I am a great believer in self-employment, and think many more people should be self-employed than currently are. But I don’t think everybody should be self-employed, for the simple reason that not everybody wants to be self-employed. But if work is to continue to be a part of our economic tapestry, then it needs to undergo some major restoration work.
Is work primarily a source of dignity?
Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, has led a major rebranding of that institution from one promoting the most extreme forms of Objectivist libertarianism into a softer, gentler giant that frames their agenda in terms designed to appeal to more moderate voters and politicians.
A major component of this project has been recasting the dismantling of the welfare state as “pro-work labor market reform.” And work, Brooks has been eager to argue, is the key to human happiness.
In the New York Times, Brooks wrote, “I learned that rewarding work is unbelievably important, and this is emphatically not about money…relieving poverty brings big happiness, but income, per se, does not…Work can bring happiness by marrying our passions to our skills, empowering us to create value in our lives and in the lives of others.”
This is work as talisman, endowing the bearer with dignity, self-respect, and the respect of others. While I was glued to C-SPAN on Wednesday watching the Senate debate repealing the Affordable Care Act, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky made this exact argument:
“Frankly, one of the misunderstandings of this debate is that any Republican is up here talking about trying to take away stuff from those who are disabled, can’t work, and do have to have care. That is traditional Medicaid. They will continue to be cared for. Under this, we are talking only about able-bodied people. Should able-bodied people–people who walk around, hop out of their truck–should they be working? Should they be providing for their health insurance? Yes. Can there be a transition zone? Yes. We have transition programs between unemployment back to employment. We shouldn’t have people permanently unemployed–people permanently on benefits who don’t work or won’t work. There should be work requirements. I am not afraid to say that every able-bodied person on Medicaid ought to work. There should be a work requirement. I meet many people on both sides of the aisle who are for that.
“I don’t say they should work as punishment. I think everyone in America should work as a reward. I think work is a reward. I don’t care whether you are from the lowest job on the totem pole to the top, to the chief executive. Work is where you get self-esteem. No one can give you self-esteem. Your self-esteem comes from work. I think we are wrong. In fact, I think what we have done–in some cases, we now have multigenerational dependency on government, and they are so distraught and so lacking in self-esteem that it also compounds the drug problem that we have.”
The logic of Arthur Brooks and Rand Paul is that unemployment has become too easy, too comfortable, and that by making unemployment painful enough, we can draw more people into the workforce. Importantly, in this framing we are doing so for their own good. The argument is that the unemployed incorrectly believe that they are happier outside the work force, when in fact they would be happier working at a job — any job.
Or is work primarily a source of money?
You may or may not be surprised, depending on your economic background and your own work experience, to learn that actual workers tend to see work very differently: as a source of money, which they can then use to pay their bills and expenses.
The Fight for 15 is a movement to increase the incomes of minimum-wage workers by raising the minimum wage.
The Center for Popular Democracy is leading a Fair Workweek Initiative to require shifts to be scheduled in advance — and for workers to be paid for the shifts they’re scheduled to work.
Likewise the workers who lost their lawsuit against an Amazon subcontractor because they were searched at the end of every shift were not suing in order to end the practice of searching them at the end of every shift. They were suing for the money they were owed for the time they spent waiting to be searched.
This is not to say that workers are not concerned about dignity. Workers are extremely concerned about dignity! But this primarily takes the form of indignities inflicted on them by their employers and coworkers. Being sexually harassed is an indignity. Having your bathroom breaks timed and monitored is an indignity. There is a college debate argument, typically made by freshman and particularly dense sophomores, that workers should be able to enter into “harassment contracts” which allow their bosses to sexually harass them in exchange for higher wages. In reality, of course, it’s the lowest-paid workers and those with the fewest alternatives who are the most vulnerable to workplace abuses.
If work is a source of dignity, we must make it dignified
I have tried to be as fair as possible to both views of work, because I’m not particularly concerned which of the two models of work you personally endorse. That’s because whichever version you ascribe to, the fact is that work is failing workers.
If work is a source of dignity and self-respect, how can it be that we allow employers to fire workers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity? If work is what lets a woman hold up her head proudly, how can we allow her employer to decide which forms of birth control her insurance will cover? If work is to be a source of dignity, how can we let employers continually violate workplace safety rules? If you, like Rand Paul, believe that “work is a reward,” the only acceptable conclusion is a radical reform of our labor laws so that the ultimate fruits of that labor are not death, dismemberment, and disability (find me the dignity in incident #1227660: “One worker died and another hospitalized after being ejected from bucket”). A logical way to make work dignified is by expanding collective bargaining rights, so workers can participate in the creation of work environments that dignify, but certainly more aggressive state and federal oversight of working conditions is indispensable if work is to fulfill its destiny of conferring dignity on the worker.
