in the exact 10:1 proportion required throughout. Whatever was contributed to pay by maintenance recovery, on top of depreciation recovery, would have to hold the same ratio in order for pay to cover both. Experience shows this as unlikely in any case, let alone all cases. The boss and her secretary probably couldn’t hold
maintenance consumption to that ratio if they tried.
Another strong argument against the hypothesis of prior claims on pay is lack of a source. The claimant would be whoever other than the worker had paid for the maintenance consumption and needed to be made whole. Thus the employing firm would hold a valid claim if it had provided the maintenance consumption in order to enable the work. That would put the firm in the position of a farmer who must feed the livestock and must earn enough profit to recoup the cost. We went through this in the parable of Phil and Bill. But the employer firm does not advance the cost because it has no motive to do so. It knows that the worker will pay it anyhow if means allow. Where means don’t allow, as in retirement without adequate savings, the worker looks to transfer payments from society generally rather than from the
firm alone.
Now comes the evidence of age-wage profiles. This evidence is the substance behind the parable of the boss and her secretary. The evidence is apt. Wage generally means hourly pay, while “earnings” means yearly pay. Wage-earnings profiles show arise with age, but peaking and reversing as workers reach their fifties or so. The reason is that they tend to work fewer hours. I consider pay per hour a better measure of human capital than pay per year. If someone is worth $30 per hour half time, my impression is that she would be worth $30 per hour full time. If she prefers to stay home, her leisure must give her that much psychic pay instead. Psychic pay
cuts just as much ice with me.
My boss and secretary were cases preferring to work full time. Age-wage profiles bear out the scenario | imagined for them. They illustrate the logical certainty that
human depreciation is expected to be recovered in pay, and support the
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