Global Breaking News - Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Should Prices at Nail Salons and Elsewhere Reflect Their True Cost?
Why can everyone in New York City get their nails done inexpensively? How can a dress cost $10? Why is a fast food burger so cheap, even if it’s less wholesome than it once was? In part because workers in those businesses are paid little, and workplace conditions can be terrible. Should Americans, despite their stagnant wages, pay the true cost of their goods and services, or should they benefit from free markets’ cost reductions?
* wholesome = 건강에 좋은; 건전한, 유익한/ in part = 부분적으로는; 어느 정도는/ stagnant = (물, 공기 등) 고여 있는; 침체된/ benefit from ~ = ~로부터 이익을 얻다

 정체된 급여에도 불구하고, 재화 및 용역의 진실한 원가를 지불해야 하나요 아니면 시장의 원가인하의 혜택을 받아야 하나요?

1. Good Intentions Don’t Always Lead to Good Results
Societies that wish to redistribute income should let markets determine wages, and consider policies that redistribute explicitly.

2. The True Cost of Low Prices is Exploited Workers
Low and stagnant wages are not the result of benign, abstract economic forces, but reflect conscious policy choices influenced by lobbyists.

3. The Free Market’s Cost Is the True Cost
Products and services are offered at low cost because people are willing to provide them.

4. If the Price Seems Too Good to Be True, It Probably Is
If success relies on paying illegal wages, this isn’t capitalism, it’s greed, and it’s ruining our economy.

5. Put the Onus on the Free Market Architects
While consumers should pay fair prices as they can afford them, they are also among the least powerful actors in the global economy.


Sample Essay

The True Cost of Low Prices is Exploited Workers

The true costs of goods and services is a secondary issue to stagnant and exploitative wages: The cost of certain goods might go up, but more people would be able to afford them with better compensation. The current price of low-cost goods and services in the United States is low-income, exploited workers living in poverty. But the country as a whole isn’t broke, only its workers are — while corporations and C.E.O.s are richer than ever.

The value of the federal minimum wage has declined 24 percent since 1968. If we re-established the relationship between the minimum wage and the overall median wage to its 1968 level, we would raise wages for 35 million people, a full quarter of the workforce.

The situation is even worse for those earning tips, such as nail salon workers. Their pay is set at $2.13 an hour by the federal government. If tips don’t supplement these workers' paycheck to the regular minimum, they have to ask their employers for the difference. (And good luck with that.)

But low and stagnant wages are not the result of benign, abstract economic forces. They reflect conscious policy choices by lawmakers influenced by powerful corporate lobby groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association.

The poor economic outcomes of workers that result from corporate lobbying efforts are scandalous considering the economy’s net productivity has increased 93 percent since 1968 and low-wage workers have far more education today.

Employers steal billions in wages from their workers every year because of a lack of will and/or government resources to adequately enforce labor standards. Meanwhile, the powerful lobbies work to effectively disempower workers by convincing legislatures to water down collective bargaining rights and weaken unions.

Corporations can also outsource work to countries with even weaker labor standards. But for the many jobs that can’t be outsourced, employers hire workers who lack a lawful immigration status. Undocumented immigrants — who make up 5 percent of the labor force — aren’t fully protected by U.S. labor standards and can’t complain about unpaid wages and substandard working conditions because their employer can get them deported. Unsurprisingly, they earn far less than citizens.

Meanwhile, some businesses hire workers with a temporary immigration status (“guestworkers”) and spend millions lobbying for new and expanded guestworker programs. High unemployment and flat wages in low-wage occupations suggest employers don’t need guestworkers to fill labor shortages, but they hire them because guestworkers become instantly deportable when fired and aren’t protected from retaliation or allowed to switch jobs if they have an abusive employer.

We need a different legal framework — one with the goal of broadly shared prosperity — even if it results in higher prices for some goods and services. Laws should be amended to vastly improve basic labor standards and adequately fund their enforcement. And Congress needs to legalize unauthorized immigrant workers and ensure that new or expanded labor migration programs are used to fill real labor shortages, and not just to lower wages and exploit the powerless.