The other day, I watched MSNBC’s Ari Melber interview Wolfgang Puck on the subject of restaurants reopening in post pandemic world. Wolfgang, who, by the way has a net worth of about $90 Million, whined that he is unable to fully open some of his restaurants because, as he put it, “I cannot find waiters or chefs to work the lunch shifts”. Of course Ari let that comment go unchallenged. Gee, if I was a reporter, I might ask Mr. Puck “Well, have you tried offering higher wages?”
Can you imagine if Ari was interviewing me at my home on a feature story about newly retired folks and I told him “You know Ari, I tried to hire someone to mow my lawn each week but all I can afford is $5 a week”. He might say “Gee, don’t you think that $5 is a little low considering the size of your lawn?
I live on the Cape where we see endless news stories in the media reporting a labor shortage. Most places of business, including the major food market where I shop have help wanted signs prominently posted offering $17 an hour. I want to ask the owners of these businesses, “Where can I live on the Cape during the summer on a job that pays $17 an hour?”
It’s not just MSNBC and it’s not just the Cape, it’s nationwide, and equally nationwide is the Media’s refusal to tell the whole story.
Yes, there a “labor shortage” but that’s only because employers are refusing to offer fair market wages. What is a fair market wage? Well, in the case of Mr. Puck, that would be taking his present offering and increasing it by $1 per hour each day until someone agreed to take the job. Whatever that is, $20, $25, $35, $50? …that is the fair market wage.
Of course business owners (and that includes corporations that own media businesses) will whine and say “But I can’t afford to stay in business at that wage scale!” Really? Well, if true, then your business does not belong to be in business, eh? Or maybe Mr. Puck will have to learn to live in a world where his net worth is a little less than $90 Million.
You know, 3 weeks ago, I talked with the owner of the hole-in-the-wall Chinese place around the corner from me, whole is not in Wolfgang Puck’s income bracket, and he was complaining that he had to off $25 an hour for someone to be a chef in his not-fancy place. Upon further thought, it occurs to me that $50,000 a year (which is about $25 per hour) is probably the minimum anyone should take sweating in that little kitchen with open flames and sharp knives and time pressure. That takes real skill.
Wolfgang Puck does not operate any restaurants on the Cape. Most of the restaurant owners on the Cape are small business owners suffering just as much as the rest of us. The restaurant business, like the retail gas station business, is exquisitely sensitive to price. The solution to the labor issues of the Cape is a UBI.
If each of us received a UBI funded by an erosive wealth tax on the ultrawealthy (households whose net worth exceeds some threshold like $50M), then servers and chefs would view wages as INCREMENTAL income beyond their UBI.
A living wage on the Cape is probably something around $20-25/hr — and that should be the UBI for someone living on the Cape. A UBI of $25/hr takes the pressure off small restaurant owners, who are themselves struggling to make ends meet, and on their clientele. Chefs might choose employers who allow them to cook excellent food, rather than offering ten or twenty bucks a week more. Good chefs, like good teachers, are driven by a desire for excellence. Cooking, like teaching, is not a profession for someone driven by a desire to be wealthy.
The effects of our obscene wealth concentration are pervasive — and therefore, so would be the effects of a reasonable UBI.
I’m much less concerned with the amount of Mr. Puck’s net worth of $90M than I am of people like Abigail Johnson (2020 net worth of $15 B) or her father Edward (2020 net worth of only $7.4 B). Or perhaps Robert Kraft (2020 net worth of $6.6 B).
People like Robert Kraft, Edward Johnson III, and Abigail Johnson are the issue here, much more so than Wolfgang Puck.
The labor shortage is NOT caused by employers refusing to offer fair market wages. The labor shortage is instead caused by wealth concentration strangling the market. No supply/demand mechanism will fix this — the needed action is instead an erosive wealth tax whose proceeds are shared with every resident as a UBI.
You’re advocating giving a UBI based on geography? The rich will “officially” move their residence to the highest paid area and that will exacerbate the divide. People like Rose Kennedy and Donald Trump “move” to Fla so they don’t have to pay state income taxes. Most snowbirds I know pick the lowest taxing state to declare their residence but if you give a geographical UBI it will reverse the process. I might become a Bay Stater again.
