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Notes -
People can value $x more than their unit of time because
The argument for congestion pricing depends on #1, not on #2, and in fact there's a motte and bailey here where the motte is "they value their time less" and the bailey is "they value their time using a smaller dollar amount" (which is not the same as valuing it less).
The employers are paying in dollars too, so claiming they "value the employee's time less than" their own bosses has the same problem--they value it less when measured in dollars, not when measured in utility (and especially not in utility to the employees).
But the argument that poor people "value their time less" implicitly assumes that you're comparing utility already, so you're stuck with it. There's no reason to care that they value their time less in dollars if dollars aren't proportional to utility.
While not forgetting utility monsters...
So now the claim, or at least a pathway for the introduction of obfuscation, is that the employers of high-earners pay more to their employees than the employers of low-earners because the employers of high-earners have lesser utility of dollars? McDonalds Corporation likely has little utility with respect to a given dollar, yet their burger-flippers aren't exactly getting splashed in cash.
Suppose members of Group A owned paintings that they have historically been observed to sell at on average $150 each, because they're willing to part with the paintings at such a price and buyers are willing to pay such a price. However, members of Group B are willing to sell their paintings at an average of $50, as observed by historical transactions, and buyers aren't willing to pay a price too much higher, on average, for the paintings Group B owns. I hardly doubt you'd quibble if someone remarked, "The paintings owned by Group B are less valuable than those owned by Group A."
The time of my surgeon neighbor is more valuable than the time of my nearby McDonald's manager (to circle-back to the previous reference), whose time in turn is more valuable than those who panhandle on our nearest main road. The working class versus higher-earning classes situation is just a generalization of that.
No thanks, I'm not stuck with anything. However, if we play along with the utility framework, and suppose that decreased wealth/income means increased utility with a given dollar we could consider:
Why might a low-earning person value a dollar more?
Because typically, they own fewer dollars.
Why might such a person own fewer dollars?
Because it's the accumulation of others not valuing his or her time as much as those of higher-earners, and such a low-earning person is willing to sell their time for fewer dollars than those of higher-earners. That is, we could say, this low-earning person's time is less valuable than that of higher-earners.
All roads lead back to lower earners' time being less valuable.
And if I were a net-tax payer in NYC (or anywhere), I'd much rather that any frictions in employment and/or hours-worked be incurred by low-earners than high-earners, as high-earners better help shoulder city, state, and federal taxes. Although granted, from an accelerationist standpoint, one might want to starve the beast, and deprive NYC/New York State/USA of tax dollars.
It is true that dollars are worth a lot to employees, and are worth little to McDonalds. But employees and McDonalds are also on opposite sides of the transaction.
Employees accept jobs which pay very little because they value dollars a lot. "Dollars are worth a lot" compensates for "it's few dollars". McDonalds has jobs which pay very little because McDonalds is on the other side of the transaction, so "it's few dollars" is not something they need to compensate for--it's something that's already good to them. The fact that dollars are not worth much to McDonalds just makes it better.
Comparing paintings usually takes place in a context where comparing dollar values is useful. If you tried to make an economic argument where the distinction between "costs more in dollars" and "is more valuable" actually mattered, then you could no longer just compare the dollar value of the paintings.
No, you couldn't say that. The low-earning person's time is less valuable than that of high earners, in dollars. Treating it as less valuable in utility is circular reasoning, since you're using it to justify treating dollars as like utility.
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