But even more importantly, if work is to be a source of dignity, rather than money, workers will need some other source of money. What form that income should take is not especially relevant. A universal basic income would give workers leverage to bargain for more dignified working conditions, since they would have a fallback option in case of intolerable indignities. A refundable tax credit like the Earned Income Credit could be used to “top up” the incomes of workers, although as currently conceived the EIC creates unnecessary and harmful marginal tax rate headaches, as part of the credit is clawed back with each dollar a worker earns above a certain threshold.
Work need not be a worker’s primary source of income, but if it is not, we must find something to replace it.
If work is a source of money, we must make it pay
On the other hand, especially if you know anybody who works for a living, you may have the view that people work not to secure dignity and self-respect, but rather money. Here, too, we find that work is not doing its job. If employment is to be the primary or exclusive source of income for workers, then work must produce sufficient income for a worker to survive. Today we have the bizarre situation where:
- prime-age male labor force participation is at historic lows (this is a problematic measure, but it is true);
- the inflation-adjusted minimum wage is 35% lower than it was in 1968;
- and millions of workers hold multiple jobs in order to make ends meet!
If you believe the point of work is to earn an income, then this situation cannot be tolerable. Wages are too low, forcing people to hoard jobs: instead of two jobs going to two different workers, each of whom earns enough to live, a single worker will hold two or more jobs. The worker earns enough to live while the unemployed goes without any income at all.
The question of how to make work pay is an interesting one and there is no shortage of suggestions:
- An increased minimum wage, especially one indexed to inflation and without gimmicks like tipped-worker exclusions, would force employers to pay each employee more, enticing more workers off the sidelines into the labor force. Proponents points out this option would also “internalize” to firms the expenses the state currently pays to top up the income of low-wage workers, like SNAP benefits, EIC, and Medicaid.
- Wage subsidies to low-income workers would give employees more take-home pay without imposing additional costs on employers. An advantage of this plan is an increase in employees’ income without depressing employment overall. A disadvantage would be “externalizing” to the state the living expenses of low-income workers. There’s no obvious reason why the public as a whole should subsidize the country’s least productive private businesses.
Conclusion
You may think that the problems and solutions I’ve outlined here are commonsensical, or you may find them dangerous and incendiary, depending on your prior political inclinations.
So let me share one, basic, elementary, essential truth: work is at a critical crossroads. If the return to work continues to be sabotaged by a capitalist class intent on retaining all the profits of industry for itself, and by a political class intent on immiserating workers by destroying, step-by-step, their ability to control the terms, conditions, and yes, dignity, of their employment, then work has no future in America.
If you think today’s youth lack a work ethic, wait and see what they’ll be like once you’ve completely destroyed work as an institution.
Great commentary. While I disagree on the “dignity” argument, the widening gap btw the haves and have-nots is unsustainable.(but I see no end in sight).
In a democracy, change can only happen people care enough. But they don’t – they are too easily distracted by wedge issues (gay marriage/LGTB, outrage du jour etc etc). Until they vote their pocketbook, I have little sympathy for those who expect society to provide for them if they won’t excercise their most basic rights as a citizen. Those coal jobs aren’t coming back and blaming immigrants won’t fix that problem. Dropping out of school and dealing drugs on corner won’t work either. Until the bottom pays attention, they have nobody to blame about the rising proportion of wealth of the super-rich. No amount of progressive wishful thinking will change that.
A real question I would ask is why so many longer time workers are at minimum wage positions. Personally I have seens 100s who stay at low level Walmart, Grocery and Office Supply store jobs for years. Why are they still there? Are those the ones working 2 or 3 jobs? Why arent they motivated to seek higher income wages at other opportunities? Is it our collective “job” to motivate them? Or to make the succeed in their career? How far do you take these methods of making a worker happy and what if the worker is the one holding themselves back?
SumOfAll,
A few quick thoughts. First and most simply is the matter of time. “Seeking higher income wages at other opportunities” is time-consuming in a way that isn’t necessarily obvious to white-collar workers. Office workers sitting at a computer might be able to browse job listings at work, and are able to network, both formally through things like LinkedIn and informally through conferences, meetings with clients and vendors, etc. Compare that to a typical low-wage job as a cashier at Walmart. Even when there is “downtime,” i.e. slow periods in the store, the cashier has to stand there anyway. Likewise an office worker may be able to run across town to interview (possibly multiple times!) during a lunch hour, while a low-wage worker can’t take the chance of returning to work late from a 30-minute lunch and being disciplined. At a Walmart I used to visit there was a woman named Crystal, who had two kids and who had been working in customer service for years. She took the internal training, passed all the tests, and was promoted to CSM. She worked as a CSM for a few weeks, walking around with the Blackberry clearing transactions, etc., and I think she got a raise of a dollar or so per hour. One day I walked in and her nametag had been changed back to CS. I asked what had happened, and she explained that CSM’s couldn’t turn down shifts, and she had been scheduled for times she had to be with her kids. So she went back to making a lower wage since that way she could be sure to pick up her kids from school.
