# Ignorance of Labor Economics **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 8, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-labor-economics/591993 "2011-08-08T21:21:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-labor-economics/591993/101 "2011-08-15T15:06:19Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I looked at the web page yesterday. But if anything, the threshold would have been lower in 2008 not higher. The threshhold has not changed ina very very long time and it probably should. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-labor-economics/591993/102 "2011-08-15T15:07:41Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > :rolleyes: OK then, “any work that would be available in the real world and would end up resulting in a net profit”. That better? I hear you but aren’t there other considerations other than net take home pay in the decision of whether or not to work? Is your husband’s free time worth anything at all? ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-labor-economics/591993/103 "2011-08-15T15:54:40Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Hell, I don’t know. I just needed some work done. Would have been happy with 8-10 hours per day. Ended up doing much of it myself. > [@brazil84](#): > > I would say that for a lot of unemployed people, it’s just not worth the trouble of laboring for $11 per hour for an unknown number of hours. I think it also goes beyond the trouble of labor. If you wanted 8-10 hours per day of really physical labor (and for someone who is used to sitting at a desk all day painting and repairing fences would probably qualify) for $10-12 an hour that might be worth it to someone who has bills to pay immediately and doesn’t feel like the time might be better spent looking for a permanent, full time job. If it was this year during what has been the hottest summer in history for much of the country and has set heat records in all 50 states that $10-12 an hour doesn’t look so good anymore, especially when I can do part time work at the air conditioned mall at no less than $7.75 or babysit in an air conditioned home for similar money. And if you are in the US and these people have lost their health insurance along with their jobs they might legitimately have to consider a minor back problem or sensitivity to heat going from a general annoyance not much worth mentioning to several thousand dollars worth of hospital bills over the course of 8-10 hours laboring in the hot sun. Last year in July we had a sudden move pop up so my husband and I paid a couple of unemployed friends $50 each to pack up boxes for us while we were at work one day and they did it gladly. Had we offered them the same $50 to mow lawns or build a shed or something outdoors in the heat they might have turned us down and I couldn’t blame them for that. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-labor-economics/591993/104 "2011-08-15T19:57:09Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > :shrug: I don’t engage with people who insist on strawmanning me, i.e. people who misrepresent my position. OK. and? > [@](#): > > You implied that my position was that there was nothing wrong with the decision of people who turned down **Crafter** ’s job offers. That wasn’t my position at all. This is an unfair exaggeration of my actual position, which is that for many people it would be reasonable to turn down such work. I didn’t imply that, I more or less said it. You spent a lot of time and effort trying to “prove” that there had to be legit reasons for three people to turn down that job by building strawmen right and left. If your actual position is anything other than “but but but, they had _reasons_”, it was very unclear. > [@](#): > > I also don’t engage with people who refuse to answer reasonable questions so that I can understand your position. You have insisted repeatedly that two of my paragraphs “don’t work together” while refusing to explain what that means. You also evaded other reasonable questions. The only thing I didn’t do was go back and dig out, for the second time, what you said. If you had bothered to copy what I’d said it would have been right there. I don’t “engage” with people who insist that I flip back and forth among multiple posts just to figure out what they are saying. > [@](#): > > So I’m not engaging with you any more. Goodbye. Bye bye. Can I keep the ring? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t think you’re supposed to be collecting unemployment when youa re collecting a paycheck. Apparently, it was OK in 2008. He was getting paid by the county of LA, by check, so even if we wanted to cheat it would have been stupid. As I’ve said, I don’t know anything at all about how unemployment works in California, so it may be because he was getting so much less than his previous salary that he was allowed to have some income without penalty. Or the penalty was so small that we didn’t notice the difference. Anyway, we didn’t know that prior to him taking the job. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I hear you but aren’t there other considerations other than net take home pay in the decision of whether or not to work? > > Is your husband’s free time worth anything at all? This is one of the things that many folks, including **brazil84** , don’t seem to get. Humans simply cannot spend their whole lives going to work, working, coming home from work, sleeping and starting over. Eventually the poor person is going to crack and start sniping at other drones during rush hour or something. So to set up the strawman that one is not willing to take any work if one turns down a long distance commute to net $5 a day? Yeah… If nothing else, it would probably cost $5 a day to make the commute! ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-labor-economics/591993/105 "2011-08-16T12:56:22Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it also goes beyond the trouble of labor. I agree. It’s a combination things – the amount of and nature of the work; uncertainty in the amount of time; length of commute; the personal circumstances of the individual involved; and of course the rate of pay. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-of-labor-economics/591993.md?page=5)