Is there some evidence of this?
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: Why is it our problem or responsibility to screw with what free people consent to?
Because protecting free people from the consequences of "consent" under duress -- which is basically what low-level employment is, Dan -- is one of the functions of society.
I don't agree at all. Instead of just asserting that low-level employment is not real consent, could you offer an argument for why that might be the case? Because I've never seen an argument for this that wasn't seriously flawed.
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Because the alternative is to not work and die of starvation. You are compelled to take what is offered to survive. It's not a free choice unless choosing to die is something we consider to be a viable choice.
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Or, you know, malnutrition, suffering, terrible schools for one's children as well. But I expect the free market philosophy will pivot back to 'become more employable'.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Because the alternative is to not work and die of starvation. You are compelled to take what is offered to survive. It's not a free choice unless choosing to die is something we consider to be a viable choice.
It's not as though people in this country are in constant threat of starvation. Chrissake, you're talking about a place where the big health epidemic among the very poor is that they get too many calories for too cheap and their lives don't require enough exhausting physical labor.
Even if starvation was an actual concern here, it's also not as if there's just one factory you can either work at or die. Not all low-skill, low-wage jobs are the same. You have options.
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quote:The best jobs are the ones that can't be automated, and require human creativity. Is this a controversial idea?
Not at all. But are we now positing that people should have only the best jobs?
quote:But the idea that executives dehumanize their employees to this extent, that they think of them as if the job has already been automated, is silly. Is there some evidence of this?
It seems to me, based on both the executives I have known and the ample statistical evidence out there, that either this is true or most executives are sociopaths.
quote:Not all low-skill, low-wage jobs are the same. You have options.
Like...? Bear in mind that executives are strongly incentivized to make all low-skill, low-wage jobs the same, since as you've noted the replacement cost of workers is largely incidental. Actually caring about these employees is a luxury that corporate thinking has been trained to believe it cannot afford.
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quote:The best jobs are the ones that can't be automated, and require human creativity. Is this a controversial idea?
Not at all. But are we now positing that people should have only the best jobs?
Well... yes. Or at least, that should be their goal.
You're in IT, Tom, aren't you? So I suspect you may be familiar with the idea of figuring out how to automate yourself out of a job. That's a good thing! And it requires improving your skillset and value to the company, so it doesn't typically result in you getting canned.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:But the idea that executives dehumanize their employees to this extent, that they think of them as if the job has already been automated, is silly. Is there some evidence of this?
It seems to me, based on both the executives I have known and the ample statistical evidence out there, that either this is true or most executives are sociopaths.
Since I don't share your anecdotes, what's an example of the statistical evidence you're referring to?
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Not all low-skill, low-wage jobs are the same. You have options.
Like...? Bear in mind that executives are strongly incentivized to make all low-skill, low-wage jobs the same, since as you've noted the replacement cost of workers is largely incidental. Actually caring about these employees is a luxury that corporate thinking has been trained to believe it cannot afford.
I noted that they often pay the same. The jobs themselves aren't the same. They have different requirements, different perks, and teach different skills.
Working your way up Wal-Mart is different than working your way up a fast-food joint, or a pet-store. They are different in significant ways, especially if you approach them with some of that human creativity.
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So on one hand we shouldn't be telling free people how much to pay other ostensibly free people, but we should be telling them to pass up paying work in favor of jobs with more self-determination?
quote:what's an example of the statistical evidence you're referring to
I'll actually refer you to any study of corporate pay structures since the late '80s. Concern for employees is clearly not a priority; nor do I find it credible that someone making 300x the income of another individual -- who is contingent upon the other's whims for his entire pitiable livelihood -- considers the latter a peer.
quote:The jobs themselves aren't the same. They have different requirements, different perks, and teach different skills.
I have absolutely no idea why you find the idea that some people might pick a path with a slightly better prospect and thus win what amounts to a real-life game of Chutes and Ladders to be redemptive of the joke that is our myth of personal responsibility.
