I am a small business owner. Don’t talk to me about working for nothing.
Seriously, depending on whose numbers you use, cost of living in the US is somewhere between 60% and 150% higher than in China. Let’s split the difference and say 100% higher. That puts the pay at more like $800 a month in our economy.
Now they get free room and board on top of that, not to mention access to swimming pools, gym equipment, internet cafes and retail shopping. Since the living arrangements are much like college dorms, I will use those prices for the basis of comparison.
Room and board at the University of New Mexico is $8,580 a year (which is pretty cheap for colleges). That brings the annual total up to about $18,180 in comparable US pay. I work it out to be somewhere around $8.75 an hour.
Now most of these workers are college aged young people working their first job. Is it great pay? No. Is it comparable to entry level jobs in the US? Yep.
Would I work for that much? Depends on what my options were and how hard the work is. I know my 19 year old son would jump at the chance to work for $18,000 a year. My 23 year old son is a teacher earning $24,000 a year.
It isn’t as bad as it is made out to be.
Okay? You do know that the majority of businesses in china are owned/backed/financed/controlled by their communist government, right?
So is that what you’re advocating for US small business? Having the government tell YOU that you have to house, clothe, feed, train, and lord over your employees? We used to have that system here in the US, it was called “slavery” or “indentured servitude”.
We don’t do that anymore, but china still does, which is why they kick our asses on labor rates.