You really think that Abigail Johnson is going to move to a high cost-of-living area in order to get a UBI of $50K per year? Her portfolio of $15B, like that of Sam Walton’s, easily grows at 10% per year. That’s about $1.5B per year in growth — or about $2.8K per minute. A $50K/year UBI accrues in her portfolio every 20 minutes of every day — three times an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. It sounds like you really have thought very hard about the actual numbers involved in any of this.
I’d like to please remind you of the statistics of the wealth distribution. There about a thousand people with a net worth of $10,000 for every household with a net worth of $100,000. While the ultra-wealthy hoard an enormous amount of our collective wealth, there are literally just a handful of them.
Adding a half-dozen households to the Cape isn’t going to change anything about living on the Cape. Capturing the excess wealth of the six wealthiest people in Massachusetts will, on the other hand, make an enormous difference.
It sounds as though you’re learning that life in a third-world region with corrupt, racist, willfully ignorant, and utterly incompetent governance carries its own price.
I do indeed think that the UBI for regions with a high cost of living should be greater than those with a very low cost of living. If that motivates you to return to MA, then I’m happy to welcome you back with open arms.
“It sounds as though you’re learning that life in a third-world region with corrupt, racist, willfully ignorant, and utterly incompetent governance carries its own price.”
I’m finding Fla is just as corrupt as Mass, and that’s a high bar.
How many ocean-front high-rise condo buildings have collapsed in Massachusetts? What’s the per-capita covid infection rate of FL versus MA? What’s the vaccination rate?
According to sites like https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-violence-by-state, the gun death rate in MA for 2020
was 262. The same source reports a rate of 2,724 for Florida — more than TEN TIMES higher.
I don’t like the culture of corruption in Massachusetts politics any more than you.
The overall governance of MA is still orders of magnitude better than Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and pretty much any other southern state you want to talk about.
The plain fact is that the GOP panders to the willfully ignorant, racist and and sexist elements of our society. The states that are still red reflect the predominance of those elements in those states.
That’s why I much prefer to live here.
Racism in Massachusetts is subtle — so minorities need to be promoted to positions of true power to affect change. “What makes the racism in this city much more insidious is that, because we don’t have ‘whites only’ or ‘Blacks only’ signs, we think that we are morally superior to the South,” Idowu said. The day of the MIT Sloan panel, the head of the Boston School Committee resigned after appearing to mock the names of people speaking at a meeting.
Must be why so many people are flocking to live in Mass.
Except that Boston’s reputation problem goes much deeper than an online search. A national survey commissioned by the Globe this fall found that among eight major cities, black people ranked Boston as least welcoming to people of color. More than half — 54 percent — rated Boston as unwelcoming.
A neighborhood is considered a Black Middle Class cluster when at least 15% on the people earn a minimum $75,000 household income, have a college degree and are Black. Greater Boston has four such neighborhoods. Compared to other cities, Boston has the least number of Black middle class neighborhoods. There are over 500 middle class White neighborhood clusters in Greater Boston.
…….
I agree that racism is a very real issue in Boston and MA, you’ll get no argument from me about that.
I don’t see the relevance to this thread.
Quoting you
“The plain fact is that the GOP panders to the willfully ignorant, racist and and sexist elements of our society. The states that are still red reflect the predominance of those elements in those states.”
You’re calling out racism in Fla. and the rest of the South, ignoring your backyard.
The GOP panders to racists in MA just as much as in FL (cf Scott Brown). That effort is far less successful in MA.
I’m observing that the current ham-handed and brazenly racist GOP pandering is ineffective in MA and very effective in FL and throughout the south.
We agree that racism is an issue in Boston and in MA. I hope we agree that the GOP effort to pander to racists succeeds in FL and fails in MA.
Something is different between FL and MA, since the GOP is so much more successful there than here.
I suggest that there are many MORE racists in FL than in MA. That doesn’t say that racism isn’t an issue in MA. It says instead that it is an epidemic in FL.
The MA Republican Party seems to have a split personality right now. Chairman Lyons is trying to take the party in a Trumpy direction while Governor Baker is trying to hold on to old school Yankee Republicanism.