I also think it's horribly irresponsible of you to suggest that people consider working their way up Wal-Mart, pet stores, or fast food chains. Hell, "working your way up" is a sucker's game in the modern economy, and once you find yourself doing it you've already conceded the loss.
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So on one hand we shouldn't be telling free people how much to pay other ostensibly free people, but we should be telling them to pass up paying work in favor of jobs with more self-determination?
This is a really fascinating interpretation.
Can you guess what might be the difference between what I meant here by "should" and what Lyr or (presumably) you mean by it?
To be clear: I have zero problem with you telling people they should pay their replaceable, low-skill workers more than they are currently paying them.
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quote:The jobs themselves aren't the same. They have different requirements, different perks, and teach different skills.
I have absolutely no idea why you find the idea that some people might pick a path with a slightly better prospect and thus win what amounts to a real-life game of Chutes and Ladders to be redemptive of the joke that is our myth of personal responsibility.
Wait, I'm confused. Chutes and Ladders is a game of chance. So did they pick the path, as you just said? Or did they win real-life Chutes and Ladders?
Why are you so upset by the idea of people using their agency to make decisions for themselves that you disagree with?
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I also think it's horribly irresponsible of you to suggest that people consider working their way up Wal-Mart, pet stores, or fast food chains. Hell, "working your way up" is a sucker's game in the modern economy, and once you find yourself doing it you've already conceded the loss.
I don't care if you "work your way up" that particular job. But working any of those jobs gives you skills that you can use to acquire better jobs. And it is certainly possible to "work your way up" across multiple jobs in multiple sectors using previous job experience.
Regardless, though, I already said I think all of those jobs ought to be automated and no human should be doing them. But in the mean time, there are lots of people out there without a lot of skill or ambition. And there are people who'd rather pay someone with low skill and ambition to do these jobs than pay for someone to design and implement an automation structure. These people have interests that coincide. Why stand between them?
If everyone stopped being willing to take such jobs because they had better things to do; because they valued their time more highly; the demand for automation in these jobs would go up. Great. But they haven't done that. Do you want to force this change? Can you force them to value their time more? In a meaningful way, where they value their time more because they actually have better things to do?
I'm pretty sure that's something they have to decide for themselves.
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posted
"If everyone stopped being willing to take such jobs because they had better things to do; because they valued their time more highly; the demand for automation in these jobs would go up. Great. But they haven't done that. Do you want to force this change? Can you force them to value their time more? In a meaningful way, where they value their time more because they actually have better things to do?"
I can value my time as highly as I want, but if no one is willing to pay me that number, it's a pretty useless thought exercise. At the end of the day I dont have the luxury of judging a job as beneath me or less than I'm worth when I needyco buy groceries and pay the rent.
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I'm struggling to think which Wal-Mart jobs one could 'work their way up in' that would confer skills that would be useful to any sort of upward mobility. Having worked there when I was younger, mind, in my experience the *only* way it could be done was if one was single with student loans and utilizing the job only to cover some expenses while gong to school-not the job itself. Hell, you won't even learn to do an inventory at most Wal-Mart jobs since that's automated.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: "If everyone stopped being willing to take such jobs because they had better things to do; because they valued their time more highly; the demand for automation in these jobs would go up. Great. But they haven't done that. Do you want to force this change? Can you force them to value their time more? In a meaningful way, where they value their time more because they actually have better things to do?"
I can value my time as highly as I want, but if no one is willing to pay me that number, it's a pretty useless thought exercise. At the end of the day I dont have the luxury of judging a job as beneath me or less than I'm worth when I needyco buy groceries and pay the rent.
... If no one is willing to pay you that number, you don't actually have better things to do. It seems like you misunderstood the text you quoted.
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posted
In an ideal world, as automation replaces old jobs en mass, the government is funding a comprehensive education system and unemployment benefits to allow the work force to retrain-reeducate itself to respond to the new market forces (Ala 1980's Japan).
