00100		Martin   Feldstein   in   \F1The   Economics   of   the   New
00200	Unemployment\F0 seems implicitly to have the following model  of  the
00300	jobs  available  to disadvantaged workers and paying near the minimum
00400	wage.
00500	
00600		The job is "dead end" and "has no future", but  if  only  the
00700	employer didn't have to pay the minimum wage he could combine it with
00800	training for a better job.  It can also be made  more  attractive  so
00900	there will be less labor turnover.
01000	
01100		My  problem  in  believing  this is that I can't think of any
01200	examples that have this characteristic.  The jobs  I  know  that  pay
01300	near  the minimum wage are dishwasher, counterman, houseworker, movie
01400	usher, and service station attendant.  It seems to me that these jobs
01500	have the following characteristics:
01600	
01700		1.   They  cannot  be  eliminated  at  the  present  level of
01800	technology.  Several millions of people have to be found to do them.
01900	
02000		2. They cannot be enriched in a significant way.  They can be
02100	made to pay better and the working conditions can be improved.  There
02200	is no way of  doubling  the  productivity  of  a  movie  usher  or  a
02300	houseworker  by  training.  Of course, some countermen can be trained
02400	to become  hamburger  stand  managers,  but  this  won't  reduce  the
02500	requirement for countermen.
02600	
02700		To  the  extent  that  the low paying jobs satisfy this model
02800	rather than Feldstein's, we come to the conclusion that  the  minimum
02900	wage  ought to be increased rather than reduced. This will presumably
03000	increase the attractiveness of these jobs  relative  to  the  various
03100	ways of getting money without working. It is also fairer.
03200	
03300		Of  cou←se, if the jobs are intrinsically uninteresting, then
03400	increasing the pay will cause some people to work less  in  order  to
03500	have  more  leisure.      This  should  be  accepted  as  a desirable
03600	development, and as Feldstein suggests,  the  unemployment  insurance
03700	laws  should  be reworked so that this voluntary idleness doesn't get
03800	confused with real unemployment. Moreover, if increasing the  minimum
03900	wage  causes  some  of these jobs to be eliminated by mechanization -
04000	good riddance.    Increasing aggregate demand will get new jobs,  and
04100	the  more  efficient economy will make more money available for doing
04200	good.
04300	
04400		I fear that if Feldstein's proposals are adopted, instead  of
04500	handing  the new movie usher a flashlight and starting him to work at
04600	$1.60 per hour, they will start him at $1.20 an hour but  enrich  his
04700	life with two hours a day of lectures and laboratory on how to repair
04800	the flashlight and how to place the people with bags  of  popcorn  so
04900	they  won't disturb others.  He will also have to read /F1The Fall of
05000	the House of Usher\F1 in order to pass the course.   Of  course,  the
05100	job will have a potential future - he can aspire to become a lecturer
05200	in usherology. When job turnover increases, the administrators of the
05300	usher training program will propose more intensive lectures, financed
05400	perhaps, by reducing further the stipend of the trainees.
05500	
05600		Kidding aside, would Professor Feldstein care to estimate the
05700	numbers of jobs satisfying the two models?