Source: Trades Union Congress – The Pregnancy Test: Ending Discrimination at Work for New Mothers (2016).
The asymmetric marriage premium and the motherhood penalty in the UK
09 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, labour supply, law and economics
why no protests against #UBI bureaucratic job losses but #TPPANoWay protests aplenty about jobs?
08 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, public economics Tags: expressive voting, growth of government, rational rationality, size of government, social insurance, universal basic income
The universal basic income is a rare bird for the left. It is the only time the usual suspects on the left are happy to cut government bureaucracy.
Furthermore, the left makes no inquiries as to how these redundant bureaucrats who administered the welfare state will find jobs. The market is left to work its magic for once. How convenient.
When a tariff cut is proposed, a trade deal signed, or job reduction in a bureaucracy suggested perhaps as the result of a privatisation, left-wing activists chain themselves to factory gates or government offices in solidarity. The social upheaval from the job losses among existing workers and their dim prospects of reemployment are paramount in their minds.
Why in the case of a universal basic income is the left so relaxed about job losses. Indeed, it celebrates as an advantage of a universal basic income that “Most of the bureaucracy of the welfare system [is] swept away” .
The universal basic income is the only time the left welcomes a reduction in bureaucracy and the role in the state. This switch from welfare payments to a universal basic income does not make those on the benefit any better off. Normally they are worse off under a universal basic income.
None of the the less well groups which of the concern of the left gain from a universal basic income. Despite this, they sell the jobs of their comrades in the public sector down the river.
I cannot believe the explanation is job losses are OK as long as they are the result of left-wing policies. Unless the labour market is liberalised, its ability to find new jobs for workers, for example, made redundant in the public sector after the introduction of a universal basic income is not any under greater than under a right-wing policy that costs jobs.
Gender differences in jobs and occupations since 1960
07 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap
#GeorgeOrwell summarises the traditional @uklabour @nzlabour voter – sounds Blairite
07 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economic growth, labour economics, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand
Source: The Road to Wigan Pier – Wikiquote.
Did #FightFor15 forget that @FightFor15 was an ambit claim for a #livingwage
07 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, labour economics, minimum wage, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: antimarket bias, expressive voting, living wage, rational rationality
Any decent political movement makes an ambit claim in expectation of being beaten back to its real position. That is basic negotiation tactics in politics.
Such is the volatility of expressive politics that the fight for 15 campaign has taken on a life of its own and is actually delivering on a $15 living wage as the minimum wage in the USA in a growing number of states and cities as well is in Democratic party presidential campaign pledges.
If there is any degree of economic sanity and practicality among living wage advocates, they know that such a high living wage increase will cost jobs.
After all, if a large wage increase for low-paid workers cost no jobs, why not increase everyone’s wage by a similar percentage, which is about 100% in the USA?
Homeless means living rough or in a car @DavidReiMiller @greencatherine @secondzeit
06 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, public economics, urban economics Tags: economics of housing, homelessness, social insurance, welfare state
Statistics New Zealand spent 21 pages trying to define the term homeless. How Orwellian.
When I first moved to Canberra and when I moved back, I stayed with friends. Some regard that as being homeless under the Statistics New Zealand definition, much to my own surprise.
I qualify because I shared accommodation . Having shared or short-term accommodation is not homeless. The descriptions shared and short-term accommodation quite adequate to the task.
People living in temporary accommodation including with friends are not homeless. Their situation is unsatisfactory but describing it does not justify butchering the English language by conflating their inconveniences with the few hundred people who live rough each night.
Source: New Zealand Parliament – Homelessness in New Zealand.
Those that conflate having a roof over your head tonight with living rough take advantage of the great sympathy people have for those living rough for people in far less dire situations.
PT Bauer on wealth and power
06 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, labour economics, liberalism, P.T. Bauer, poverty and inequality, Public Choice Tags: wealth and power
Poverty halves in #LatinAm in last 10 years, @WBG_Poverty @WorldBank still grumbling
05 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, poverty and inequality
The World Bank should enquire more as to why particular Latin countries succeeded while others did not and the economic systems employed in each.
A reversing gender gap in teenage misbehaving?
05 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, gender
#MiltonFriedman v. @berniesanders
05 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, minimum wage, occupational choice, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: 2016 presidential election, Leftover Left
The widening gender gap in the teenage Dunning-Kruger effect
05 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, gender, human capital
Hayek on what determines market incomes
05 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, F.A. Hayek, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality, survivor principle Tags: distributive justice, social justice
Nuclear energy is a seriously safe power source
05 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, energy economics, environmental economics, health and safety, labour economics Tags: coal prices, comic power, hydroelectric power, nuclear energy, risk risk trade-offs, solar power, wind power
Too close to the truth for comfort
04 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of religion, gender, liberalism
HT: John Ansell
NZ #UBI can be only $4,700 @JordNZ @GrantRobertson1 @GeoffSimmonz
04 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: expressive voting, growth of government, New Zealand Labor Party, rational irrationality, size of government, social insurance, universal basic income, welfare state
A universal basic income in New Zealand will have to be financed by a great big new tax because the existing ones are not enough according to the Economist calculations below.
HT: Paul Kerby.
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