Second, the stakes of moving jobs are much higher for low-income workers. Even in the best case scenario, being able to seamlessly transition between one job to a new, higher-paying job, and not missing a paycheck in between, a worker still may face a probationary period at the new job or find that they aren’t a good fit for it. A higher-paid worker may have to flexibility to keep looking, or go without a paycheck for a few weeks. A low-wage worker living paycheck to paycheck can’t take that chance. Back in the midwest, my local Walmart money center employed a woman named Donna, who was far and away the most competent employee in the store. She could have run the store. She had family in the Chicago area and wanted to move to be closer to them. A white collar worker might have taken this geographic move as an opportunity to explore higher-paid jobs in the area. Instead, Donna was able to put in a transfer request, and when a position opened up in Chicago she was able to move to the same position there (much to my chagrin since she was my favorite cashier). Was she wrong? Did she need “motivation?” Or did she make a sensible move to keep a job she was good at?
Finally, I simply reject your assumption that low-wage jobs are “low level,” that there’s something wrong with people being “still there,” or that they need to be “motivated,” by us or by anyone else. If work is to be an important civic institution, whether for dignity or for money, then there cannot be room in our hearts to criticize or condemn people’s choice of work! If we are to have Walmart cashiers, why not expect them to become skilled and experienced in their positions? If every cashier who shows any skill or develops any experience leaves immediately for “better” work, you’ve condemned us to a world of unskilled and inexperienced cashiers. If every janitor who conscientiously cleans and tidies is plucked away to trade school in order to become a better-paid journeyman plumber, you’ve condemned us to a world of filthy restrooms and overflowing trashcans. Other countries handle this much better, both economically and psychically: to be a waiter in France is to belong to a respected profession, with fair wages, retirement security, and generous vacation leave. No one hectors the waiter that she should go back to school and make something of herself, and correspondingly customers receive the dutiful service of a skilled professional. Unsurprisingly, the “activity rate” (a very broad measure of labor force participation) of prime age males in lazy, decadent France is…92.4% — almost 4 percentage points higher than in the United States (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=exgg)!
Would that we should be so lucky!
—Indy
“At a Walmart I used to visit there was a woman named Crystal, who had two kids and who had been working in customer service for years.”
“She had to be with her kids. So she went back to making a lower wage since that way she could be sure to pick up her kids from school.”
Perhaps if you’re working a minimum wage job struggling to make ends meet, you shouldn’t pop out two more mouths to feed.
There’s a direct case of one’s own incorrect choices affecting them negatively. No one’s fault but her own. It is not the role of government or other taxpayers to pay for her ignorance.
ChooChoo,
What are you responding to? I didn’t say she was making minimum wage or struggling to make ends meet. I said her family obligations kept her from “seeking higher income wages” in the way SumOfAll suggested.
Also referring to her children as “incorrect choices” is unbelievably insulting, which I hope you realize.
—Indy
You didn’t have to say she was making minimum wage or struggling to make ends meet, it is inferred. If one’s raise is a dollar an hour, for all intents and purposes, they’re making minimum wage.
Yes, her decision to have kids prevents her from increasing her income. If her goal is to increase her income then that decision was incorrect, as it resulted in her not accomplishing her goal.
Ive never heard a worse set of excuses for why someone cant get a better job than here. You excuses for their failures to advance are amazingly long winded. So many verbal gymnastics to explain away lazy or no drive to advance their career pay wise. I guess thats why most will not succeed, you just have to make sure you arent one of them.
SumOfAll,
So to be clear, you DO want all your cashiers, waiters, janitors and gardeners to be underskilled, inexperienced, and underpaid with all the talented ones whisked away to “advance their career pay wise?”
I do not.
—Indy
I want people who have initiative to succeed in life. This isnt about me nor should it be about you. People should be motivated to advance in the chosen fields. Sitting in a low paying, non career job for years is horrible motivation. Sadly there are winners and losers in all walks of life. Some people you cant help no matter how hard you try. The worst thing you can do is make excuses for them as to why they wont succeed
Some of the commenters here make me despair about the future of humanity. Their choices–to refuse to see the multiple sides to any issue, and to insist that their own, condescending one is the only proper answer, contributes nothing to either discourse or to the future of this country.
As noted in the main post, MANY people see their jobs as a means to money. Period. There are so many reasons why they may not seek higher paying positions. Having children is one of them. Knowing one’s limits is another.
