On X, Cuban wrote to someone named Collin about a living wage:
Collin, let me give you another POV. When someone is not paid enough to live, they use more government services. Housing, Care, Food, etc.
When companies pay less than what someone needs to live a basic life, it’s often the taxpayers that subsidize the difference.
First, credit to Cuban for trying to have discussions. We are short on that these days.
Second, here’s another POV for Cuban:
When people have more government services available to them to supplement their wages, they are less likely to want to learn valuable skills and seek higher paying work.
When folks like Cuban consider the employer/employee/government subsidy scenario, they see that the government subsidy can change the behavior of employers (to pay less), but don’t see how the government subsidy also changes the behavior of the worker (to be less motivated to learn more valuable skills).
In reality, it does both.
They also seem to be able to imagine only one scenario: should the government subsidy be reduced or removed the workers will suffer more.
They don’t consider that, using their own logic, removing the government subsidy would mean employers wouldn’t be able pay less. Since workers wouldn’t have a subsidy to help, they would be less willing to accept lower pay, so employers would need pay more to attract workers.
I will admit, I did a little sleight of word play. Did you catch it? Cuban is talking about a ‘living wage’ while I am talking about paying workers less or more.
Removing government subsidies will result in higher pay, but it still may not meet Cuban’s definition of a ‘living wage.’
That leads to another discussion. Should all jobs have to pay a living wage?
I don’t think so. A simple thought experiment answers this question, by evaluating your own behavior for when you are an employer.
Have you ever hired a neighborhood teenager to mow your lawn?
I think most people have, or for some similar type of work, like babysitting, shoveling snow or raking leaves.
Did you pay them a living wage?
What are the chances you would hire them if you had to pay a living wage? What even is that amount? Who would decide?
My guess is you view that as a win-win. You win in that you don’t have to mow your lawn. The neighbor kid wins in that they earn some money as they learn a marketable skill, along with some other important lessons like the importance of showing up and doing the work consistently, being polite to your customers and doing the job how they want it to be done.
But, that same situation can be framed how Cuban did, with you cast as the employer who doesn’t pay lower skilled workers enough to live on. The kid’s parents are subsidizing your lawn getting mowed. And, it’s possible his parents are working lower skilled jobs, too, and are being partially subsidized by government.
So, in a roundabout way you’re contributing to the problem, not helping. The only way for you to help, it seems to folks like Cuban, is to pay the kid enough to live on.
But, that’s too expensive, so you end up doing the job yourself or buying a robot lawnmower.
Which framing do you prefer? The win-win or Cuban’s?
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