Category: Labor Economics

The Pajama Game — 7 1/2 Cents

Asking for a raise is tough, but even a modest raise in wages can have a huge impact on worker salaries. In this scene from The Pajama Game, we see how a 7.5 cent raise can impact a worker’s wage. The cast goes through the calculations of what they could earn with additional income, including an automatic washing machine, a year supply of gasoline, and a vacuum cleaner.

Assessment idea: This is a neat opportunity to calculate real wages and see what 7.5 cents would be worth today versus 1953. The BLS has a calculator so you don’t have to wait!

Looking for more: Do you want to see more economics in Broadway shows? Check out BroadwayEconomics.com

Thanks to Mark Sammons from the University of Arizona for sending this clip in!

0

Superstore — Handheld Automation

Corporate has created new devices for customers to use that will allow them to look up where items are located in the store, scan the items, and pay for their total. The employees quickly point out that the device essentially replaces the workers and they are left wondering what that means for them. Dina tries to point out the relationship between ATMs and bank tellers, although she doesn’t have it exactly right.

At the end of the clip, Amy points out that corporate has also asked the stores to cut back employee hours, which implies that the new machines are replacing some of the labor in the store.

0

Get a Job — Ironic

Our main character Will Davis is searching the internet for job listings. He has just been let go from his internship because there were no available paying jobs and his time had run out. He is looking for the right fit, or really any fit that would make sense for him, but he’s realizing that he lacks the skills for many of the job postings he’s finding online. His friends joke that the skills he’s good at can’t get him paid.

Clip submitted by Kate Lecea

0

Brooklyn 99 — The Assistant

 

Captain Holt, the dry, stoic, strictly professional captain of the Brooklyn 99 precinct, is searching for a new assistant. He is exhausted by the search process and finds all applicants unsuitable for reasons such as using improper grammar in an interview, and including Microsoft Word use in the “special skills” section of a resume. Exhausted by the search, he gives up and is willing to forgo an assistant just to not have to deal with the search process. His subordinate, Detective Jake Peralta, persuades Captain Holt that Peralta can find an assistant for him, and Captain Holt agrees on the terms that he can fire whomever Peralta hires.

This episode is an example of employer frictions resulting from search costs. Both Holt and Peralta have to devote man-hours to the search, and for the particularly selective Captain Holt, the search costs are high enough that Holt is willing to do the work of an assistant himself without extra pay. The opportunity cost of Peralta searching for assistant is less than the opportunity cost of Holt searching, likely both because Holt faces high psychic costs of the search and because, as a detective, Peralta’s time is worth less to the precinct than the captain’s time. Holt’s decision to allow Peralta to search for an assistant suggests that the opportunity cost of Peralta’s lost man-hours do not outweigh the expected gain of Holt having an administrative assistant, which would allow Holt to be more productive in his position in the future and results in a net gain for the overall productivity of the precinct.

Submission and description submitted by Melissa Paton

0

Pixar — Purl

The video shows how an investment in human capital and diversity can provide significant increases in productivity.  Allowing employees to express their individuality brings new thoughts and ideas to the group. Without diversity, the company was trending down, when they embraced the balls of yarn it was trending up.  While it was easy to keep everyone and everything the same, the company was not making money.  By investing in a more diverse workforce, they were able to become profitable and a much more favorable place to work.  The opportunity costs are implied but they are that diversity can have real bottom line impacts.  In addition, diversifying your workforce can make you an employer of choice and allow you to hire more highly skilled employees.   Lastly, it shows that diversity allowed the male employees to be more free with who they were and thus helped the company become more successful.

I think this video applies to everyone from women to men.  Introverts to extroverts, it shows the benefits of staying true to who you are.  Additionally, it shows the benefits to companies by encouraging diversity.

Clip suggestion & description submitted by Keven Tarantino

0

Young Sheldon — Organizing a Family Union

 

Sheldon isn’t happy with the bread for his sandwich and drags his friend, Tam, along to the grocery store to investigate. While there, Tam learns that the super market is just as convenient as his family’s convenience store and is no longer surprised that his family is losing business to the grocery store.

What Tam is surprised to learn is that the local employees earn $3.35 per hour, while Tam is paid $5 for the entire week. Realizing his dad is probably violating child labor laws, he wonders if he is able to form a union with his sisters and take his dad to court.

0

Catastrophe — Working to pay for child care

 

A husband and wife comically discuss their plans for preventing another child, whether to use an IUD or have a vasectomy. The conversation then leads into whether it’s time to go back to work after maternity leave. While she loves her children, she wants to be away from them a bit, but they can’t decide on the best option. One option is to hire a “child minder,” but that would cost nearly the same as her teaching salary, but Sharon is in favor of the option. She’s willing to work full time to pay for someone to watch her children, essentially have zero effective income. Why would she be willing to do something like this? She would derive utility from spending time away from her own children.

Thanks to Sheena Murray for the clip suggestion! If you have a great clip that you’d like to add to the site, just reach out to me!

0

Adam Ruins Everything — Revealing Salaries

Adam Ruins Everything is a half-hour informational comedy were host, Adam Conover, debunks popular myths. Each episode is divided into 3 segments with some common theme. In the Spring of 2018, James Tierney and I sat down to go through all three seasons of Adam Ruins Everything to pick out examples in each episode that could be used in an economics course. If you’re curious about the paper, you can read about it here.

In this video, Adam goes through notion that sharing salaries is bad for workers, but focuses on how this practice creates information asymmetry in the workplace and gives managers the power to lower wages since workers aren’t well informed.

1

Good Will Hunting — Value of a Degree

In this iconic scene from Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon gets into a confrontation at a bar with an undergrad who is trying to embarrass his friend who is trying to impress a group of young women. In the process of humiliating the other student, the two get into a key distinction on the value of a college degree. Someone could obtain the same knowledge of a college degree from accessing a public library, but the lack of an actual degree (a signal perhaps) limits the job opportunities available for many.

Thanks to Charlie Clarke for the post!

0

Up ↑