Instead of having people who are excellent at what they do need to move on in order to continue to support their families–and whether you believe that having a family is a poor choice or not, people will continue to have families–the more sensible solution is to make the salary they receive for their efforts commensurate with what is needed to support themselves.
While we are on the subject of people getting paid for the value they bring to the marketplace–and I am of the mind that a competent cashier with a professional demeanor brings great value–we might discuss the disconnect between the compensation packages of the highest paid levels of any large corporation, and the lowest. Walmart seems a perfect place to start, with the Walton family individually being among the wealthiest people in the world, and their employment practices leading to an average of 5000 unfair practices lawsuits a year being filed against them, for practices ranging from locking in workers on the nightshift to punishing workers for taking their sick time that is part of the benefits package.
I love when clueless people post about how others are unwilling to consider someone else’s opinions. Awesome amount of irony there. People dont stay at low level positions because of “knowing their limits” or because they have kids. I would argue the exact opposite. Most people have no idea how to reach and set goals. They are lost sheep in a field of wolves.
In France…”Customers receive dutiful service of a skilled professional”. And this summation
is based on what data? Have you lived in France?
Wow. Just wow. It’s just as if the author wasn’t a prominent travel blogger …
El Ingeniero,
Now you’re making me blush, I don’t believe anyone’s ever called me “prominent” before!
—Indy
Prominent travel bloggers have exhaustive knowledge of French waitstaff? A person’s knowledge of French waitstaff would need to border on metaphysical to claim that “no one” hectors the waiter regarding school/career options. That claim would require knowledge of all conversations held with all French waitstaff.
I don’t disagree with many of the points that Gideon makes, but when the points are supported by statements that seems largely unknowable, or unverifiable, I’m asking for clarification. Either way, bon appetite.
A prominent travel blogger should be expected to have travelled to Paris at least once, and probably more than once.
Having done my share of fine dining in Paris, I’d agree with what Indy says about waiters in Paris. I’d go so far as to say I enjoy being left alone to enjoy my food and conversation until I actually need something, which is something the US restaurant industry hates doing, what with it’s emphasis on turning over the room every hour or so, etc, etc.
As for being hectored about school or career choices, I have a hard time imagining that happens often to accomplished professionals in any field. What is it about waiting tables that makes people think that it’s somehow fundamentally unskilled work?
“A prominent travel blogger should be expected to have travelled to Paris at least once, and probably more than once.”
Think of all that is included the above “should” statement…
1) Does Gideon claim to be a “prominent travel blogger”? (I’m not saying He’s not, but his expertise doesn’t seem to be on visiting cities around the world)
2) Should a prominent travel blogger be “expected” to have travelled at least once to Paris?
3) Does traveling to Paris at least once, give you adequate perspective to make sweeping generalizations on french waitstaff?
As noted above, I don’t disagree with many of Gideon’s points, but when I see points which are supported with generalized statements like, “No one hectors the waiter ” I’m not saying it’s not true, I’m just asking what this statement is based on?
If you need to sell your labor in order to feel dignity, that just means that your hobbies and personal life are empty and soulless.
This point expresses what psychological and organizational research has demonstrated to be a rare opinion. Going back to Durkheim (1898) and continuing through hundreds of empirical research studies, most people appear to want work to serve a generative purpose in their lives, they work harder and more effectively when it does, are happier when it does, and tend to experience the opposite of these things, and look for other jobs or careers, when work fails to provide them with dignity or a sense of purpose.
This point also neglects highly-regarded time-use studies from the US and other countries that demonstrate that the largest single time commitment of working-age adults is, surprise, surprise, work. Compared to roughly 9 hours spent on work per day, the average person only spends 2-3 hours on leisure and relationships. I suppose for some those hours are enough to balance out the kind of empty and soulless work that would seem to be advocated for by this comment, but it is not normative for that to be true, and apparently, even among most people who otherwise rate their personal and leisure lives as satisfying, there still is a strong interest in, and benefit from, having meaningful and dignified work.
As is so often the case, it is not either or.
The phrase, “beg the question,” is usually used incorrectly. In this case, your response is a textbook example of begging the question!
You have assumed, without any reasoning to back up this assumption, that work only occurs when labor is sold. Do you mean to say that it is not possible to “serve a generative purpose” without selling your labor?
The post he answered to was a strawman argument. Should have been addressed as such.
There is no requirement, moral or economic, requiring people to have a rich inner life. There is a moral and economic argument for treating employees with fairness and dignity, both on the interpersonal level, and on the level of society. To argue otherwise, is to argue for the morality of treating people badly.
The post was not a strawman. When a Republican talks about work being its own reward, he’s not talking about growing your own vegetables. He’s not talking about learning a second language. He’s not talking about volunteering at a homeless shelter.
He’s talking about selling your labor to the American corporate kleptocracy.