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Antiwork

Unpopular opinion: How physically “hard” a job is should not determine its monetary value.

I keep reading arguments about how there are no “unskilled” jobs, and how the person doing tiresome manual labor deserves more pay than the one sitting at a desk because the work is physically harder. That is a nice idea but the reality is that a job's pay is determined by the free market. The more people there are who are able to perform a task (supply), the lower the pay will naturally be, and a specialized job that fewer can perform will pay more due to limited supply. It's why the surgeon earns a lot more than the person unloading trucks at a warehouse. I fully support the worker movement happening currently and I agree that anyone who works full time deserves a living wage that covers the necessities, but a low skilled job that can be learned in a few hours or days should not pay as much…


I keep reading arguments about how there are no “unskilled” jobs, and how the person doing tiresome manual labor deserves more pay than the one sitting at a desk because the work is physically harder. That is a nice idea but the reality is that a job's pay is determined by the free market. The more people there are who are able to perform a task (supply), the lower the pay will naturally be, and a specialized job that fewer can perform will pay more due to limited supply. It's why the surgeon earns a lot more than the person unloading trucks at a warehouse.

I fully support the worker movement happening currently and I agree that anyone who works full time deserves a living wage that covers the necessities, but a low skilled job that can be learned in a few hours or days should not pay as much as one that requires higher education and years of experience. If it did, there would be no incentive to improve one's skill set and move up.

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