Saturday night, the night of the historical UVA upset over UNC, I ordered a couple of pizzas to eat with my friends. When I went to pick up the pizza from the delivery women at our front door, I greeted her with a pleasant, "Hi, how are you doing tonight?". This prompted her to begin telling me all about her week, which she complained about having her hours cut at a different job and having to pick up another job delivering pizzas. I expressed sympathy as I know no one wants to be delivering pizzas at 10 pm on a Saturday night, but she responded with "It's ok, it's free money". As I closed the door, the Coppock voice inside my head screamed, "There aint nothing in this life for free!" (shoutout Cage the Elephant).
For this delivery women, the money earned was not free. The cost of the money she made is the opportunity cost of what else she could have been doing with that time. Now, for some people, the opportunity cost of their time would be too high to pick up a lower paying job like delivering pizzas. This could be because they have a higher paying/valued opportunity, or it could be their marginal utility per extra dollar is low enough that leisure time is more valuable than an extra dollar would be. Even for this delivery women, she may have higher valued activities she could be doing (activities that bring her utility but not necessarily money); but, in her precarious position, any extra dollar is extremely valuable for her and her family. I was able to restrain myself from telling her she was wrong when she said the money is free, but in the future it is going to be difficult to subdue my inner economist.
No comments:
Post a Comment