As opposed to the current model espoused by conversatives that makes for a large uneducated illierate underclass that is forced into near slave wages to increase profits that extra 1%.
quote: If everyone stopped being willing to take such jobs because they had better things to do; because they valued their time more highly; the demand for automation in these jobs would go up. Great. But they haven't done that. Do you want to force this change? Can you force them to value their time more? In a meaningful way, where they value their time more because they actually have better things to do?
This is called "unionizing" which you are against and think is actually theft and unlawful coercion of the CEO's liberty to make money?
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quote:The jobs themselves aren't the same. They have different requirements, different perks, and teach different skills.
I have absolutely no idea why you find the idea that some people might pick a path with a slightly better prospect and thus win what amounts to a real-life game of Chutes and Ladders to be redemptive of the joke that is our myth of personal responsibility.
Wait, I'm confused. Chutes and Ladders is a game of chance.
replace it with Monopoly if you find the analogy more apt
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'm struggling to think which Wal-Mart jobs one could 'work their way up in' that would confer skills that would be useful to any sort of upward mobility.
Be born a Walton
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: Why is it our problem or responsibility to screw with what free people consent to?
Because protecting free people from the consequences of "consent" under duress -- which is basically what low-level employment is, Dan -- is one of the functions of society.
I don't agree at all. Instead of just asserting that low-level employment is not real consent, could you offer an argument for why that might be the case? Because I've never seen an argument for this that wasn't seriously flawed.
In our system (the last in the developed world which does not wholly or near wholly provide coverage for a person's emergency care) where a person is on the hook to pay for emergency services rendered, the prices and the pricing system represent the same issues of "consent" .. under duress. If I'm having chest pains, I'm not going to shop around and get quotes at different ER's, though I might be compelled based off of personal economics to gamble with or dither without an ambulance ride that could add multiple thousands of dollars to the tab, and possibly die in traffic as a result (this literally happens). Similarly if I find out that if I have to take a drug to live: if it's 4 bucks for a month, I'll pay it. If it's 400, I'll still do my goddamnest to pay it. The ER services, the lifesaving pills, they all represent extremely inelastic demand because having Rational Economic Actor Playtime Theories™ is subverted by dramatic real-world concerns like our objective needs for food, water, shelter, etc, when we are playpretending our rational economic actordom in deciding whether mickey d's, dunkin donuts, or wal-mart would be the best place to pretend we were going to work our way up to a real career with all the valuable skills we now have in fields populated by throwaway labor and turnover. It is consent under duress unless there's a sufficient safety net.
posted
So people are under "duress" to be (at least a little) productive with their time. In some way, in order to earn money, in order to live at a quality of life they find acceptable.
This is not an argument that they are under any duress to take any specific job.
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quote:This is not an argument that they are under any duress to take any specific job.
Wrong. They are under duress to take the first job for which they are hired. Sometimes -- rarely -- an unskilled worker will get offers from two or more of the ten or fifteen places he's applied, and then he gets to decide whether he'd rather learn to flip burgers or fold shirts. But it's not usually that tough of a choice.
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Just some really rough math here. Last year McDonald's made 5.46 billion in income. They have 1.7 million employees globally. The low end McDonald's worker makes $7.75/hour-ish. If we took all of McDonald's profits and distributed it among all 1.7 million workers the yearly increase would be about $3033 per worker. Or an hourly increase from $7.75 to $9.21.
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For some reason, Stiles, you're assuming that the only way to raise low end pay is to take the current profits-maintained in the current system-change nothing else at all, and just give the remainder to them.
McDonald's being a franchise is a tricky example anyway, but even in this case that's a bizarre notion.
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quote:This is not an argument that they are under any duress to take any specific job.
Wrong. They are under duress to take the first job for which they are hired. Sometimes -- rarely -- an unskilled worker will get offers from two or more of the ten or fifteen places he's applied, and then he gets to decide whether he'd rather learn to flip burgers or fold shirts. But it's not usually that tough of a choice.
