Working For A Living

So I was reading this LinkedIn News post on restaurants contacting people up to four years after they'd initially applied for roles, and asking them if they were still interested.

Among the various comments was this bit on living wages (note: not "family wages"):

The idea of paying everyone a living wage sounds like a great idea, but not so in practice. Certain jobs should not pay living wages because they aren’t careers - they are meant as a stepping stone to something higher skilled, for people just entering the job market to get entry level experience.

(I'm not linking directly to it, because it's not my goal to rain on someone's parade.)

I understand the sentiment. Heck, once upon a time, I thought that way. But if you reformulate that, it basically says: People with low skills, or just entering the job market, should not be paid enough to afford food, housing and other essential needs such as clothing. But those needs don't go away simply because someone doesn't have skills. So someone has to pay for them. Now, one can make the point that low wage jobs aren't meant to be able to fund an independent life: people can have roommates or whatever. But "independence" is not part of the definition of a living wage, just that people be able to feed, house and clothe themselves and manage other required costs of living... like transportation to and from work.

And so the idea that there should be jobs that don't pay a living wage, because the value is in the experience offered makes these roles into something more akin to internships. And those should be treated not as work, but as a service that businesses provide to individuals and/or their families.And if we're going to treat low-wage work and/or internships as something that either people's families or society as a whole is subsidizing, when there should be some evaluation of these programs based on their supposed goals; either giving people a useful direct experience, or giving them skills that they can market for a living wage later. And if these roles are not providing this service, then companies should either be sanctioned for offering them, in the same way that any other deceptive business practice is sanctioned, or simply be disallowed from such offers. If people are being asked to pay for something, they should be able to demand appropriate value for money.