> A teenager in his/her first job at McDonald's doesn't need a "living wage." As a result of forcing the issue, now the job doesn't exist at all in many instances

The majority of minimum wage workers are adults, not teenagers. This is also true for McDonald's employees. The idea that these jobs are staffed by children working summer jobs is simply not reality.

Anyone working for someone else, doing literally anything for 40 hours a week, should be entitled to enough compensation to support themselves at a minimum. Any employer offering less than that is either a failed business that should die off and make room for one that's better managed or a corporation that is just using public taxpayer money to subsidize their private labor expenses.

A teenager is presumably also going to school full time and works their job part time, not ~2000 hours per year.

If we build a society where someone working a full time job is not able to afford to reasonably survive, we are setting ourselves up for a society of crime, poverty, and disease.

> A teenager in his/her first job at McDonald's doesn't need a "living wage."

Turns out our supply of underage workers is neither infinite, nor even sufficient to staff all fast food jobs in the nation

Just the simple fact that mcdonalds is open during school hours is enough to demolish the "teenagers flipping burgers" type arguments.

>A teenager in his/her first job at McDonald's doesn't need a "living wage."

Wow, a completely bad-faith argument.

Can you try again, but this time, try "steelman" instead of "strawman"?

Let's talk about steelmanning, shall we? Why should I show good faith when absolutely no one else in the conversation is?

Take it from the top. First reply: The majority of minimum wage workers are adults, not teenagers. This is also true for McDonald's employees. The idea that these jobs are staffed by children working summer jobs is simply not reality.

The steelman position would grant that in fact, it's traditional for teenagers working summer jobs to do just that, and proceed to explain why high minimum wages as a one-size-fits-all policy are still a net win for society. Instead, autoexec starts by attacking an unstated position -- that these are necessarily 40-hour/week full-time jobs -- and wraps up by plainly and literally denying reality.

Second reply: A teenager is presumably also going to school full time and works their job part time, not ~2000 hours per year. If we build a society where someone working a full time job is not able to afford to reasonably survive, we are setting ourselves up for a society of crime, poverty, and disease.

At least kube-system doesn't make the mistake of assuming that all jobs require 2000 hours of work per year, but they fail to acknowledge, much less address, my point that not all jobs are done for survival purposes. Not only is that not an example of steelmanning, it's followed up by an irrelevant bare assertion made without the faintest trace of historical grounding.

Moving on to array_key_first: Just the simple fact that mcdonalds is open during school hours is enough to demolish the "teenagers flipping burgers" type arguments.

Once again, the fact is that jobs such as burger-flipping have traditionally provided part-time and summer jobs for young people living at home who are looking to save up a bit of money and get some work experience. This reply doesn't care to acknowledge the basic facts of the matter, much less address the strongest possible interpretation of my argument.

Then there's this zinger from swiftcoder: Turns out our supply of underage workers is neither infinite, nor even sufficient to staff all fast food jobs in the nation. If you are looking for an example of a strawman argument in this thread, how about picking on an actual one before jumping on my case?

Come back with your "steelman" bullshit when you're willing to apply the same rules to all sides of the argument.

> At least kube-system doesn't make the mistake of assuming that all jobs require 2000 hours of work per year, but they fail to acknowledge, much less address, my point that not all jobs are done for survival purposes.

I think we both can agree that there's a lot of nuance when it comes to wages and employment. How much time is someone spending at that job? What type of living situation do they have? What other sources of income do they have in their living situation? What are their expenses? etc.

You're right that not all jobs are done for survival purposes. But colloquially, when people use the term "living wage", they're talking specifically about people who work a wage in order to survive. Which is the reason that most people have jobs.

> Not only is that not an example of steelmanning, it's followed up by an irrelevant bare assertion made without the faintest trace of historical grounding.

Do you mean that in the past people did not survive on a single income? Social and family structures in the past definitely look different than they do today. But that doesn't really have any relevance to the people living in the present. Socioeconomics changes over time. Many of the living situations of the past are straight up illegal today. I know relatives who grew up without electricity or running water and grew their own food for survival. They didn't need the modern concept of a "living wage", but at the same time you can't reasonably expect someone from today's world to do the same thing they did.