They under duress to take the first job available? And keep it? Why?
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quote:They under duress to take the first job available? And keep it? Why?
Is that a serious question to which you don't already anticipate the answer that there are more people in search of work than jobs that they can fill?
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Dan seems to be ignoring that if you are low skilled and can only apply for fast food/Walmart jobs. You have to take the first job you can get to pay this months bill.
Other people seem to ignore the fact that once you have a job it's a harder to search for a new one but not an insurmountable obstacle.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: For some reason, Stiles, you're assuming that the only way to raise low end pay is to take the current profits-maintained in the current system-change nothing else at all, and just give the remainder to them.
McDonald's being a franchise is a tricky example anyway, but even in this case that's a bizarre notion.
Yeah, some franchises maintain razor thin profit margins as it is. You're essentially looking at various companies, with various success and profit. Forcibly changing McDonald's pay structure would cause the less successful (but, in the curren system, still marginally successful) shops to simply close.
I get the feeling Tom might say "good riddance" to that, since such jobs are so far beneath him. But they aren't beneath some of us. For some people that's the best thing available. But just because it's the best opportunity for them right now doesn't change the fact that, objectively, it is a lousy job a machine could do. The solution isn't to pay inflated prices for low-skill labor. It's for people to get their labor to be worth more than that.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: So people are under "duress" to be (at least a little) productive with their time.
... they are under duress to not starve or get evicted in the winter or be unable to afford insulin or be unable to feed their child or insert any number of real and legitimate real world issues related to objective personal needs. You keep acting and using language about this as if the economic exercise of 'opting to be at least a little productive with their time' is just in a disconnected vacuum from poverty and bodily needs, like it's levels in an economic MMO that you can pursue if you feel like it.
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quote:It's for people to get their labor to be worth more than that.
In an environment where there are many more people than jobs how does this do anything but shuffle around which people have those jobs?
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: So people are under "duress" to be (at least a little) productive with their time.
... they are under duress to not starve or get evicted in the winter or be unable to afford insulin or be unable to feed their child or insert any number of real and legitimate real world issues related to objective personal needs. You keep acting and using language about this as if the economic exercise of 'opting to be at least a little productive with their time' is just in a disconnected vacuum from poverty and bodily needs, like it's levels in an economic MMO that you can pursue if you feel like it.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: In an environment where there are many more people than jobs how does this do anything but shuffle around which people have those jobs?
I'm not sure how increasing minimum wage would do anything but exacerbate that problem.
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posted
it tends to create more demand for goods and services which tends to also drive demand for labor?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Increasing minimum wage allows workers to meet more immediate needs. If at least critical ones (food, shelter, utilities) are met, and in less hours, they now have free time to use as they wish.
This permits everything from just wasting time, which lowers stress, to actively creating, which at best means a new industry is born.
People who spend 16 hours a day going to and from work and doing errands, have only time to sleep, and none to improve their circumstances. They are essentially trapped.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by stilesbn: Dan seems to be ignoring that if you are low skilled and can only apply for fast food/Walmart jobs. You have to take the first job you can get to pay this months bill.
Other people seem to ignore the fact that once you have a job it's a harder to search for a new one but not an insurmountable obstacle.
Okay, sure, but that's a feature of living paycheck to paycheck. Lots of people making well above poverty level still live paycheck to paycheck because they increase their expenses. Some people in poverty manage to save. It's harder, sure.
So if you're living paycheck to paycheck and suddenly lose your job you have a strong incentive to take the first available job, at leas temporarily. Regardless of your skill set, in fact.
So? That's duress?
As you said, you can also keep looking for a job while employed. So what's the problem?
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posted
If you were looking for a new job full-time so say 8-hours a day. And say it took you a month to find a new job.
So you start a job, and now you have one hour per day to search for a new job. If it takes the same number of hours to succeed, it will take you 240 days before you find one. That's a long time.
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