Why I think his re-nomination won’t be smooth sailing.
Does anybody think a Trumpist will gain any traction at all in MA? Even in a GOP Primary?
I certainly hope not.
“How many ocean-front high-rise condo buildings have collapsed in Massachusetts? “
2000 Commonwealth Avenue collapse – Wikipedia
Not on the ocean front, but still . . .
From your link, the stated cause was:
Not on the ocean front, fifty years ago, and under construction.
I think it’s a near certainty that the Florida collapse will involve corrupt permitting, inspection, construction, and a ongoing oversight.
Properly designed and built structures like that don’t just collapse after forty years.
Big Dig
“Properly designed and built structures like that don’t just collapse after forty years.”
Nor do they collapse during construction, killing construction workers.
I don’t know what to make of they distinction you make between buildings that collapse on the ocean front, and those that collapse inland. Are you saying that buildings that collapse inland during construction are signs of better government?
“Orders of magnitude” better government?
What I don’t like about your original comparison is the self satisfaction it displays. You are so sure of our superiority (by orders of magnitude) to those benighted southerners that every event seems to proclaim it.
I’m not surprised that you refuse to acknowledge the difference between the failure of a building under construction and collapse of a fully-occupied structure after just forty years.
I do indeed plead guilty to being absolutely sure of the superiority of Massachusetts governance over Florida, and for that matter most states in the south.
Perhaps we might revisit this about two years from now when the civil and criminal investigations about what caused the Surfside collapse have completed.
Waiting for the investigation to conclude before proclaiming a verdict is exactly what I am advocating.
I’m not so sure wealth concentration as the cause, more like a symptom and we’re now in a “chicken or the egg” setting.
While I would support a wealth tax, I would do so in the same way I would support bringing an exterminator into a filthy cock roach infested kitchen….but then, I would further support mandating a cleaner kitchen instead of weekly visits from the exterminator.
People like Kraft & Johnson do not “make” their fortune, they “take” it, all in accordance with federal, state, and local tax & labor laws. Adding more in taxes, I fear from experience, will only lead to more loopholes.
An erosive wealth tax discourages the creation of future multi-billionaires.
However the existing fortunes were acquired, the economic reality is that the most effective predictor of who will acquire great wealth in the next 12 months is who has great wealth today.
This is the nature of a scale-free distribution — mathematically, it is identical to the parallel observation that the most effective predictor of what sites will gain the most new inbound URI references is the number of inbound URI references they have today. The mathematical term of art is “preferential attachment” — new relationships are not randomly distributed among existing nodes in a network of this sort.
An effective and erosive wealth tax that is used to fund, among other things, a tax-free UBI of something like $50K/year (corresponding to $25/hr wage for a 50-week 40-hour-per-week salary) is the best remedy I’ve seen so far for addressing the issue we’re discussing.
If everybody who lived on the Cape received this UBI in exchange for continuing to breathe each day (just as Ms. Johnson receives the yield of her portfolio for doing the same), then there would be significantly more money in circulation on the Cape.
People who are assured of a living wage are likely to be less motivated to accept work they don’t want to do and more willing to spend money and time on things they do want to do. It seems to me that this breaks the chicken-and-egg cycle that we each abhor. Wages of some jobs will increase, others may decrease. The key difference is that a great many more participants will have more discretionary money to spend.
By the way, this also addresses another issue that we’ve each struggled with — how do middle-class families find a way for at least one parent to be the primary care-giver for their children. This, in turn, makes it much more likely that men who prefer parenting their children will be able to afford to become “stay-at-home dads”. That has been effectively impossible until now given the entrenched gender income biases combined with the cost of daycare.
I’m not sure what the result will be. I think that for the vast majority of people, it will be better than their lives today.
Massachusetts, come for the UBI, stay for the subtle racism.
I love this post so much. There is nothing more frustrating than watching a media interview and bracing yourself for that moment when the interviewer is going to kiss up to a guest if they happen to be a wealthy celebrity. The moment almost invariably arrives. Thank you for describing one of those maddening moments so carefully and fully.
It’s about time we started documenting these moments and talking back.